S.J. Reisner's Blog, page 82

A Comparison

I made the observation recently that some occult authors really seem to have a hard time communicating in plain English. This seems to happen a great deal in the realm of "Limited Edition Hardcover" occult publishing. They take an author who writes really pretty sentences and have him write an entire book of them.  While this might be great for people who are really into flowery prose,  I prefer my occult texts to be direct. Don't blow sunshine up my ass or use a lot of metaphor. You'll only ...

Little Things

It's amazing how it's the little things that can suck up so much time. Or at least things we think are little things that turn into big things. A perfect example of this: Recently my husband and I both needed some pants hemmed.  You would think this little chore wouldn't take me more than a few hours. Nope, it turns out that hemming pants is a bit of an art. While I'm a competent sewer  my sewing really is more functional than pretty.  This little chore ended up becoming a huge chore and...

Reader Etiquette

As a writer, I get a great deal of e-mail.  Most, about 99.9% of readers, are courteous and polite. I love my readers and I appreciate the fact that they enjoy my work or have found it enlightening or inspiring in some way. And on the fiction side of the fence I have no problems with my readers whatsoever.  Fiction readers are just fun!

However, on the esoteric side of the fence, I tend to get some very demanding mail. People seem to forget that first off – there's a real human being behind...

The Demise of the 2011 Garden

So, many of you may have probably noticed I stopped posting about the garden the first part of July. For those who didn't know, there's a reason for this. We had a bit of a storm that took out the garden. It happens sometimes. ::shrug::  Luckily all my trees survived. So we shall try-try again next year. In the meantime you may see posts about my peppers and tomatoes. banana tree, lemon tree, and other indoor plants I'm currently growing. I am also going to try growing some magickal plants...

Tinctures

While it may seem my tinctures are expensive, just remember that each bottle is a half ounce, which equals about four drams. Most places charge about $5 a dram for specialized magickal oils, so really this price is about standard. I just don't use small bottles because I bottle them in what I've got.  The tinctures are created for my own use so are charged as I'm making them and spend at least one week within a pillar rite for full charging. This doesn't mean you can't charge them yourself...

Vacation Dreaming…

And this time not really dreaming of anything special or tropical. No – instead I'm thinking I'd like to take a few weeks and get some stuff done around the house. My office, once again, is in a pitiful state. My corner of the bedroom is a mess. I need to clean the closets (we have too many blankets). I want to replace all our old towels. DH and I seem to have a lot of duplicate items, too.  See, getting married when your older has the unfortunate side effect of causing you to end up with...

An Update

Still in the midst of my upswing. Well, perhaps more appropriately I am attempting to get back into an upswing. Of course the tricky thing about upswings is I need organization around me in order to be able to concentrate and produce. So today I'm going to do some literal house cleaning.

Spent Saturday night with some fellow Daemonolaters. I needed that interaction. Sometimes it's good to just be able to talk magick face-to-face with people.  I'm doing my annual RtLFR next weekend probably.   ...

Focus

It's interesting to read a blog and see what the author focuses on. You can tell, for example, by reading my blog that I'm a people watcher. I also tend to rant a great deal about the awful, impolite, incorrect or annoying things that people do.  Or at least I find them awful, impolite, incorrect or annoying.  These are probably not healthy things for me to focus on. I probably ought to redirect that focus.

Some bloggers talk politics. Others talk writing or projects. Others still talk about f...

In A World of Experts

I made the comment on FB how fascinating I found it that so many people think they're experts just because they have an opinion. To take it one step further it's even worse when people with opinions dole out advice (based on their opinions) unbidden.

It's a curious phenomena.

I've met the mother with one child who thinks she is an expert in child rearing just because she was able to get her child through the terrible-twos without a hitch. She suddenly becomes judgemental and all-knowing...

Bully This

Man-the-fuck-up and grow up! That was the advice a male acquaintance (who is no more) had for people who were posting a paragraph to their FB status against bullying. I think I'd like to talk about bullies for a moment because it came up a lot this past weekend. First when talking to an old school-chum, and again during a conversation about spanking and child abuse.

Basically I was horribly bullied by my classmates when I was a kid. I switched schools in grade school and those of you have...