The Diamond Island

This is the last post you have been waiting for.

There was a commenter five years ago who asked me what this was all leading up to. Good question! As if I knew.

It’s been leading up to this. I started this blog with the intention of it being a creative writing outlet for me that other people would find interesting. However, the traffic on this blog has been nearly non-existent for five years.

I have little sense of the energy people find in what I do here.

I can do creative writing without having to post it in public, so I’m going to retreat to the innermost sanctum of my workshop and do the labor there.

There will still be stuff. This is the Transmutation phase. That means I’m changing the way I do things here. What I will likely focus on are reviews and the occasional episode of some kind of artistic creation I put out. I’m going to change the format and design of this website in a little while.

What brought about this change in attitude?

About a year and a half ago I felt the website had done all the work it was going to do for me. I’ve been working on thoughts and prayers that might help me figure out what comes next. All while I was going on the biggest adventure of my entire life.

That adventure is now done.

I have plucked the onion from the ashes of the Gingerbread Witch Spider and received the treasures within.

I am just myself.

The Battle of the Galaxies is complete. I’ve done what I came back to Portland to do.

Now I regroup, rest, and reflect. I have other tasks that require my attention. I’ll attend to them in the days to come.

Stay tuned; there’s bound to be some interesting revelations and strange happenings as the transmutation takes hold. This is the year of the snake, after all!

Today is my birthday. Holy cats, these things creep up on you like The Behinder!

Lots of new plant energy coming in as Spring activates more by the day. Winter Wolf is starting to get the sleepies; been a most mysterious and unusual Winter this time. Me, I’m just glad to still be kicking it and capable of having another round from the Slack Bar.

Great cards, including one with a Bigfoot on it that says, “Believe.” There’s a message I can believe in! Thanks Duke, you’re awesomesauce.

Speaking of Bigfoot, got the complete series of In Search Of… on DVD from K’s dad. I scored me the ancient tome of imagination and inner discovery. My kid self is squeeing loud enough to be heard all the way from the past, this is so cool.

Yeah, time to sit down with some eerie music, Leonard Nimoy, and crazy psychic investigation. This is the X-Files before the days of Twin Peaks, yo. I’ll be doing some serious wizard research with this pup, let me tell you.

Also cool, lots of well wishes from friends and family over on the social media channels. I’m always warmed and pleased by the words of the people I care about. That’s a reminder to count my blessings and give thanks for the gold in my life. That stuff shines brighter than any physical treasure.

In the meantime, I’m taking it low key and staying home to watch 22 minute episodes on UFOs, the Loch Ness Monster, Ghosts, and the Abominable Snowman, among others. Tasty snacks, delicious beverages, cats all over me on the newly named Cat Couch, and K snuggled up with me under a blankee. Time to take some time and just be.

I haven’t done a menagerie daily life post in a while, so guess what? Menagerie!

The Battle of the Galaxies, my catch-phrase for the crazy adventure both psychic and non-psychic in which I find myself, continues on. Killer bees, patrol fighters, special assistance cruisers, attack armor, and mega-units. All sorts of constructs are assisting me in the battle.

Plus, I have numerous friends galore helping out with the assist. The famous fifty; love to ya’ll and shout out holler of respect! Hey, every ship and every thought transmission counts here.

The thing about PDX is that it’s essentially a gingerbread house populated by a gigantic witch energy being. All the groovy and delicious wonders of the land are yours to partake of, but you got to give a pound of flesh to the witch first. That means a bloodsucking freak pipeline to your wallet as well as your state of mind.

And holy crumbcake is this entity hungry!

I’ve been busy though, and I haven’t missed much. Figured out who the backstabbers are. Got a handle on how to get help if I need it from the most unlikely of locales. And I even have a plan now that I’ve got an idea of what to focus on and what to ignore.

If nothing else the battle has been worth the trouble because of what I’ve recovered from the past and recognized in the present. This is huge. That frees up energy I hadn’t even known was blocked. It sets me free to do things I hadn’t thought possible. The hold has got some loot I didn’t expect.

I’m whole.

But even though I’m doing everything possible, leaving no option off the table in my battle plan, ultimately I’m at the mercy of luck. This is one of those crazy and courageous ventures you make because you need to, not because it makes sense or is even a sane thing to do.

That gingerbread witch is a large collective entity that needs healing on a massive scale. I’m going all out with maximum warp AND shields, but while she’s taken some hilarious point blank pranks that witch is still ready to party.

It isn’t just me. K has noticed it too and is a little surprised at this plot twist. I see others struggling against the gingerbread witch of PDX as well: regular shakedowns of their live brains and ducats. That battle-ax doesn’t jack everyone exactly the same, but the fear is still there at the base of their spines.

Things are certainly looking bleak, but I still have a few surprises up my sleeves. If I can’t do this now then I could never have done it, and yet I believe now I was correct many years ago in my initial approach to the battle. I just didn’t have enough strength back then. Maybe I don’t even now. But right now anything goes. Watch out!

In the meantime, I’m mining for gold and doing my work despite the duh-buddies, draguloids, and hidden units. My purpose is still the same: To do what I’m meant to do while I’m alive, for the sake of all beings.

I understand that I’m being vague here. It’s hard to be clearer and more accessible when things are so difficult and all-at-once. I’m in the middle of things and doing tremendous work in the realm of the mysterious.

Then again, maybe the point isn’t to defeat the gingerbread witch physically and psychically, or even affect her such that she stops jacking people who live here. By stealing back what was mine, I’ve outwitted her and she can never forget it was me who tricked her.

And just like that, I won.

The Celtic new year has just gotten underway, and here I am a little dazed at the last year of activity. Never mind all the nuclear meltdowns spewing radiation from afar, east coast earthquakes that feel like a jackhammer wedging of earth, hurricanes of doom missing by a few hundred feet, and rainfall soaking the loch above levels I’ve not seen since I can remember. The external world has been an expression of an inner volcano clearing its throat for an eruption.

Building a UFO can seem a little like a Noah’s Ark project at times like these.

Internally, all my life energies have gone into deep, sweeping currents rushing through the earth. I’ve had to get by on emergency life support and reserve warp only. Right at a time when I’ve been fighting a lot of battles on the home front. Lucerna’s kung fu lessons have basically kept me alive long enough to adapt to the transformational energies going on. The last year has essentially been panic and fear, dialed way up for sustained periods of time. The blinking and beeping lights on the emergency panel have been loud and overwhelming.

Thank goodness for the life support music from UFO girl!

In other news, it ain’t just me. Hek-sistah X is off on a retreat to re-visit places of great meaning to her, Hexe the Incorrigible is recovering from illness, and Alexi is busy fighting for his dream in a new land. The Quest Station is full of notes and doodles galore, all around adventure is ON THE GHOD-DAM AIR.

The garden is in shut down procedure, cats are in snuggle mode, and the honeycomb hideout and killer bees are settling in for the long winter. And it’s going to be a doozy—ran into a wooly bear and it had no orange stripes, which means you better be stocked in the larder and armed with plenty of anti-ice-weasel traps. Ol’ winter wolf has reared up dramatically and her howl is driving away the last of the summer lifeforce. Batten down the hatches and brace for impact at your stations of the cross, icy depth charges ahoy.

I made sure to give out lots of candy to the monsters dressed as humans and the kids dressed as monsters, while I still have candy to sacrifice.

It’s time once again for a recap of the honeycomb hideout news. We got killer bees recharging their pew-pews and buzz-blares through the winter in the central stairwell. The garden is in slumber mode, while all the amazing bonus critters are street fighting it out on reserves or scavenge dice rolls.  There’s the sound of psychological sparks flying as internalized experimental processes run on bio-organic energy sources. It’s an introverted circus of exploration during a time of cold withdrawal.

After last year’s snowpocalypse, and the resultant gigantic creatures that emerged out of the space left behind when humans retreat indoors, there was a huge furnace of frightful manifestations all around the immediate area.  It gets me to wondering if people are hip to the amount of work that needs to be done just to maintain the local life support systems, let alone the scale of megalith size collectives.  Make no mistake, it’s definitely a sliding about of earth’s subterranean top.

I mean, even long term protective gear forged in the treasuries of lost youth are showing damage from the goob-a-loo resounding.  We just can’t depend on the ol’ standbys to keep on truckin’ to the remaining Stuckey’s still able to reload the chili dawg torpedoes.  I look at my Merlin-size library of tracts, tomes, potions and tablets—and I’m shlumped to the floor. The slack in the vast array of miraculous to godawful junk isn’t there.  It is closed to me, save by only the most intense of effort.

Despite the relentless pressure of deep sea diving without a hat, I’ve managed to hold it together—and keep more than a few people I know sane through their own blast furnace or stellar particle shower.  There’s a volcano of one million years BC metamorphosis scale clearing her throat in our hearts, I just hope I can dodge the boulders and screaming dinosaurs as they tumble past me into the abyss. But in the meantime, at least there’s still late night horror hosts to ease the squeeze on my brainstem!