EDIT: This is the 93rd post on this blog. It was completely unintentional.
Tonight I had a beer, sat down, and made a conscious effort to dump all the crap piled onto me from work. We’ve been at war at work, literally, and it’s been trying. I literally got on the train this morning and my work cell rang and they wanted me in. Since hijacking a train is poor form, I said I would be in ASAP. It all went down hill from there. I put in over 12 hours today. In other, really weird news, my wife swears I was strangling a cat for this evocation. She wasn’t present, but she distinctly heard the noise. I could not reproduce it.
I ran the germatria value of the given name and was surprised. Phergoph comes out to 93, which I took as a bizarre sign when I was given that name in a fit of inspiration. The name I was given resolves to 71 in simple germatria, which has some surprising connotations. I meditated on the name in the idle time at work. I had a beer over dinner.
Opened by KC, LIRP, LIRH, KC.
Really tried to put umph into the words. Rufus had commented last time we hung out that I need to “enflame myself with prayer”. I really like Rufus, and unlike other people I don’t believe he’s gone off the deep end. I really think I suddenly understand him more after tonight. I love you dude, #nohomo #yolo.
Normally I end up in clearly defined spaces, as readers know. I actually tend to get the space first, then the spirit. This time something strange happened. I found myself on a platform made of glass or crystal (a sense of standing, not floating) high above the earth. The sky was deep, deep blue. The stars I recognized from my youth on my grandparents farm. I recognized the sky almost immediately. The stars were innumerable. More importantly, I recognized the sky from a memory I had. Discussing life on the back porch with my brother, we marveled at our ancestors (we’re German to a fault) looking up and seeing the “ice and fire” and they combined and made steam. When our ancestors looked up, they saw the ice in the sky, and the fire of the stars, and the steam were the bands of the milky way. We can still see them if we camp, or resolve to hunt the farm by staying overnight and someone “accidentally” pulls the fuse on the mercury halide light on the property. The only one left, I might add. The effect is humbling. I am here. A moment in my youth.
I am aware of a presence behind me as I am marveling at the sky. I am absolutely swallowed by it. Paradoxically, Crowleys words have produced a feeling of elevation. I want nothing more than to surrender to the experience, but the presence…
I turn around and I see myself. I look fit, and young, but the spirit is wearing golden armor, a leather shortskirt, braces, and the wings look like hawks wings. Quite a few feathers look shortened. I look like the time I dropped the jeep’s starter on my face and gave myself a black eye. Somehow, this is the best I’ve ever looked. If I were overtaken with awe before, I am overtaken with peace now. Words really fail me here, it’s like the Luna evocation but instead of familial love, this is just a deep, deep sense of peace an acceptance.
In another life I wanted to be a soldier. I had a cushy job setup in the air force from a family member, whose own son turned out to be gay and refused to join. Between the lyme disease and the colorblindness, I didn’t make it. 15 years ago they still thought it would transmit by blood, so I wasn’t exactly popular there anyway. I took my licks and decided to become a cop. Being colorblind, they weren’t too interested in me either. I resolved I would do the IT work for the police. It was rough stuff, the pay sucked, I was in the shitholes of the world getting shot at by drugged up people over replacing the ricochet modems which make the stupid little laptops work in the cars. My heart was hardened. I lived this way for years. I eventually realized I would change nothing here either, but the idea still persisted. I went to college. Like all good IT people, I excelled at my core classes. I bombed the rest, if I would even show up sober. I had a cushy IT job for five or so years, the company outsourced and I really hit a low spot. My girlfriend at the time eventually ran off with an ex-frat friend. Apparently everyone knew we broke up but me. I alienated a good part of my college friends trying to “make it work” unaware of the situation, and they were too polite to point it out.
I think I faulted them for it, but I also think in this period in my life I shortchanged a lot of people, including myself, by denying the divinity of the universe but also denying the divinity of people.
As I’m having all these thoughts, sort of life in review, I’m watching from my platform with my me-angel as a train moves through each junction. The train is powerful, and self-assured. The land below has earthquakes, fissures, forest fires, and some nice spots too. Each junction the train crosses I realize was a choice. At first the choices were mostly between mercy and severity, and almost always opted for severity. I would change the world. Eventually it became I would destroy the world. Much later, watching this train, it started to wear down. The smoke turned black, it didn’t move quite as fast, the load seemed heavier. I watched and eventually, the train barely moved. It passed through a dark place on the track, and entered a track of 10 stations. At each station it would pick between what I recognized were the paths on the tree of life. The train has a long set of tracks ahead of it, for it only just started this journey…
The angel tonight wasn’t an angel I could interrogate, make do something, bargain with.
The angel was peace, everlasting. I smoked my pipe enjoying the presence.