Painful Bliss

Mmmmm... tonight was a beautiful depiction of the dynamic ebbing-flowing balance of Yin and Yang:

We were training Shinkendo in 90 degree heat, the shalacked wood floor possessed a strong frictional resistance to rotating movement upon its surface. We blazed through uchi komi ichi, tsuki komi ichi, combined them and created uchi stuki kihon at first as ice, which around the time we had completed uchi komi ni and tsuki komi joge we were one and like water; swinging every cut as a deathly blow to the skull of the parter, there was a trust: a trust that runs deeper than most forms of logical, or emotional trust; a trust between warriors, a respect for the honest attempt to slay and the promise of effective defense, even if it did not go according to plan. and at the same time, i destroyed a large part of my right pinky toe via blister from fucking hell

Turning Apprenticeship

So i was recently asked to become a wand making apprentice. Two days ago i began my apprenticeship with turning a pen on a lathe. Once i get comfortable making pens, we will begin turning wands.

Here is the very first thing i've ever made on a lathe:





The pen is made of Bolivian Rosewood and takes Cross Refills.

This is secretly my father's birthday present; he has a refined taste for well-crafted tools and loves pens; he's gonna totally flip his lid!

Look forward to more pens and eventually wands ;-)

New Pen!

Ahhh, the years have passed, many pens have come and gone.



In the wake of the loss of over four fountain pens, i had settled on the Uniball Vision Elite Micro Tipped black pen; a fine pen indeed, but at the end of the day... disposable.

Finally, after years of incompleteness, a new love has found its way into my life.

Meet (yet unnamed) my newest mate: a Sheaffer Prelude (sounds elegant eh?)



We had our first date today in my MSE 472 lecture; i'm sure we'll be happy together in the future.

Long Lost Martial Arts Gear Returns to its Master!

So, i'm a practitioner of a martial art known as Shinkendo. Shinkendo is the martial art of traditional Japanese swordsmanship, founded by Toshishiro Obata in 1990. If you want to know more, check out The Home Dojo Website.

I used to have these sweet tabi boots and socks that I would wear during practice for ankle support. (click here for a good picture of a good pair of tabi boots) I lent them to a filmmaker friend of mine, assuming I would get them back.

That was two years ago.

Yet, suddenly, just shy of two weeks ago, dude was rummaging through his old room and, TADA! There they were, just how i had left them: nicely broken in and in good shape. Of course the socks were nowhere to be found, but what else would you expect from socks?

I'm in my third student rank, and am working towards testing for my fourth student rank in the fall.

I don't know what i'd do without Shinkendo.

Contempt for Modern Advertisin

America... what a place. In doing some work on honesty I went instinctually to the Axe homepage and screenshot a couple of pages.

Here are my favorites:

the general Axe proclamation:



the specific hype for "Orion":



These ads are clearly aimed at adolescent boys, which includes young men who can't ever seem to get passed high school. I think it is silly to buy into an ad campaign which promises the attainment of dirty porn star sex with hot, blond, catholic school girls based on the odor of their chemical spray alone... this is just ridiculous. How? How could anybody buy into this? Smelling nice is, well, nice, but the last time I checked smelling good and having self confidence are two totally different phenomena. It's ads like these that enslave the maleable minds of the youth and ignorants. It's no wonder why our nation's teens suffer from such intense lack of self-esteem because the big media is teaching them that they must buy commercial products to fit in and to get laid. There is no finesse in Axe's approach; their advertising department must be a man-cave of overgrown fratboys who want to take advantage of as many young and stupid people as they can. Manipulation of the evolution of mind at the hands of commerce and big media? Really? I know, what a shocker right?

aloha,

aloefire

First Altar

So, here are some pictures of my first altar... there's a lot going on here so i'll take the time to explain each piece, or collection of pieces and why they are present.

This one to the left is an overview of the whole altar. The back of the altar faces NW. The bottom right corner is the space representing Fire; the top right corner is that space representing Water; the top left corner is the space representing Earth; the bottom left corner is the space representing Air; and the the top/middle is the space that represents, me, my loved ones, and Spirit. Following are some close-ups.





This close-up is of the Air space: there are bird feathers, a candle oil lamp, a picture of sunset from my hometown and six different essential oils of: Tea Tree Oil, Lavender Oil, Grey Matter Batter Oil, Cedar Oil, Cypress Oil, and Green Tea Oil.







This is a close-up of the Earth space: in the top left is a small Earth Altar that I learned how to make from Llewellyn's 2008 Magickal Almanac, there are white sage bundles, and a set of stones: calcite, malachite, moonstone, labrodorite, garnet, and amythist, as well as a very large smoky quartz; at the bottom middle and right is a bag of sea salt and a mortar and pestle for grinding.











This is a close-up of the Water space: I have a great goblet from my 21st birthday at Medieval Times that I use to hold water in.












This is a close-up of the Fire space: there is a book of matches, a vanilla spice candle, and what was a red candle, along with a rough ruby in the bottom right corner.








This is a close-up of the Spirit space: along the bottom are my seven shaman casting stones; above those are two necklaces: the bottom one used to have the tiger's eye that the one above it now has. There is a picture of my close friend Lisa, a dream catcher and neckalce from my friend Sara, and a picture take of me by Sara, as well as a picture of my eye drawn by my friend Amiel.




There is also a magick wand right in the middle of the whole altar which you can see in the topmost photo. There's also a large mother of pearl half with a white sage bundle for smudging. It's organized, yet at the same time cluttered... perfect for one who follows the way of ChaosBalance.

P.S. (Here's my sweet banner... created by me)

An apprentice of Wizardy

I found the place that i've been looking for for years and didn't even know it...

THE GREY SCHOOL OF WIZARDRY

training as an apprentice wizard while finishing up my Junior year at U of I with finals and a bright summer on the horizon... sweeeeeet.

aloha,

aloefire