BARBELITH underground
 

Subcultural engagement for the 21st Century...
Barbelith is a new kind of community (find out more)...
You can login or register.


Underground > Temple >

Black & Orange Magic 2005

  
  

Page: 1(2)3

 
 
Chiropteran
03:37 / 16.10.05
[and a spooky-atmospheric music playlist here.]
 
 
--
03:43 / 16.10.05
Do the Halloween gods appreciate you pimping your own label's album on their sacred alterspace?
 
 
LVX23
06:36 / 16.10.05
Don't ask me why I have a DIA coin. Probably the same reason I have an NSA plaque.

Um Bard, why do you have a DIA coin and an NSA plaque? (just trying to drum up some fitting boogedies here...).

about those medallions
Bard's hawing & hemmming
It seems that he moonlights
as Sir Ian Flemming
 
 
Chiropteran
07:27 / 16.10.05
I’m back, it’s late, and the game is afoot.

After my last post, I gathered up my gear and went out, the goblin bells jingling and jittering on my belt. I faced the Moon and prayed, then opened the work with the Four Monsters Banishing. As I completed the circle, I felt the familiar click and the sensation of opening and extending outward. I hailed the Pumpkin King. The wind rose.

Without a destination in mind, I walked. The wind brought every leaf to rustling, scuttling life, and shook the streetlights; the bells called, and I walked on, knowing I walked with monsters. On the road, I had a vision in the sky: a great snarling hound of cloud, running fast with the Moon riding its back (the image has – hopefully positive - significance re: an earlier Lunar working).

At the crossroads, I turned towards the pumpkin farm and called again on Jack (UKOMA PEFIGU NOSA LEHITU ROBA) to conceal me from prying eyes. I stole across the moonlit field and selected a pumpkin from those left behind in the harvest.

I took my pumpkin home and set up a working altar outside, with my herbs and my carving tools. I smudged the space with oak leaves, and lit a candle to work by. After explaining my intent to my pumpkin, I sacrificed it to the Halloween current and carved it hollow, like a wide-mouthed pot. On hand-torn brown paper, I wrote my sigil and my mantra, crossed with my name, hoodoo-fashion, and used the paper to wrap a packet of second-sight and spirit herbs (althea, anise, star anise, mugwort, acacia), three candy-corns, and a healthy pinch of saltpeter to give it some flare. I put it in the pumpkin/cauldron, mouthsprayed it with whisky and smoked it with clove cigarette, then set it aflame and fed the fire with dried leaves until it was consumed – the smoke carrying my intention out into the world. To wrap things up, I carried the still-warm pumpkin to the bridge and cast it into the rain-swollen river.

When I got home, I did some quiet breathwork to come down, and closed with the Four Monsters again. Then I went inside and had a sandwich, and now I’m telling you (there, I think that covers everything).

It’s good to be back.

Do the Halloween gods appreciate you pimping your own label's album on their sacred alterspace?

Who do you think I recorded it for? That’s an offering, that is.

Stay haunted!

This is the ghoul's night out
Suffer unto me
Devils born in angels' arms
Ghouls in heaven's fall…
 
 
Skeleton Camera
13:48 / 16.10.05
Was this last night? Under the swollen, silver-pearl moon? I think I got some ripples of your work...or, if not, the power of the time itself was more than enough!
What are these "goblin bells"?
Nice altar, too.

Pimpin's always pimpin'...just a question of who you're pimpin' TO.
 
 
Chiropteran
14:44 / 16.10.05
The bells are a piece of Halloween ritual gimcrackery I made two Seasons ago (film at 11). Evocative, yet easily tangled.

Sweet jiminy, what a Moon that was.
 
 
Bard: One-Man Humaton Hoedown
17:43 / 16.10.05
LVX, that ROCKS! Can I post that little poem on my blog (with full credit to yourself, of course)?

THe basic story is this: My stepmother is an executive talent consultant. She did some consulting work with the DIA, NSA, the Marine Corps, and the like. Apparently these people have executive talent issues. And she brought me back some souveniers.

The DIA coin is this big hunk of...bronze, brass...something like that, in a padded little plastic case.

I WISH I had Flemming's numbers.

I've been searching for appropriate pumpkin stuff to put on my cane. Still no luck. The hat stuff is going a bit better. I'm grabbing some little tea candles and melting them onto the top, then I'll start punching holes in the bring and strining stuff off it.
 
 
gale
15:25 / 17.10.05
I loved that pumpkin ritual!

It really shows the wonderful way that hoodoo can be added to a working. It seems to fit with everything.

I went to the great Jack O' Lantern blaze on Saturday. It was cool. After also enduring a 7-day downpour, the moon was out, with lots of wind and clouds. The Jack O' Lanterns (3,000 of them!) were all over the grounds, along the balcony of the house, everywhere. They did things with pumpkins I never imagined. All the while, recorded scary noises played.

In front of me were two guys with their girlfriends. At first they were making fun of it, you know, too cool to be impressed by ANYTHING. But after about five minutes, they were all "oh, look at that one.." "see the one that looks like a fish...?" etc.
Because no one can escape the spirit of the season.

Speaking of the spirit of the season, Threshold People is geat party music!
 
 
Sekhmet
01:00 / 18.10.05
This is my first ever attempt to post an image file - I hope it doesn't just show up as a big red X...



My lil' seasonal shrine. (Isn't it funny how hard it is to take photos of lit candles?)

The black velvet kitten in the middle is Spooky, a poppet I made as part of last year's festivities. The coffin-shaped bottle formerly contained something called REDRUM, which is holding an incense stick and two marigolds - the marigold is the traditional flower associated with the Day of the Dead in Mexico.

The rest is odds and ends - candle stub burned at both ends, rusty nail, crow feather, bird skull, Day of the Dead necklace (which I made from hemp and rattlesnake vertebrae, and a skull bead at center), pumpkin basket (containing knucklebones and a motley assortment of beans, seeds and acorns) and a glass jar full of cat claws and rose thorns, just cuz it looks spooky. And of course fall leaves, some real and some not.
 
 
Skeleton Camera
01:28 / 19.10.05
the marigold is the traditional flower associated with the Day of the Dead in Mexico.
Excellent! "The nails of the dead"...if I recall.

On my own front, I've finally gotten busy. The night before last, I struck out around 11 PM with an apple sacrifice, and patrolled the usual haunts chanting quietly and summoning Halloween around this apple. At one stretch I was jolted by the sound of windchimes, hanging the same tree as a skeleton, outside a jackolanterned porch. Took that moment to inscribe a jack face into the apple, then took it to a particularly decorated house (many pumpkins, ghosts, skeletons, scarecrows, and orange light) and snuck it into their display.
Did all this in my new floor-length black coat, found at a Berlin flea market. The wind was up, throwing clouds across the moon and making the landscape jump with shadows. The coat was jumping too. A good sign.

The following night, er, last night (17th), under the now-fully-full moon, I struck out with a gift-box and dedicated it to the powers that be, while appropriate items for its lining. Dedications took place at all particularly shadowy jackolantern displays, the same house, and a massive, overgrown oak tree that is now stretching a curious arm toward a nearby lamppost. It extends a good twenty feet beyond the rest of the tree, hovering over this post. Imagine the light on the rest of this tree.
Returned to the residence and snuck out to neighboring golf course. Brought the aforementioned gift and box, as well as a pomegranate for offerings to Lakshmi (more on this in a minute). Also brought my Tibetan dagger and bell, as well as usual ritual accoutremonts. Opened a simple cirle by clearing the corners with the bell, then casting with the dagger. Dedicated the gift to the Halloween current and the moon, dedicated the pomegranate with mantras, closed the circle by reversing the dagger-bell bit. Simple, but the first real use I've had for the tools since finding them.
Anyway, Lakshmi: the closest spirit (goddess) I work with and one of the most faithful. Being in India (the past three months) accelerated this. The pomegranate was both a sacrifice for current aid and an offering for recent aid (something more substantial than incense). While in India, though, I started working with Lakshmi and Kali both, invoking them and making offerings to them both in the same ritual (also visited and was marked at a Kali tmeple). They form a balance, if treated properly, and I offer aspects of myself (demons?) to Kali for sacrifice.
But she's Kali. I split open the pomegranate, in front of both their devotional images, and half of it was blackly rotten. That half was for her.
 
 
Sekhmet
20:09 / 21.10.05
Everyone must go and listen to the Threshold People immediately.

It's for your own good.
 
 
Bard: One-Man Humaton Hoedown
04:21 / 25.10.05
"In this town we call home
Everyone hail to the Pumpkin song"

I finished the cane today. It looks nifty. I bought one of those decorative gourds that they sell at the corner store for like...16 cents...and screwed it into the top of the cane real tight. Finished off with some silver tape around the base of it to look like a mounting. The gourd's orange, green, and yellow...not straight orange like a proper pumpkin, but I think it'll do fine. I'm not going to paint it silver, I don't think. I'm going to just leave it raw and bright. Pictures will be up tomorrow

Worked on the hat a bit. I'm draping it with some solid, dull metal chains, and I flung some hot white wax over it tonight, covering it with lots of dribbles. It looks nifty. Still haven't hung anything from the brim. I'll probably see about acquiring bones in the next few days.

I need to dig out my score to "The Nightmare BEfore Christmas" and sing the Halloween Town song over the cane.
 
 
Sekhmet
13:48 / 25.10.05
Oh! Joy of joys, the weather finally changed, and now it's unseasonably cold, instead of unseasonably warm. (There's no such thing as "seasonable" weather around here.)

The trees are hurriedly dropping leaves, as if caught off guard. The sky is a startled windswept blue.

I feel so much better.


Halloween is less than a week away! What are everyone's plans?
 
 
gale
16:27 / 25.10.05
I am going to Sleepy Hollow Saturday night. That's always a good time. Sunday I am going on this Halloween hike along the Hudson river, which starts at sunset.

The weather is pretty nasty here. It's pouring and the leaves are JUST starting to turn and are mostly still on the trees. I am blaming the weather for my lack of holiday spirit. That, and the fact that time has inexplicably sped up so that October 1st seems like yesterday. That bothers me alot, because I can usually stay pretty much in the present or at least visit it several times a day.

I am hoping the weekend will take me where I need to go.
 
 
Bard: One-Man Humaton Hoedown
20:01 / 25.10.05
Sorry for the height of this, I wanted to capture the cane in all its glory.

For your amusement, this is linked from my "Phone Booth Zombie" site, home of the Phone Booth Zombie (long story).

  
 
Sekhmet
13:12 / 26.10.05
Coooooooooooooool.
 
 
Katherine
08:53 / 27.10.05
I like the cane!

Halloween is less than a week away! What are everyone's plans?

I'm staying at home this year, anything I was thinking about going to is in London and after the nightmare journey on the tubes last night at 11.30pm, I'm just not keen on it. So I'm having a 'at home' celebration. General tiding on altar then offerings (sadly I have left it a bit late for the peppered rum to mature). And other bits to be decided which probably won't go to plan but always ends up more interesting.

Anyone else?
 
 
Chiropteran
13:02 / 27.10.05
I think, a little deflatingly, that Halloween is going to be a quiet affair for me this year. Everyone in my family is feeling less psyched for the Season this time around - including my Halloween Lady mother-in-law.

For the last two years I was crackling and obsessed the entire month, but since -- well, since the events of the eclipse last October, to be honest -- my relationship with the Halloween current is quite different. My Autumnal work this year is more somber, quiet, and a very different vibe than the wild crazy night flow of Halloween. I've been doing nightly ritual for the past couple weeks, and have been drawing slowly into deeper devotional depth in my relationships with the Powers I serve, but I haven't even lit the candles on my Black & Orange altar yet.

I still talk to Jack, and still feel him moving around me, but I felt him closer at the end of August than I do now. I feel a little sad about the way the Halloween Season is slipping by this year, but things are going so well in my other Work that I can't really call it a negative. My magical priorities are, of necessity I think, different this year. There will be many more Halloweens for me, and they can't each realistically be expected to be more spectacular than the last. I produced the Threshold People album, which I feel adequately fulfills my offering and service to the Current, and that's enough. This is a quiet year. Next year... who knows?
 
 
Chiropteran
13:04 / 27.10.05
Great cane, Bard!

And, unless you feel it's too wildly off-topic, how about that Phone Booth Zombie story? (*checks calendar*) We've got time.
 
 
Sekhmet
13:28 / 27.10.05
You know, Lep, I think everybody's kind of feeling that way this year. There's less energy, less of that electric autumn vibe. I was thinking it was just the weather, but it appears that this really is a "quiet" season. Puzzling.

I'm throwing together a Halloween party... it's happening (eep) tomorrow night, and there's still a lot to get done, but I feel as if there's not much wind in my sails, or something.

Maybe the energy will pump up a bit as the weekend kicks off.
 
 
gale
14:03 / 27.10.05
Last night, my doorbell rang. I answered it, but no one was there. Just a small brown paper bag with "Boo!" written on it.

I opened it (with some trepidation), and inside was candy, plastic spiders, and a picture of a ghost, along with a note. The note informed me that I had been ghosted! To gain protection (from unwanted ghosts?) during this season, I was to hang the ghost on my front door and within 24 hours, ghost two other houses.

What really made me laugh, though, were the last three words of the note:
Don't Get Caught!
 
 
Less searchable M0rd4nt
14:04 / 27.10.05
Aw. That's sort of sweet.
 
 
Skeleton Camera
15:23 / 27.10.05
You know, Lep, I think everybody's kind of feeling that way this year. There's less energy, less of that electric autumn vibe. I was thinking it was just the weather, but it appears that this really is a "quiet" season. Puzzling.

Quite true, both the feeling and the puzzlement. More puzzling, perhaps, is the random surges of the Current at prior points in the year. This is at once affirming (as it is not bound to this season) and weakening to the intensity of this time.
Me, I'm relatively dissipated because of travels and moving (and a recent, full-time job), but managed to get in a few small rituals. Two nights ago we (the family and I) carved our five jack-o-lanterns. Lit the striped candles, the porcelain pumpkin, broke out the altar supplies and hastily assembled them, played a variety of spooky music. It was not only the real "opener" of the season (the weather was perfect, and the smell of pumpkin guts and wax can't be beat) but a rare communal family moment (which, personally, is just as satisfying).

Oh, and almost forgot: the upcoming weekend has recently picked up. I was asked to read/recite a portion of Bradbury's "Halloween Tree" at a friend's wedding (Oct 30, much mischief), have been invited to two parties (one masquerade, one local goth-ball event), and may attend a costume-party-cum-foundary-iron-pour at MassArt (in Boston) on All Hallow's itself. Things look up!

Envious of all you Hudson Valley-ers and your perenially spooky environs. Enjoy!
 
 
Bard: One-Man Humaton Hoedown
19:07 / 27.10.05
/begin minor threadrot to answer humorous tale

And, unless you feel it's too wildly off-topic, how about that Phone Booth Zombie story? (*checks calendar*) We've got time.

Well, the Phone Booth Zombie (later renamed "Phone Book Zombie") started off on a train ride home from work this summer. I was on my mobile with my friend from New York (who's long distance plan doesn't charge him for calling to Canada), and we started talking about zombies, specially zombies as stated out in the RPG "All Flesh Must Be Eaten".

Two of the zombie qualities there are "Speech" (the example given for which is a zombie calling for more ambulances) and "Tool Use" (to use a phone). So I suggest that perhaps a zombie who was JUST smart enough to use the phone...and a set of takeout menues, and realize that this meant that brains got sent to him, rather than having to go hunt them down.

Thus the PBZ (pronounce "pee-bee-zee") was born. In his initial exploits he is shown calling for pizza, with a rather humorous dialogue occuring therein.

Now, I wrote a full length, 5000 word PBZ short story, called "Delivery", for the ZombieAid fundraiser, but it was never published, so I may take it back to the editing board and start shopping it around the horror magazines. What I WILL post, if folks want a good Halloween laugh, is the original, two page PBZ comic script.

/end threadrot
 
 
Chiropteran
19:50 / 27.10.05
Bard, I've heard that before - have you posted about it elsewhere? The Creation, maybe?
 
 
Bard: One-Man Humaton Hoedown
00:31 / 28.10.05
Yeah. During the ZombieAid thread.
 
 
Chiropteran
02:19 / 28.10.05
I thought it sounded familiar - good stuff!
 
 
Katherine
12:41 / 28.10.05
And I forgot, one important reason I'm celebrating alone this year is that I have decided to make (or the starting processing of making) a divinatory drink of the slightly alcoholic nature. From the basic recipe for the main part it's going to take about two months then the divinatory part should be about one month at a guess.
 
 
Bard: One-Man Humaton Hoedown
03:43 / 29.10.05
Pictures of my costume will be posted soon. Suffice to say, it scared a whole lot of drunk people tonight at our campus Halloween party.

The cane held up just fine, though I think the night's exertions might have done it in. The hat ended up with a few plastic spiders hung off it with string, a whole lot of white wax splattered all over it, and some fake cobwebs. That along with tensor bandages wrapping my entire face made me...apparently...scary.

Not bad for a costume I spent a grand total of about...$4 on. Also, it won me first prize in the costume contest, which means that I got a bag full of CDs (about...15 or so) courtesy of our campus radio station. Not much good stuff, but enough to be a good haul for $4.

I credit the spirits of Halloween with making it a slow night at work tonight and thus getting me off early so I could go to the party. There's no other way.

I've been walking around the last few days singing "This is Halloween". Everywhere. I got into a rousing rendition of it just after I finished the cane a few days back, going through the entire song, mostly from memory, in my room, complete with different voices for the different singers. It really does call up a certain spiritual presence. Jack Skellington is out in force.
 
 
madfigs #32, now with wasabi
04:49 / 31.10.05
Anybody else carve a jack-o-lantern this year?



Sadly, I won't be home to light them up tomorrow night, since we're going to a party that starts right after work. I do have a ritual planned at midnight, although I'm not sure if it will be "Halloween" or "Samhain" themed yet. If there's anything interesting to report, I certainly will!
 
 
Gypsy Lantern
09:36 / 31.10.05
You know, Lep, I think everybody's kind of feeling that way this year. There's less energy, less of that electric autumn vibe. I was thinking it was just the weather, but it appears that this really is a "quiet" season. Puzzling.

It seems it is a quiet season this year. I thought it was just me, but just took a look at this thread and I guess everyone is feeling it. I usually build my altar on the Saturday before Halloween and celebrate the Season of the Dead right up to November 2nd with a big Day of the Dead party at my place. It just didn't feel right to do that this year, and it's a much more low key version I'm going for.

I built my altars on Saturday night, which was difficult and odd, as I'd come down with a really heavy cold that afternoon - which, combined with vodka & orange and a bit of hashish, put me in a very weird headspace indeed. I normally wouldn't attempt what I was about to do in such an inebriated and unwell state of mind, but went for it anyway.

Tonight I'm going for the non-ancestral spirit stuff. On Halloween I make a pumpkin lantern temporary spirit house. The local spirits walk abroad where they will tonight, so I honour that by preparing a pumpkin lantern, carved out and filled with rum, smokes and candy. A place for the spirits to drop in have a drink and something to eat as they do the rounds. Magically, it's a way of making good with the local spirits (both the dead and... nature spirits, fairies, land wights, whatever walks on halloween). Introduce myself, make sure they know who I am, and know me as someone that raises a glass to them on their day. Always good to be in good standing with the local spirits of the area where you will be operating over the coming year. Pumpkin house is a good way of making those nods without it being a big deal.

Day of the Dead is going to be a much quieter affair as well. It's not a mad party year. Maybe next year. I was a bit worried about this, but a friend suggested that the quieter years allow you to see and appreciate other aspects of the Season not covered by the mad party - so that's how I'm looking at it.

Am going ahead with invocations for at least a week beforehand, though the nature of such is still under consideration - meaning, now may be an awkward time to strike up a serious relationship with Papa Guede, even in his trickster/patron form. Better to stick with Jack Skellington.

That's probably a good idea. I've worked with Him for several years, and I wouldn't presume to wear those clothes on Halloween unless it was expressly suggested by Him that I should do so. I don't think you would be starting your relationship with Him off on a particularly good footing if you came to Him with the intent you describe above. By all means, raise a glass and a smoke to Him at the wedding - as He likes weddings and He likes a good party. But He chooses His own horse. He is Death. Don't let it slip your mind that He is Death.
 
 
Chiropteran
12:48 / 31.10.05
Day of the Dead is going to be a much quieter affair as well. It's not a mad party year. Maybe next year. I was a bit worried about this, but a friend suggested that the quieter years allow you to see and appreciate other aspects of the Season not covered by the mad party - so that's how I'm looking at it.

The more people I hear this from, the better I feel about it - from a purely self-centered perspective, I feel less like I'm missing something, and more like I'm in touch with how things are "really" going, this Season.

I'm wary of attributing too much "objective" reality to the Halloween current, but enough normally gung-ho October People I've talked to have expressed similar feelings about this Halloween that it suggests we're feeling something in common, even if it's just the weather (which has been odd for a lot of us) or the fatigue that follows what's been a disheartening few months (what with bombings, natural disasters, and political yuck).

That said, I had a nice one-on-one with Jack last night, in front of the finally-lit altar. Put together my last-minute costume, too (Phantom Conductor: no-face mask and hood, tux, baton). I'm wearing a Halloween tie and listening to Halloween music, and I'm generally trying to ease myself into the right headspace for tonight. No big workings planned, but I will most probably be setting out some spirit offerings before heading to the party.

Have fun tonight, everybody! And Don't Get Caught!
 
 
Sekhmet
13:07 / 31.10.05
Happy Halloween, Halloweeners!


I had a costume party on Friday night. It was a pretty good time, even though NOTHING went as planned...

The plan, you see, was for me to go as Sekhmet and hubby as Anubis, and the house was going to be done up as an Egyptian-tomb-cum-Underworld, with heiroglyphs and a mummy and a treasure hunt culminating in a face-to-face encounter with one's own mortality. And then fun with a pinata (because the ancient Egyptians would have loved pinatas).

What actually happened was that we ended up dressed as a cowgirl and a pirate-ninja, and the only vestige of the Egyptian theme was a paper-mache statue of Bast sitting in the corner.

Still, a good time, and we were up till 5:00 in the morning, and we watched Army of Darkness and Nightmare Before Christmas and Psycho, and there were Pixi Stix and cupcakes with plastic spiders on. Fun was had.

Tonight it's supposed to be storming and I wonder if we'll get any trick-or-treaters. All the little Spidermen and fairy princesses will be wet and bedraggled.
 
 
gale
15:35 / 31.10.05
Happy Halloween!

Sekhmet, i had to laugh--from Egyptian gods to cowgirls and pirate ninjas...

I went to a party Friday night, Sleepy Hollow Saturdy, and hiked along the Hudson River yesterday evening. I am not planning any specific ritual tonight. I think I'll save it for Tuesday, which will be both Day of the Dead and a new moon.

I feel quiet, but not in a bad way.
 
 
Bard: One-Man Humaton Hoedown
17:55 / 31.10.05
Going to watch "Nightmare Before Christmas" tonight, and I may break the pumpkin cane at midnight. But...at the same time I really want to keep it, since I don't think its going to rot. I think its going to dry out. The gourd itself is pretty woody rather than squishy.

I posted the lyrics to "This is Halloween" on my dorm room door.

I may go grab a pumpkin and carve something into it, then lgiht the candle inside at my door room window.

Anyone got an idea of a good liquor or mixed drink to pour as a libation to Halloween in general?
 
  

Page: 1(2)3

 
  
Add Your Reply