A Discordian Saint's Urban Adventures
5/25 has always seemed like more of a Discordian Holyday than 5/23, and as it happened, I had quite the Discordian Adventure with sannion & erl_queen yesterday. This is that trip report:
To begin with, I wasn't sure that I wanted to go on the Planet Walk yesterday. There was a 50% chance of rain, and I absolutely hate being out in the rain (I know, "I live in the wrong part of the country", but the rain is the only thing I don't absolutely love about Eugene, and I deal with it because it makes everything so green around here). It should be noted that the number 5 would end up figuring quite prominently into my day. After going back and forth on my decision, I got the bright idea to do a quick Discordian Divination, which basically involves flipping a particular 50 cent piece 5 times, calling out "In Eris We Trust", with the final answer being the best 3 out of 5 flips. The first 3 flips were all "GO!", and just because I was curious, I flipped it the final two times. Final Result was 4 "GO!" & 1 "Stay". I immediately got a burst of enthusiasm and called sannion & erl_queen, making sure that we'd all be ready pretty soon.
As we walked from erl_queen's place to our official "starting point" at the Sun in Alton Baker Park, I was still trying to think of an "official" Statement of Intent for the day's Adventure. I've recently started using peanuts (rather than tobacco) as an offering substance when in Nature. I figure that Nature will appreciate the protein, and I don't wanna encourage Nature to smoke (take THAT Native Americans!). As we were talking, I was reminded of the totality that the Planets represent in an AstroLogickal manner. It occurred to me that my primary personal SoI would be to honor and embrace my many Selves, which fit in well with yesterday's post. I would start at my "Ego-Self" that is the Sun, and embrace each planet/self, no matter how "far out" they seemed to me. I had also made it a point to re-Name the "planet" Pluto as "Eris", and so I kept referring to the day's adventure as "seeking out Eris". This is made even more humorous as Pluto was never a planet (hah!) that I could ever remember the correspondences for. I've not been into Astrology or Ceremonial Magick in well over a decade, and wasn't ever "really" into either of them even when I was "into them", if that makes any sense.
We had a lot of fun at each of the Planets--including sannion doing some funny hand-poses with the Planets. I felt inspired to have a pic taken of my hands cupping Earth, after which we all quickly banished the song "He's got the whole world, in his hands..." from our thoughts. A great picture, though, just the same. I like it on a lot of symbolic levels, including the fact that I do hold my World in my Hands.
As we walked further and further from the Sun along the bike/walk paths that line the Willamette River, the scenery grew less and less beautiful, with less and less Life & vibrant beauty and more and more space and bland fields. I guess this is pretty symbolically representative of our Solar System, too. Unfortunately, a few of the Planets had been removed from their pyramidal pedestals by vandals, which was too bad. I also found a nice exhaustion-based Trance state silencing my normally over-active 3rd circuit brain by about the time we hit Jupiter & Saturn, which would have been at about 2-3 miles of total walking to that point. This trouble in forming coherent words and thoughts only increased as the day wore on, which is why I didn't even try and give a report last night, nor work on my writings. It sure made for some funny times, though, as I tried to overcome my mental handicap!
Getting back to the walk, we finally reached the final Planet Eris. As you can see below, someone else had already placed an orange safety cone over the label that says "Pluto", which I found both very funny and quite appropriate. The final plaque talked about both Pluto & Charon (which I know even less about than Pluto), and although I was tempted to leave a permanent mark denoting my re-Naming of this marker as "Eris", I really prefer to not permanently vandalize public property. I decided to perform a simple Hailing of Eris, and drew the 5-fingered Hand of Eris--first on the cement beneath the plaque in peanut, and then in pen on the orange safety cone covering the "Pluto" inscription. "Are you drawing a Sigil with peanuts?" asked erl_queen. "Of course I am!" I eagerly responded, and you can see the results below. Peanut is a new medium for me, but I should point out that it seemed to almost glow a moment after I finished. I believe Eris was pleased.
After finally finding Eris, the 3 of us decided that we needed a break from walking for a while. After some discussion, we called a taxi to take us to the Valley River Center Mall, which we'd passed 3 miles back. While we were waiting for the taxi, I realized that we had walked almost exactly 5 miles to get to Eris (which I confirmed this morning thanks to Google Earth), and this fit in nicely with the day's Numerology. We ended up going to Red Robin (which erl_queen had never been to before) before checking out the new Indiana Jones movie on the big screen. I enjoyed my drink (alky hall = good), meal (protein & carbs = better!), & movie (comfy chairs = best!) immensely. Highlights included my story of "I was with some people... doing some stuff... and it was good." LOL This kind of epitomized my ability to communicate for most of yesterday, and I laughed a little too hard at my idiocy on that one. Also, the waitress at Red Robin lost my credit card, to which sannion replied, "Well, you did want to Call upon the Goddess of Chaos" :-\ She ended up finding it after a few awkward moments, thank Eris.?!
Unfortunately, sannion headed home after the movie, and erl_queen & I finished our walk back to her place where my car was parked. Having had time to let our food digest, it was much easier to finish our Walk by this time. I was even a little more able to form coherent thoughts and process incoming messages now. We talked mostly about our Experiences in putting on various projects (writing, teaching, events, workshops, newsletters, promotions, etc.) in our respective Spiritual fields. By now, it was getting pretty late, and when I got home around 8pm, I crashed out on the comfy-sofa watching some mindless action movie before passing out around 10. I slept like a baby last night.
All in all, I had an absolutely beautiful & adventurous day. I feel very lucky to have such awesome individuals as sannion & erl_queen that live in this wonderful town of Eugene with me. Although we definitely have our own different Practices and approaches, I think we can connect in several manners, not the least of which is our open-mindedness and mutual respect for the high level of importance that we all place on our respective Spiritual Lives.
Agape!
To begin with, I wasn't sure that I wanted to go on the Planet Walk yesterday. There was a 50% chance of rain, and I absolutely hate being out in the rain (I know, "I live in the wrong part of the country", but the rain is the only thing I don't absolutely love about Eugene, and I deal with it because it makes everything so green around here). It should be noted that the number 5 would end up figuring quite prominently into my day. After going back and forth on my decision, I got the bright idea to do a quick Discordian Divination, which basically involves flipping a particular 50 cent piece 5 times, calling out "In Eris We Trust", with the final answer being the best 3 out of 5 flips. The first 3 flips were all "GO!", and just because I was curious, I flipped it the final two times. Final Result was 4 "GO!" & 1 "Stay". I immediately got a burst of enthusiasm and called sannion & erl_queen, making sure that we'd all be ready pretty soon.
As we walked from erl_queen's place to our official "starting point" at the Sun in Alton Baker Park, I was still trying to think of an "official" Statement of Intent for the day's Adventure. I've recently started using peanuts (rather than tobacco) as an offering substance when in Nature. I figure that Nature will appreciate the protein, and I don't wanna encourage Nature to smoke (take THAT Native Americans!). As we were talking, I was reminded of the totality that the Planets represent in an AstroLogickal manner. It occurred to me that my primary personal SoI would be to honor and embrace my many Selves, which fit in well with yesterday's post. I would start at my "Ego-Self" that is the Sun, and embrace each planet/self, no matter how "far out" they seemed to me. I had also made it a point to re-Name the "planet" Pluto as "Eris", and so I kept referring to the day's adventure as "seeking out Eris". This is made even more humorous as Pluto was never a planet (hah!) that I could ever remember the correspondences for. I've not been into Astrology or Ceremonial Magick in well over a decade, and wasn't ever "really" into either of them even when I was "into them", if that makes any sense.
We had a lot of fun at each of the Planets--including sannion doing some funny hand-poses with the Planets. I felt inspired to have a pic taken of my hands cupping Earth, after which we all quickly banished the song "He's got the whole world, in his hands..." from our thoughts. A great picture, though, just the same. I like it on a lot of symbolic levels, including the fact that I do hold my World in my Hands.
As we walked further and further from the Sun along the bike/walk paths that line the Willamette River, the scenery grew less and less beautiful, with less and less Life & vibrant beauty and more and more space and bland fields. I guess this is pretty symbolically representative of our Solar System, too. Unfortunately, a few of the Planets had been removed from their pyramidal pedestals by vandals, which was too bad. I also found a nice exhaustion-based Trance state silencing my normally over-active 3rd circuit brain by about the time we hit Jupiter & Saturn, which would have been at about 2-3 miles of total walking to that point. This trouble in forming coherent words and thoughts only increased as the day wore on, which is why I didn't even try and give a report last night, nor work on my writings. It sure made for some funny times, though, as I tried to overcome my mental handicap!
Getting back to the walk, we finally reached the final Planet Eris. As you can see below, someone else had already placed an orange safety cone over the label that says "Pluto", which I found both very funny and quite appropriate. The final plaque talked about both Pluto & Charon (which I know even less about than Pluto), and although I was tempted to leave a permanent mark denoting my re-Naming of this marker as "Eris", I really prefer to not permanently vandalize public property. I decided to perform a simple Hailing of Eris, and drew the 5-fingered Hand of Eris--first on the cement beneath the plaque in peanut, and then in pen on the orange safety cone covering the "Pluto" inscription. "Are you drawing a Sigil with peanuts?" asked erl_queen. "Of course I am!" I eagerly responded, and you can see the results below. Peanut is a new medium for me, but I should point out that it seemed to almost glow a moment after I finished. I believe Eris was pleased.
After finally finding Eris, the 3 of us decided that we needed a break from walking for a while. After some discussion, we called a taxi to take us to the Valley River Center Mall, which we'd passed 3 miles back. While we were waiting for the taxi, I realized that we had walked almost exactly 5 miles to get to Eris (which I confirmed this morning thanks to Google Earth), and this fit in nicely with the day's Numerology. We ended up going to Red Robin (which erl_queen had never been to before) before checking out the new Indiana Jones movie on the big screen. I enjoyed my drink (alky hall = good), meal (protein & carbs = better!), & movie (comfy chairs = best!) immensely. Highlights included my story of "I was with some people... doing some stuff... and it was good." LOL This kind of epitomized my ability to communicate for most of yesterday, and I laughed a little too hard at my idiocy on that one. Also, the waitress at Red Robin lost my credit card, to which sannion replied, "Well, you did want to Call upon the Goddess of Chaos" :-\ She ended up finding it after a few awkward moments, thank Eris.?!
Unfortunately, sannion headed home after the movie, and erl_queen & I finished our walk back to her place where my car was parked. Having had time to let our food digest, it was much easier to finish our Walk by this time. I was even a little more able to form coherent thoughts and process incoming messages now. We talked mostly about our Experiences in putting on various projects (writing, teaching, events, workshops, newsletters, promotions, etc.) in our respective Spiritual fields. By now, it was getting pretty late, and when I got home around 8pm, I crashed out on the comfy-sofa watching some mindless action movie before passing out around 10. I slept like a baby last night.
All in all, I had an absolutely beautiful & adventurous day. I feel very lucky to have such awesome individuals as sannion & erl_queen that live in this wonderful town of Eugene with me. Although we definitely have our own different Practices and approaches, I think we can connect in several manners, not the least of which is our open-mindedness and mutual respect for the high level of importance that we all place on our respective Spiritual Lives.
Agape!