FRAG/MENTS

The line and the dot

2025-07-26T18:50:00.003+02:00

When you don't know what you're doing, but you're doing it, you can stumble into your own emblem, signature, and form in quite the way you haven't seen anywhere else. My clay project has taken off, and it already made me say, hallelujah, here comes something original, my testament.

The world is full of pots and pans. I now make some myself, as if the world needs more. But since I've acquired both a kiln and a wheel, I now find myself discovering what I can do.

When my first test pieces came out of the fire, I saw what I was going to do more of: explore the idea of 'the line and the dot' in relation to the idea of making a transmission, mystic style. And in the process write some haiku poems about it.

The line and the dot
Testament to lineage

Cracked clay and fine love

Porcelain perfection

2025-03-07T21:12:00.012+01:00

These are the books. In clay from. I'm making porcelain vessels. They have shifting round corners, as I haven't used a throwing wheel. Yet. But it's coming. Meanwhile, the whiteness of it all, the here and now that manifests like shards through fragments of memory, compels me. My first, small collection of hand built pieces out of French clay has been sent to the kiln. If the god of fire will be with me, I will make investments. In fire. I will get my own studio and sink into the utter, perfect beauty of my passion. The music in this short presentation is by Francois Couperin, Les barricades mysterieuses. I used the same fragment, though played at a much higher speed by Alexandre Tharaud, some 15 years ago, when I courted the frame drums in the exquisite company of Zohar Fresco. There I went to another round corner of the heaven. I don't want to say that so much depends on rhythm, timing, and momentum. And yet... The Childless Witch tells that story. Another fragment on this World Book Day.

The perfumed fortune

2024-06-25T23:52:00.003+02:00

Sometimes people ask me: 'what are you doing these days?' My answer is often simple: 'nothing I haven't done before.' In my work with the cards I've been particularly good at smelling rats. When I get too much of that, I turn to smelling perfumes, especially the ones of my own concoction. I compose fragrances from natural plant material for my own pleasure and that of a few select. I apply wizardry and alchemy to my olfactory art and science, and in the process I amuse myself a great deal. The scents I come up with are out of this world – if I may say so myself. Though others said it too. But since I've never worked for validation or towards being held in unexamined exaltation by either flatterers or sincere people, I don't concern myself with feedback and opinions. I give in to my sheer curiosity motivated by the opposite of self-importance and opportunistic righteousness and I pay attention to the changing of seasons. Summer is near, and I hear the flowers wafting their scents from invisible places. I'm writing a new book on scent and divination, perfumed fortunes and rotten skulls, roses and the smell of indole. I burn frankincense and myrrh in praise of shadows, exorcising demons too, or the shallow thinkers who signal endless virtues, empty tropes of our modern times. I myself am ancient, and so is my magic.

If that's not true, it should be

2024-06-08T23:09:00.002+02:00

Due to their nature fragments get scattered. Mine here have long been both scattered and forgotten. But on occasion the fragments come back, or there's a gaze that looks back, conjuring them into the present through the past – a case of imagology or the phenomenon of cached images. But then we can say that about any image we happen to look at...

Take the image above. It was taken on the night of June 7, 2024 in my bathroom, while I was getting ready to go bed. As I couldn't fall asleep, I played with the filters on my phone. I applied a simple combination to the self-portrait, and then posted it on my social media, Instagram first and then Facebook via automatic share. The image had the following caption:

2:45AM on the way to bed, glasses off and disheveled hair, you catch a glimpse of yourself in the mirror, and you wonder who that person is. Hag comes to mind first, but then you also consider the possibility of a movie star in a 60s Italian film. You don’t want to say, Wong Kar Wai, because you don’t want to insult the sublime Hong Kong director.

Then one of my cartomancy students commented: 'the Empress reflects back, and she already knows tomorrow’s mystery and does not give it a second thought because she operates out of the time continuum! If that’s not true, it should be.'

Somehow this comment made me look back at the fragments here that reference the continuum that I'm forever in love with, the mathematical kind, that is, unless, of course, there may be another kind too.

I was furthermore amused by what spark of the imagination this impromptu image suggested in others: 'Fellini,' someone said, 'Wong Kar Wai's Fallen Angels, another proposed. And yet another was even more elaborate: 'I am sure with the right music and light filters, Wong Kar Wai would have this as part of a scene that would demonstrate poetry in motion.'

I was tempted to fall for all of it, but as they say, what is the function of any act of identification, except to stir the fictions of our trivial emotions? Thinking of it in these terms, I'm now tempted to do a whole series of filtered images in the mirror and call it Insomnia, when I remember: I don't write on Fragments anymore... except for the time when someone says, 'if that's not true, it should be,' pointing to how the continuum works – with us in it or outside of it – yet always in mysterious ways, or the ways of bathroom lights at 2:45 in the morning.

A Proustian moment

2024-04-14T22:17:00.001+02:00

Worlds of extremes. Or maybe not. Having rummaged through old papers, the ghosts of the past emerged. I read the cards for my former self. The Magician conjures the Hanged Man, and he goes, Hermit style: ‘what do you want with me?’ I answered not, as I once did, when acting as professor, explaining many things, and in the process enchanting the academia with my wit. Instead, I invited sister dearest to a drive, so I may get my favorite food, smoked eel from another ‘corner’ of my sea. The sea was wild today and the surfers made me jealous. Having lost my own youth, there isn’t much to negotiate with, as I once could. Instead, I anointed myself back home with a magical oil I made myself, and thought about all the ways Proust may have remembered everything wrong.

Oud

2023-12-29T21:40:00.002+01:00

As pure oud enters my nose, my choice between three bottles of sake is settled. I go with love. I am to read cards for a series of questions, but as the strong perfume in the incense I burn dictates: 'you're now stoned,' I think of narratives that feature Fools always at the mercy of Cupid choosing the woman for them. This is only fair, as Fools are not exactly known for discernment. But what of the Empresses of the world in such stories, the ones worthy of more than a Fool's kiss, a kiss that never even comes, alas, as Fools are better at stumbling in the hem of the woman's dress than reaching for her lips? Some Fools decide imperially, 'I'll have her now,' thinking they're cleverer than the Devil himself, but when fate rules, what of such decisions? The oud penetrates my body even deeper and I find myself telling a never ending story...

Not fortune's fool

2023-05-27T23:46:00.007+02:00

I came in here to say something else than what I'm about to say – basically a commercial for my latest trinity of books, Threads, Cross, and Choices, all dealing with the venerable art of cartomancy, the only art these days that keeps us away from hypocrisy, righteous morality, and interminably opinionated yakking about nothing of either substance or consequence.

As in the good old days, I had a flash of insight about the correlation between lust and telepathy, and I came in here to develop a theory about it, or to just drop it like a coin. Heads or tails? How is your luck these days? But as it occurred to me that I'm actually tired of talking things to death, beating a dead horse or flattering the corpse, I've decided to refrain.

So, I give you the books instead. They may not be particularly good books, but this they have in common: they are written from the sincere heart and they release an arrow that goes straight to the target. Bull's eye. Martial arts style. Because once upon a time I was selected for the Romanian national team of archery, so I have a thing for this sort of things – the story of which is now in another book of mine, What is Not.

So yes, the books, let's stick to the books instead of random theories about fortune's fools. You may find that they actually go somewhere.

Thinking with Demons

2022-10-14T20:29:00.002+02:00

Now there are two of them, I said to myself, upon reviewing this year's fine binding publication, Andromalius, Take Two: Goetic Stories from EyeCorner Press.

Romeo and Juliet got company. The 72nd demon of the Goetia got his own 'biography,' and what a mighty one we ended up with, if I must say so myself.

For the ones with a Danish connection still following Frag/ments here, I can say that in addition to the 'standard' magic that this book presents its readers with, there's a longer analysis of Karen Blixen's Luciferian pact with three influential men of her time. 'What was the idea with all that?' academics ask cautiously, as it's embarrassing to admit that one of the most popular literary figures on the Danish scenes was in actuality a Lucifer devotee. I'm not sure I have an answer to that myself. What I suggest instead is that it's quite interesting to 'think with demons.'

As to pacts, how about signing them next time someone offers it, if you should be fortunate enough to come across just the person who can do more than think with demons?

Enjoy Andromalius!

Tarot for Romeo and Juliet

2021-10-15T18:10:00.001+02:00

I blow kisses unto it, my latest book, Tarot for Romeo and Juliet, as I get ready for the launch event at EyeCorner Press in a few days. This is my 15th book in the Philosophy of Divination category. EyeCorner Press also celebrates 15 years of operation.

It was befitting my heart's desire to celebrate the number 15, especially since it's associated with the Devil in the Tarot. It amuses me that the mainstream culture dictates us the idea that the Devil makes us do strange things, and hence we want to stay away. But what if we knew better?

As I look at my celebratory book, filled with silk and passion and gold galore, I think of how a thing of beauty is a thing of beauty, and therefore always conquering the useless idea.

The launch event at my house centers around the passions of the heart. As the heart in love races towards the lover, the idea with this book is that we race towards the thing of beauty.

Infinite love is a thing of beauty, but who gets to experience it? Such an experience is not possible without knowledge of the heart of man. The book investigates into this knowledge, offering in counterpoint prose poems of power.

In these poems Romeo and Juliet fail at communication on the surface of things. But beneath the veil of the impossible, there's another world. A world of arctic cathedrals, books that deal with the topic of thinking with demons, and racing cars. Ayrton Senna makes an appearance, and so does filmmaker Werner Herzog. Romeo and Juliet watch vampire films, and hunger for touches that are not within the reach of any words. A book for the heart whose squinting eyes have perfect vision.

I like October. It's my birthday month. I'm ageing, but my memory is on point. And so is the world's anticipation of this limited edition, fine binding book. I predict a flash sale for the art variations, faster than any Formula One car. I close my eyes to see Senna: 'leave it to me,' he says, grand necromantic style. And I do, I do, for some of us like this sort of love affairs, or relationships with speed, precision, and touches of the soul.

Beyond autumnal hands

2021-09-18T21:08:00.008+02:00

A visual poem of necromantic and romantic flavor.

One for infinite lovers.

Theoretical physics

2021-08-28T20:31:00.001+02:00

Five minutes through my driving through the quiet Danish landscape, I find myself entertaining theoretical physics thoughts, things like boundary conditions. I decide that physicists are welcome to challenge my new theory: if it has a form, it ends. I think of my love of infinities, and how you can’t have too much of it in physics. If you have to test a mathematical proof in physics and you get infinities, then you know you fucked up, the physics professors say. Well, since I’m an undercover poet, I pretend that I get all this already, because, after all, no one understands form better than a poet. ‘Come on, woman,’ the man in the oak tree yells, ‘make up your mind about it.’ This apparition suddenly destabilizes my sunflower yellow wonder, and I wonder whether this is in reference to being a poet and regretting not being a theoretical physicist, or vice versa. And why do I want to punctuate the vice versa with etcetera, now too?

Cars and Cartomancy

2021-07-01T23:03:00.007+02:00

‘The wall moved.’ ‘No, it didn’t.’ ‘Yes, it did, a few millimeters, and it was in my way. That’s why I crashed.’ This is Ayrton Senna talking, explaining why he couldn’t finish a car race in Dallas when he had all the odds with him. As reported by race engineer, Pat Symonds, someone had hit the far end of the concrete block resulting in the track swivelling, so that the leading edge of the block was standing out by a few millimeters. That was enough to make the difference. How could Senna see that? Sense that?

I like this story so much about Ayrton Senna, the legendary Brazilian Formula One driver and god of precision, because it made me understand why, when he died in 1994, the Japanese cried the hardest. This in spite of the fact that Senna at that point was no longer associated with the Japanese, racing for Honda.

Although no one has ever wondered about it, I like to think of a reason. As the Japanese are invested in the concept of kokoro, or the things done with the heart from a standpoint of no compromise, of a death resolve, I like to see how this kokoro crosses national borders, making everyone a samurai, that is to say, if they are able to display it. Senna could. He was just like the most famous swordsman Miyamoto Musashi, who understood timing and precision in the context of death. You draw the sword too early, you’re dead. You break too early, you’re dead. You lose the competition. You break too late, you’re also dead. You lose your life. There’s a lot of mastery that goes into knowing the difference. The masters who possess such knowledge also raise this difference to the status of art. This means that they get inscribed into my book of conjurations. I call on their dead souls and ask them to teach me how I can risk being blown off course, yet without losing it.

As it happens, I’m not into cars and Formula One drivers, except for the fact that I got a taste for it when, in the early ’80s, I watched the French film Un homme et une femme by Claude Leloush (1966), featuring the love story between a car racer who lost his wife to suicide and a widow who lost her husband to an accident. But as I drove through town and the quiet Danish landscape yesterday, I had Senna on my mind. When I get behind the wheel I call on him, as I’m always curious to know how he’d compete when there’s no competition around, for I’m sure he’d find something to race against.

I pay for this privilege: I smoke a pipe and eat Brazilian chocolate. I dedicate the hedonism to Senna. I also read the cards. As Senna was an inveterate Catholic who regularly performed bibliomantic seances by reading verses from the Bible at random that he would then take as the oracular voice of the divine guiding him through the day, I think that he would approve of the Devil’s work here, the name cartomancy happens to go by.

To keep it with the martial arts kokoro, today I offered Senna my Mars pipe, a sweeter chocolate than I personally prefer, and the Sergio Toppi Tarot in the form of a haiku. He got these cards: Justice, the Devil, and Force.

As this reading was a way to thank him for all he did, and also for accompanying me on my own car trips, giving me instruction even as I have to suffer through plodding along at the lowest speed behind some geriatric – myself joining that club soon enough – I saw these cards as a representation of what he was like: a man of justice and a daredevil of great caliber. In the form of a haiku, however, here’s what I see:

When the time is right

The hot Devil rides once more

Helmet of ardor

I like Senna because he operated with simple truths. He knew what his own justice was. His triumvirate was made up by determination, dedication, and competence. Justice here is the woman of method. Competence stems from methodical awareness and self-reflection. Force has the helmet of overcoming obstacles on. The Devil says, ‘if you want it badly enough, then resolve to go for it. Go all in and give it your all without compromise.’

I can’t think of better cards for Senna. The Chariot in the Tarot, the car, didn’t present itself on my table, as one might have expected. But then I wasn’t surprised, as he was done with that. What we got here instead is the exactitude of ‘neither too much, nor too little, but precisely as much as it’s necessary.’ There’s no space for the unnecessary millimeters that push our walls off track and chance. We can’t afford to crash because of it.

I don’t drive the car very often, but I think I might take my kokoro for a spin again tomorrow, commune with Senna again and hear what else he has to say.

Timing

2021-06-20T14:52:00.000+02:00

I clean the house. When I’m done, I sit down to be grabbed by a different kind of vertigo than that of the vacuum cleaner. I listen to Glenn Gould’s Goldberg Variations, both the fast recording of his youth and the slow kind that he did just before his death. I smoke a pipe and watch the soft rain summoning itself on my threshold. The smoke fixes itself into the transfixion that Glenn is capable of. Music critics enjoy describing what he did as a perversion of Bach. But the perverted kind understand this fool who understood exactly what timing is all about. It’s not about speed, method or technique. It’s about infinity. I turn over a Tarot card to see what I’m in attendance to: Death. I glance at a hag stone I picked on the beach, featuring a dog crying. Glenn is now pressing on the keys in such a way so that I understand my role in life: to resurrect the dead. I lift my eyes and fix them on the old rose I picked up in the garden, planted by the mistress who built the house I live in over a hundred years ago. The smoke now goes out the window to caress the wild field that is my property. Some of the yellow flowers on the patio rhyme with the yellow on the Death card. What does a crying dog understand about infinity? ‘This is good, isn’t it?’ Glenn intones beyond the grave. ‘Very good,’ I say. The wind in the wild grass sounds like the corrupted vinyl, and I drop all pretense. Resurrection is also about timing. Glenn knows it because he asked Bach about it. The red rose also knows it, because it can spell ‘infinity.’ Glenn’s fingers hold me spellbound, and I hear the nails in the Coffin unspike themselves, leaving the room scented by the fragrance of the returning soul.

Serendipitous strength

2021-06-11T15:59:00.000+02:00

I'm leafing through the reprint of my first book published 20 years ago, and I'm reminded of a waka poem by Japanese poet Tachibana Akemi. He has a series of poems starting with the line 'How pleasant it is – ' [tanoshimi wa]. The poem I have in mind is this one:

How pleasant it is –
when I'm reading through a book
at my leisure
and see there a person
who is exactly like me

Often we read for identifications, but the best readings are the ones that recognize a perfect mirror. Why? Because mirrors surprise. Surprise with what? The fact that since the mind itself is a mirror, it gets seduced by the conceptual, by what you put in front of it. And what is better – and more lasting – than an idea that's clear at the essential level? Hold this thought and think of the implications of your positioning – here, now, in the flesh and blood – for what you're not ready to see. As yet, and still not, because the premise for the essential idea is wrong.

How? Ask yourself: 'what does it mean to say that I'm here, now, in the flesh and blood, making identifications, when I'm not ready for the idea that what we call here and now and flesh and blood is nothing but an idea?'

Today my old book The Fragment mirrors the trilogy of books under the signature Read like the Devil just launched for the pleasure of all who can say:

how pleasant it is –
to dissolve the useless illusion
that's devoid of seeing how the serendipitous step
through mirrors
is what gives us strength in the understanding of all things

and in that understanding seeing there a person
'who is exactly like me...'

Readiness does not favor the wilful but the wondrous one.

Tale of Spring

2021-04-25T19:09:00.008+02:00

You pick your own flowers and arrange them in just the vase. You send a prayer of forgiveness to the ikebana masters. They roll in their graves, while you’re already lost in your dreams of courtly love, chivalry, and a strong moral spine. The Ming dynasty meets the Fujiwaras and the tale of Genji. There’s poetry of the highest and unmatched battles of the wit. You didn’t become a mathematician because the stories of infinity and infinite love are told so much better in literature. So you took that path. You meet your lover there, in the words and their touch. And when you say, ‘I want to touch you,’ in words that have the strength of the longest infinity, you bring all the Emperors down. They look at the flowers in your eyes, and their desire submits to your spells. ‘Where is my body?’ they wonder, but you keep that a secret.

The birthday wish

2020-10-22T21:05:00.003+02:00

It was my birthday already past 2 AM when I decided to go to bed. The first birthday wish clocked in on Facebook just before I turned the lights off. Stefan Zweig sent me his regards. 'Stefan Zweig? Isn't he dead?' I asked myself, remembering well my teenage crush on his writing and his fate. 'What's Stefan Zweig doing on Facebook, wishing me well on my 52nd birthday?' I got under the warm duvet and felt the lovely hardness of the Japanese tatami and futon I sleep on. I dreamt in fragments. The gist of it was this: 'there's only one that's highest and only one that's longest.' There was laughter in this dream and the softest tenderness. Squirrels too. When I recollect myself, I may tell the story of it in details some day, 'Burning Secret' style. But I got the message. As soon as I opened my eyes, I checked the astro app on my phone. Mercury was exactly on the Ascendant. Stefan Zweig wrote a greeting from the future. Birthdays are strange events. Sometimes we go amok in our own stories.

Heart magic

2020-04-06T16:06:00.001+02:00

At 1.01 at night I go out of the house. At 1.03 I’m on the beach. I muse over the miracle of light. I’m trying to think of something, in spite of the futility of it. I make a better decision. No thought. No action. I’m staying with the moment. In the moment. On the way back I notice something on the path. Not one but 6. 6 hearts. ‘The force is strong with this one’, I say without deliberation. The moon knows what it’s doing. The heart knows what it’s doing. I’m beyond time. This I know too, because sometimes I say things like, ‘it feels like yesterday.’ Other times I say, ‘it feels so long ago’. So which time am I thinking of, when I give in to the illusion of it? The long or the short? Is there a difference? My heart is beyond time. The force is strong with this one. Like the moon face, when it knows magic.

Forbidden colors

2020-04-01T15:18:00.000+02:00

When I turned 50 I made a special Tarot for my own pleasure and viewing. I take it out sometimes and let it hit me in all the forbidden places. Also on occasion I read with it for others, as a special treat. That's when all the colors get hotter, the skin in the game, with the pomegranate a fountain of youth, quenching the thirst of the desert. Here's the forbidden colors for the sake of the continuum of the imagination that goes on ad infinitum.

SHOES SPELL

2016-03-08T22:44:00.001+01:00

SHOES SPELL

♠

The A, the E, the I, the O, the U

Mirrors dissolving on my tongue,

Eclipsing my breath.

I AM . . . dot dot

A pot of luck

Next to my best shoes on my altar.

Is it tonight I sink that boat

Of my last judgment?

‘Not I’, said I, ‘will live with ghosts,

The ghosts of language,

The ghosts of what dictates I am the queen of something.'

My shoes know better when they retrace my steps to the young pauper,

ME. BUT.

It was my nothing that got the better of you.

I will find you, if I must,

At the bottomless sea where I put you.

But tonight,

Tonight I place my black shoes on my altar,

To venerate the stories that they tell,

While my naked toes sink into lust,

And the telluric forces of what must

Just BE.

© Camelia Elias

I'M AVAILABLE

2016-01-20T16:44:00.000+01:00

I’m available to the stories that the crows tell in stark winter.

I’m available to showing up in other people’s dreams, where I drive a white Mini Cooper and service a long line of seekers waiting outside my house for my gifts.

I’m available to the cord magic that the spirit of my genius sister weaves, because we both understand time.

I’m available to the walks with my she-goddess dog materialized as snow and fur and breath and a good dose of attention to the sky and the earth, wind and crystalized water.

I’m available to praying for my 12 tree witnesses outside my apartment just cut down to the roots by corporate progress. ‘Transform this shit,’ I command them softly, and they answer from below: ‘Our dying roots will do it, at your command.’

I’m available to my partner who believes in my subtle wickedness and witchyness whose force can bring down the house and other empires. ‘Well done,’ he always says, even when he suffers.

I’m available to my Yoruba Gelede mask whose imperial stature identifies the soul working on the right hand path and on the left hand path.

I’m available to putting a spell on my insulting boss so he ends up as a sleeping beauty with no savior.

I’m available to being saved myself by grace and bliss in my ecstatic dance with life.

I’m available to saying: ‘I don’t think so’, ‘Not today,’ and ‘Why don’t you just fuck off?’ in the name of my nondualist religion that only makes sense to me – Oh, glory.

I’m available to my alchemist friend who reminds me of the first lesson he gave me: ‘Don’t forget this: We don’t just say, fuck off. We say, fuck off and die.’

I’m available to the stories that the Tarot tells, the questions that the cards make me ask, and their whipping of my ass when I go small: ‘Ask big, will you?,’ the Tarot says, though its voice is a hell of a lot more commanding than I can conjure here.

I’m available to the force that stretches my mental and emotional elastic: ‘How is your spying on yourself today? Is there a difference between your yes and amen?’

I’m available to my devotion to saying: ‘No difference, only distinction.’

I’m available to being clear about what IT is, whatever its form.

I’m available to Medea speaking from beyond her grave of her poisoned lover and children. ‘Was it good for you?’, I ask her, and she says, ‘Yes, it was sublime.’

I’m available to sending smiles and blowing kisses to my dead parents, every time a shamanic gate is opened by my chief ally, the wormwood.

I’m available to the booze that I make myself, and dedicate to the stars whose names are ‘Your Fortune, or ‘The Demon’s Head.’

I’m available to peyote and the Guadalupe in the fire. ‘Come geometry. Get my head between my legs, and let me see infinite lines and the restored to beauty decaying head of Saint Catherine of Siena.’

I’m available to Lilith whose Qliphotic incense sends me straight to hell. ‘Hello, I’m Camelia, who the fuck are you?’ I ask boldly beyond the gate, and the demons go, ‘We’re your servants, mistress. Will you tell us a story tonight? Come on, read us a poem, or a fairytale.’

I’m available to the amphitheater of my palace of memory where Oscar winning actresses play a witchy game of transferring power: ‘Are you a Jew, or what? Get over here. This unnamed Crone appointed to the task needs to wrap this white silk tallit around your left hand. Show us your naked tits, so we can see what’s holy.’

I’m available to my Holy Guardian Angel who makes my heart beat when it stops for no good reason.

I’m available to the Blue Bird Order and the Tibetan monk initiating me in the art of swinging my ritual belt.

I’m available to my life and the bells tolling.

I’m available to saying ‘Yes, I get this.’

I’m available to my infinity.

§

Published first on Taroflexions.

CORPORATE ANONYMOUS

2016-01-14T21:55:00.000+01:00

Things I do on a Thursday evening. I attend a large webinar with the corporate bros. The chat is booming: Chad and Drew and Michael and David and Joe and Barry and Stewart and Anthony and Richard and Jason and Paul and Thomas and Taylor boom boom boom. All fine warriors. Boom. Then Will and Franck and Eric and Chris and Martin and Anonymous. Anonymous? Wait. What's happening? Anonymous? Is that a woman? I asked a question. Not anonymous. I broke the spell. Boom.

Abbey of Sainte Foy, Conques, c1050. Image found on Littera Scripta

ALL THAT GLITTERS

2015-12-31T21:35:00.000+01:00

All that glitters… On my walk tonight with the she-goddess dog, Frigg, I found an Angel at the crossroads. A perfect omen on the last day of the year. I’ve been hunting for omens since December 26th and until January 6, to keep the tradition of living the magical life alive.

In this particular context I can’t think of a better sign than the one that says, protection, strong magic, and flying. What do you suppose those wings are for?

In the more general context of practicing getting above all things without exception, I find this sign as a sign of alignment with all that is given by the grace of the higher powers. And yes, just as I believe in strong winds or earthquakes that can take your house in a snap, for all your achievements, so I believe in higher powers. This is not a conceptual thing for me, but rather the result of observation: there are physical laws that remind us that we are definitely not the center of all things.

Perhaps this is the reason why I commune with the likes of dead magicians such as Giordano Bruno, and a host of fascinating non-dualists, both dead and alive.

I’m here to celebrate my life, and the strong wings that carry it.

May you all have a magical year. Let truth cut through you, and with it, let a strong breath enchant you.

THE PIG AND THE PEACOCK

2015-10-16T21:37:00.004+02:00

When my father died unexpectedly in 1976 at the age of 39, leaving my mother a smashingly beautiful widow at 40 with 2 small children, everyone thought of fate and chance, odds and omens. I can tell interesting stories that have been woven in and out of the perspective of my life, but suffice here to say that I sometimes get an eerie feeling that revolves around an imaginary dialogue between my mother and my father: ‘Why didn’t it work out for us?’ my father asks, and mother answers: ‘Because you served the gods that were not my gods.’

Some two months after my father’s death, my mother, a logician and metaphysician of the dark, had a dream: My father was buried in his grave, but it was possible to see him from his waist to the head. He said to her: ‘Stop crying. I lived exactly as much as my life thread allowed for.’ She stopped weeping after that.

My father died in November in the house of my mother’s cousin in the country. My mother’s family has been famous for one thing: their generosity. We could visit any time we wanted and stay for as long as we wanted. At the time of my father’s death we were all there to enjoy the final harvest, the making of wine, and the slaughtering of pigs.

I witnessed the whole process: The ritual burning of the animal, the cooking, and the final touch to the sausages from the local German butcher. It was a sacrosanct tradition to always invite the Germans in the area to prepare the cold cuts. I used to think of them as the master alchemists. I still do.

BLACK CAULDRON

It is as clear to me as daylight that the only reason why I remember all of this is because of the smells. It’s enough for me to utter the name of the place, to have my nostrils invaded by the glorious smells of traditional cooking. The women would prepare the intestines. A holy cup of blood was passed around for all to drink, and the roasted pig fat was overflowing the black cauldrons. These were big cauldrons that could fit the cooking of 3 whole pigs.

Only god knows what the Germans threw into them. The smell of spices and roots was very potent. The fact is that I know of no drug that is more powerful. Sometimes I think the butcher used a dash of juice from cold-pressing the nightshades. Everyone got stoned. Though most of the family just blamed it on the wine.

MAGIC IN THE BLOOD

Some ask me today: ‘So, it runs in the family, doesn’t it?’, without specifying what IT refers to, the assumption being that there’s some kind of magic in play in my life, or in the way I engage with the world. Perhaps. I think of the alchemy of the soul, and I’m convinced that it has to do with smell. How do we get to know God? Through smell, if you ask me. I try to give others a sense of my understanding of this, through my writings. Some get it. Some don’t.

And then the occasional surprises. Although I mainly write for myself and strangers, as good woman Gertrude Stein used to say about her own writing practice – assuming that one writes in a non- judgmental way when one does it for strangers – something to aim for, indeed – I often receive small gifts of appreciation for what I say from people I don’t know. This is the best kind of recognition, as it materializes the thoughts I try to articulate.

THE PERFUMED LETTER

Today I’ve received a letter, hand-written with a fountain-pen, containing 4 sheets of carefully pressed herbs and a fan made of peacock feathers. It came from a fellow Romanian living in Greece. Lady Madalina Chitulescu befriended me on Facebook some years ago, and we’ve had since then sporadic conversations. But Madalina informs me that she follows closely what I do and what I write and because she finds it all very inspiring, she wants to show me her appreciation. As my 47th birthday approaches, she decided to send me a gift in the form of smell and feathers to fan the smell with.

Speaking of magic, I have to say that this particular gift sent me straight back to the village I so often visited with my mother, and it reminded me of the most magical time we’ve always had there. I am thoroughly grateful for this gift as it allows me to connect to my ancestors through smell.

ANCESTRAL POWER

As October is the month when we seek to honor the memory of our ancestors, I asked the cards:

How can we honor our ancestral power?

The Hanged Man, The Devil, The Charioteer

Jean Noblet Marseille Tarot (1650) by Jean-Claude Flornoy

The cards here have answered in an interesting way:

When life is suspended, and then sent to the underworld, the best is to keep going. We must acknowledge the bonds we have, but find a way to drive our own narratives forward. The underground forces can carry us through. They can be used as a vehicle for transportation. We are not the same as the dead. We must find our own gods to serve, and leave the ones that are not of our own making behind.

If in doubt, burn some incense, or cook something powerful with a bunch of herbs that will raise the dead and feed the living.

A grand thank you to Madalina. I loved this surprise. It tells me to keep going.

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Originally published on Taroflexions.

CHAIN OF CHAINS

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– Master Bruno, is it possible to say ‘I’m in love? Without the masks?’
– It is possible to say you’re in love without the masks.
– Master Bruno, my problem is that I’m in love and can do nothing about it.
– Remember the 'and yet'.
– Master Bruno, teach me the lesson of the chain of chains, vinculum vinculorum.
– There is a spell that you can use. Raise me from the dead. Make love to me. Read my palm. In it you will find the vis vitalis. It’s the key to the tears from not looking.
– Master Bruno, my body will smell of jasmine tonight. I will not read your palm. I will read your cards. I will make love to you and you will fix the arrow in my knee.

LETTERING THE GODDESS

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Letter from Rachel Pollack (Photo: Camelia Elias)

When the Goddess comes to visit she comes in the shape of a magical writer. She writes on embossed stationary and golden cards. There are dunes and holes in the paper, and you swear that you can smell something resembling sand by the beach in a far away Northern country.

The Goddess uses three different inks: Purple, green, and blue. She introduces her allies to you: ‘Usually Queen Elephant does not consort with King Frog in the same letter, but they both wanted to meet you.’

Letter from Rachel Pollack (Photo: Camelia Elias)

She tells stories of other magicians, and insists on the theatricality of the Real. The real is not just a ballet coming out of Bruce Lee’s belly. She extends Rabbinic thought with cautionary tales of Lilith as a street worker, back doors and naughty men giving their semen to Goddesses more powerful than them. The Shekkinah shouts and moans: ‘Fuck you, God’, and Promethea yells: ‘I am the holy Splendor of the imagination. I cannot be destroyed.’

Letter from Rachel Pollack (Photo: Camelia Elias)

When the Goddess comes to visit, thundering up and down the page, splashing and slashing words, I can almost hear her asking with her owl’s gaze: ‘How is your writing today? How is your plot? Is your character strong enough? What’s up with your empathy? Are you making bold statements? Are you taking others on a brave ride of cooling down passion in the cold sea? You can’t write if you can’t think. But what you think must be the stuff of thresholds. Cold thinking is condensed thinking. Do you feel that pressure? Is your dive deep enough? If you can still breathe, you failed. Not even the fish feel sorry for you. A good thing King Frog insisted on making your acquaintance. Frogs have sensitive skins. They are masters at knowing the other.’

Letter from Rachel Pollack (Photo: Camelia Elias)

When the Goddess comes to visit as a magical writer she makes you swear that you will respond in kind. You decide to use black ink, to stuff Lilith’s mouth with, so she can give and receive the forbidden fruit, the elixir of saying yes and no, all at the same time, perplexing everyone. Only the thunder will know what it means.

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Thank you, Rachel Pollack, for your genius and gift of friendship.