Eris Strikes!

Well, I finally finished the Principa Discordia.  What a ride!

Lady Eris is a trip.  Her name given by the Discordians is Eris Kallisti Discordia, Goddess of Chaos and Confusion.

She's not as bad as the Greeks and Romans dictated, no...

She's playful and mischevious, and gets a little bitchy sometimes.

Pretty much sums Her up I think. Yeah, right:  You can't sum up the Goddess of Chaos and Confusion.

But, it is what it is.

Anyway, I've noticed since reading and thinking about the book that my life has already started to change in a chaotic way.

One way is that I asked my witchcraft mentor from school some adult sexual questions that had to do with spirit and Deity.  Turns out, she just ignored them.  I guess I crossed some boundary of being a "good wiccan" (which I never was anyway) and the more she ignored me, the more pissed off and boiling I got.

So, I said fuck it.

I'm not going to sit here and say I know more than they do, no... but my experiences the past 4 years have been all over the metaphysical spectrum, and honestly every lesson I've been doing (again) for 3rd degree has been through gritted teeth:  I couldn't hardly fuk'n stand the test questions, nor the empirical (and having been able to compare the teachings of wicca to everything else that I've delved into magickally) attitudes.

Frankly, I think my greatest crime was that I asked too many questions.

In short:  Fuck it.  I'm done.  I quit.

Eris says, "Rafe don't need this wicca shit.  Gone".

I dropped out of 3rd degree, the school's newsletter and annoying begging emails for money (I already bought a lifetime membership.  Live and learn) and other seasonal bullshit (and an excuse for begging for more money again).

I also banned my "mentor" from my Facebook friends list for the crime of pissing me off and making me feel like I did something wrong asking sexual/spiritual questions and wanting clarification.

Holy fucking shit I actually thought we were all adults.  What was I thinking?

Wicca is just another religion, as fucked up as any other.  Don't agree?  Don't care.

Walk a mile in my shoes and see through my eyes, then hate on my perspectives.

Otherwise, hug trees and hump bunnies.

My wiccan days are now over.

Eris draws close

Little Miss Eris has come on board the Rafe train full force it seems.  I seem to have a knack for Greek/Roman Goddesses.  *Shrugs*

You've gotta give Her credit:  She's not boring.  Never boring.

I don't really know if my reading of the book has attracted Eris into my life, but honestly it's all good.

She's not evil, I know the difference now.

But she's is mischevious, and she hates to be bored, oh yes, if things are stagnant and boring she'll change that stuff quick.

This is Eris going, "Rafe, huh?  He seems to be stuck in a rut.  Ixfay Omingcay Ightray Puay".

Eris is the enemy of stagnation and boring, static order.

From the Principa Discordia:

*The Aneristic Principle is that of APPARENT ORDER; the Eristic Principle is that of APPARENT DISORDER. Both order and disorder are man made concepts and are artificial divisions of PURE CHAOS, which is a level deeper that is the level of distinction making.

With our concept making apparatus called "mind" we look at reality through the ideas-about-reality which our cultures give us. The ideas-about- reality are mistakenly labeled "reality" and unenlightened people are forever perplexed by the fact that other people, especially other cultures, see "reality" differently. It is only the ideas-about-reality which differ. Real (capital-T True) reality is a level deeper that is the level of concept.

We look at the world through windows on which have been drawn grids (concepts). Different philosophies use different grids.

A culture is a group of people with rather similar grids. Through a window we view chaos, and relate it to the points on our grid, and thereby understand it. The ORDER is in the GRID. That is the Aneristic Principle.

Western philosophy is traditionally concerned with contrasting one grid with another grid, and amending grids in hopes of finding a perfect one that will account for all reality and will, hence, (say unenlightened westerners) be True. This is illusory; it is what we Erisians call the ANERISTIC ILLUSION. Some grids can be more useful than others, some more beautiful than others, some more pleasant than others, etc., but none can be more True than any other.

DISORDER is simply unrelated information viewed through some particular grid. But, like "relation", no-relation is a concept. Male, like female, is an idea about sex. To say that male-ness is "absence of female-ness", or vice versa, is a matter of definition and metaphysically arbitrary. The artificial concept of no-relation is the ERISTIC PRINCIPLE.

The belief that "order is true" and disorder is false or somehow wrong, is the Aneristic Illusion. To say the same of disorder, is the ERISTIC ILLUSION.

The point is that (little-t) truth is a matter of definition relative to the grid one is using at the moment, and that (capital-T) Truth, metaphysical reality, is irrelevant to grids entirely. Pick a grid, and through it some chaos appears ordered and some appears disordered. Pick another grid, and the same chaos will appear differently ordered and disordered.*

Reality is the original Rorschach.

Eris, coming up with a question to stick into my head to get me pissed at my mentor and quit wicca.

I have my kids for the summer.  I was so excited the night before I stayed up to 5am because my brain wouldn't shut off.  Next thing I know I missed a phone call @ 8am (actually, I answered it according to the phone log) that was reminding me of a counseling appt. the following day.

Yeah.

Well, that shit didn't happen:  I was a no show for the appt.  This is kind of a big deal because you only get two chances, and that's strike one.

I began thinking about it, and you know?  All I do at the counselor is talk about this shit that I post here anyway, it's not like we talk about issues (although, in their eyes this whole shebang is an issue). 

But, it's not one they know how to fix, because it's metaphysical.  I'm not seeing little green men, I'm getting fucked by a succubus.  Mmm... 

Where the fuck was I?

Oh yeah, well... the point is I was just using the counseling as being able to talk to someone about all this spirit and magick stuff who couldn't run away.  Lol.  

Well, it's the truth.

Anyway, I finally decided I don't need that shit anymore, either.  Especially with the kids here full time, now.  My time needs to be centered on them this summer.

I got lots of shit to do now... plus I only really need counseling in the winter when my bipolar is trying to end my ass.  Winters are my personal hell.  

Summers?  Well... I'm all good for the most part.  I do get extra hyper and hypomanic sometimes.  I gotta watch that shit in the summer.  But you can't counsel that shit... nothing anyone can do about it.

At that time it's up to me along with a fucking immense expenditure of energy to not get too wild.

So... I'm going to make the next appt. the last one.  This is just counseling, I'm not stupid enough to get off of bipolar meds.  Two different animals, two different health providers.

It looks like this summer I'm going to be teaching both me and my daughter some magickal lessons I've come across that I'm very impressed with.  I'm going to be teaching my son (who's too young and not able to process magick yet, or explain it without me getting called on the carpet at his school or something else ugly) the 7 hermetic laws that I wrote about earlier. 

I'm going to drill them into that boy's head until he has such a grasp of them that as he grows he will understand and never forget them.  I wish someone taught me that stuff at his age (and the stuff I'm going to teach my daughter at her age).

The Discordian's "Sacred Chao"

*A SERMON ON ETHICS AND LOVE (From the book Principa Discordia)

One day Mal-2 asked the messenger spirit Saint Gulik to approach the Goddess and request Her presence for some desperate advice. Shortly afterwards the radio came on by itself, and an ethereal female Voice said YES?

"O! Eris! Blessed Mother of Man! Queen of Chaos! Daughter of Discord! Concubine of Confusion! O! Exquisite Lady, I beseech You to lift a heavy burden from my heart!"

WHAT BOTHERS YOU, MAL? YOU DON'T SOUND WELL.

"I am filled with fear and tormented with terrible visions of pain. Everywhere people are hurting one another, the planet is rampant with injustices, whole societies plunder groups of their own people, mothers imprison sons, children perish while brothers war. O, woe."

WHAT IS THE MATTER WITH THAT, IF IT IS WHAT YOU WANT TO DO?

"But nobody wants it! Everybody hates it."

OH. WELL, THEN STOP.
At which moment She turned herself into an aspirin commercial and left The Polyfather stranded alone with his species.*

http://www.principiadiscordia.com/book/1.php 

Read the book for free.  It's some crazy stuff that's meaningless... or is it?  That's the point.

Well, regardless... changes are afoot and someone has taken the reins.  I would imagine it's Eris, but I'm not too scared.  "Too scared" I said, lol.  I've felt evil and this ain't it.  But shit's moving and inertia is being broken in my life, no matter the cost.  I hate change, I admit it.  I feel rather like I've been checked into Chaos Memorial Hospital for inert souls.

Or... maybe Eris is bored.  

They say that once you understand Chaos a bit you're Hers.  Do I?  

I have no fucking idea.

But as the Discordians say, "Jesus saves, but Eris is a better lay" :)

Just remember:  She's playful and mischevious and gets a little bitchy sometimes :P