1998 october
xxx 1 october 1998 recently discovered note to self from months ago: ------ my spirituality: mostly monk, sometimes satanic.2 october 1998 october is perhaps my favorite month. it always has been. it's so witchy, the air becomes electrified. the season exudes life and death. who could resist? the following is from a journal while i was living in that energy vortex known as st. augustine, fl. a mind-bendingly inspirational exasperating location in which to exist. it's written as i was coming back to semi-reality after exiting the fun house ride we all took a spin on called october. during that month a lucky few of us saw very clearly that sooner or later time does indeed get all mixed up. Time November 7, 1991 The last few weeks are like a blur in time. The last few days have been more blurry than ever. I attribute much of this to the new pair of spectacles I got last week. I think the prescription is slightly wrong. But I also attribute this blurriness to the increasingly fast passage of time. Time speeds by faster with every passing second. I have become obsessed with time lately. I want to manipulate it. I've always been interested in time travel, it could be so convenient. The simple act of traveling from time to time would definitely spice up one's life, not to mention their to-do list. At this stimulating time in my life I find myself amazed at each passing moment. I'm like a child in wonder at everything. Yesterday was my mom's birthday, and nine days from now will be mine. The day before yesterday was Samhain, my favorite holiday. So yesterday was also the beginning of the Celtic new year. The sun is in constellation Scorpio and last night the new moon was in Scorpio also. Since Mom and I were both born under this sun sign and since it's dominating the skies right now, I feel somehow connected to all of these events in some strange universal way. For the past week I have been experiencing feelings of anxiety, frustration and exhilaration, all tangled in some mass of confusing ecstacy. I'm experiencing all this in my interactions with other people and in my day-to-day living, and I'm enjoying most of it. I just attribute all these circumstances and feelings, good and bad, to the sun and the moon and all the other universal forces. With the moon's increasingly powerful waning force my anxiety and restlessness increased over the past few days. Yesterday seemed to be the culmination and high point of all the effects of Samhain and the new year and the birthdays and blah blah blah. I felt like I was riding the crest of a wave of some unknown force. At times this feeling could have been compared to G-force. Most times I just try to flow with whatever current I'm currently in. And that's what I've been doing lately. Other times I spent, as I am doing now, recuperating from the effects of whatever it is that's going on all around me at this time in my existence. Yesterday I was hypnotized for the first time in my life. With this hypnosis, I supposedly traveled in time. The hypnotist, Rosemarie, is a local "hypnotherapist" who is doing an experiment with future life progression. This is something that most people have never heard of. I hadn't heard of it until a few weeks ago. Future life progression works the same as past life regression, which many people have heard of. In past life regression the hypnotist helps the subject travel back in time, through hypnosis, to past lives so they can reexperience what they were before, and somehow relate the information as an explanation or clue. Maybe they think this can help them live more comfortably in their present existence. Future life progression works the same way. The subject is hypnotized, but instead of going back to the past they go forward in time to the future. This all sounds ridiculous and unbelievable to most people in this society. But many people believe this to be a true phenomenon. They find it no more difficult to believe than modern-day Christians find it believable that there is some big man that lives in the clouds and rules all our destinies. I don't care either way. If there is indeed some big man up there, then there's not much I can do about it. But if there really is a way to jump from life to life, from year to year, from century to century, I want to be one of the first to try. So I did. I was not apprehensive about hypnosis. I was excited. But I didn't know what to expect. I'd never done it before. Rosemarie told me I probably wouldn't really feel like I was in another conscious state, that I'd be aware of what was going on around me and able to remember everything that happened. She told me she would help me get to somewhere around the year 2100, more than 100 years from now in the future. Rosemarie had me close my eyes and do deep breaths and visualize that I was stepping into a tunnel. This end of the tunnel was the present and the other end of the tunnel was the future. She told me to visualize the tunnel and go down it. At the other end was a light, and I was supposed to go toward it. I am not practiced at visualization, so this was not easy for me to do. I did a lot of pretending in my mind and tried to visualize this stuff. But I didn't really see anything. I wanted to see a TV screen with pictures. I was frustrated. Rosemarie helped me relax more. I gave up on the TV screen idea and opened myself to other sensations, hoping to let impressions and feelings do something for me. Rosemarie now had me counting backwards from 100, this took a while. But as I continued to count I did feel more relaxed. I had been struggling to keep my eyes closed, now it seemed easier. But I still wasn't seeing any pictures. This was more difficult than I had expected. She told me to continue down the tunnel, so I tried again. She told me to go toward the light at the other end. I tried my hardest to see a light, but all I could really see was black. My eyes were closed, how could I see anything else? Once in a while I noticed a glimmer or flash of purplish green in the center of my field of concentration. I projected myself toward it, hoping it was the light. As I completed my countdown, Rosemarie told me I was at the end of the tunnel. She told me to go into the light and out of the tunnel. So I envisioned myself doing it. She asked me what I saw. I saw nothing. She asked me what year it was. I thought for a long time and the number 2103 popped into my head. I don't know why. I wondered to myself if I had just made the number up to please Rosemarie. I couldn't answer that question. I still don't know. She asked me what I saw. I saw nothing. She asked me to picture myself. I did. She asked me if I was a man or woman. I wanted to be a woman. I did not want to be a man. But I felt like a man. I saw myself then. She asked me what I looked like. I said I was tall and slender with white hair. I wore a long, flowing white robe or gown. All white is not something I normally picture myself wearing in my current lifetime. I was surprised to see myself dressed this way. She asked me my age. I felt like I was in my late twenties or early thirties. From this point on the impressions came to me a little easier, but it was still difficult for me to answer all of Rosemarie's questions. I couldn't answer many of them. Most of the time I felt blocked. I did feel alone at first. I was inside a building. It was very clean and pale and whitish with a grayish floor covering like short-napped carpet. The lighting was like florescent adjustable lighting. It was not too bright. It was easy on my eyes. Then I got the impression that I opened a door into a room. I looked in as if to check out the progress of what was happening inside. The room was a lab of some sort. Several people were working at instruments like microscopes and laboratory equipment. They all looked up and greeted me. They were not dressed the same as I. They wore basic lab garb, pants and shirts. They were happy to see me checking in on them. This was a very strong impression. I then went to my quarters. It was like a dorm room. It was like a Star Trek scene. The quarters looked like basic and efficient with no wasted space. They were minimal but comfortable and secure. I felt protected and safely isolated there. This was my refuge. Rosemarie asked me what the food was like there. I told her it was cake-like and processed, like space food. But it was substantial and fulfilling and not unpleasant to eat. She asked me if there were any fruits or vegetables and I answered no. Rosemarie asked me what it looked like outside. So I left my room and went to an exit toward the outside of the building. I looked out the door and saw lots of green grass and several small trees, but it all looked transplanted and unnatural. It looked as if it had been brought from somewhere else and planted there. She asked me if there was water and I said yes. There was lots of waterfalls and streams. The water was very clean and clear and abundant. She asked me if I was on Earth. I thought about it a while and answered no. She asked me if I was on an asteroid. I said no. I couldn't tell where I was, but it wasn't on Earth and it didn't feel like it was in Earth's solar system. I felt very far from Earth, but I felt like I could go back any time I wanted and it would take no time at all to get there. But I didn't want to go back at this time. Earth was a dirty, used-up place. It was not where I wanted to be. Rosemarie asked me my name. I answered that I thought it started with the letter J. But I wasn't sure. She asked me to spell it and I said J-O-A-Z. She asked me the name of the place I was at and I said Onyx. The place even looked like Onyx. It was smooth and shiny and clean. Rosemarie asked me if I could see my next life after the one at Onyx. I said no. She asked me to visualize leaving the place and tell her what happened and where I went after I left. I couldn't tell. I was experiencing more blocks. All I could tell her was that I think I died soon afterwards, maybe in a spaceship as I was leaving Onyx. But that was just a guess. Rosemarie then brought me back through the tunnel and to normal consciousness. I was surprised at all the information I had given her. I don't know where it really came from. I don't know if I just made it all up from visions of past Star Trek episodes I've seen all my life or if they really were visions of my future. Whether any of it is true or not is beside the point. I traveled to some other reality and I enjoyed it. I'm already looking forward to our next session. Rosemarie asked me if there were any problems I had during the hypnosis. I told here I had the urge to open my eyes the whole time. Rosemarie looked at me and asked, "Why didn't you open them?" "I thought that was against the rules," I answered. She said it would have been fine for me to open my eyes. I thought that it was a hypnosis rule to keep your eyes closed. Well, at least I learned something. Next time I'll open my eyes.
5 october 1998 i shouldn't be here. i am bad. i should be in bed because i must awake in a very few hours and go back to slavery, and it helps to have enough sleep to be a successful slave. but i just had to write something here because i feel guilty because i'm no writing anything. such is life. i don't feel quite as guilty now. but i will feel like i wish i could've slept more in the morning.
6 october i wish i could've slept more last nite.
9 october 1998 i tried to rewind a tape in my vcr and it ate the tape. it was an old tape, no problem. i'm surprised the tape lasted this long. no big loss. i put another tape in the vcr and pushed "play." the vcr ate the tape again. i think my vcr is possessed. i think i shouldn't feed it any more tapes. i think i need to find an exorcist. what a ridiculous life.
11 october 1998 thought crime for the day: people who block access ramps with their automobiles should have their legs sawed off, slowly.
15 october 1998 thought crime for the day: from time to time the hand that feeds you is more nutritious and much tastier than what it offers.
17 october 1998 thought crime for the day: homo sapiens are the culmination of the evolutionary process. everything they say or do or write should be interpreted as the gospel and be followed as a guide to existence. * * * * * * this month is flying by. kind'a of like a bat, silently, with little sonar beeps bouncing off the trees and clouds. surgery looms in the near future. my newfound plastic surgeon waits with sharpened scalpel to carve his way (on october 22, the first day scorpio moves into the sky) to the bridge of my nose in an all out attack of the cancer cells trying to increase their population and invade the rest of my face. i'll just be glad when it's over. then i can worry about something truly important like hydrogen bombs or y2k. so far this month has been enjoyable. if all goes well i should survive to see (and smell) the sights and scents of samhain. i won a free round-trip ticket to the outer islands of hawaii for my attendance at work of all things. now all i have to do is pursuade the airline to allow me and my wheelchair on the plane together. it seems they think they must separate us. they want to pack my chair as baggage and make me sit in a regular airline seat. that is discrimination. that is like taking an asthma patient and storing her or his oxygen bottle in the baggage department. removing me from my wheelchair exposes me to the dangers of gravity and other people's clumsiness. i cannot expose myself to those dangers, not unless it's absolutely necessary. i feel like i've been forced into the same position that rosa parks was put into when they told her to sit on the back of the bus in the 1950s, or whenever it was. most people think the a.d.a. (americans with disabilities act) made everything ok for the disabled. but the tribe of the handicapped is still the most discriminated against on this planet, and this is one of the many examples of how it happens. maybe this "free gift" will change some people's perceptions of reality with this small experience. my dream come true would be to change some actual laws. i doubt if that will happen. but at least i can say i won a free trip, even if i can't go anywhere.
20 october 1998 thought crime for the day: be afraid. be very afraid. --wednesday addams * * * * * * welcome to my panic attack. every year around this time those from the other side of the veil move into my life for a visit. they always beckon for me to join them in their ghastly, goulish existences, and i usually succomb, for a time. the veil, as i'm sure you know, is all that separates our world from the world of the others, those who chose not to come back from one of their ventures to the other side. the veil becomes very thin this time of year, allowing passage for a few from one side to the other and back again, or not. those from the other side moved in this time as i slept. they entered through my dreams. but when i awoke they remained. here begins another wild and spooky ride.
22 october 1998 --new moon in scorpio thought crime for the day: trust your physician. * * * * * * finally. today is the day i've been putting off/waiting for. it all started about 20 years ago when i cut the bridge of my nose in a fall. the wound wasn't bad, but it never healed completely. it eventually became skin cancer, and now is the day it goes away once and for all. i hope. once again i'm putting my life in the hands of basically a complete stranger. i've only met with him two or three times and today he'll be holding the knife. but it's nothing new. i've done it before numerous times. it's not like this is brain surgery. it's an outpatient operation. but my past encounters with scalpels, including brain surgery, keep coming back to haunt me. the previous, october 20, entry was my reaction to a dream i had the night before. i don't remember much about the dream, but what i do remember caused me to wake up in a cold sweat. in the dream i heard a noise outside. i went out to investigate and found a gang of men and women disassembling my van (which in the real world i sold years ago) piece by piece. i chased them away and tried to start putting it back together, but it was in too many pieces. i went back to my home and the gang was there, in my house. they were ripping it to shreds. and then they started chasing me. i escaped to my bathroom and tried to hide in the tub. when i got to the porcelain bathtub i discovered they had transplanted my stainless steel kitchen sink into the tub. the sink was surgically stitched into the tub. then i woke up. so the dream comes true today. i go to the doctor and come back with stitches in my body once again. if all goes well. if not, i guess i won't have to write in this silly diary any more. p.s. in today's episode of all my children, a tv serial i got addicted to years ago, one of the families is taking their dog to the vet to be put to sleep because he's dying of cancer. i know i'm not a dog. let's just hope tv doesn't mirror reality too much today.
24 october 1998 thought crime for the day: respect your physician. * * * * * * ouch. i feel like a train ran over my face. it certainly left its tracks behind. this year's halloween mask has been selected for me, frankenstein's monster. cool scar. my face is so swollen i look like worf, and our skin tones just about match. each morning brings more bruises. at this stage i'm at two black eyes and an upside down question mark incision from the center of my forehead to the middle of my nose. i'll say one thing for this doctor. he's balanced in his designs. but that's about the only thing i've seen him do that's even halfway neat. he's botched just about everything else. i'll be glad when this relationship is over. i've worked with many doctors over the years but this guy takes the cake. so far he has stressed me out, lied to me, cancelled appointments, rescheduled surgeries, written wrong prescriptions, cancelled prescriptions, embarrassed and ignored me. ok. i'm finished. i wasn't going to even talk about him here but it just slipped out. sorry. back to reality. i came home to a mailbox full of doctor bills. at least i survived to receive them.
30 october 1998 thought crime for the day: "i am free of prejudices. i hate everyone equally." -- w.c. fields * * * * * * this is it. this is the beginning of samhain. the holiest time of the year. these two days i rejoice and send blessings to all. this year i've been distributing maggots and spiders to all my closest friends and associates. from me that is high praise and adoration. i wish halloween could last longer than just one day. i remember when... ------------- May 16, 1991 I think I opened a new can of worms by trying to close a can that was already open. For the past three weeks the humane society has been trapping cats in our neighborhood. A woman who lives next door was feeding some stray cats and her crazy landlord didn't like that, or her, so they called the humane society who sent the animal catcher, armed with traps. When the rest of the people in the neighborhood saw the traps, we were disturbed, but most people didn't do anything about it, other than make a phone call to the humane society and complain. I was one of those people. When I called, the person who answered was very quick and to the point to let me know there was nothing I could do about the traps being set. The owner of the house next door had requested it, "because someone had complained about a stray-cat problem." The people at the society told me I had nothing to worry about as long as my cat had a valid tag/license. I didn't believe them, because I didn't trust the person who came out to set the traps. He is very strange and he doesn't care about animals. He is like a hunter after prey. He might as well be using a camouflage suit and a gun. The cats in this neighborhood disappeared one by one every day, week after week. At least two litters of kittens died because their mothers were trapped, taken away and "put to sleep." Now the only cats left are a couple of strays who walk by every day and three others, including mine, who have been forced to stay indoors almost all the time to avoid the catcher. This continued for more than three weeks. It was becoming ridiculous. The catcher, who acts like an obsessed person, sitting in his car waiting for some hapless animal to stroll by, would come set the trap. The people in the neighborhood would watch, when they were around, and go and trip the trap after he left. But it got old. We couldn't protect all the cats all the time. And we were getting tired of having this creepy guy lurking around in our neighborhood catching every animal he could. So yesterday I cast a spell. It was the only time I ever really experimented with magical manipulation. I got a black sock and some black terry cloth, some red yarn and some garlic. I made a doll with the cloth and yarn and stuffed it with the garlic. The doll was black, about a foot tall, with red hair (yarn) and red eyes and red "cat whiskers." It had a silver chain, remnants of an animal collar from my past, around its waist. I placed a shriveled red rose in its left hand (a wand with which to work its magic). I worked all afternoon constructing the doll. When I finished it was very powerful and "scary" looking and smelly. My cat sniffed it and backed off--repelled by the garlic. Later that evening I continued the ritual by writing a spell. It ended up saying this: | | | | | | Ere this circle has been cast. Ere this puppet's soul shall last. Ere this garlic will provide Cat-magic screams far and wide. MIND THIS PUPPET cat-witch protector Lest nine souls will come to thee To haunt thee forever in body and mind. HARM NO MORE and never fear. Harm any more will bring cat magic for ninety-nine years. So mote it be. | | | | | | Then I drew a pentagram at the end of the message. I burned the edges of the paper and crumpled it to make it look old. Then I did a smudge ritual with sage, smudging the puppet and the note. I rolled the note up and hung it on a red yarn necklace around the puppet's neck. It reeked of garlic and sage and seemed more magically powerful every minute. It was definitely now a voodoo doll. I then did a Tarot reading in the doll's presence. It was three cards--seven of cups--queen of pentacles--king of cups. I interpreted this to mean that this was a ritual created from imagination and debauch whose power relied on the imagery of the ritual itself. I wasn't surprised. It let me know to continue on in this vein of theatrical shock. That's where the power of this ritual would come from. By this time it was 3am this morning. I got an old deck of cards and found the three corresponding cards to the tarot reading and took them outside to the cat cage that the trapper was using. I hanged the doll over the entrance of the cage and scattered the three cards around it. Then I came in and went to bed. My cat woke me up the next morning. She was in an unusually agitated state. She wanted outside, badly. But I was afraid to let her out unattended for fear of the ruckus I knew I probably created with the doll. So I went out with her in the back yard. I was watching her and I saw the catcher drive up to the front yard, where the cage was. I grabbed my cat and went inside. I stayed inside, drank some coffee and at some breakfast, all the time my cat was howling to get back outside. But I didn't dare let her out. I gave the catcher time to do his duty of resetting the trap. Then I went outside to go trip it like I had been doing every morning for the past few weeks. The trap was gone. I couldn't believe it. I hadn't expected this to be so sudden. The spell worked. I then heard someone call my name. It was the woman next door, upstairs, who had been feeding the cats and had been the most upset by all this trauma. She looked scared and mystified. She told me that she watched everything happen this morning. As far as I know this is what happened: The crazy landlady came and saw the doll on the trap. She looked at it and probably read the note, then walked through the apartment house looking for the culprit. She knocked on the woman upstairs' door, but the woman didn't answer. The landlady saw me in the back yard, but didn't say anything to me. She looked at me and I looked back. Then the catcher came (while I was in the back yard) and I took my cat and went inside. The catcher saw the doll--and left. He came back with other people, maybe police, I'm not sure, they took the trap and the doll and drove away. That's when I went back outside to discover the trap was gone. So up till now the spell has worked. There is no more cat trap and no more cat catcher. But I don't think this is the end. I think I succeeded in pushing this crazy landlady and crazy cat catcher I bit closer to the edge, and who knows what they'll do next. I still fear for my cat's life, and I fear for the woman who lives upstairs next door. She'll be the first one to get the blame for everything that has happened. I thought about this when I was doing the spell, but I knew she would approve of what I was doing. After she talked to me this morning I invited her over for coffee and explained to her everything I had done. I felt I owed her this to ease her mind. She is not a very stable individual and all this trauma is making her a nervous wreck. She said she was glad I did it. But she told me that she has been the most vocal during this whole event and all the evidence is against her now, even though no crime has been committed. She does look more like a witch than I do. She even told the cat catcher she was going to put a curse on him! But she is catholic. I didn't realize she had done that or I wouldn't have done made the doll. I tried to stress to her over and over that I wanted to be involved in what ever happens now. I told her over and over again that she should tell me if anyone bothers her. Or to send them over to come talk to me and I will set them straight about this whole halloweenish event.
31 october 1998 thought crime for the day: "I will not eat green eggs and ham." * * * * * * halloween is all about communion with the dead. however, i still haven't quite decided if exorcising sam i am is a trick or a treat. xxx
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