Satyrday 9/15/18

Tonight is the big bash that Kim is throwing in my honor from 6:pm-midnite with her store, The Order of Avalon. It’ll be at a beautiful farm in Lebanon, PA. Musician Jimmy Clark has done an amazing job planning and coordinating the program, which includes pot-luck feasting, book-signing, Mabon ritual, group meditation, music & dancing with three bands, fire-spinning, raffles, auction, and a talk by me on “The Awakening”… The Press will be covering it, with photos, video, and maybe even a drone. So far over 100 people have said they’re coming, including Silver Ravenwolf. This should be amazing!

Thursday I received a much-needed massage from Neil, one of Maedelyn’s housemates, who is staying there recovering from cancer surgery. Also living there is Will, Maedelyn’s long-time paramour, and Littlefox, who helps with housekeeping, cooking, etc. A delightful group household, much like MG and I used to have at RavenHaven and Shady Grove.

Neil took me out for lunch, and a visit to his regular home—an apartment among many in a magnificent labyrinthine mansion built by John Uri Lloyd (1849-1936), a Cincinnatti “pharmacognocist” and pharmaceutical manufacturer, and author of the remarkable 1895 allegorical sci-fi novel, “Etidorhpa (Aphrodite spelled backwards), or, the end of the earth: the strange history of a mysterious being and the account of a remarkable journey.”

According to Wikipedia, “The book purports to be a manuscript dictated by a strange being named “I-Am-The-Man” to a man named Llewyllyn Drury. Drury’s adventure culminates in a trek through a cave in Kentucky into the core of the Earth. Ideas presented in Etidorhpa include practical alchemy, secret Masonic orders, the Hollow Earth theory, and the concept of transcending the physical realm.” The book spawned a cult following, and was translated into seven languages.

Thursday evening we binge-watched the first half-dozen episodes of “Strange Angel,” a superb miniseries about Jack Parsons (1914–1952), early rocket scientist, founder of JPL and the entire US space program, and a Thelemite occultist whose involvement with Aleister Crowley, the OTO, and L. Ron Hubbard is well-known in Pagan circles. Parsons died in a mysterious explosion in his lab on June 17, 1952.

I spent all day Friday driving nearly 500 miles to Kim’s house in eastern PA, arriving in time for dinner and a fun evening hanging out with Kim, her partner Shawn, Jimmy Clark, David, and “Mom.” Jimmy and David were rehearsing the music for the bash, and Jimmy played me some of the songs he’d already recorded for his ambitious Tarot Trumps project (for which he wants me to play the Hermit for the video), and a number of his fabulous covers of Gwydion’s songs.

I’ll be staying here for the next few weeks, before moving on to Salem in early October, where I’ll be spending the winter with Gypsy…