2011 - They Year of Weirdness.
Winter 2011
The new year started very oddly with dead birds falling from the sky and fish washing up on shore. The whole 2012 end of the world bullcrap was in full swing.
Through the Occult Book Club I managed to teach my alchemy lessons, all seven of them now, to that group and got to do it in a masonic hall. It was the first time I have ever been in a masonic hall and even though we were limited to the common area it was still awesome. The masonic friend who contacted me from last summer's dinner was our host. I could feel the history of the place. The building I think was over 150 years old even though that masonic lodge was in existence for 250. There was much energy to the place, I never felt anything like it before, or maybe I had. Could this be the Philosopher's Stone? I have always suspected the Freemasons to be at least partly based in the teachings of alchemy. But as I quickly learned while the 'secret' teachings are based in hermetics and roscirucianism, very few Freemasons even truly understand the meaning behind their rites.
Speaking of masonic rites, I did manage to witness an Investiture of Officers, one of the few rites that is open by invitation. I was impressed. These guys have to do everything from memory, no notes! The entire ceremony took about an hour and a half. I'd like to see the old coven even attempt anything lasting more than a half hour, and from memory! Once again I felt as I should belong. It would be a few weeks before I was voted on however and in the process of waiting I met up with another therian.
Enter Margie
She contacted me via witchvox on the Ides of January and was impressed that I called myself a therianthrope so openly. We started emailing and before I know it we were talking on AIM and even via video. She was very wise in the ways of magick and the occult, or so it seemed. She started claiming that she more than likely knew me in a previous life and I started believing her as well. I had though that maybe, just maybe, I had finally found my spiritual sister. I would soon find out that I was wrong.
Margie soon showed her true colours. She started having issues with everyone she lived with. Her lover, her family, everyone. She moves out of her lover's house and back in with her father and sister. She then moves out of there and back with her lover. This goes on for another month and then I don't hear anything until she calls me collect from a mental ward in Philadelphia. Apparently even though she is a recovering addict, her mind is still fracked up and she was off her meds. I started to think about everything she said to me, everything she shared, and that which I shared with her. She would freak me out about my wife, saying things such as "I think she is going to have trouble with her heart soon" or "she's going to die in the hospital". I hated Margie for that crap!
Eventually she totally falls off the face of the earth. I get another phone call message that she's in yet another mental hospital and that was the last I heard of her. I can't believe I fell for half that woman's crap! I actually cared about her. I shared things with her on a personal and spiritual level. Because I got burned more than once with females who say they are wolf therians, I am now very, VERY leery about associating with them. I might have let my desire to find my spiritual sister blind me to the truth. I still hope to find her, but I will be seriously cautious from now on.
Blackballed!
The Freemasons got back to me about my election. I was Blackballed. The reasons are such that I cannot say explicitly, as I gave my word. I can say that it was through no fault of my own, but it did involve a power play. Once again the truth of a thing has shown itself. I might try again with a different lodge as I have that option in six months.
But by winters end, I would learn that my days would be numbered at my place of employment.
Spring and Summer 2011
The Spring of 2011 saw me unemployed after 2 1/2 years with the Joneses. They simply could not keep afloat regardless of all the ideas we came up with. The housing market even by that time was still a shadow of what it once was. It was a good fight, but in the end Mr. Jones had to close the shop.
I immediately went and got unemployment compensation, getting about a half pay per week. I could still survive, but certain bills, like the fraggin student loan, would just have to eat it. I managed to pay for those things that matter like the rent, electricity and car payment. I went on food stamps but even that was limited to about 50 bucks a week.
In the first week of may I managed to land an interview for a PHP/HTML development job at a clothing factory. The interview I think went quite well. I remember that I dressed up as fine as I did for the masonic investiture earlier that year. It was too warm to wear it. I thought I nailed the interview.
After the interview, we went to an SCA event, the first one I had in years and the first one with Bri in NC. Very interesting. As we set up the camp I heard thunder in the distance. "That sounds pretty bad" I said. We had had some terrible storms in April, the first true tornado in Central NC in years, and they hit between Fayetteville and Ft. Bragg. They do not call me Arcanus TEMPESTAS Greywolf for nothing, I am a Stormwolf after all and I know when a storm is coming. "Oh no, that's just them shooting ordinance on the range. Oh no, there's a quarry nearby." Right. Sure. Uh huh. Before It hit I reached out with my mind to try to steer it, but it smacked me upside the head mentally. It would NOT be controlled! By nightfall the storm was upon us and blew everything away in a mighty gust. Tents got turned into twisted masses of metal, plastic and canvas, all the stuff got wet. We had to spend the night in the car. Not fun.
May, June and July were spent with me generally staying home, applying for jobs from my computer and playing retro games. I got back into Meridan 59 which is now free to play, I got out of it after I remembered how much freekin PKing there was. I got back into LotR Online. Awesome.
New Job, New Roommate
I never got the good gig at the clothing company, I had to settle for a contract position with the city which paid $1.50 less than what I was making and with no benefits or even paid holidays and let me tell you, government offices have a lot of holidays. Even though Christmas was on a Sunday, you still had the following Monday off so that was 88 bucks gone for the week. But at least we got some help from a roommate who was also a coven member.
Nikki was part of our coven for some time this year. She was about to be deployed in Afghanistan and decided that an apartment with another soldier wasn't cutting it. She asked to move into our spare bedroom. Raven asked me and I gave an enthusiastic yes. Not only was I thinking of the extra financial help at the time, but I kinda liked this girl, she's a good kid! Like I said she was a soldier, in our coven and also an avid gamer and SCAer. I told her that she was most certainly a therian and a fox at that. She has always had a thing for foxes and wouldn't you know she'd be a 'soulless ginger' so guess what kind of fox. Red of course! I had a great time with her when she was with us, I even learned to make some German food. She got a bit more into therianthropy and I taught her some practical alchemy as we attempted to make coloured flames with household chemicals, much to the chagrin of the wife.
The End of the Darkrune
Darkrune, Dark Alcove, Sylent Mynd, Mr. Circumstance and a myriad other names for himself, would show his true colors. He met Nikki at his place of employment and started 'hitting' on her as he always does in his playful flirtatious way. Nikki never met him before but the first impression was passed over as just a friendly tease. But it didn't stop there. Apparently he even tried to ask Nikki privately to come to his place and not in a truly playful way. Things got bad and before you know it de-freindings happened on FB and elsewhere. I managed to get wind of some of the thinks he was saying behind her back and I stepped up to the plate and told the bastard to knock it off! So he turns on me. This guy who treated me as a friend for five years decided I was no longer worth his time. Apparently this guy had decided to turn atheist and totally treat anyone who believes in any type of spiritual path as a misguided fool and an idiot. he bashed everyone in the pagan community. He went into me by basically telling everyone he knows that I think I change into a full wolf in the pale moonlight and I control people in my 'pack' with magick. Geez, what a friggin jackweasel! This guy who used to be into Norse religion, paganism, magick and the occult, had turned into an atheist prick?(Not that all atheists are.) WTF? I 'declared war' on him and all that he stood for, especially when my friends and family, my 'pack' as he so eloquently put it, was concerned. It was truly over between us, just because I stood up for someone. I think most of this started when he bashed on witches in the community when they were talking about all the weird crap that had been going on with the environment at that time. In NC, we had tornadoes in April. More weird weather in May followed by an earthquake in August and then the threat of a major hurricane. All someone said on FB was that 'mother nature is pissed' and then he bashes on them for putting the blame on mother nature and that the great gods or the boogy man is coming to destroy the world. Holy friggin Bhuddah on a skateboard son! Get a flipping grip! I don't care if your an atheist, just don't go trash talking everyone because they believe in something. Okay enough about this guy.
The Voyage Home
In early September we head with Nikki back to Florida. The first time I and Raven had been back home in almost five years. We told nobody of this because we wanted to surprise them. We had it planned since July. Unfortunately my foot would have an issue just before we head out.
I don't know, maybe it was a poorly fitting shoe, maybe I walked too much but somehow I managed to get what was at first a very bad swelling on my middle toe on the right foot. Te pain started to get really bad to the point that walking was difficult. By the time of the SCA event, I was in serious pain, but figured it was just a bad blister and went anyway. Mistake.
The pain was so unbearable and the walking so difficult that I was munching aspirin, ibuprofen and acetaminophen like it was candy. Finally the damn thing bust open and starts bleeding, heavily. This thing went deep! I was hurting so much that I missed a viking wedding because I couldn't walk from the camp.
Raven had an issue, we thought the heat was getting to her heart so we managed to have us shack up for the remainder of the trip in the air conditioned 'infirmary' that the EMTs on staff had set up. Her with heat issues and me with a bad foot where all I could do was hobble. What a trip. Still, I managed to do what I set out to do. I went for one thing, to remember what it was like and to feel the energy of Florida once again. I saved that energy and put it in a 'bottle' so to speak. I met people I haven't seen in years, but still, I would have liked to have met others. In retrospect, and I'll tell that tale in the January 2012 issue, I could have lost the toe.
Fall 2011
In the fall of 2011 I would actually hear from that crazy, mentally ill Margie again. She told me that she headed out to California to be in a band. Now she's homeless and living with another homeless guy in some camp somewhere and "he's the one for her'. She uses the library computer like all the other homeless slobs in the area. Jeez. I just wish she'd get her crap together and leave me alone. Come back once your life is straight. I have no time for such crap anymore, seriously.
It was a hell of a summer, all those Arab uprisings and whatnot. My foot healed up in about 2 weeks and you'd think nothing happened to it. The fall was a hell of a lot better. October means Samhain and ours was rockin'. A few new faces showed up that time including a few we met at the coffee house pagan chats.
We did a haunted hayride and haunted house at the local park. Wicked fun.
I started doing my writings sometime around September. I put together a DeviantArt site to contain all my chapters. It's pretty cool so far. It's based on my life as a therian, but it adds a lot of pop culture and sci-fi/fantasy influences including but not limited to Anime, Star Trek, Star Wars, Harry Potter and back to the Future. Part of it even includes steam-punk! The Edwards Brother's Mysteries. A short vignette done around Halloween that involves two wolvenkind brothers in Victorian England on the trail of Jack the Ripper.
Nikki would leave the army due to her becoming pregnant by Mid November. We wish he luck in her new civilian life and an easy birth, due sometime in march I think.
Money was getting tight, but still things were looking up for me in November and December. There was the possibility of me getting a permanent gig with the city and actually having paid vacation days. After Samhain, I decided I wanted to do the Yule ritual. I had everything planned. It was going to be so awesome and include a few alchemical things.
That is until Yule actually occurred and my head exploded with excruciating pain and a nasty bloody, pussy discharge...
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