Flower Of Kairos

An End To The Lost Years

Is there a word for how we experience most of our existence?

It can't be life but death is not right either. How many years do our bodies stay comfortable? How many years pass without thoughts to challenge? Decades of I'm bored, I'm tired, I'm lonely. Nomads wandering an electric desert, riding on the backs of futons and sofa sleepers. These are our lost years.

Perhaps not lost exactly, if they at last offer the necessary impetus to....

We took the train up to the north shore on three separate occasions that January. There must have been ten of us the first night; lined up and stripping down. The Atlantic Ocean blew kisses at our naked skin, and though we shivered under that starless sky somehow it never felt cold. There is no thought in those first moments. Before the hoots of laughter and shouts of release, everything that is, is overwhelming physicality; every cell in your body remembering fully and at once the joy and pain of being alive.

The roar of the ocean washed over the wetness of our shrieking bodies.  A noise like thunder, it was the promise of the spring to come and a memento of the one just passed. We could not help but reminisce. Long into the night we whispered our stories to the dying embers, fascinated by these tales as if we hadn't all lived through it together.

The thunder had started that early spring. By the time June laid down to die the humidity of her death rattle was tearing the sky. We were out in every storm. Sometimes on purpose; running through the rain and swimming in deep puddles. Sometimes it was seemingly by mistake; forgetting your keys or not starting the walk home until well after the sky had turned green.

Anyway, the point is just this:

Some years after that spring I grew afraid of the storms, but now, mostly I still chase them. And if I forget how to fight for it again, then I'll find my way back to the dark winter waters and remember how to love life more than I fear death.

And every chance I get I'll put more distance between me and the lost years.

Golden Fiction

Some of you may remember me from way back in the day when I wrote for a website called Key23.  I have mixed impressions about those days, for while a lot of good came out of it, a lot of it  has also been tainted events involving the community I considered myself a part of back then.

I recently read an article about hypersigils on the website of someone who once wrote for key23, that reminded me of a post that appeared  years ago on Key23 by a good friend of Cell 144 that covers essentially all the same points entitled Golden Fiction.

It is a great detriment to the occult community that the flame war this piece generated played such a huge part, as you will read, in silencing this brilliant magician. I would still argue now, as I did then that gender played a part in how willing and vicious people were toward an essay that still holds up even after all these years. For an interesting discussion on sexism in the occulture and especially on the silencing effect it has on some of  our brightest minds who happen to be women see this thread on the excellent plutonica.net :

http://plutonica.net/2010/02/15/sexism-in-contemporary-occulture/

There are newer relevant posts up over there about this issue as well and I strongly urge you to look into those posts as well.

Finally, here's the link to Golden Fiction:

http://beautifulpyre.typepad.com/beautifulpyre/2010/02/golden-fiction.html

Never Sabotage Love

Foolish People's production 'A Red Threatening Sky' is entering it's final few days.  You can check out some photos of the event and also bios for the artists involved over at their  site, foolishpeople.com, a site you should be reading anyway if you're reading this one. Once again I've got some work appearing in this production, and did an internet only piece  for it as well, which is also, obviously over at foolishpeople.com.

In addition to that I've also got an executive producer credit on this one, and being able to lend that kind of support to Foolish People in general,  and this particular production is something I'm personally proud to be able to do, and which Cell 144 as a whole is proud to have contributed to.

If I have to even say it, go see 'A Red Threatening Sky' if it's at all feasible for you. FP do life altering art, I am a living example of that. From an artist/magician's perspective working with them is a wonderful experience. FP will and have gone through hell for their art, it's that depth of commitment and the mutual respect it engenders that forged my friendship with their artistic director, John Harrigan.  John has been doing this for a long time and they pretty regularly sell out ther productions over in the UK so I also feel no small debt of gratitude toward FP for giving relatively unknown folks like myself a chance to shine on the international stage.

A member of Cell 144 has bought a ticket to every FP production since the one I attended in 2007, even though we've never been able to make it to one  since (well...except Julia who actually did go see Cirxus) it's a simple token of appreciation on our part, a way to be there in spirit and a small personal sacrifice for Art. So If you like the work Cell 144 does here, or the work FP does, even if you haven't yet been lucky enough to see it go down live, I'd encourage you to buy a ticket even if you can't make the show. 

Feed the egregore, immanetize the eshaton!

-Samm, Julia, Elise

Tickets can be purchased here:

http://www.clubaethereus.com/