Gig time in the Cross

Playing my first gig in a while. I’ll be providing some guitar tunes for this nude drawing class in the Cross. 

Aquatherapy

Leg Building in the Eastpoint Pond

 

The ancient trees drew their gnarled roots out from the earth and followed him

     The solid ground is fragile 

and the void of sky and space is eternal

Nothingness is permanent,

anything solid can be broken apart.

The ancient trees drew their gnarled roots 

out from the earth

And followed him

      

Stepped on a diamond lattice of clay 

and rotten leaves

Broken open

He disappeared beneath the forest

              

The moon above whispers

All that is great is built upon pyramids of sorrow

Day by day

Day by day

I take this

Day by day

False gold that turned to leaves

I was a worm

existing in mere minutes,

hours and days

This large aquarium

I live inside

isn't real, I say.

I'm surrounded by 

plastic grass

encircled in a dome of glass.

I crawl on plains of algae sand

swirling slimy grains I pass  

I see my owners

panning eyes

peering through the globe at me

I open my mouth to speak

but only shy little bubbles

trickle out

through my teeth.

 

Water - What axolotls have taught me

I am a fish lover and I’ve started keeping a large collection of different types of fish, including axolotls.

Since becoming a fish owner and aquarium keeper I have been horrified to discover that Sydney tap water kills all fish, including the notoriously hardy goldfish.

I must heavily treat Sydney tap water to make it liveable for fish, including removing chlorine and ammonia from it. 

Is this water that I want to be drinking? I don’t think so. I also break out in a rash every time I shower in Sydney tap water, especially on my face. Showering in filtered water (vitamin C filter) has resolved the problem. I also noticed my overall sense of health and brightness has massively improved after I stopped drinking Sydney tap water. 

Careful about what you put in your body ladies and gents! Spring water is a good option, although the ideal h20 is freshly melted glacial water from a mountain stream. 

The Greater Key of Solomon: Stronger and More Potent Conjuration

Warning: I am recounting a terrifying experience I had with black magick. I am writing this approximately one day after having this experience. 

Before I recount my experience with black magick, I want to provide some background on how I became involved with it.

I have been interested in the occult and esoteric religion for quite some time, having read a large number of books on the subject. From Manly P Hall to Kenneth Grant, I have found the literature fascinating. Although I was always undecided about whether I believed in it, I have appreciated how important it has been to many leading figures in history. 

Several months ago I was browsing an antique shop and found a golden Seal of Solomon necklace and I began wearing it as a good luck charm. My great grandfather was an English Freemason and my great grandmother is Jewish, so I found it appropriate to wear. I also recently inherited my great grandfather's Freemasonic ring and started to wear it too. You can see these items in the photo below.

Since I began wearing the Seal of Solomon, some unintentional and frightening photos of me have emerged. I started to suspect it might be related to the powerful hexagram I was wearing. You can see the Seal of Solomon shining brightly around my neck in the photo below, whilst enjoying a night of music and drinks with my old friend Barry.

Johahn, who was with me when I bought the necklace from the antique shop started noticing the eerie photos.

This brings me to the present and the terrifying experience I had with King Solomon's magick.

Three days ago I purchased King Solomon's Grimoires - The Greater Key of Solomon, The Testament of Solomon and The Lesser Key of Solomon. I was unaware of the serious nature and legitimacy of these books. I purchased them in both written and audiobook format to listen to while nursing my broken leg. I found listening to audiobooks in the evening soothing and I initially started with Manly P Hall's books. This led me to King Solomon.

King Solomon is an ancient Israeli monarch who became famous for his ability to control demons with seals and spells. I became increasingly interested in King Solomon during the course of my readings into the occult as it was apparent that he was the oldest and most revered of all the occult mystics. While I found it fascinating, I was unaware of the true danger involved.

As night fell, I put on my headphones and began listening to the translated audiobooks of King Solomon. These translations were made by Aleister Crowley (amongst others) who was the leading English occultist.

As I listened to the introduction of The Greater Key of Solomon, I drifted off to sleep. All I remember from the intro was the narrator warning of powerful evil spells.

What happened next is the most terrifying experience I have ever had. 

I had a dream, which felt more like sleep paralysis, where I was in my bedroom and strong incantations were swirling around me. Cold, strong fingers grabbed my broken leg, causing it to violently jerk up and down in a fit. It was like I was having a seizure, but it was originating only from my leg in powerful spasms. I could distinctively feel fingers drumming and tapping up and down my leg and the presence of an entity in the bedroom.

This abruptly woke me up. I threw the headphones off and looked at my audiobook. I had reached "Chapter 6: Stronger and more potent conjurations" which had been playing for approximately 2-3 minutes. The narrator's voice was chanting a spell.

I inhaled deeply and turned to Johanh, who had roused from sleep too, apparently from my leg's violent jerking and kicking. I told her what happened and she was scared and told me "I was dreaming that you turned your head to me, smiling blankly, while jerking your leg up and down and slamming it into the bed." Somehow we had shared a dream. It sounded like possession from what I've read in the past, potentially by a "mischievous demon". It felt like I'd been toyed with by an entity and my leg felt sore.

I have limited education around matters of conjuring spirits. Johahn and I both lay in bed trying to make sense of what had just happened, thoroughly spooked. I reminded Johahn of the Seal of Solomon necklace that I was wearing and showed it to her. I told her that I felt that I had left my bed, but in spirit form, and was floating around my home. I am fully immobile with my broken leg so it's impossible that my body left the bedroom.

The above image is an illustration I created to capture my encounter with the "entity".

From this experience I am now very respectful of the contents of King Solomon's books. My leg has been broken for 3 weeks now and I've been lying in bed since then, waiting for the bones to heal. The point being, I'm completely immobile and this book brought my leg to life.

Please be careful if you ever dare to read these books. There is real magick contained within its pages and I feel it must be greatly respected. I am hoping I don't need an exorcist.  

 

the Lord of the Air

 

Behold the dark fowls of the air: they sow not,

neither reap, nor gather in barns; 

yet the Lord of all that Flies increaseth us.

The only God who comes when called.

                         ~

Just remember.

No matter how clever you creep up upon the mirror

Your reflection always looks at you

Straight in the eye.

Sitting in the black park

On top of the hill, in my old childhood suburb, I sat and stared off into the distance. It was a grey day and the sun was sinking low behind a long spine of clouds that stretched beyond the Cooks River. That winding, muddy river where I used to walk alone for hours after school, listening to my sony discman. My favorite song back then was called Wolf Moon, and I used to find it such a darkly romantic song. The perfect soundtrack to my naive teenage angst, as I sat in the mangroves and watched the river flow by.

I don't know how I ended up on this hill. I had long since moved on from this place. But here I was. 

I looked down the hill towards the nature strip that lined the road, right by the school for special children. 

That nature strip, where I used to play tag with the neighborhood kids, seemed so much bigger back then. The school was still the same though. A small, empty school where I used to ride my skateboard after the special kids had left for the day. I used to find it such a peaceful place. But now it just seemed sad and empty.

I walked down the hill towards the park with the dead grass and cricket pitch encased in a rusty cage. I had spent so many hours in that park, throwing balls to my brothers and chasing them around the old cage. We used to climb all over that cage. It was our obstacle course. The concrete cricket pitch underneath the cage was the lava. We were like monkeys, swinging ourselves around the cage. We'd drop ourselves onto the grass and race to the old soccer goal posts at the end of the park. We'd climb up and down those tall, metal goal posts and see who was fastest.

By the time I reached the park, the sky had turned black. The park sat just in front of my childhood house. A huge house that the kids in the neighborhood thought belonged to a witch. It was a house with many pointed frames, almost like a large, wooden church.

I entered the park and walked to the middle of the grassy field, beyond the rusty cricket cage, and sat on the grass. I was surrounded by the night and the shadows. 

Nobody could see me there in the black park. I sat silently and watched the lights in my old childhood house. I watched the outlines of people move inside the windows. I saw the shadow of my mother through the window, her crazy, curly hair unmistakable. She was moving around upstairs. I saw my dad. I heard his deep, booming voice calling me for dinner. "Willy! Wiiilllly! Dinner's ready." I smiled to myself as I sat there, letting the memories and my imagination take over.

Sitting in the dark, I felt like the bogeyman. Nobody could see me there. 

"What are you doing here?"  

I looked up. "Why are you sitting out here in the dark?"

Johahn had found me. I felt a bit embarrassed. She must have thought I’m weird, sitting out here alone.

"What are you looking at?" Johahn asked me.

"Oh, I'm just watching my old house. The lights. I can see people in there."

Johahn looked confused as she turned towards my old house.

"There's no one there."

I followed her puzzled gaze towards the old, dark house that looked like it belonged to a witch. There were no lights and it looked like it had been empty for years.

"Come on, let's go" said Johahn as she smiled at me. "You're such a strange man."

I got up and we left the park together, walking towards the river in the distance. 

The bright city forest at night

It was nighttime and I was next to Martin Place, at the entrance to the botanic gardens. 

The botanic gardens had been transformed into a giant, luscious forest. The night sky was brilliant and impossibly starry, like a Van Gough painting, making the forest both dark and bright simultaneously. The forest itself was large and it would take at least an hour to cross, end to end, if one moved through it at a brisk pace. 

The forest was a strange mixture of lush, dense foliage and urban decay, with traces of humanity. It was a city forest that somehow felt both remote and urban. Scattered throughout the forest were old shopping trollies, garbage and, strangest of all, passed-out ravers and party people from the many rows of nightclubs that now populated Martin Place. These people would take epic party drugs at the clubs and raves and then go into the forest and sleep for days. Sleeping off the drugs. They didn’t care at all. 

On either side of the forest were grassy knolls that marked the forest’s edge. Beyond the grassy knolls were imposingly tall, dark skyscrapers that looked more like Gotham City than Sydney. 

Johahn and I crossed the forest to the grassy knoll on the Martin Place side and found a telescope on a hill. The telescope was somehow focused at an impossible angle. Looking through the telescope’s glass, I could see the grassy knoll on the other side of the forest, through the trees. The telescope was angled up the gradient of the distant knoll, which looked through the grass to a view of the beautiful, swirling starry sky. The sky was dense with stars, galaxies, moons and planets, illuminating the forest in a blue light. It was mesmerising. 

Johahn had an idea. “Why don’t you go to the knoll on the other side of the forest and I can take some amazing photos of you through this telescope glass.”

I said “Okay, but wait for me and I’ll call you when I’m there and we can coordinate it.” I knew it would take me at least an hour to cross the forest and I would have to move quickly.

There was only one trail that crossed the forest , but it was faster for me to go off the trail and through the dense forest to the other grassy knoll. It was a more direct route to go off-trial and I didn’t want Johahn to be left waiting too long. I wanted to cross to the other knoll as quickly as possible.

So I set off into the forest briskly, parting the leaves and dense shrubs with my hands. 

Before long I came across a small, attractive girl who was passed out in the foliage, lying under ferns. She looked like she had come from a rave in the city. She was wearing a dishevelled, tiny dress that was exposing her naked body. I thought she must have taken some potent drugs and she was sleeping it off. I stopped and looked at her, but it felt wrong to stare because she was exposed. I felt bad for her because I knew she could easily be taken advantage of, lying almost naked in this forest near the city. But I felt I should keep moving. I didn’t want to keep Johahn waiting too long. 

I looked up and saw the trail ahead, and a group of friendly looking people moving along it. I turned and looked back in the direction I’d come from and I saw another small group of friendly looking people moving in my direction. I thought that they would likely find this passed out girl and take care of her. I convinced myself that she would be okay.

Glancing once more at the sleeping girl, I kept moving through the trees and vines, deeper into the forest. Even though it was nighttime, my visibility was very clear. The forest was so bright from the brilliant, shining stars in the sky above me. 

Johahn was waiting for me so I had to move fast. 

As I made my way through the trees, I would go between traversing dense foliage and then hitting the thin, winding trail that threaded through the forest. Weaving in and out. 

Then I came across the same passed out raver girl again. Almost naked, and sleeping just off the trail amidst a patch of low weeds. Somehow she’d been moved to this place. I stopped and looked at her again. It felt very strange. For some reason I knew she had been sleeping in this forest for days now. Was she dead? No, she was clearly breathing and sleeping. She looked peaceful. Those drugs she’d taken, whatever they were, must have been incredibly powerful. 

Suddenly, some old hippies called to me from behind a dense thicket of bushes. These hippies were guys whom I went to university with. Old friends. They seemed really excited to see me. “Hey dude, come here.” I followed their voices and saw them gathered around a trap door in the forest floor. “Dude, check out this room! It is awesome down here.” I paused for a moment and thought about the plan I had with Johahn. She was waiting patiently. “This won’t take long” I thought to myself. 

I went down the trapdoor with the hippies. It led into a huge, flooded underground room full of broken cement, plastic bottles and detritus. The hippies then began trying to convince me to move into the room and start renting it. This had turned into a bizarre room inspection. They were trying really hard to convince me to sign a rental contract.  “Dude, it has so much potential down here. This room is huge.” They looked at me full of hope and expectation. 

Squinting through the shadows, I looked around the room. Water dripped from the ceiling, hitting the dirty, gray pools below. It looked like a horrible place to live, but the hippies were so excited about it. 

As my eyes adjusted to the dark, I began to notice just how big the room was. It was almost the size of a school gymnasium. “Dude, you can dredge all the water out of here and convert it into an amazing art gallery. You’ve got the money, man. You can do it!” The hippies were becoming urgent.

Surveying my filthy surroundings, I thought “well, I guess I could set up one side of this giant room as my living area, and maybe divide it with a nice, red curtain. And the rest of the room could be an art gallery. I could throw huge underground art parties down here. That might work. But how will I breath? It’s completely underground, with the small trapdoor as the only entryway and exit. I’ll need to create some ventilation somehow.” It seemed like a logistical nightmare. 

I began to wonder how I had become so easily sidetracked on my journey through the forest and I felt bad about keeping Johahn waiting for me. I imagined her sitting by the telescope, wondering where I was. I looked at my phone and saw that she had tried to call me. 

I suddenly woke up and Johahn could tell that I’d been dreaming. She asked me “what happened?” 

“Well, you know Martin Place? You know where it leads to the botanic gardens? The gardens had changed into this huge forest, full of luscious foliage and passed-out ravers and party people. Martin place was populated by many rows of nightclubs. Just outside the forest, on the Martin Place side, was a grassy knoll underneath this unbelievably beautiful starry sky. And we found this telescope…”