The Eighth Sermon to the Dead

 It's been a few weeks, but I thought I'd give a recap of our trip from Oregon to Virginia.  It's been an adventure to be sure, and it's taken a while to all sink in.  In a lot of ways, the journey and the culture shock give it all a veil of unreality. January 5th I left off our story on the Afternoon of January 5th.  We left our home in Amity at about 2 pm, and after our sheep/llama rodeo in the rain, we had everyone loaded and we took off for points south.  Our goal on the first night was Reno, Nevada, the Boomtown Casino Hotel.  In retrospect, that was ambitious (or foolhardy). If we'd left at some early morning hour, like we were intending, then it would have been doable. Leaving at 2 pm, it was nearly impossible.  Reno is 514 miles from Amity, or about 10 hours according to google.  Realistically, it's more like 12 hours, with stops for fuel and bathroom and etc.  That would put us in at 2 am, if it weren't for the weather. It was rainin...

 We were supposed to close on 12/22, and have 2 weeks to sort everything out for the move. Due to a snafu (The appraiser for the buyers put down it was a private road, when we actually live on a public road, and that screwed things with the VA) the closing was pushed back to 12/28. That gave us a week less to do the stuff we needed to do in two weeks.  So, we packed like crazy for the previous week, but still had to leave out stuff to live on. We intended to purchase a canopy on 12/23, that got pushed to 12/29.  Then, we found out, the canopy didn't fit. So we started to search for one: Used, new, anywhere from Seattle to Roseburg. There was no canopy to be found. Enter Colvin Ford.  They had a brand new 2020 F350 that, while it had a short bed, had a canopy. So, we traded our 2016 for the 2020 with 3400 miles. The previous owner had rarely driven it, and we're going to put more miles on it in a week than he did in a year. We have provisionally named her Black Betty ...

 Most of you know that we've closed on both houses (here in Virginia), but you haven't heard HOW we closed. Let me explain.  No, there is too much. Let me sum up: On December 28th, we knew the physical documents we had to sign for the Virginia house had entered the state of Oregon, but the Lawyer in Virginia had accidentally put the wrong address on the envelope. We signed on our house in Amity at 9 am, and hoped the documents would get to the title company by the UPS East Coast cutoff for return to Virginia. The title company thought that was 3 pm. UPS delivered to the title company at 9 am, but all they had was the buyer's documents for the Amity house. We called around to the lawyer and UPS, got the tracking number, and Etc. At 2 pm we found out UPS had the documents, at the Tualitan center. We could come get them, but we could not bring them back to the notary, get them signed, and return them to UPS. We hoped in the car, and drove to the title company, kidnapped the no...

Since my last post, so much has happened that it's been hard to keep up. Let me explain.  No, that'll take to long; let me sum up: We have an agreement to sell our Amity house to some lovely folks from Arizona.  They are set to take possession January 5th, 2022. We had an appraisal on December 8th, which went quite well, HOWEVER; The appraiser said that we live on a private road, which is incorrect.  We live on a publicly owned privately maintained road, which is a whole different beast.  Normally this wouldn't be an issue, HOWEVER; The buyers are getting a VA loan, and they require that the road either be publicly owned, or there be a maintenance agreement among the owners in place so that the road will be maintained to county standards. Because we are incorrectly listed as being on a private road, and there is no maintenance agreement, it threw the whole transaction into jeopardy! The effect of all this is: we were set to close on December 22 (tomorrow) and that wo...

My birthday was November 6, so we didn't think about the house too much, but we had two showings.  One of them was a facetime walk-through with some folks from Arizona.  The people had found a new job in Oregon, and needed a house with some property. We're happy to oblige. On November 14, we reached an agreement for the sale of our home.  There are still some things that need to fall into place, but it looks as though we're moving to Virginia early next year. All of my processing of this is complicated by the fact that I've got some sort of illness: flu, RSV, something.  Not Covid, we've been tested for that.  Something else, that just seems to linger.   It's making things sort of muted. But I'm excited, the start of a new adventure.  We're finally getting out of neutral, now for the Preparation, the Great Road Trip, and the Settling In. More later, when I'm not quite so ill.

 We had an offer!  YAY! It was about $70K less than we wanted. Boo. We countered, came down in price.  YAY! They refused. Boo. Back to Square one.  One of the hardest parts of this, is we have to give up two of the equipment pieces we wanted to purchase, so the owners of the new place can afford to keep the Virginia property going while also having the Florida place they just bought. The whipsaw effect is the worst. I was getting all geared up to get packed and out by 11/20, and now I have all this drive and the route has been removed.  All dressed up, no place to go. Now I'm at a loss again. On the one hand, I keep packing. On the other, we're starting to run out of stuff to pack, that we don't actually need.  We've already run into the fact that some of the stuff we like cooking with is in the unit.  Thinking about some road trips. Never been to Crater lake. Might drive down to Ashland, spend the night, then go see the lake. One thing I'm looking at ...

 Still. Waiting. We've had showings, but apparently our property is not what the buyers are looking for: either there's not enough room for their RV, or they don't like the finishes in the house (like, the baseboards, the cabinets, etc).  We've talked to a cash buyer, but their offer is SO low, like $150,000 lower than our agent says the property should go for, that we can't in good conscience accept it. We talked to the folks out in Virginia, and they need to make some choices as well. If this is going to take a while, they're maintaining two properties: one in Virginia, one in Florida. They're willing to be patient, but they're going to need to make some changes. One of the changes is to the equipment that we were getting with the Virginia property. The excavator will probably be sold if we don't get a good offer by next Wednesday.  The RTV (a little farm cart thing) will probably also be sold. Neither of these are great losses from my POV, but it ...

 As Tom Petty said, it is the hardest part. The house is staged. The property is fairly empty. The weather is turning. And adventure awaits, and all we need is the firing of our starting gun. That gun, in this case, is an offer on our property. It has not been forthcoming. Everyone says 'Oh, it'll sell so quick.' So far, that has not been the experience. I try to keep in mind the statistics: Oregon houses our size have been taking 30-60 days to sell recently, with some going very fast and some taking a bit more time. We've been keeping an eye on the market and the competition, and trying to find the sweet spot where we get showings with potential buyers. The Real Estate agent has been trying to soften our expectations, but mostly we thought we'd have accepted an offer and be scrambling to get packed and waiting on the closing date. As it is, we're just... waiting. It's not so hard on me or the kids: work continues, and although we are all chomping at the bit...

The farm is quiet. We'd found new homes for the rabbits, and new homes for the chickens. The same people bought both sets of livestock. When they came to help us catch the chickens, we got most of them, but one hen decided she was going to hide in the blackberry brambles. So, they left that one with us. After they left, the hen started walking around, and calling for the rest of the flock. It made me sad to listen to it. I actually stopped my cleaning and packing and chores to write a short poem. We sold the chickens today, 18 barnyard hens and a rooster  captured in a frenzied rodeo Of fishing nets and copious swearing. We miscounted. In the fading light of a summer day Over wind blowing through trees Blighted by drought, and the scrubbing My wife is giving a set of shelves I hear forlorn clucking  And the dejected scratching of one hen Left behind when the reckoning came. She enters a coop devoid of companions  No squawk or squabble, no feathered furor, Only the wind in...

Parting with friends is a sadness. A place is only a place . -Thufir Hawat Our first Garage sale is accomplished. I hope there will never be another.  It's a heck of a process, selling and haggling and interacting with many people. I think it went swimmingly, but I don't want to do it again.  We sold a huge number of items that we've held onto for one reason or another. However, when we arrive in Virginia, the first thing we're doing once we recover from the Journey is having some sort of moving sale.  We met all our neighbors during the sale we had before leaving, people we'd lived around for 6 years, but never met for one reason or another.  We've sold our whole rabbitry, and have a possible buyer for the chickens. The goats have new homes, but the horses, sheep, and llamas will be coming with us. Monday was the day for the photographer to take pictures for the real estate listing. The whole day was a whirlwind of cleaning and hiding everything we hadn't b...

Today is Paddy and I's fourth wedding anniversary. We were married in the back yard of our Oregon property. The lead up to the wedding was very busy: trying to get the venue ready, trying to finish last minute fixes, cleaning, arrangements.  At some point, the time ran out to get things done, and there was a relaxation as we realized that, whatever wasn't finished, wasn't going to get finished, and didn't matter. We had family, friends, food, an officiant, a bride, a groom. The beauty of the day was exceptional, and we had animals and children running, a beautiful ceremony, and an excellent party. This year, we're in the midst of preparing to move across the country. We'll be leaving the venue behind, for other people to make memories. Today it hits hard, the fact of that move. So much has happened here, and while the memories will remain, the physical reminders will be left behind. There is much to do, but much like the wedding, whatever doesn't get finishe...

Many of you will have heard, but this will be the official record that we are planning on moving to Virginia sometime this fall.  As I know details, I'll publish them here, but here's what I know so far. Paddy, Bridget our daughter, and I are into farming, and we have 5 acres of steep clay in Oregon. We've been looking for more, flatter land in Oregon, but it's way, WAY outside our price range.  Since the Oregon market is such a seller's market at the moment, we thought we could sell and get a good property elsewhere. So we started casting further afield. We came across a property in Clarksville, VA that was in our price range, and started talking to the community. They embraced Paddy very quickly, and we made an offer on the property. However, our process was just starting, and theirs was advanced, and we missed out on that one.   After that, we took a step back, thought we'd get our ducks in a row, and try again next year sometime.  Then the sister of the owne...

A reader asks:  What is Abraxas? He always asks the best questions. My first encounter with Abraxas was in Jung's Seven Sermons to the dead. God and devil are distinguished by the qualities fullness and emptiness, generation and destruction.  Effectiveness  is common to both. Effectiveness joineth them. Effectiveness, therefore, standeth above both; is a god above god, since in its effect it uniteth fullness and emptiness. This is a god whom ye knew not, for mankind forgot it. We name it by its name  Abraxas . It is more indefinite still than god and devil. That god may be distinguished from it, we name god  Helios  or Sun. Abraxas is effect. Nothing standeth opposed to it but the ineffective; hence its effective nature freely unfoldeth itself. The ineffective is not, therefore resisteth not. Abraxas standeth above the sun and above the devil. It is improbable probability, unreal reality. Had the pleroma a being, Abraxas would be its manifestation. It is th...

I went down a bit of a linguistic rabbit hole today. One of the FB groups I’m on posted “Why do we say Holy Ghost? Is it a ghost?” After the first minute of smacking my head, I started really looking into the question. Ghost is an English word of Germanic origin, which is used to translate spiritus from latin into old English. It’s first used in Old English as such: sē hālga gāst is Old English for “The Holy Ghost”. Spirit didn’t enter English as a translation for spiritus until the Middle English Period (after the Norman Conquest, when the Normans brought more French and Latinate words into English). Ghost and geist are direct cognates, from English and German respectively. Geist has a meaning of spirit in the supernatural sense, as well as the meaning of apparition and of something having a frightening appearance. It also has a sense of furor or agitation, a sort of ecstasy. Thus, a sense of being filled ‘with the Holy Ghost’ carries a sense of ecstatic experience....

For the past few weeks, the Sacred Flame has been reignited in me to re-address my Friary Work. I've been writing a lot of material and emails and general musings, all about the Friary Work. And as I've been doing that, I've been thinking a lot about the language I use. As a magician, the words have meaning, and choosing them carefully affects the outcome of the process in which I'm engaged. That got me thinking about the word 'Work'. In English, the word work can have some bad connotations: Something you are doing that you must do, something that takes a great deal of effort, labor, something you do in exchange for payment or gain. And we know language shapes the way we think. The following video gives examples of that. Perhaps my efforts in the Friary realm should not be considered work, but perhaps the Latin source for the term, Opus.  We are engaged in the Magnum Opus, the Great Work, after all. And Opus has totally different connotations in ...

Logos is a fantastically complicated word. It is derived from a Greek word meaning "ground", "plea", "opinion", “law”, "expectation", "word", "speech", "account", "reason", "proportion", "discourse". To me, as we use it in the AJC, it has all of those meanings and more. It is the Ground of all being, the Word spoken when God at creation said “Let there be light” יְהִי אוֹר It is the plea of the Divine to remember from whence we came. It is the opinion of the Gnostics, that they know the unknowable, and approach the unapproachable; that they make effable the ineffable. It is the Law laid out for the conduct of morality, whether to be observed or broken. It is the expectation that although now we see through a glass darkly, then we shall see clear. It is the Word of God: Written, spoken, experienced, living. It is the Speech of God: The great Metatron and all of continual creation formed t...

"And going on from there he saw two other brothers, James the son of Zebedee and John his brother, in the boat with Zebedee their father, mending their nets, and he called them. Immediately they left the boat and their father and followed him." -Matthew 4:21-22 As the Director of Communications for the Apostolic Johannite Church, I am the first point of contact for many people seeking a spiritual home that can accept eccentric ideas, yet has a strong tradition. I tend to encounter people who've been wandering from tradition to tradition. These people, their first experience is generally a very narrow version of Christianity, where if you don't toe the line, you are ostracized. So they reject Christianity altogether, and they look at Buddhism, or paganism, or nothing. Then, when they begin to heal, the Church calls them back, but they cannot accept the narrowness of the version of which they were raises. And so they find us. For some people, they've studied a l...

I am reading a ridiculous amount of books at the moment. I should really pick one and finish it. The Three Body Problem by Liu Cixin Complicity by Iain Banks Driftless Spirits by Dennis Boyer Northern Frights by Dennis Boyer Sword of the Legion by Jason Anspach, Nick Cole Annihilation by Jeff VanderMeer  I really should finish one or more of these.

I am a fan of all of Holst's planet series, but nothing speaks to me like Jupiter, Bringer of Jollity. Anyone who's read my blog for any period of time knows I like Jupiter in all his aspects: King, Bringer of Jollity and plenty, Expander of boundaries and limits. The music is so upbeat! It fills one with joy, with granduer, with expansion, at least in the first movement. Then it quiets, but even it's quiet is joyous, and then it comes back in grand and sweeping, like a mountain vista in New Zealand. One can almost see a procession of gifts and brightly colored courtiers coming to pay homage to the king on the day of his coronation, or the day of his victory. A stately procession follows a flurry of preparation. Just when you think the grandeur of the second movement will come to it's end, the small trilling notes of fairies and servants and swirling dance comes back in, and then Jupiter is there, proclaiming his good will and beneficence to all. It makes me hap...

There is nothing quite like wearing a good tailored suit. The cut simply falls correctly on the body, and the figure you cut, with a neatly tied tie and a pressed shirt, makes you think you can take on the world. A set of shiny dress shoes and some socks that speak to my personality, and I feel like a man about town, a captain of industry, a go-getter ready to take on the world. I can dream in a suit. That style of dress is out of place on the farm. On the farm, I like my Romeo boots with no laces that just slip on. A pair of old jeans, a flannel shirt if it's cold, a t-shirt if it's warm. A ball cap to keep the sun from my eyes. It's relaxed, it allows for work, and it makes me feel, well, like a man of the land. Someone who works hard to accomplish their goals. It grounds me. Even more removed is the vestments of the priest. Designed at the height of the Roman empire, the alb, stole, chausible, and cincture put me in a sacred role, a role that is outside of my ev...