Best. Ritual. Scheduling. EVER

[baxil]

Time to close the books on Pcon 2010, which means sharing the awesome and never-before-told Sunday evening anecdotes!

1: I chose that day to wear my Three Keyboard Cat Moon shirt. Although I did not achieve spiritual enlightenment, I did procure the following unsolicited testimonial: "The 3-Wolf Moon T-shirt is only surpassed in manliness by

Comments

[siege]

I recently did some investigating into "root words", the foundations of a given language... and after going through a few different cultural roots, I started receiving roots for non-cultural things: the root word, that is, the base idea of energy is "flow". The root word for matter is "be". The root for time is "process". And so on. Or at least, that's what I was told.

Interestingly, the root word for dragons in general is also "flow".

[athelind]

As Wikipedia likes to say, Citation Needed. This etymology intrigues me; I want to read more.

[siege]

More properly, I should say "root verb". In any case, I don't have any written references; this is primarily from spirit work and conversations therein. The whole idea is to build a magical vocabulary of existence denoting function and change, which can then be applied to whichever noun you're working with. Also, by understanding the inner nature of things, one gains insights which enable clearer function and greater capability and flexibility when manipulating and accommodating the world around you and within you.

The easy way to test this would be to attempt two rituals: one built around the stated verb for the subject, and one using traditional wording. Whichever is "more successful" would suggest a greater affinity, all else being equal.

[baxil]

Interesting. What you describe seems a lot like what I imagine "runic magic" to be, condensing various interactions and objects and characteristics down to a set of power symbols and using them as foci. After a little googling I don't see much indication that runes were ever historically used that way, but it only seems natural to me that they should be.

I've actually got a character in TTU (Mars the minotaur) who does magic via rune in that same sort of noun/verb way you describe, and as such I've been idly meaning to research it further for a while. Interesting to know someone who actually is developing a magical system that way!

(Also, placeholder for later, larger, more meaningful comment: Directivism done right.)

[krinndnz]

Anecdotes! Ah, story.

[baxil]

Unrelated: Having done a little googling and reading up on Rozen Maiden (and knowing you as I do), I think I get why furry Suiseiseki is a tiger. But would you indulge me with the full story behind the icon?

[zuki_san]

"I'm here already!"

Good story, I'll remember that.

I've got to save up the money and get myself to a PantheaCon sometime.

[baxil]

As previously mentioned, it's a bit of an adjustment if you're used to conventions more generally; PCon is more of a Gathering Of The Tribes that happens to be in a hotel and tagged with the "con" label.

But if you walk in knowing what to expect, it can be really worthwhile!

[baphnedia]

Yay keyboard cat! :D

[baxil]

As immortalized in Scribblenauts!

[paka]

I'm with you on 2) there. Pretty much the only in-person guidance I ever had about this animism stuff (and my "mentor" who wasn't really, may have been completely hokey - so take it with a little skepticism) was that basically, the other spirits out there are, first and foremost, people. Treat them like you'd treat anyone human you talk to; don't ask them for help if it's not something they can do, really don't ask them for help if it's not something they're okay with, and don't just blankly assume that they're going to be thrilled to help you out.

[baxil]

((Vigorous nodding.))

I should be careful to specify that this isn't a universal thing. I/we work with spirits, which is to say, people like us who happen to be disembodied, but there are definitely Other Things out there that should be approached on their own terms; totems/archetypes/gods do work on a different level and the people who work with them in those other ways are doing nothing at all wrong.

[paka]

Yeah, but I just find it kind of alien on a... I guess, cultural level.

For whatever reason, I tend to regard spirits and whatever as basically family; these are theoretically people who can be there for you provided you don't skeeve them off, they do like it when you treat them with respect, and although very few of them are your actual friends, some of them are your friends. I guess that puts my attitude somewhere closer to yours than to the thing I was raised with and which kinda bugs me in some of the pagan community, where an external god is a big adult authority, but spirits are little bitty guys you can just randomly use. Does that make any sense?

[baxil]

Oh, yeah, definitely.

Actually, that reminds me of one of my rants about DJ Conway's "Dragon Magick" (which is a lot of mythological fluff wrapped around a core of some wannabe new-age Goetic evocation). As one of the ostensible targets of her summoning rituals I find the whole foofaraw amusing and a wee bit insulting. "Hi, I'm a mighty dragon (rawr!) and I have nothing better to do than kick around in the aether until some doof finds a pointy piece of metal, a stick, an oversized penny, and a glass of water and reads some prepackaged flattery amid strangely scented candles! Deary me, I think I might just faint from the awesome!"

Now, as far as I'm concerned, you can have a fruitful business relationship with spirits. "Hey fella. You do this thing for me, I feed you some energy and acknowledge your niftiness, then we each run off again and do our thing. Deal?" But that doesn't generally work as a long-term relationship, and it doesn't work unless it benefits everyone. Any ritual that includes, e.g., trapping someone in a