AAAUGH RANDOM DEFAULT USERPIC IS HORRIFYING
Universe
Posts from across the community. New members are part of the Universe too — the dust and gas of the Nebula simply obscure them from view until they reach a certain luminosity. When they graduate, everything they have written shines through here.
So, what does everyone think of the new site so far? Parts you like, parts you dislike, etc? Any bugs that you\'ve found so far? The only outstanding bug that I\'m currently aware of relates to the live notification updates plugin, and it\'s a minor display issue that I\'m going to look into correcting - I think it just needs some css tweaking. Anyone find others? What about suggestions for the site, or content you\'d like to see added? I\'ve been monitoring 404 errors from people linking to the old site, and I\'ve found there are some things I still need to move over - mostly things that were on the otherkin.net wiki and a handful of stuff from the ORC that had been imported to otherkin.net but was not part of the main articles listing. I\'m also working to map redirects from the old article locations to their new ones so people don\'t get 404s when visiting old links, but that\'s going to take some time to go through completely. Anything else I\'m missing? Don\'t be shy, folks, speak up!
Version 1.1 - Updated 2014-05-19
Created 2013-09-16
By Orion Scribner
Article originally posted on Dreamhart.org.
In our communities, as otherkin and therians and vampires, much of our interaction takes place online. To the point that the vampire community has even coined the phrase OVC, or, "Online Vampire Community" to refer to that portion of things.
This document, however, is about taking our community off the screen and into the real world. It is, simply put, a guide to meetups, mini-gathers, gatherings, howls, and conventions. It is intended to cover the questions of how-to, how-not-to, and what these events are like for both the person or people organizing them and those simply attending.
This guide was last updated on . Please feel free to suggest any additions, corrections, questions, or changes in the comments section at the bottom of the page.
Originally posted on Dreamhart.org.
Ok, I *think* that everything has been migrated over from the old site at this point. Articles, poetry, humor, filk, artwork, songs, and stories. I\'ve tagged them as best as I can to try to help people find what they\'re looking for, but a few I really didn\'t know how to tag. If you have any tag suggestions, please feel free to leave them as comments on the relevant items - I\'m looking around for a way for the community to more directly add tags to items (with author or admin approval) but so far haven\'t had much luck and I really don\'t have the time or desire to write such a plugin myself at this exact moment.
Reality™ consists of multiple worlds, or as some today say, a "Multiverse of Realities". At a very minimum, Gaelic Traditionalists believe there is a World of the Stars (the Sky), a Middle World (the Earth, or the Land) and an Underworld (the Sea). All of these worlds are connected in some way, with events and magicks from one affecting events occurring in a different world. These Worlds, separated by what some call The Veils, are closer at certain times called the "In-Between Times". It should also be no surprise that the Ancestors practiced Their most important Magicks during such In-Between Times as the sunrise, the sunset, the moonrise, the moonset, and during the transitions of the seasons (Béaltaine and Samhain), as well as the extremes of the Sun (Mid-Winter and Mid-Summer), or the great "Fire Festivals". The period from Samhain to Béaltaine is called "An Ghrian beag" or the "little Sun". The period from Béaltaine to Samhain is called "An Ghrian mór" or the "greater Sun". Great fires are kindled during the fire festivals. The thought behind this is that "like attracts like", so that the Power of the flames will also attract the Magickal Power of the Sun. The fires also encourage and enhance the energies of the Sun and help to create conditions favorable to transmutation of magickal power.
[note: This article is in no way meant to debunk past life memories, so much as it is meant to address a potential problem with remembering and offer a sane and rational way of approaching and accepting the real stuff.]
Some of this is from the Torah, some from rabbinical commentary, some from oral tradition, and probably a number of inaccuracies caused by my fuzzy memory on the subject (PLEASE feel free to set me straight if you know this better than me). Please bear in mind that this is not necessarily my take on the whole thing, just the story as I recall it. Here's the gist:
Magpie's essay on the septagram is an incredible one. It was well thought out and researched. However, at her urging I decided to present another view of the septagram... this one intensely personal.
Forget Schoolhouse Rock: three isn't the magic number, seven is. Seven is one of the most widely recognized "lucky numbers", and comes into play with a fair amount of things, both magical and mundane... for example:
Full D. sylvanus taxonomy is as follows:
Species: sylvanus
Genus: Dannan
Family: Faeidae
Infraorder: Catarrhini
Order: Primates.
It's rather simple, actually. When the Crone is coming to fruition in the waning dark of the Moon, you must create a black waxen image of your computer with wick for lighting, or black candle if you're not artistic. Upon it with your Burin, which can be found at various stores throughout the Internet, inscribe these words, "I desire to leave this list list", along with the Tattwa for the Element of Fire, representing freedom, change and destruction , the Elder Futhark rune of Thurisaz, representing freedom in movement, the masculine in action and destruction of obstacles, and the Ogham symbol for Birch, representing new beginnings, purification and changes. You'll need a banishing incense of your choice and two lodestones. Cast circle, yadda, yadda, yadda, dress waxen computer image or candle and place on pentacle, light.
[Written by Tiernan and Robin. Taken from the TNO archives, Issue #1, October 1995. ]
- Are people spooked when you walked up behind them and they never heard you coming?
- You are always the first one to hear something in the distance (ie: aproaching car, person, storm...)
- You can smell a troll for miles and miles and miles...
- You couldn't care less about gun control as long as they don't outlaw bows.
- You think "Lord what fools these mortals be" should be in Bartletts Quotes.
- You are frequently offered 'Santa's Helper' jobs at Christmas without an interview.
- Your best friends are nymphs, pixies, and fairies.
- You think trees are a great place to live, and holes in the ground are for worms and hobbits.
- Your friends cat, who hates EVERYONE including your friend, loves you.
- You HATE ear jokes
- You catch yourself referring to David Bowie as 'cousin'
- The only iron you care to work with is the one that takes the wrinkles out of your clothes.
- You can smell what kind of mood the people around you are in.
- You HATE plastic.
- You LOVE mushrooms.
- You can be spun around at night with a blindfold on and you stop spinning pointing to true North every time.
- You find yourself arguing that Vulcans and Romulans are your long lost cousins with a Trek fan.
- Almost no-one understands your sense of humor
- Trolls stress you out.
- You have pet dragons.
- You would rather listen to bird songs than the radio.
- You can sleep on the floor, ground or a wood waterbed, but not a metal frame bed.
- Orcs are the cousins you don't talk about.
- You have a fascination with edged weapons.
- Most of your clothing has ties and laces instead of buttons and zippers.
Back in the very late 70's and very early 80's, when I was first getting into the New Age thing, it seemed to me at least with regard to the people I came in contact with that the spiritualist/new age movement was about working toward enlightenment. Methods for doing that inner work became very popular, such as TM, yoga, Zen... at least in S. Cal where I grew up (and lived most of my life). The focus seemed to me to be very much on the fact that you had to find your own inner way, that there were tools to help you do that but they were intended to be just that: tools, not crutches.
The alwaysweres, the nevergones
We fix the broken toys
The cast-off fineries worn like jewels
The tossed-aways adorn our brows
You smile and laugh and pat our heads
And say that you are like us too
When you have time that is.
Want to, wish to, cannot yet
Fog on water, insubstantial
And we don't buy it anymore.
Your toy soldiers are dead to you
You killed them, not the world
Those stuffed animals won't speak to you
You refuse to hear them
And you cry, and say you wish to have back
All that you lost before
We don't buy it anymore.
When the world is dark and dreary
And the blandness overcomes
And the mundane crushes souls
And children cry when dreams are torn
And unicorns retreat away
And hidden from you are the Fey
You wring your hands again and say
If only I could dream again.
You killed them all, not the world
Your walls could easily unfurl
With just a word, but you stay silent
And we don't buy it anymore
This poem was written shortly after getting
back from a walk through the woods in Cary, NC, witnessing the
clearcutting and destruction, but also the new growth, the clean
air by the waters and a sense of those things just beyond sight.
The book of our solitary walkings
Draws nigh to a close...
And for ages we have walked alone:
Forgetful and longing in turn
For the days at hand, what was and yet will be.
As another walks to a circle by the fire
Another chapter closes
Another path comes full circle,
Andother solitary light burning bravely
Becomes one of a million stories
In a naked city of life and dream.
Can another lovely star
Join the all-star cast
Of a film that never ends?
Pick up a script and play one role...
Play it with all the depth and passion of a feature part
Without stealing the show?
We all think ourselves to be fine critics,
Learned and clever at discourse,
But if our essays teach us aught, it is this,
and we do well to listen:
Live life like Art
Breathe Art like Life
It is said that our life
is but the artful imitation of life,
And well we know that life imitates Art.
The treasure of a dream remembered
The shining center of an endless story
Becomes now a jewel in a crown of many jewels
A star in an endless sea of stars
A wave on an ocean of still Truth
One voice in a throng... or a chorus.
We have held the sparks that dared
Ever have we been the tinder that burned alone against the dark
To exhaust our selves, defiant to the last, burning against overwhelming forgetfulness.
Come together we have, to kindle a brighter fire.
Still, we must join to light a log of substance,
A flame that will endure through our lives to come
Until the light returns.
The oak that was we burn at Yule,
The tree that grew in times we knew
Will turn the Wheel again
But we cannot burn what we will not bear
What we fear to touch
Will only waste and rot...
Seasons change, trees die and are reborn...
In the wild places they hold the past for us...
And like the trees,
Born of freedom,
Our roots run deep
Lest we be washed away.
We are Faeries.
We are the wise folk,
The non-sense folk.
We are the free folk, ever changing.
We wear the green coats of ages past
We are Free... to remember.
Free enough to take our endless roles
In an eternal play.
And together we can bring a tear,
A sign, a gasp, a fright, a laugh,
To the heart of the Dream.
Gather around, ye Tybalt, Verrocchio, Hamlet, and Shylock,
Titania and Titus, Rosencrantz and Second Guard, Caesar and Soothsayer,
Falstaff and Rosalind and Porter and Herald,
Prospero, Juliet, Duncan, all...
The curtain's coming up.
A cool breeze blowing,
The snowflakes falling,
A sweet voice calling.
Joyous music plays,
Many happy faces,
Dancing with the fae.
Moving around the circle,
Shades of blue and purple,
Silken scarves move in the wind.
Laughing I join the others,
All my sisters and brothers,
Around the bonfire with love.
We may not all be similar,
But we are together,
Because of our fae blood.
I am a child of the storm
a spirit of darkness
a catalyst.
I live in the night
forgotten and betrayed by the day.
The moon is my only light
as I wander this world alone.
I am bound to my task
by vows as old as time.
I am a child of the night
ethereal incarnate as mundane,
I can only fight
and dance the winds
as the storm rises.
I am a child of power,
fire runs in my veins.
I am meant to be free
as wild as the elements,
unfettered by mortal values
by time.
I am a child,
the universe stands before me.
All knowledge,
all power,
all future is mine.
I am a child of possibility
all is mine.
I run to the storm.
I run to the night.
I run to the winds.
I am a child of darkness
and I am free.