If you were to ask me, what's it going to be then, Art or Majik? i couldn't answer you. Because i'm not at all sure i can distinguish, any more. i'm not at all certain that any pure, true artist (define as you will) is free of the taint of shamanism; no moreso than i could find something shamanic that bears no stamp of the artistic.

i've noted before that preparing a piece of artwork is like preparing to entheogenically journey is like preparing to cast a spell. There's no difference, is there, Mr. BBC? In fact there is so little that i'm not entirely sure i could even disentangle by referencing the final outcome. With the first, there is assuredly something tangible, but the other two may produce tangible results as well. The second is the least likely, but then again what one brings back from journeys beyond thee Veil might well feed inspiration for the first; the creation of which involves the third.

i walk a razor's edge between the three, always have. Is this the line i walk?


i see no difference between that and a journey into Faerie; my Otherworld is equally at home and likely to appear under blacklights and strobes as by firelight 'gainst the trees. Most of my favourite bands would transport you straight into another realm, a shamanic, participatory event that Boujeloud himself would recognize.

These are the rituals of thee Kali yuga, mad Shaivites smearing themselves with cremation ashes - all is one, all is one, all is one.

And so if i write that i received email sent from beyond the grave last night, it is only of a piece, yes? i've known precious few shamen who were Conscious enou that i'd credit them the ability to work such a piece of majik. One, i believe, spent himself in a last final effect of simply staying alive - those who know me know that story. Another - well, might once have had that power, but chose to forego it, at least from my perspective. The third - must there be three for such things? - the third has pulled it off i do so solemnly swear. Here, have an example of art becoming majik in his hands:


Now, before anyone texts this in to the National Enquirer.. the email is 'only' from an autoresponder. That it bears a crowbird's stamp as apparent sender is merely a fluke of how he set it up. That it comes from a message board that was never, ever active, long months after i might have thought it shut down is explainable, if unusual. That the very next message in my inbox queue *has his name as subject line* - well, an accident of fate, innit? Particularly if the message notification was just a pointer to the same poem the second email carried.

It isn't. The friend who sent the poem doesn't even know the dreamland board exists.

Each year i seem to lose several friends. A drawback to aging i suppose; moreso because walking a razor's edge is a path few can navigate well. i was going to say, successfully, but i'm far from certain 'success' is a term one can apply to such a pursuit. This last year saw three losses of people whose impact on the community they left behind was much greater than they likely ever knew in life. One was simply a Good Person, a spirit everyone liked and no one thought could leave so soon. One was that and an artist/activist/focalizer besides, whose impact here echoed tho she moved from the area two decades before. The third - its triangles, triangles, triangles all the way down - all i can say is, whether he's got a tin shack in the mountains of Bulgaria or spends most of his days in crow form winging about the piney woods above Mabon, he came back to town this weekend. And he sent me an email to say hello.

Gifts and Gratuituous Gnomes

Hokay. Well. i established this blog a while back to be my For Public Consumption one - yes, there are others. No, i am not going to tell you where. Having gotten that far, i've proceeded to flounder. Whatinole do i write about, if it *isn't* teh Excruciating Personal, eh? This is an ongoing challenge, and scrolling back will give you different answers for different days. (Also, as of this writing, it will give you different answers all on the SAME day, today. As i've yet to figure out how to fix that particular java error).

Well, today's installment shall be about ~me~, i guess, minus the waahngst. Which is rather silly, given all six of you who read this :::checks follower list::: - nine! Whoa welcome new people! - i think most of you know me one way or another anyway. But for the sheer fuggovit..

Pleased to meet you, i don't believe we've met. My name's Ian, and.. oh wait no. My name, well that's a variable thing too. i've had a lot of them over the years. a LOT. sade has been the most constant, and that's not 'shar-day', that's like the Manson chick if you were wonderin'. Some days i am also the Fabulous Sascha Peppercorn, which is a play within a play if all the world's a stage. And yes, theatre - acting - thank you - is a major part of my life.

No wait, back up - *performance* is my life. Sometimes that happens in a theater. Most times it does not. i am but an actor chappie who often plays the role of Judith (hopefully never Quaisoir) playing the role of sade playing Sascha. Got me? i am a living ongoing work of performance art. Not to the point of pointing a camera at myself 24/7, tho i guess i might now be capable of just that. Consider everything you see me do in that frame, tho, and we'll get on fine.

Camera. Ah. Yes. That was where i started. Despite having spent part of my college years in broadcasting classes, i am not a camera person. Photography is ~ok~, but i've never been immersed or fascinated by it the way so many are. In a sense, i don't *get it* - to me, a camera is, and has always been, a tool for two purposes and two only: record a snapshot of a moment or event; record a visual impression for later use in making Real Art. (There - that should piss off any photog friends who accidentally stumble across this ;-) i even dropped photography in college because the Process of it was just needless BS complication to me. i don't care about chemicals and exposures and silver papers and all that; i just want a PICTURE, for use as a later tool.

Fast forward to the 21st century. Over this past Yule, i happened to be gifted with two fabulously swell new tools: my little, as-yet-unnamed netbook, and a sweet Nikon CoolPix camera. It was much easier for me to begin using the first; i KNOW what to do with a computer. The second, tho, i had to poke and prod and sniff at a while. i am still finding out things about it (oh shit! that's recording video!! no no stopstopstop) - like, say, how to get pictures off of it and onto the laptop.

i has solved that problem. Behold:

That one's purely gratuitous. There was no reason to take it, except maybe when i don't live here anymore i can look back and Remember. But now that i have Little Toy One and Little Toy Two, i'm thinking that i can put them together here. Not so much in this post, tho that was my first intention (see previous post for Teh Art). But as a way of documenting this whatever-it-is i do, the things my muse demands of me.

i am, my life is, an ongoing experiment in art and magick. "We set out to change the world and only wound up changing ourselves". People who know me as the Celestial Mother or some goofy old hippie lady don't know that i am a *very* determined and driven fishie. My persistence is subtle.. i've been known to say i'm too dumb to know when i'm beaten and should fall down, so i just keep on pressing forward. i think this is the major reason i'm still standing, still somehow not dead, somehow not permanently screwed. Tho i go with Daevid Allen on that one: You Never Blow Your Trip Forever. Or to use a completely unrelated quote, Nothing is *very* bad.

This blog, then, careens wildly in all directions. It may be about art, it may be about magick, it may be about the hedgebear as winter king having a shadow because he is still mortal and must battle winter another six weeks. It may be about the vortex tribe or my gnome collection

(except for the little one holding a pole that used to be a rake, those aren't the GOOD gnomes. They're stuck in storage limbo) or the little guys in my china cabinet who aren't gnomes but are certainly their friends

or how it is i can be a big fan of Charles DeLint but am finding War For The Oaks rather twee. All of which are about the *same* thing, really, but its a game of Spot Your Lucky Warts to figure out what it is.

And if you do, would you please tell me? I'd kinda really like to know..