Snowstorms and New Opportunities

Wednesday 1/30/19

After driving back to the Ren Faire site 45 miles north of Houston, I spent another week with Dona in her little school bus. I hope you all watched the awesome Blood Moon eclipse on Sunday night, the 20th. It was quite a spectacle!

I took a Lyft to the Houston airport and flew back to Boston on Thursday the 24th. There was a huge storm which buffeted the plane like a small boat on a stormy sea as we flew into the Boston airport. The government shutdown was clearly affecting the airports, which were crowded with passengers backed up by flight delays and cancellations. If I’d scheduled my flight a day later, I might never have been able to go at all.

I was met at the airport by my good friend Andy Burke, who drove me back to Salem in the pouring rain and dense traffic. What would normally be a half-hour drive took nearly an hour. It was good to get back to Gypsy’s after the harrowing adventure. While I was away, there’d been quite a snowstorm, but most of it had melted by the time I returned—except for piles of hard drifts from the snowplows. Glad I missed it! However, it’s snowing here tonight, and the temp (with wind chill) is expected to get down to 20 below zero by morning!

Saturday the 26th was a wedding for the daughter of one of Gypsy’s friends, which was a wonderful event. Having performed hundreds of weddings and handfastings over the past 50 years, it’s rare that I’ve been able to attend a wedding where I am not myself officiating, and can just enjoy myself with no responsibilities.

Yesterday I did a major Skype interview, auditioning for a new TV show dealing with unexplained phenomena. According to the Casting Producer:

“I’m seeking experts in several specific areas. I understand that you have an expertise in magic and wizardry and I’m hoping that you might be one of the experts I’m looking for.

“We’re developing a new series for a major cable network that will help people experiencing unexplained phenomena understand what is happening to them. We want to help people who feel they are under a curse, experiencing demonic possession, or living in a haunted space understand what they are dealing with. This project will seriously explore the unexplained, and we are looking for accordingly serious experts who can back up their explanations of phenomena with historical examples of magic, curses, hauntings, and possessions.”

I think the interview went well, and I’ve signed their contract. Now we’ll just have to see if their proposal gets picked up by a “major cable network.” If so, this will certainly affect my plans for the coming year!

Other than the possibility of a TV gig—which would entail studio work in LA or NY, and on-location shooting—my current plans are to leave Salem at the beginning of March, driving South. I’ll be looking for people to visit, and possible book-signing and workshop gigs, in RI, CT, NYC, NJ, Eastern PA (Mt. Joy; Philly), MD/DC area (I want to visit the Smithsonian again…), VA, NC (my brother lives in Hendersonville), SC, GA (Marietta/Atlanta), FL (Orlando).

I’ll lay out more of my plans for this year’s Walkabout schedule in my next journal entry… If you’re along my route and would like to see me and put me up for a night or two, please email me with your address and phone number so I can put it in my address book and cell phone. Thanks! Oberon@mcn.org

#pagan #roadtrip #wizard #bucketlist #adventure #ozpatreon

Back To NOLA

Friday 1/18/19

Last Monday, the 14th, we all went back into NOLA to see stuff we missed on our first visit. Most of the museums were closed, as we’ve discovered museums are all over the world on Mondays. But the old St Louis Cemetery #1 on Basin St. was open and offering tours, which we took. Fascinating! Because NOLA is at sea level, all the tombs are above ground, with many niches into which thin (now cardboard) caskets with bodies are shoved. After a year and a day, they are decomposed enough that another casket can be inserted, pushing the previous remains into a central well where they drop into a chamber below, to mix with centuries of other remains. This “receiving vault” is called a Caveau (Fr. “cellar”).

Tomb of Marie Laveau

Of course we visited the tomb of Marie Laveau (“The Voodoo Queen of New Orleans”), where there are always fresh flowers. Her burial in 1881 was recorded as the 63rd of 84 remains in that tomb. We saw the pyramid tomb made for Nicolas Cage, and the big tomb with the Goddess statue where Peter Fonda tripped on acid (for real) in the 1969 movie, Easy Rider.

Portrait of Marie Laveau by Charles Massicot Gandolfo

After leaving the cemetery, it seemed logical to visit the New Orleans Historic Voodoo Museum. A tiny museum in a shotgun apartment, its several rooms of displays were quite amazing and thorough, with numerous authentic working altars and artifacts. There was a lot of info on Voodoo Queen Marie Laveau, born in 1801. A femme de colour (“free woman of color”), she was famous as a traiteur (“healer”), specializing in love potions and spells. She was a notable humanitarian, adopting orphans, feeding the hungry, taking in the homeless, visiting prisoners, and curing people during the yellow fever epidemics. Her daughter— born in 1822 and named Marie Angelie—carried on as Marie Laveau II until her death in 1862.

Voodoo Altar

The gris-gris room exhibited the four categories of gris-gris (spells): 1) Love and sex; 2) Power and domination; 3) Fortune and luck; and 4) Uncrossing or undoing another gris-gris. A large painting of a Voodoo ritual featured a naked Queen (priestess) dancing “Le Grande Zombi” with a snake. And the final room encompassed several working altars, covered with photos, petitions and offerings.

“Le Grande Zombi” dance

After the Voodoo museum, we all ate dinner at the New Orleans Creole Cookery, where I had a fabulous Creole sampler of shrimp creole, crawfish etouffee, gumbo, oysters Rockefeller and oysters Biennville.

Tuesday the 15th we drove in two trucks for an hour and a half to Jiva’s family farm near Magnolia, Mississippi, where she and Ty have lived for 25 years. On the way we stopped to eat at the famous Mike’s Catfish Inn in Amite, LA, with a fabulous salad bar. I had yummy fried oysters, which I love. The farm was such a homey place—but no Internet, so I was offline for a few days.

Jiva & Ty’s home in Mississippi

After a nice walk in the woods, a lovely salmon dinner, and great conversation around the fire, Dona and I spent the night. We needed to get up early in the morning to drive 7 hours back to her bus at the Texas Ren. Faire site near Magnolia, TX. Now that we’re here, for the past two days I’ve been trying to catch up with my emails and messages, and to write this…

Visiting NOLA

Monday 1/14/19

Full days! On Thursday the 10th, Jiva drove Dona and me into NOLA in her new midnight blue Tesla. What a cool car! No dashboard—just a large touchscreen. Jiva started the tour of the French Quarter at the Café du Monde, where we had to get traditional NOLA beignets (bain-YAY), positively heaped in powdered sugar. Apparently it’s the custom to blow powdered sugar all over tourists wearing black—which Dona and I were (black is the new black) But Jiva kindly spared us that indignity. We checked out several shops, and stopped into Hex on Decatur St. where I’ll be presenting on Sat.

Jiva’s Tesla

On Friday the 11th we went out for the day on Jiva & Captain Ty’s double-hull catamaran sailboat, “Reina Jeannine Lafitte.” Their neighbor Hammond also joined the crew. What a great time, riding the waves, feeling the wind in our sails… We sailed the Chef Menteur Pass river up to Lake Pontchartrain, where we ate a nice picnic lunch Jiva prepared.

Jiva on her sailboat

Satyrday was my day for presentations at Hex on Decatur St. I did a 2-hour talk on Wizardry from 2-4, followed by book signing. Dona, Jiva and Ty came along, and we all went out for a Mexican repast before Dona and I returned for my evening workshop on Ritual Creation from 6-8. Afterwards Hex’s proprietor, the notorious Christian Day, took us out to a fancy restaurant called Kingfisher for a late dinner. I had to try alligator, as so many folks have recommended. It was delicious, much like pork; but it didn’t taste anything like chicken!

The French Quarter in NOLA

Sunday morning we had a Grey School Admin meeting via Skype, Some significant re-shuffling as we move forward into the new year…

Today we’re going back into town to do more touristy stuff…

From Boston to Houston to NOLA

Thorsday 1/10/19

A lot of stuff happening since my last Journal entry on 12/24. On the morning of the 25th I drove up to Schenectady, NY, to spend Xmas with Scarlett and Lleu and their two darling little nieces, Amy and Leah. The girls adopted me as “Santa,” and we spent much of the day playing their favorite board game, Candyland.

Amy & Leah with Santa Oz

On Sat. the 29th I did a Zoom interview with Sumati Sparks for broadcast on her “Successful Open Relationships and Polyamory Summit” on Feb. 19. Then on Sunday the 30th Gypsy and I drove to Boston to record our “Cosmic Encounter” script with Karagan and Jamal. We spent a sweet New Year’s Eve with Jerrie and Charlie, welcoming in 2019.

On New Year’s Day Gypsy and I went to see “Aquaman,” which I really recommend! It’s epic and mythic, evoking the classic legend of the lighthouse keeper and the mermaid, the legend of Atlantis, the reluctant true king (as with Aragorn) and even the tale of Arthur pulling the sword from the stone to claim the Kingship. And the visuals are nothing short of spectacular—the best I’ve ever seen!

Oh, me father was the keeper of the Eddystone light;
And he slept with a mermaid one fine night.
From this union there came three:
A porpoise and a porgy and the other was me!

            (-Peter, Paul & Mary: The Eddystone Light)

On Thursday the 3rd I dropped my car off at the realty office where my big birthday bash had been held in Nov. Barbara, the owner, is kindly letting me stash it there for Jan while I’m gone. Francine drove me to Logan Airport in Boston, where I boarded a plane to fly to Houston to see Dona. As always, we had a great conversation on the drive. On the plane I bit down on something hard that split my upper right molar #4 with a loud “CRACK!” From the airport I took a Lyft 45 miles north to the Ren Faire site in Plantersville, where Dona has a school bus she lives in during the Faire.

Dona in her bus

On Friday the 4th, I tried to get into a dentist in Magnolia, the nearest town to the Ren Faire site, but they were all still closed for the hollydaze. So I took Dona to see “Aquaman” in 3-D. It was like seeing an entirely different movie than the flat version; another whole dimension, and unbelievably amazing!

On Monday the 7th I was able to get into the dentist in Magnolia. His prognosis was not encouraging, but he drilled a bit out between the main part of the tooth and the section that had split and put in a filling, hoping it would hold it together. After that Dona took me on a tour of the Ren Faire grounds, which I haven’t seen since 1982, when I met her on my Unicorn tour of Ren Faires all around North America. She’s one of the senior Rennies, having been doing the Texas Faires (TRF, Scarborough, Armadillo) for the past 44 years.

Dona’s booth at the Texas Renaissance Festival

On Tuesday the 8th Dona and I drove her truck to NOLA. I did the driving. We left at 11:11AM and after a 7-hour drive we arrived at our dear friends, Jiva and Ty, about 7:00, for a fabulous dinner of Jiva’s gumbolaya, followed by watching the premier of the excellent new “Project Blue Book” TV series. We’ll be staying with Jiva and Ty here at their beautiful home in NOLA, and also visiting their farm in Mississippi, over the next couple of weeks. Jiva and Ty have been together for the past 25 years, but they only recently actually got married, in a spectacular ceremony in NOLA that Dona attended.

Unfortunately, the filling that the dentist in Magnolia put in on Monday came out within 24 hours. So yesterday (Wed.) Jiva located a local dentist and Dona and I drove there to see what we could do about my tooth. The only option was extraction, which he did. Even with the anesthetic, it was excruciatingly painful. I confessed everything!

Today we’re going down to the French Quarter to check out Hex, where I’ll be talking on Sat., and just enjoy the Old City, visit the tomb of Marie Lavaeu (“The Voodoo Queen of New Orleans”), etc. And tomorrow we’re going out in Lake Pontchartrain for the virgin voyage of their new sailboat, which they’re naming either “Reina” or “Jeannine LaFitte.”