N'wraenomicon

As I mentioned before, I've got a project coming up. One of the things I needed to do as part of my preparations for the project was create a ritual icon to be used in the work. I knew the symbol and colors I should be working with, but a lot of the design for the icon was left open for my personal creative process. No problem! I knew what I wanted to do, the materials to use, method, style... all good! And then the whole house got sick. I'm two or three days into this. I'm not sure. Yesterday may have been two days long, and symptoms are having an even heavier effect on me today. I would be cutting things close, but I could just wait a few more days and make the icon after the fever has passed. But then I asked myself if that was really the best plan. Again, I would be cutting things close. It would reduce my time for consecrating the icon. I really needed to make it today. In my feverish condition? Why not?! A feverish condition can open gates of its own. This might, in f...

I want to make some notes here about a few things, and I don't really have time right now to check and see how much of this I have or haven't said before. I am participating in NaNoWriMo, and I'm trying to get my word count as far ahead as I can earlier in the month when I have the most time for writing. Perhaps it's best that I not go back and read older posts on this right now anyway. I sometimes like seeing later how my mind explored the same topics at different times. I know I mentioned reaching the point in the Lovecraft Index books where the shining trapezohedron came into play. And that spawned my doing a little bit of looking things up (not even what I'd call "light research") about garnets. I may or may not have mentioned wearing the ring I've had for many years that has an amethyst set with a small garnet on each side of it. Okay. That brings things up to where I am today. I have some work coming up that relates to the shining trapezohedron, ...

Lovecraft dug deep into history for the inspirations for his stories. Or entities that go back deep in history reached far to inspire him. It's hard to say which. We know from his personal letters that he and his circle of writing associates laughed about how seriously some readers thought he believed the things he was writing. I'll trust his word that it was all just fun storytelling...on the surface. I think it was Stephen King who once said, "Fiction is the truth inside the lie." He might have been quoting someone else, but I'm pretty sure I read it from him, and it has stayed with me for years. Writing fiction often gives an author space to work out things they haven't recognized in themself. There are many reasons to believe Lovecraft didn't consciously believe the Old Ones actually exist, but also many reasons to believe pieces of what he created were manifestations of bigger things than just his own imagination. And maybe some of it was misguided gn...

The spiritual journey that has led me to Yog-Sothothery has, so far, flowed like a river carrying me to where it wants me to be. That's not a common theme in my life. In fact, I've often rolled my eyes and been frustrated by people who say things like, "It all just kind of...flows, y'know?" No, I didn't know. That's not a privilege I was blessed with.  There are only two areas of my life where I can now say everything just seemed to flow, and they are closely connected. One led me to other other. Maybe it's really just one big flow. Going with that whole "it just seems to flow" thing, I come back to what I had previously written about the Shining Trapezohedron and the garnet.  I think there's definitely some work for me to be doing here, though I don't know what it is yet. I've suddenly found myself in possession of a raw garnet. It was a surprise gift, and I knew what it was as soon as I held it in my hand! To have this stone sho...

Math is not one of my strengths. A lot of people say that, and there is a while range of reasons why it may be so. There are serious problems with how we approach teaching math in schools. There's also an "attitude problem". Adults often display an attitude of, "No, it's not fun. Yes, it's hard. Quit whinin' and start studyin'!" That doesn't really encourage children to want to learn. Personally, I think math is fascinating! That's even true after years of adults confusing my dread of doing the schoolwork for not liking math. The biggest obstacle for me is that my ability to understand concepts hits a point where it is impaired by my limitations when it comes to arithmetic. I have a learning disability called dyscalculia. Even if math came easy to me, though, algebra probably would have been something I felt neutral about. It would have been a necessary class to acquire skills to move on to things I found more fascinating. I wish I had be...