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I recently went to the shopping mall to get a boba tea. For those of you not in the know, a boba tea is a cold, non-alcoholic drink popular in Taiwan. Boba often features tapioca pearls, which are chewy, sweet orbs of tapioca that sink to the bottom of the drink and that you are given a large straw in order to drink/eat. Boba is in this way a light meal of sorts -- it's more meaty than just a normal iced tea. The best kind of boba is milk tea: it is the creamier version of what I've just described. I am a vegan and boba is very easy to adapt for vegans. The tapioca pearls are vegan to begin with and the rest is just tea and sweetener. Unfortunately for me and anyone else who does not eat dairy, most boba places make milk boba tea with dairy products, usually in the form of creamer. I will explain this later.

So when I went for a celebratory milk tea to a place that had previously told me their milk teas were entirely vegan, I by chance decided to ask whether or not the milk teas were vegan as I am used to the process. The young man at the counter told me that indeed they were not vegan because they use dairy non-dairy creamer. What the hell is "dairy non-dairy" creamer, you ask? You see, because there has to be animal products in absolutely everything, most creamers that are labeled non-dairy have a tiny bit of dairy in them in the form of whey. In short, the previous associate was wrong about the shop's milk tea and the young man was correct. Despite being 100% right, he seemed flummoxed and afraid of me even though I was a good 1.5 feet shorter than him. I tried to reassure him that it was no big deal, thanked him for the information, and left.

I believe the young man feared me for two reasons: one was that vegans in general are often asshats (I too went through the vegan asshat phase) and because middle aged women are often Karens.

According to a user on Urban Dictionary, a Karen is:

Aged 44, has 4 kids (they listen to kidz bop) has a bob cut with blonde hair, annoying, doesn’t want to “calm down” and always wants to speak to your manager.

Karen : I would like to speak to your manager.
Cashier: Ah you must be Karen

by MiniMint November 22, 2019

There are entire social media channels devoted to recording the antics of Karens. Another, smaller army seeks to re-take the name and remove its negative connotations. UrbanDictionary.com was full of definitions of Karen praising the name and trying to redefine it as "a beautiful person" as well a frantic efforts to either portray Karens as vaccinated or unvaccinated in entries made after 2020. A little reading between the lines reveals middle aged women on both ends of the political spectrum who are terrified to be called out as Karens.

Dictionary.com and Wikipedia feature a similar definition of Karen:

Karen is a pejorative slang term for an obnoxious, angry, entitled, and often racist middle-aged white woman who uses her privilege to get her way or police other people’s behaviors.

A Karen of the Middle Ages, Literally

Though we think of Karen as a modern phenomenon, Karens are as old as civilization itself. The Icelandic Eyrbyggja saga is set the year 1000. When a traveling stranger named Thorgunna alights upon a tiny farm in Froda on the Icelandic coast, she brings with her a set of precious linens and quilts. The chieftain/farmer’s wife, Thurgid, becomes insanely jealous of Thorgunna’s luxurious bedding. She makes no secret of coveting the guest’s collection of bed wear and makes an array of obnoxious comments about it. She is nothing short of delighted when Thorgunna becomes sick. Thorgunna, knowing of Thurgid’s lust for her stuff, makes Thurgid’s husband promise to burn every single sheet, pillow, duvet, etc. upon her death. Thorgunna promptly dies and the husband fails to follow her orders. Instead of burning the bedclothes, he lets Thurgid keep them. The story then devolves into a mini-zombie apocalypse as a result of Thurgid's evil Karenning that involves corpses who come back to celebrate their own funeral dinner, a nasty thing that slithers around in the salted cod, and an undead, demonic seal. Fun!

Karen in Non-Zombie Literature

Fast-forward nearly a thousand years and Karen pops up again in the Edith Wharton novel Ethan Frome. Karen is called Zeena in this book and is once again a farmer’s wife. Zeena Frome is described thusly:

Against the dark background of the kitchen she stood up tall and angular, one hand drawing a quilted counterpane to her flat breast, while the other held a lamp. The light . . . drew out of the darkness her puckered throat and the projecting wrist of the hand that clutched the quilt, and deepened fantastically the hollows and prominences of her high-boned face under its rings of crimping-pins.

Zeena — a cruel, manipulative, hypochondriac harpy — acts as the rocket fuel that drive her husband Ethan and her cousin/maidservant Mattie to a dramatic act of self-destruction.

Karen is Not Happy

The face that is most associated with Karen in modern times is that of Kate Gosselin, the subject of Jon & Kate Plus 8, a television reality show that documented the family’s life from 2007-2017. Kate, the mother of twins and then fertility drug sextuplets by her then-husband Jon, was the proto-Karen of the modern era. Her stripey blonde bob and control freak antics were all the more annoying by being shoved down our throats for ten years on cable TV. In essence, she was the first mommy influencer, blazing the trail for other abusive grifters to capitalize on the vulnerability and cuteness of her children. To nobody’s surprise, Kate and Jon were divorced by 2009. Their exploited, broken home resulted in obvious damage and unnecessary drama for their children.

Karen and Divorce

One of the ten thousand things that made up my mind that I would never have children in this lifetime was the observations of teachers I had in my long sojourn in public schooling. One of the few sane teachers I had in elementary school was a single woman with no children I will call Ms. Booker in interest of protecting her privacy. Ms. Booker was the only teacher who truly inspired me because she seemed to actually care for the 30 or so children she saw for six hours every day. The other teachers were often decent but mostly uninspiring. One bad apple teacher was so awful, she was forced to apologize to the parents of her students and other staff members for her behavior. I had the misfortune of being taught by Ms. Bad Apple. The pattern I noticed by the tender age of nine was that the teachers who were married with children were mediocre, those who were married without children were far better, and the single, unmarried teacher with no children was the best of all. The teacher who both had children and was divorced was Ms. Bad Apple, an entitled, bitter scold of a woman who frankly sucked at teaching and who should have chosen a career far away from children.

As we ask which came first, the chicken or the egg, we must ask which came first, the Karen or the divorce? Karen is a bitter and ungrateful person who makes everyone around her feel like they cannot do anything right. I would argue that Karen causes the divorce and divorce does not cause Karen; perhaps you feel otherwise. Gratitude is the secret of a long and lasting marriage, in my opinion, and without it, anyone in a long and committed relationship is going to have a bad time. If Karen is mean to perfect strangers in the grocery store and parking lot, just imagine how nasty she gets with her husband and kids when the cameras are off.

Karens in the Wild

As the Dictionary.com entry mentioned, Karen is nothing if not entitled. Medieval Thurgid felt entitled to her guest’s bed linens. Zeena Frome felt entitled to every penny her husband could scratch out of his farm while getting off on his misery. Kate Goselyn felt entitled to “easy” brand deal money at the cost of her children’s wellbeing.

When caught on video, Karens often stalk other people in stores, parking lots, and roadsides, demanding they kowtow to their demands. Karens believe they know the rules and they wield potential lawsuits like a superstitious mace. One video features a Karen hitting another woman and then freaking out and mock-collapsing in a Victoria’s Secret store, ostensibly because the woman got in her way during a free panties giveaway. Several videos show Karens stomping up to parked cars and trucks, demanding they move their vehicles because of some perceived law or rule that has been broken. One shocking video features a male Karen who insists a handicapped man cannot wheel his wheelchair down a forest preserve path because there are no vehicles allowed. A funnier video shows a skinny harridan Karen who berates some kids for ruining the forest preserve by eating too many berries and then breaking into a strange dance to illustrate her point.

Karens Everywhere: How Did We Get So Many?

Excessive Karens are the natural product of a materialistic, ungrateful society. When community is commercialized and relationships within the community become corporate caricatures at best, Karen emerges with her whip in hand, ready to subjugate the meek. Though Karen is associated with women of a certain age, Millennials are happily assuming the mantle; the Victoria’s Secret Panty Karen I mentioned in the previous paragraph is a Millennial. As William Blake said, you become what you behold. Spend enough time immersed in the fishtank echo chambers of greige office fauna on a steady diet of Facebook, online shopping, and Netflix and you too may become a Karen. Offices, schools, and malls are toxic places where the Karening leaks like a radioactive plasma spill. When life is framed as a boring succession of material achievements and mouse-find-cheese Instagram goalposts, the human brain responds by rotting and attempts to take the soul along for the ride.

Karen the Witch

As I mentioned, Karens are nothing new. In the old days, an old woman who made a silent career of throwing around malefic energy because of her general hatred for her community was called a witch. Though third wave feminists would have us all believe that all witches were wise and cunning women persecuted sheerly for being too good with herbs, some witches were actually persecuted because other villagers got tired of them throwing their bad energy around.

When I used to throw vegan gatherings, my get-togethers were frequented by a toxic, older woman who I will call Sylvia. Sylvia was obsessed with getting something for nothing. When I gave away vegetables from my garden, I started ignoring her calls because she pursued me so hard for them. When I hosted a free raffle for some kitchen stuff I was giving away, she entered her name on 20 slips of paper in order to game the system and win everything I put on the table. She did this when she thought nobody was looking. When another guest was backing out of a parking lot close to her old, beaten up car but in no danger of hitting it, she glared and scowled, worried that her ancient, dented car would suffer another dent. At a holiday gathering, she ate a to-go dessert that was promised to another guest right in front of her eyes. The irony of Sylvia was that she and her husband were very comfortable. One of my regular guests knew someone who was his co-worker; his salary was well into the six figure range. Sylvia had every reason to be generous and yet was consumed by worry that someone else had nicer things than she did.

I can easily see Sylvia being done away with if the year was closer to 1524 than 2024. A village only has so many resources. A wealthy resource-sucker like Sylvia who constantly wished harm on other villagers and who carried with her an aura of greed and ruin to every gathering would be all too easy to accuse of cavorting with demons. In its own way, lusting after free crap is a form of demon worship, but only of the most common and blasé kind that hardly deserves being burned at the stake.

Don’t Fight the Karen

Slinging arrows or otherwise avenging yourself on a Karen never works. Karen thrives on opposition and conflict; she is vampiric in that sense. If I ever find myself cornered by Karen in the mall, office, or forest preserve, I know not to react. I will zip my trap and be as mute and still as Tiger Lily on the death raft. I will also do my level best not to be Karen’s judge, because we all have a little Karen in us. The inner Karen we all possess is what makes us hate her so much. Anyone who has never acted in any way resembling a Karen is welcome to throw the first stone.

The ancient notion of humors that pertain to the elements is utterly ubiquitous in nearly every great world culture except the modern industrial one. Unlike Western medicine, traditional Chinese and Indian medicine never discarded humoral diagnosis and treatment. The humors pertain to the spirit of place in the most obvious of ways: the weather. The spirit of place is a type of weather. It is a set of conditions that characterize the place and its ecosystem. The hot dry end of August pertains to Fire. The cool, crisp time when crocuses burst out of ice scrims in front yards pertains to Air. Nothing could be more Water than an ocean or a lake in Autumn. As far as Earth, an underground stash of apples and squash in the winter cellar as the snowstorm rages outside fits the bill.

I think one of the reasons our culture has such a difficult time recognizing the magic of humors is because it is so plainly obvious. Though it has been a few hundred years since mainstream medics understood the importance of the humors, they are still a part of our language. To describe someone as “sanguine” means he or she has a positive and uplifting outlook. “Choleric” still means irritable and bad-tempered. I would argue that we never lost the ability to sense humors; we just forgot about them for the most part. Superstitions stuck but on-the-ground analysis flew away.

It is my opinion that it is high time we westerners reclaimed our own majestic traditions, and that includes the restoration of sciences like astrology, homeopathy, and alchemy that come to us from Western occultism and provide a hand-on glimpse into Renaissance insights about the Universe.

The Tarot, whose first wide usage came about during the European Renaissance, is divided into four suits that relate to the elements. Swords for Air, Wands for Fire, Cups for Water, and Disks or Pentacles for Earth.

The Tarot are a perfect gateway towards understanding how the elements influence our daily lives. Let’s say I do a daily three card Tarot divination. For the most immediate or Me card, I get the Three of Cups ill-dignified. Cups rule the emotions, so I’ll be conscious of how emotional I am and I will look for emotional imbalances to root out. Am I snippy or butthurt when one of life’s inevitable setbacks occurs? Am I depressed for no reason, or am I suppressing the way I feel with too much force? For the Situation card, I draw the Queen of Disks well-dignified. Disks rule Earth and day-to-day dealings like making a living. From this card, I know that my material living isn’t likely to be in any significant jeopardy for the duration of the reading. I also will see that it is a day to reflect on my own past materialism. For the Outcome or Karma, I draw The Star ill-dignified. The Star is ruled by Aquarius or Air, so I will look for imbalances of my own ego: too puffy or not strong enough? The Tarot may be warning me that I’ll have a not atypical day of being an air-head where I miss obvious social cues or act like a ditz.

It is helpful to assign stereotypes – yes, stereotypes - when we are dealing with the character traits of the four humors.

For the Air humor, otherwise known as Sanguine humor, we’ll invoke the stereotype of Mr. Popularity. Everyone likes him. He’s the class clown and has been known to get in trouble on occasion, but his humor is never aimed at anyone directly and he does his level best not to make fun of people who aren’t as popular as he is. He effortlessly pulls in good grades as a young person and has no trouble supporting himself and his family when he comes of age. His problems tend to come from a puffy ego, false transcendence, and imagining that all problems can be solved if everyone in the world adopts his friendly attitude. He tends to be a solutions guy but often blunders through life situations with the assumption that one size fits all.

For the Fire Humor, otherwise known as the Choleric humor, let’s visit a tormented young artist. She dyes her hair bottle black as an adolescent. She is at once crippled by shyness and the urge to make her creative mark on her surroundings. She has an extremely dynamic personality and is a most loyal friend, but her strong approach can be off-putting. Most normal people keep her at arm’s length for fear of what lies beneath. She can be extremely socially inept. She is an artistic genius with extraordinary willpower. Because she tends to be intense and passionate about whatever she is into, it is crucial that she curates and limits the people and activities in her life with extreme care, because she doesn’t do anything half-assed.

For the Earth humor, otherwise known as Melancholic, we can imagine a high strung, conscientious, perfectionist young man with several anxiety disorders and nervous tics. He often has trouble getting along with other people, including within his own family. Though he is not a natural leader, he can be an exceptionally driven worker, especially if he is able to work with his hands. As he ages, he tends to shun other humans. He will either have one special person in his life or none at all.

For the Water humor, otherwise known as Phlegmatic humor, we have a fun-loving, vivacious, well-liked girl who suffers from frequent mood swings. She is more of a follower than a leader, but as they say, sometimes you can have too many chiefs and not enough Indians. She may have a potent desire to be the star of the show, but chances are she will always either be backstage doing the real work of production or an equally necessary member of the audience. She may have trouble that stems from her natural tendency to be promiscuous, whether or not she acts on that tendency.

Every human has bits and pieces of these temperaments. Western medicine used to employ them as diagnostic tools for treating mind, body, and spirit at once. Traditional Eastern medicine such as Ayurveda and TCM retained their holistic humorism.

Though Western medicine wisely discarded barbaric practices from its elder days such as trepanning, it has enthusiastically replaced bad with worse. Stomach stapling, tricyclic antidepressants, and MRNA hijackers mislabeled as vaccines represent complete ignorance in the classic sense of key pieces of knowledge being ignored to satisfy bias confirmation and profit motives. If you've followed the writings of this blog, you know I've railed against modern medicine any number of times, so I will nix any further ranting for now.

Humorism can be used in natural magic as a map to navigate which forces are being affected or potentially affected. If the humors fall into four basic categories of Air/Intellect, Fire/Drive, Water/Will, and Earth/Stability, natural magic can also be partitioned roughly into four humor-corresponding categories.

Natural Air Magic

The most basic natural magic practice that affects the air is burning incense. The smoke of certain resins and herbs has a purifying effect that reverberates through the planes. Ancient religions knew this, and that is why old Catholic cathedrals and old Muslim mosques veritably reeked with incense pouring from censers. Wearing any form of scent, or otherwise controlling one’s scent such as the use of antiperspirant and deodorant, is natural magic. When I prevent other people from smelling the natural pungent odor of my armpits by using antiperspirant or deodorant, that is a form of natural magic. If I wear too much perfume and cause someone to have an allergic reaction, that is also natural magic. If I boil a pot of water with orange and grapefruit rinds with a dash of lavender essential oil to make my house smell fancy, that is natural air magic.

Anything sound-related falls under the category of air magic. When I practice piano or guitar, that is a form of air magic. I am practicing in order to improve my brain utilizing sound and electrical signals traveling from head to hands. Bells are air magic. In ancient times, the sound of church bells was thought to dispel evil spirits and vampires. A common superstition about wind chimes is that they attract ghosts. I talk to the spirits of the dead all the time – I have never noticed any prevailing opinion among the dead that they are attracted to wind chimes.

The cacomagic of television is mostly air magic. Televisions create noise pollution, especially during commercials which are purposefully louder than aptly-named programming. The sound of television is designed to hypnotize and demoralize so its victims will buy more stuff.

Natural Fire Magic

Fire magic has been used nearly since the human race climbed out of trees. Candle magic is the most self-evident, which can vary in forms from simply lighting a candle in honor of a person or a god or formally dressing a candle by anointing it in oil and addressing it with one’s intentions.

Cut and clear spells often use fire with great efficacy. Fire is the ultimate cleanse of energy, which is why monotheist religions become fixated with the idea of destroying the wicked world in a ball of flame. The basic fire cut and clear involves writing a person’s name on a slip of paper and jumping over it while it burns. This is obviously better done outdoors in flame retardant clothing.

Cooking is fire magic. Whether it is by stove, air fryer, solar oven or (gasp!) microwave, the transformation of basic ingredients into sustenance is an alchemical process. The energy that goes into the growing, harvesting, chopping, heating, processing and serving of the food can all be considered fire magic.

Natural Water Magic

Any form of bath done with intention is water magic, including showering. A hot bath to relieve stress at the end of the day is magical, but so is the quick shower. The hoodoo bath with its cold, ice-temperature water, vinegar, salt, and hot-peppers is the most intentional and potent of all baths. When we stink, we take a shower or bath. Remember that the etheric body is one grade more subtle than smell, so to remove the pungent outer layer that is causing a miasma also strongly affects the etheric. Swimming in a lake or a pool is a form of bath. When I was a child and my extended family went on a hotel trip, we kids would entertain ourselves by jumping from the cold swimming pool to the hot tub over and over again. Little did I know this is a form of etheric stripping. Many cultures around the world have their own version of the etheric stripping as a health practice. In the Japanese on-sen or bathhouse, bathers scrub themselves clean with a brush in a cold shower before climbing into the extremely hot pool or hot spring. The ancient Finnish practice of sauna involves repeatedly going from heated sauna to dips in icy lakewater and rolling in the snow, potentially dozens of times. The practice is so revered that it spread to Sweden and other Nordic countries. The sauna is perceived as the ultimate cleansing ritual. Before the era of hospitals, women often gave birth in the sauna.

Home cooking also counts as water magic. The crafting of soup especially is nothing less than a magical potion formed with intention to nourish and heal. This is why homemade food is often more nourishing than prepackaged food that was canned or boxed in a factory.

Natural Earth Magic

Any activity where you work with your hands is Earth magic. Making the bed, vacuuming and sweeping, sewing and needlework, cooking, woodworking, painting, decorating, and handicrafts are all Earth magic. Gardening is absolutely Earth magic as it involves working with one’s hands and literally moving dirt around while adding blood (hopefully in the form of blood meal and not from your own mishap), sweat, and tears.

Construction, repair, and remodeling are Earth magic. All three can range from a few minutes unclogging a sink to years constructing a building, but the magical intention is often the same: manipulate the etheric plane via improvement of the physical plane.

The spirit of place as a concept falls under the realm of Earth magic. When we allow ourselves to respect material things and mundane activities that come and go in our daily lives, the result is anything but idolatry, or at least it is anything but idolatry in my personal case. As I appreciate and become grateful for my cup of tea, the result is not a worship for the cup of tea or the tea farmer. Instead, I become aware of the effort it took for the cup of tea to arrive in my hands. Gratitude is a kind of awareness. It is waking up to the divine from the shallow trance of materialism in which we take all our privileges for granted. The gratitude I put out there diffuses into other areas of my life and gently and slowly improves everything around me.

Hi Everyone,

I am happy to read your Ogham free of charge -- that's how I hone my divination skills. I take reading requests until 8pm Central Time (Chicago Illinois USA) on Sunday night. Though I am flattered that people want readings after the deadline, I decline reading requests made after 8pm Central Time on Sunday night without exception.

Please note I will be taking off the week of September 10, 2023. Readings will resume as usual September 17, 2023.

For a more in depth look into how I read and interpret the Ogham's symbols, please visit my website druidogham.wordpress.com.

I am currently trying to minimize my use of PayPal. If you'd like to make a donation, I would be grateful if you did it here:

http://buymeacoffee.com/kimberlysteele

Your prayers of blessing to the deity/deities of your choice are welcome whether or not you can donate.

I finally got around to working on the Hymn to Odin and here it is, new and improved! You can download it for free at Bandcamp.

This essay is meant to riff off of John Michael Greer's 2020 article On the Metaphysics of Sex, so please read it or re-read it as food for thought.

Americans in particular have lost the art of moderation. Whether we are talking about food intake, drugs, shopping, or the general use of petroleum products, most people do not know when to say "when".

Sexuality is an especially touchy subject because of the schizoid ways religions attempt to control fertility by weaponizing shame. In order to look at masturbation with the clarity it deserves, we have to put religious shame on a shelf for the time being. Let's save that discussion for a later date though as we delve into some aspects of what masturbation does and how it acts upon various planes for the two genders.

You Heard Me Right, TWO Genders

Understanding masturbation comes with some key conditions: one is that male is male and female is female. According to the writings of Thoth Hermes Trismegistus, the polarity of male and female gender is in everything and it is everywhere. When the physical body is born male, what you see is what you get, XY chromosomes... it's a dude. When the physical body is born female, XX chromosomes, it's a lady. Aberrations are usually defective females, because for whatever reason, biological disruptions often present as feminization and not masculinization in animals on this planet. But as the John Michael Greer article states, biological females typically have male etheric bodies and female astral bodies, and males have the same series in reverse, with a female etheric body and a male astral body. Variations exist, and just like the physical plane body can be disrupted, a disrupted etheric or astral body may present itself in a confusing or damaged way.

In his 1970 book The Satanic Witch, Anton La Vey developed what he called the La Vey Personality Synthesizer based on his hypothesis that "every human type has its corresponding personality traits that (can be seen as) occupying a position on the circle that can approximate the numbers of a clock". Via his analyses of personalities and body types that bore a passing resemblance to the medieval doctrine of humors, La Vey hypothesized that a would-be seducer needed to portray the person directly opposite to the would-be seduced person on his circular graph.

La Vey postulated that within the core of every large-shouldered, thin hipped, dominating woman was an inner "demonic self" who was an effeminate, submissive man. Likewise, an effeminate, short, pudgy, rounded Six O'Clock man possessed an inner Amazon woman who was as formidable as he was weak. Whether or not LaVey knew what he was doing, he was merely referencing what traditional occultists believe about the polarity chain of physical, etheric, and astral bodies. Typically, people born male will have female etheric bodies and women will have male etheric bodies. In my own case, I was born a small, diminutive female, but my etheric body is the polar opposite. It's a huge, burly MAN, baby, and if it could operate without me, it would be out chopping wood and entering gladiator contests.

Onanism Across the Planes

Masturbation is a huge release of etheric and astral energy whether you're male or female, and the main difference is the direction in which the energy flows. For women and girls, release on the etheric plane goes outward. A woman spends etherically during masturbation whereas a man absorbs; please keep this in mind as I will come back to this topic later. When a woman spends prolifically on the etheric plane, she will often lose her creative drive elsewhere, as the etheric is what gives us motivation to change and improve, especially where homemaking is concerned. I have noticed that young women who are not particularly fastidious to begin with take on a slovenly appearance when they are chronic masturbators, most likely because they lose the energetic motivation to maintain themselves, which brings us to the world of images known as the astral plane.

The key difference between men and women when they masturbate lies in the world of images. Men masturbate to pornographic imagery more than women. The man populates his brain with a harem of supplicant, artificial females who are soon to be solely replaced by AI. His energy body absorbs these fake, creepy "girls" and accumulates their etheric revenants/ghosts in legions. Meanwhile, his astral body becomes weak with occupation, made into the bitch of the faceless, corporate egregores who add him so his broken inner self can grease the walls of their mighty astral pyramid.

Women don't think of groups of men when they masturbate, for the most part. Though men may enjoy bukkake and gang bang, for most women, it is the stuff of nightmares. Instead, women tend to masturbate with images of The One in their minds. A woman's energy body is a phallus seeking a single target. He is Mr. Right, or at least Mr. Right Now. This is the reason young girls gather in throngs to worship male stage stars, such as young Frank Sinatra's bevy of Bobby-soxers and the boy bands who made Tiger Beat and Bop magazine popular. Each girl fantasizes having the It Boy for herself, one-on-one, her male etheric body penetrating his egg-like female one. Romance novels and fan fiction mercilessly exploit the female tendency to fixate upon the One. Many women use their creative force to write fan fiction, exploiting the phenomenon. Some of you may know that Fifty Shades of Grey, the romance novel that temporarily saved its publisher from bankruptcy, started as a Twilight fan-fiction. In Twilight as well as Fifty Shades, we have a classic stereotype of a boring, Mary Sue everywoman who becomes the obsession of the It Boy for no apparent reason.

The biggest source of sadness for women in relationships tends to be when the man they choose (whether temporarily or on a more permanent, spousal basis) fails to live up to the image of The One. The One, however, being an ideal, can never exist! Women are plagued eternally with the idea that they have settled, even when they marry the man they thought was The One. The One that wasn't quite the One becomes the object of scorn and derision, and often she will do without men altogether because of the bitter realization the One cannot exist.

The biggest source of sadness for men in relationships tends to be when they cannot have the harem they believe they deserve or deserved. Porn is no substitute for being an actual, real stud on the physical plane. For a man, the biggest detractor in his relationships happens when he cannot stop seeing his chosen lover or spouse as replaceable. The worst thing a man can do is to fail to see the uniqueness of his woman, even when she has sacrificed body and soul for him for many years.

Women are the active providers of the etheric plane. An etheric male is a nest-builder. Women are good at constructing the home environment because they can perceive energy flows that men cannot. Women are better decorators because they can see more colors than men. Women also have better senses of smell, which is why the perfume industry mainly revolves around them. Women do most of the cooking and cleaning because they are usually better at it, paying attention to the details men are likely to miss.

Men are the passive receivers of the etheric plane. An etheric female is a nest-dependent. Males need the etheric comfort of the home environment in order to restore their energy and revive their physical potency. Men prioritize a good etheric plane provider in a woman the same way women seek out a good physical plane provider in a man. Men who are overly attached to their mothers are often captured because their mother is or was a more attentive cook and housecleaner than their spouse or lover, meaning on the etheric plane, mom has bigger and better equipment.

When men masturbate excessively, they end up with broken etheric bodies that are scattered like marbles with nobody to pick up the pieces. They are leaky and the energy they exude is creepy, deeply insecure, needy, and off-putting. When women masturbate excessively, like the John Michael Greer essay stated, they become etherically constipated. The general vibe is that of the butch, brittle, "I don't need no man!" vulgarian who couldn't care less about how ugly she is on the inside or the outside. She becomes the insensitive bull in the china shop who rolls over anything in her way; the solo, bitter harpy who drinks herself into a stupor every night while becoming increasingly mean to all and sundry.

Don't Take It From Me

Keep in mind I am no expert (sexpert? LOL) and my opinion should be taken with many grains of salt -- also, I could be wrong. These observations of mine are never meant as gospel. They are only the musings of a newbie occultist observing the illusion of the world. As for how often someone should masturbate, I have no idea. I'm thinking everyone should masturbate just to figure out what it does. Once a day seems like too much, and the older you are, the less frequent masturbation should probably be. For the young, limiting masturbation to one or two times per week sans pornographic images and relying on imagination is probably ideal. For the rest of us, once a month is probably enough, but again, it all depends on your health, your circumstances, and too many many factors to list.

Hi Everyone,

Please note I will be taking off the week of September 10, 2023. Readings will resume as usual September 17, 2023.

http://buymeacoffee.com/kimberlysteele

Your prayers of blessing to the deity/deities of your choice are welcome whether or not you can donate.

Anyone who is not living on a desert island has likely heard of Anthony Oliver, the viral singer-songwriter whose song, Rich Men North of Richmond, implicates a certain set of elites in Washington DC who allegedly ruin the country with their bad decisions. What if I told you those politicians had a fairly inconsequential part in creating the mess that inspired Rich Men North of Richmond? Politicians are despotic... trust me, I know, I live in Illinois and when a member of my Speakeasy group derided others for voting in the miserable crew we have at the moment, I asked him, "Have you met Illinois?" Elections here do not matter. I have personally witnessed two election officials brazenly looking at my completed ballot in disgust and I would not have been shocked if every ballot they disagreed with ended up tossed in a dumpster at the end of the night. It is an open secret that Illinois is a banana republic with its own renditions of Charles II at the helm. The only way of deposing the Illinois monarchy is via guillotine, and though I am sure that can be arranged, the common folk are not quite ready to go full Jacobin at this time.

As fun and easy as it is to scapegoat politicians for their copious bad decisions and dictates, the meat of the problem lies right here at home. When I was a child in the 1970s and early 80s, I knew my neighbors so well that they were a stone's throw away from acting as godparents. Our tight-knit family reliably spent holidays at each other's houses. The elementary school self-published a mimeographed book of the names, addresses, and phone numbers of every student and teacher and gave copies to everyone in the school. Many of the families in town were wealthy, but the most ostentatious displays of wealth were limited to having a small in-ground pool and having a vacation home in either Florida or Wisconsin. Fast forward forty years and nearly every neighbor I grew up with has either moved far away or has atomized to distant corners of the country and globe. In my own case, I strongly considered running off to a faraway land where it would not be necessary to own a car. Nobody would dream of publishing the private phone numbers of little kids in a paper book. Displays of wealth have metastasized: there is hardly a McMansion out there without an in-ground pool. In northern Illinois, such a pool can only be used a quarter of the year at best. In all other seasons, it must be drained, covered, and cleaned by a small crew of typically brown men who may or may not be here legally.

SIMRES: Suckas Idolizing Mediocre Real Estate

The trouble with Rich Men North of Richmond is that it isn't just them. I cannot afford to live anywhere near the neighborhood where I grew up. The area is beset with suburbanites trying to outdo each other. In the 80s, the upper middle class added to their existing homes, morphing modest three bedrooms into four, expanding kitchens and bathrooms, and adding garages. In the 90s, McMansions entered the scene, and now the remodeled four bedroom seemed modest in comparison. In the 2000s, the home equity craze had people using their homes as piggy banks, desperate to climb the property ladder. This trend was stalled by the crash of 2008 but was back and rolling by the mid-2010s. Covidmania blew the housing prices sky-high, and though the exodus from big cities tamped down the bubble by a modest amount, a 776 square foot one-bedroom, one-bathroom high rise apartment in San Francisco, the Poop Capital of the World, costs $2720 per month. As long as someone is willing to pay it, someone else will charge it.

The problems Anthony Oliver sings about in Rich Men North of Richmond -- too many hours for bulls**t pay, people on the street going hungry while obese wokesters get fat on welfare, and runaway inflation -- are actually the logical results of the decisions average people make and continue to make. The upper middle class is at fault. I have a relative who moved into an ugly McMansion in an exclusive neighborhood. When asked why she chose to have her husband purchased the place when they had a very nice, expanded, remodeled home to begin with, she said, "Because I can". My parents, who used their financial prosperity to buy a vacation home in the 1980s, are at fault. Some kids I grew up with had hoarder parents who owned no less than five storage units stuffed to the gills with accumulated junk. They are at fault. I am at fault and so are you.

The Karma of Unearned Wealth

The reason why I try very hard not to do unearned wealth anymore is because someone has to earn it. I do not want the karma of unearned wealth to hit me in this and future lives, so I try to avoid it. When my parents decided to take their economic windfalls of the 1980s and buy a vacation home, it was a decision that rippled all around them. Suddenly, it wasn't enough just to rent a sketchy cottage on a lakeshore; it became de rigueur to own a place where you could go at almost any time. When one person puts an addition on their home or takes a wrecking ball to a perfectly useable place in order to erect a much larger, newer building in its entirety, the property values and taxes are raised across the board. A neighborhood that was once populated by people who made just enough to live in a smaller home becomes the domain of doctors, lawyers, and insurance CEOS. Music teachers and security guards have to go elsewhere. Towns begin competing for wealth in a similar race. Maybe you've heard of a town where I used to live and work called Naperville. Naperville is an extremely prosperous town that put McMansions on the map back in the day. The downtown is the cold-weather version of Dubai. Downers Grove, the town where I grew up, wants to be Naperville, yet has never been able to attract the huge corporate money that has enabled Naperville to pave its streets in silver and gold. Downers Grove's stupid city council avoided putting Napervillian infrastructure in high-traffic areas for fifty years and now has screwed itself out of Naperville creme de la creme status because of it. Yet if you walk down any Downers Grove street, you can sense the longing and jealousy. In both Naperville and Downers Grove, I have often spotted this sign:

This sign irritates me to no end. Though it is put up by well-meaning people, it is pure, empty virtue signaling. I have never seen the sign in the lower middle class neighborhood where I live. Not once.

I could not help but make my own version to get even:

There is an old saying "If you cannot beat them, join them" that is essentially what I tried to do when I was straight out of college. I grew up salary class and though I should have known better, I went through a phase where I tried to become salary class. Now that I have the benefit of hindsight, I realize that the salary class is not for me and I cannot join them without completely selling out. I would honestly rather die as a kamikaze than become more grist for the salary class mill, so with this bargain I consign myself to great and mournful losses.

None if By Plane

I won't speak for anyone else, however, in my desire to be the change, I may never travel by plane again. I am not afraid of flying. The problem with flying is that it has become a common leisure activity. I knew someone who actually flew to China from the US and only stayed there for a few hours. Basically this person saw a Chinese airport firsthand and then turned around and flew back. I knew two other Americans who visited Antarctica. A trip to Antarctica involves flying to South America and either crossing the Drake Passage via ship or another flight. Just as family trips to Florida in the 80s morphed into family trips to Prague and Budapest in the 2010s, vacationing in St. Barts is no longer enough. You've got to go to ANTARCTICA now to get those bragging rights. You need to rack up eighteen hours (at least) in order to get there. The amount of fossil fuel resources squandered in order to indulge such a vacation is absolutely staggering. Anyone who goes to Antarctica for pleasure is the opposite of an environmentalist, even if they are fruit-only vegans for the duration of their lives who avoid having biological children and driving a car.

I will not contribute to the gentrification of my lower middle class neighborhood any more than I already have. My husband and I have improved our house and garden to the best of our ability and within the limits of our modest finances. That's where it ends. Even if I end up somehow earning a far larger income than I am working with right now, I am not going to betray the only neighborhood where I could afford a house a decade ago by turning around and starting a property ladder race. I will not go out and buy a McMansion "because I can". If I have a windfall, I will put it into the creation of a private physical library, a music school, or a brick and mortar sheet music store.

The salary class and their handlers fear people who cannot be bought. The rich men north of Richmond were bought off long ago, though at this point, any compromising videos of them with "miners" can be passed off as AI deepfakes. The poor girl who would sell her body and soul to become an influencer and the pampered suburban boy who becomes far more pampered with the help of sponsorship cheddar are very much part of the problem. Anyone who can be bought is part of the problem, and the only solution to my mind is to avoid the dealers.

Hi Everyone,

Please note I will be taking off the week of September 10, 2023. Readings will resume as usual September 17, 2023.

http://buymeacoffee.com/kimberlysteele

Your prayers of blessing to the deity/deities of your choice are welcome whether or not you can donate.

Here are some photos of my garden in lieu of a meatier post today -- I'll save the more gravitas-filled posts for a week when I've got more mojo. Change back to the school schedule is rough! As usual, please feel free to comment but keep in mind I don't publish what I consider "I don't do that anymore" swear words, such as rhymes with duck, skit, runt, etc.

Recently planted feverfew nestled in the bricks -- the hosta hated it in this space so I transplanted it elsewhere.

I'm trying to propagate roses from cuttings this year. This one is tucked into the raised bed by a tomato and some borage. I'm just going to leave it in here until next spring and hope for the best.

We used to have two old and dying Siberian elms in this area when we moved in 8 years ago. The stone and the paths weren't there, it was just huge, falling elms in a sea of waist-high grass. Tragically, the elms had to be cut down because they were falling down. Once my husband put in the stone paths, I noticed elm sprouts coming up between the mulch and the stone. I shepherded/trimmed them into the rectangular bush you see on the right. It has ended up being a perennial elm bush. Whenever new elm sprouts come up, I transplant them and try to start new elm bushes. I have one started on the bottom left of the path south of the visible boxwood. My plan is to eventually move the boxwoods and border every stone path in transplanted elm bushes.

Rudibeckia or Black Eyed Susan is a native plant in my upper part of Illinois. In the back I've got some double orange daylilies, the dark red one called Bela Lugosi which is my favorite, and some overgrown Russian sage.

Cedric the Eastern Cedar for those who may remember him. He's getting big!

My neighbor's gorgeous phlox, more Rudibeckia, and Ms. Blondie Piggy, resident feral.

I grow elecampane. It's very weedy. The only way I have ever used it is tincturing the root. Tincturing is a fancy word for chopping up plant material and letting it stew in vodka in a jar. I notice with myself that I tend to grow lots of herbs and then mismanage my time so that I don't end up doing anything with them (except observing their beauty, which I guess counts for something).

My overgrown herb garden. Upper left is yarrow, upper right is lemon balm and catmint, lower right is sage and native Midwest monarda/bee balm, and left is spearmint.

Yarrow on its second bloom this year.

The pussy willow that was started from donated sticks of my neighbor's tree. And Ms. Piggy stalking me for snacks.

Tommy, Piggy's son, saying Hi by the Brussels sprouts.

I grew buckwheat this year. Not sure what to do with it though. The orange bloom on the right is nasurtium.

Coneflower (Echinacea purpurea) I started from seed, catmint, iris, tall grasses, and rose. Still chipping away at that lawn, year by year. Someday I will make it disappear entirely.

Wild lettuce growing by the house. I made a tincture of it this year. It's a natural pain reliever also known as wild opium.

Coneflower growing in a ring around an oak seedling that I've been growing for a few years.

Hi Everyone,

Please note I will be taking off the week of September 10, 2023. Readings will resume as usual September 17, 2023.

http://buymeacoffee.com/kimberlysteele

Your prayers of blessing to the deity/deities of your choice are welcome whether or not you can donate.

We live in a spiritual Dark Age. Mainstream religions have wandered well into the ballpark of materialistic atheism. Materialistic atheism has almost no tools to deal with human death, as it is in complete denial of the afterlife. Because of this lack of tools, funerals have become yet another expensive, corporatized, dehumanized rite of passage. To die is to pass through a depersonalized, one-size-fits-all grist mill for making money off the bereaved.

Our age's terror at the prospect of the yawning memory hole of death manifests in psychotic symptoms. Nobody is supposed to look old and death is better hidden and unobserved. The elderly are warehoused so they can be forgotten in a kind of grift oubliette. Families are atomized, begging the question, What is the point of having children if you cannot expect them to care for you in your old age?

Many Ways to Die

Though there are many ways to die, there are two main types of death: expected or unexpected. Overall, expected deaths are better for all parties because there is a chance to prepare. Unexpected deaths are where things can get stuck. Stuckness occurs in situations where death occurs by murder, heart attack, stroke, accident, suicide, or when an aged or infirm person has not made their peace.

One way or the other, when we die we see parts of the astral plane fabric that are not visible in normal, physical life. This is where the reporting of a bright, white light comes from in the NDE or Near Death Experience. Unless you have gone out of the way and taken special pains to be a horrible person, chances are you will see the white light and be beckoned by its warmth and acceptance. I fully expect to see the white light. Though my life has been far from perfectly-lived, as it stands I have tried for many years to be a better person than I was yesterday, if only by the slightest amount. Once you are received by the white light, there is a another reception on the non-physical side. From what the dead have told me, we are received by our assigned spirit guides and by the HGAs or Holy Guardian Angels of our loved ones, including pets, places, and in some cases, objects. This is why dying brings a feeling of going home, even if your Meatworld home was transient or a tar-paper shack on the side of a garbage dump. You are briefly greeted by guides who comfort you and brought to a place of intimate familiarity, love, and genuine rest before being dunked into the Underworld.

We All Go to Hell, Regardless of Hand Baskets

The Underworld is my catch-all term for the kind of non-eternal hell or purgatory every human on the meat plane must go through before reincarnating into a new form. The concept of hell and heaven is where most mainstream religions go absurdly and spectacularly wrong. Buddhists obsess about avoiding the incarnation process altogether, hoping and trying instead to escape the wheel of meat-plane cycling to skip the line to a subtle and masterful non-physical state. They are not the only ones who fixated on escape: Aztecs and Mayans made the avoidance of our current demonic, materialistic age into an art, absorbing village after village primarily to attain victims for blood sacrifice. The point of the sacrifices was seemingly to keep the priestly class out of incarnation and to prevent the world from becoming what it is now. Christians misinterpret the Underworld cycle as an eternal pit of torture and pain for the unrepentant wicked. The only alternative in this binary is an equally unbalanced assumption that they will sit for untold trillions of millennia at the right hand of Jesus based on the judgement of the works of a single human lifetime. Only Hindus, who can proudly boast the world's most ancient and enduring religion, see the reincarnation process with a sense of balance. Even they err by playing into the caste system, which has horrific repercussions for almost anyone who has ever believed in it. The haughty presumptions that arise from belief in the caste system are kissing cousins to boneheaded Quranic and Biblical literalism.

As I have mentioned in the past, an entity once shared with me that the grace with which we accept our judgements and descent into the Underworld determines how much bounce we will gain before going into our next incarnation. My childhood as Baby Kimberly was terrible, and not because of anything my parents did or where and how I grew up. My childhood was awful mostly because of the anger and sorrow I failed to resolve from my previous life. In my most recent past life, I was a wealthy but embittered widow who lost her two sons in World War I. Her unhappiness leaked into this life. Many of her emotional issues were still on the table for resolution well into my current lifetime.

Once we have spent time in the Underworld going through the nasty process of sorting through most of our mea culpas and stupid crap we did that hurt our fellow sentient beings while in physical incarnation, we bounce back up to the higher astral plane in order to get ready for our next incarnation. Contrary to popular mainstream religious belief and based upon what dead people have told me, we do not get a choice whether or not any part of these processes happen. We cannot choose incarnation any more than a fish can choose to live in water. As the world ebbs from its current peak, some souls will stay out of incarnation for longer periods and others will be reincarnated as animals. Of course I could be wrong.

Despite the way we have been trained to look at it, death is a good thing. That said, ending your life prematurely can have dire consequences depending on the intentions behind the action. At any rate, it does not speed up the resolution of any of your problems except on the most superficial level.

They're Still Here: How the Newly Dead Interact

I operate under the assumption that the newly dead can still see us and interact with us on the astral and etheric planes despite being divorced from the physical plane. When my friend died of cancer in his sixties, he visited me during my daily Sphere of Protection and said that from his end of the astral, it looked like a fireworks show. There is nothing strange about talking to the newly dead; in fact, it would be better if we all learned to talk with them. There is also nothing strange about a dead person informing their loved one they have died. This is usually called a haunting but I think this is far too dramatic a term. The facts on the ground are the etheric body sticks around for most of the time there is still a corpse. Cremation severs the link and immediately dissolves the etheric body. When I die, I am specifically asking in advance not to be embalmed because I feel preservation of the corpse ties the astral and etheric bodies to Meatworld for far longer than necessary. When I die, I expect to hang around Meatworld until I am either cremated or rotted in the ground from being buried. Freed of my physical body, I will wander about visiting any friends or relatives I have left. If they are used to interactions with spirits of dead people as I am, I will try to give them an etheric sign of my presence, such as a candle burning brighter or the scent of citrus, mint, roses, or incense. If they are a normal person who gets freaked out by occult phenomena (likely) I will only observe and keep my energy to myself.

Once my etheric and physical body separate anywhere from a few days to a few months after my death, I expect to be led by my spirit guides and my own higher self as I transit out of Meatworld and my old incarnation as Kimberly Steele. If my experience as a dead person is a typical one, and I believe it will be, we can use it to inform us how to help the newly dead find their way in absence of their physical and etheric bodies.

Candles and Flame

Just as regular incarnated humans are drawn to burning campfires, fireplaces, and flame, candles draw both non-embodied humans and spirits. Lighting a candle for a dead person has the same effect as giving them a powerful flashlight on a dark road. Candlelight vigils should be done for any newly dead person in the spirit of helping them through the immediate afterlife process. Candles burned at the place the newly dead person loved and/or considered home or best: they act as amplifiers of comforting energy and draw spirit friends to the corresponding area on the astral plane.

Flowers

Regardless of whether the person liked flowers while alive, fresh flowers are etheric plane improvers that act similarly to candles; that is to say they are amplifiers of comforting energy that bridge the etheric into the astral. Once again, flowers provide a temporary energy source that draws benevolent helper entities. What we think of as flowers are no more and no less than magical herbs. Herbalists know that herbs have the power to drive away malevolent energy via banishing and draw helpful energy. The result is greater illumination and purification on the path out of incarnation for the newly dead person.

Music

Music is an extremely potent purification tool and is very effective when assisting the newly dead to connect with their higher selves and helpful spirit guides on the astral plane. Like flowers and flame, music repels malevolent entities and provides a bright spot on the astral plane so the newly dead can rally and prepare for their next steps. It's especially powerful and helpful to play the music the dead person loved in life, even if it isn't the most agreeable music to the still living. While playing the newly dead person's favorite music, send the intention of gratitude for their time in physical incarnation, no matter how brief. Even unborn babies have "favorite" music that sensitive mothers can determine while they're still in utero. While sending gratitude, also send wishes for their smooth and easy transition through the Gates until you see them again.

Prayer

Prayer is the most important tool we have in our arsenal for helping the newly dead. The goal of prayer is simple: we ask a deity who is older, wiser, and smarter than we are to help with something they know a great deal about while we ourselves know very little. In other words, we do what is perfectly logical. The more connected the newly dead person is to the Divine, the easier their transition out of Meatworld will be. The reason it is tremendously important to live a virtuous life by being generous, kind, compassionate, fair, modest, diligent, and moderate is because living the Word is far better than preaching it. Unfortunately, it is common among monotheists to abuse prayer as conversion cacomagic: they take any fledging connection they have with the Divine and use it to guilt trip and browbeat others into serving their specific God. This act is ironically Satanic and will likely earn them long stints in the Underworld where, as the Bible says, "they shall have their reward". Instead of telling others how to accept your version of Jesus or some other god into their hearts, you go first by connecting to a god and doing your level best to serve that god with humility and grace. Connection and discourse with the Divine drives out parasitic, opportunistic entities while affording glimpses of the afterlife process well before it is time to go to the afterlife.

Letting Go

As I mentioned at the beginning of this essay, our civilization has a problem accepting death. We have a problem with divine grace and become dissonant when dealing with endings. Grace means not clinging to what once was and not pining after what was not meant to be. As far as I can tell, most of the dead move on fairly quickly -- a few days to a few months -- unless we compel them to stay with constant, intense, unrelenting grief. When you are tempted to wallow in grief, light a candle and focus on the moments and legacies of the person, pet, or house that were given to you and ruminate about how your life is better because they were there for you in this world. By focusing on the good and adding gratitude to the mix, you improve and sublimate their journey as well as your own, no matter where they are. When you see them again, and I believe you will, they will thank you for it.

Hi Everyone,

Please note I will be taking off the week of September 10, 2023. Readings will resume as usual September 17, 2023.

http://buymeacoffee.com/kimberlysteele

Your prayers of blessing to the deity/deities of your choice are welcome whether or not you can donate.

Juneau Alaska in 2020 photographed by Brandon Morgan

Open Post... It's open! Nevertheless, please keep in mind I don't publish swear words worse than b*tch.

Hi Everyone,

Please note I will be taking off the week of September 10, 2023. Readings will resume as usual September 17, 2023.

http://buymeacoffee.com/kimberlysteele

Your prayers of blessing to the deity/deities of your choice are welcome whether or not you can donate.

I have a few favorite go-to recipes for everyday basics. If you're familiar with crunchy granola Earth momma blogs, many of these will probably be familiar or variations on a theme.

Feel free to share your own recipes in comments!

Number 1. (green cap mini container in front)

TOOTHPASTE

The price of toothpaste is STUPID right now. I was in Walgreens a few months ago and the cheapest bottle of toothpaste, with fluoride, of course, was $7. I won't buy Dollar Tree toothpaste because there is a good chance it is made in China, and that means it's anyone's guess what kind of toxic waste is in there. That leaves making my own toothpaste. Toothpaste is number one on this list for a reason -- it's much better stuff if you make it, plus you can customize it however you like. Stronger, weaker, more flavor, less flavor, etc.

INGREDIENTS

1 part arrowroot powder... I use about 1 tablespoon
1 part olive oil or other neutral oil... I use however much is needed to moisten
Pinch of baking soda
Stevia powder to taste
A few drops of essential oil or extract of cinnamon, mint, orange, vanilla, anise, or whatever you like for flavor

DIRECTIONS

I start out by putting some arrowroot powder in a bowl and mixing it up with baking soda and my preferred amount of stevia. I find the stevia is nice in this toothpaste because it is somewhat cooling. Then I add small amounts of olive oil and mix in very well until I get the thickness I like. I tend to like a soupier toothpaste, but no matter how this toothpaste starts out, it tends to thicken over time as it is stored. For whatever reason, it lasts a very long time on the shelf -- I often only make one batch every few months. Store in a covered bowl.

DEODORANT (black lidded jar, bottom right)

I like the smell of store-bought antiperspirant but the aluminum and other mystery crap in there makes me worry. This deodorant tends to do just as good as a job, plus since it isn't a far cry from the toothpaste recipe, it's nontoxic and can be put on any stinky part of the body without concern.

INGREDIENTS

1 tablespoon arrowroot powder
¼-½ teaspoon baking soda
2-3 teaspoons melted coconut oil
Up to 10 drops essential oils of choice... I use lavender essential oil

DIRECTIONS

Mix arrowroot and baking soda well in a small bowl. Melt coconut oil and slowly add it, mixing as you go, until you arrive at a smooth paste. Mix in essential oil and transfer to a small lidded pot or empty lip balm jar.

HAIRSPRAY (metal spray bottle on right)

Ugh summer frizzies AMIRITE??? This hairspray has been a lifesaver for me, especially when I wear my hair up in a ponytail or bun. No more halo of frizz and flyaways for me, plus essential oil of eucalyptus smells great!

INGREDIENTS

1 part water
1 part white sugar
Essential oil of lavender, eucalyptus, neroli, etc.
Optional: dash of Florida water, rubbing alcohol, or vodka

DIRECTIONS

Dissolve sugar in water on the stovetop or in a microwave safe bowl for only as long as it takes for sugar granules to disappear. Yes, this is a recipe for simple syrup -- so go ahead and save some for mixed drinks later I suppose... Pour the sugar water into a spray bottle and add essential oils if desired so it smells pretty. Since I store mine in the fridge, I don't add Florida water or alcohol. However, if you want to store this at room temperature, I would add a bit of alcohol of some sort to prevent it from going icky.

ALL PURPOSE CLEANER/HAIR DETANGLER (spray bottle of glass cleaner)

You can clean your toilet with it or condition your hair... Seriously. Not that I would suggest doing both at the same time -- that could get weird. To use it as a hair detangler, spray it onto wet hair after washing for best results.

INGREDIENTS

1 part water
1 part white vinegar
Dash of Florida water, rubbing alcohol, or vodka as a preservative
A few spritzes of perfume or cologne

DIRECTIONS

Combine all ingredients in a spray bottle and shake well.

I am making my collection of occult and sustainability books to people in the US who want to borrow them by mail. I had dreams of converting my music studio space partially into a library before I had to shut it down in 2022. Those dreams are not possible to turn into a material space for now but I want the collection to be circulated and I am moving forward despite my lack of a commercial space.

I will mail up to three borrowed books to you at no charge, though donations would be much appreciated at http://buymeacoffee.com/kimberlysteele

Keep the books for up to three months before mailing it back to me. It's an honor system, so if the book/s are not returned after 3 months, I will ask you to pay for their replacement value so I can re-order them.

I am not taking any book donations other than John Michael Greer and Dion Fortune books at the moment because I don't have the shelf space.

If you are in the continental US and would like to check out up to three of my books by mail, please peruse my library spreadsheet below, and then send me an email at k steele studio at gmail dot com:

A look that's not too far off from aging Hollywood... some are already most of the way there.

Our civilization is defined by its unearned wealth. Petroleum is the wealth of stored solar energy formed from the compacted, rotted remains of trillions of living organisms that lived millions of years ago. How absurd that one species burned nearly all of the huge reserves of fossil muck in fewer than three hundred years. It takes a special kind of stupid to that, and a special kind of entitlement.

I say this and I will be driving my car over 30 miles today. Though my car is a 2006 economy car that most women of my socio-economic background would have replaced at least three times over by now, it is still a Faustian bargain I chose when the facts on the ground are I hate driving and I never wanted to own a car. I have always been a fan of walking long distances, but even I cannot fathom walking seventeen miles to get to work and seventeen miles back once I am finished. Like many, I am stuck in an arrangement of bad faith where I spend resources I did not earn that would not be possible to spend if this was 1623 and not 2023.

Unearned wealth is immensely seductive. My reluctant travels in my car take me past several luxurious neighborhoods that I used to want to live in as a younger woman. Along one road I drive, the entire stretch on both sides is McMansions for several miles. New roofs, freshly bricked driveways, and neat little gardens mulched and edged in brick loom behind shrubbery that costs more than my monthly mortgage to purchase and maintain. Windows are not allowed to be dirty or to have rotted sashes. Cars are hidden away in five car garages that look like average size houses. Some McMansions have the appearance of small villages from a distance because of their weird, eclectic rooflines.

Nobody who lives in a McMansion or any of the millions of homes designed to imitate them in miniature believes in unearned wealth having a price. The atheism of our age is driven primarily by people who subconsciously fear paying the piper. I believe the Joel Osteens and Dalai Lamas of the world who ride the top of unearned wealth only believe they answer to God if God is still handing them a massive share of unearned goodies. In their hearts, I believe Joel Osteen and the Dalai Lama are agnostic atheists despite their bleating to the contrary. I judge them not by their words but by their deeds.

Nobody knows the price of unearned wealth because from the looks of things, the consequences are designed to play out over large, glacial eras of time and are so grandly scaled, our puny human minds could never understand them. Perhaps that is why the downfall of Hollywood celebrities in our current era is so fascinating to me. Many of them seem to be running face-first into almost instant karma over the span of one human lifetime. A celebrity’s stock and trade is their looks; that is to say, their wealth is largely dependent on how pretty they can make themselves. Back in the halcyon days of Greta Garbo, becoming the belle of the ball meant you had to be born good looking. Nowadays, there are an array of plastic surgeries that can transform a plain Jane into a fetching Gretchen. Madonna was able to use plastic surgery to her advantage for a time, as were many others, going from an average-looking 6 as a young woman to an 8 as a forty year old woman. Many years later, Megan Fox inflated her lips and with them her career. Untold numbers of Hollywood men got hair plugs and extended their careers along with the appearance of youth. Nowadays, the lowliest of influencers is expected to inflate her breasts, reduce her nose, fill her brow, and puff up her lips via easily-attainable cosmetic procedures. What they are not allowed to do is to look old, and therein lies the rub. At some point, unless we die young, we are all going to look different than we did as young people, and looking like a quasi-young version of what’s currently on trend is decidedly not the same as looking genuinely young.

Trying to outrun the visible signs of the reaper’s encroachment is ending for many in disfigurement. An increasing number of older celebrities, including males, are disfigured because of the number of cosmetic procedures they put themselves through in order to chase the dragon of a “better” appearance. Simon Cowell, Meg Ryan, Priscilla Presley, Lara Flynn Boyle, Demi Moore, and the late Michael Jackson are all harrowing examples of what happens when cosmetic procedures go too far. With the explosion of cosmetic procedures, we now see them exacting their costs at an early age. Celebrities are now getting face lifts and buccal fat removal that renders them deformed and weird looking their 30s: Lea Michele, Ariana Grande, Kim Kardashian and Anya Taylor-Joy are on a scary race towards Jocelyn Wildenstein territory.

The Coronatarianism epidemic that saw literally billions getting an experimental set of injections disguised as vaccines in order to stay in the good graces of the favored class was our civilization’s way of worshipping its true God: unearned wealth. The shots themselves served as an unholy communion with the pharmaceutical grift that now comprises at least 70 percent of the real economy. I believe the costs of that particular grift are far scarier than becoming the facsimile of a cat or the Saw franchise monster in the face, and that’s why I was ready to die rather than take that communion.

With a subject this dark, I realize I have much more to write, so this ends Part I. I have no positive spin except to say that if you have earned wealth, be proud of it, and if you think you’ve got some unearned wealth, do your level best to find it where it hides, potentially give it away, and work to sublimate it in order to ameliorate its terrible karma.

Hi Everyone,

Please note I will be taking off the week of September 10, 2023. Readings will resume as usual September 17, 2023.

http://buymeacoffee.com/kimberlysteele

Your prayers of blessing to the deity/deities of your choice are welcome whether or not you can donate.

....It just so happens to be my 50th birthday on July 23rd, so though I will be reading Ogham as usual, please understand if there is a bit of a delay in finishing the readings for the week of July 23rd.

Everyday abundance in the modern era...Aren't we the fortunate ones?

Almost everyone I have ever known has had a problem with food, including myself at times. Whether it is eating too much, eating too little, or eating food that is not healthy, it is difficult to strike a balance despite modern abundance.

In this age of plenty, often the most difficult feat to accomplish is the habit of gratitude. If nothing else, it is gratitude that is most likely to change your eating habits for the better.

As I have mentioned a few times, once a random entity gifted me with the information that gratitude and generosity sublimate to the power of seven. Whatever you are truly generous with or grateful for will create a multiplication effect of energy across the planes, and everything it touches will receive some benefit. The inverse law is also true: that which we are ungrateful for or stingy with degrades by the power of seven across the planes. I believe this is why so many are trapped in the cycle of obesity and its sister diseases, orthorexia and anorexia: for many, neurosis replaced gratitude and the results were written plainly on the physical level.

I believe if you want to change your body for the better, your first and primary order of business is to be grateful for the mortal vehicle that carries your soul. It is also crucial to be grateful for the fuel you put in your body. Before every meal and potentially before every snack, give heartfelt thanks and blessings to all the forces who brought you the food. (This can be done silently or aloud.) As forces go, I'm not just talking about God, the gods, or vague notions of the universe. I believe it is really important to acknowledge the animals, bugs, birds, and ecosystems (including the animals and ecosystems I accidentally hurt or kill as a vegan), plants, the sun, the dirt, water, wind, farmers, pickers, packagers, drivers, grocery store workers, and cooks. So yes, since I cook a great percentage of my own meals, I am technically thankful to myself and compulsively bless myself every time I eat. However you bless is up to you. I use a prayer I made up that goes like this:

North, East, South, West, may all who brought this food be blessed.

Never Say Diet

Apollo said "All things in moderation". I cannot possibly stress how important the lost art of moderation is when it comes to food. Nobody should ever starve themselves on purpose, a.k.a. diet. Diets are truly heinous wastes of time. Calorie and carb counting is insulting to your soul: poring over the tabloid intrigues of Hollywood stars, weaving coasters out of your own pubes, or twiddling your thumbs until you get arthritis would be far safer and more constructive pastimes.

Often we have to eliminate a food in order to figure out if we are sensitive to it. For me, that's garlic. I love fresh garlic and would eat it 24/7 if it did not tear me apart from the inside out. My suggestion is to replace doubly what you've taken out of your diet. If you eliminate garlic, try two other seasonings over the next few weeks. If you eliminate wheat, try two new types of grain. If you eliminate alcohol, add some fruit smoothies and teas. If you eliminate dairy, try a new plant milk and make sure to eat something a little salty and fatty such as sunflower seeds to make up for the loss of cheese. Always try to make up for the absence of whatever you quit eating.

Ideally, food should be the only medicine in our cabinets. Food is medicine and medicine is food. Homemade soup has far more power to heal than most pharmaceutical concoctions. There are quite a few health nuts who know food is medicine and take it to an extreme that is just as toxic and unhealthy as junk food junkie-ism. When you obsess about food and attempt to perfect it and control it down to the last detail, you rob it of its potential for healing. Food obsessives are orthorexics who discard moderation in favor of the illusion of infinite control. On the other end of the spectrum of imbalance are the stuffers. Stuffers don't know when to stop eating, and when they do have some faint clue of when to stop eating, they ignore it. The point of eating, regardless of your level of under- or overweight, is to eat what your body needs to continue carrying your soul around. If you stop eating long before eating what your body requires or become so picky that you reject foods that you deem not good enough for the likes of you, you are choosing the illusion of control over gratitude. If you glut and gorge because it's oh so good until your body is poisoned and incapacitated, you are choosing to degrade the abundance put before you instead of sublimating it and putting its energy towards good works. Your mouth is not a garbage can. The compost pile will happily eat what you cannot; there is no need to abuse food like cocaine at a beach house bender in 1986. Food is not an escape. It is a necessity.

That Time Logic Made Sense

Whether you need to gain or lose, the material plane requires material logic. If you need to lose weight, you need to eat better quality foods and less of them. What this means is that you need to not fill your plate as much: maybe go for ¾ portions of what you ate in the past. Since American restaurant portions are usually too large for me and because I hate wasting good food, I usually bring my own covered containers and quietly scoop leftovers into the container if there are any. For the reticent, underweight eater, that means eating 125% of what you usually eat and not going to the bathroom to vomit or obsessing over feeling overly full. Grow up, move on, and think about something else once eating has been accomplished. It's not the end of the world to feel over-full or like you ate the wrong thing.

We live in an era of etheric starvation. I have talked about this before and won't go into detail about it here. The main visible side effect of etheric starvation is addiction, and this may serve to explain why so many are addicted to either eating too much or starving themselves. I could grow all my own food, eat greens at nearly every meal, and get more than enough sunlight and still starve on the etheric because etheric starvation is the scourge of our era. For this reason, there are some eating habits you might consider in order to ameliorate etheric starvation besides the usual prescription of basking in the sun, exchanging energy with trees, and generally strolling about in wild and semi wild spaces.

1. Supplementation. In an era of environmental and etheric depletion, Vitamins C and A are a must, along with the entire B spectrum and Zinc. I am at the point where I take a quality multivitamin every day rather than the fistful of pills I used to take. If you are the type who is always fighting off low-grade colds and flus, Zinc is your number one ally, and you should probably consider additional Quercetin and Bromelain to help you absorb it.

2. Flaxseeds and chia. These help digestion. Digestion comprises 70-80 percent of the immune system. Flax and chia have fatty acids you need for proper digestion and elimination.

3. Green tea, preferably matcha, at least 1x a day. Though I love matcha lattes and would guzzle them almost every hour of the day if I could, I am not talking about them here. Matcha is a green tea powder that consists of the dried and ground up leaves of the green Camellia sinensis bush. I believe all forms of tea are magically and etherically potent. I have my hypotheses that they are blessed by both Athena, goddess of wisdom, and Aphrodite, goddess of community and love.

4. Avoiding soda, bottled drinks, non-fresh squeezed juice, and energy drinks. Soda and its co-horts are fine as a once in a while treat, but much like cake, it should be saved for special occasions. Replacing soda with water is good but replacing it with unsweetened herbal tea is better. By drinking unsweetened herbal tea, you get the medicinal and adaptogenic benefits of the herb as well as the hydrating power of water in every sip. Teas/infusions have no calories. They are all superfood (superdrink?) with zero drawbacks.

5. Hot peppers. Hot peppers are superfoods. If you can stand the heat, they are almost universally healthy except in rare cases that act like allergies.

6. Mostly avoiding the microwave. Microwaving strips food of its vital etheric layer and make food taste a bit funny if you are sensitive.

7. Not counting calories or carbs and not dismissing food because it is "unhealthy". All unblessed and under-appreciated food is unhealthy in its own way and all blessed and appreciated food sublimates and becomes better than its parts. Bless your food and you'll understand why soon enough: it will taste better and though it cannot be proven by science (yet) it will be healthy.

Hi Everyone,

Please note I will be taking off the week of September 10, 2023. Readings will resume as usual September 17, 2023.

http://buymeacoffee.com/kimberlysteele

Your prayers of blessing to the deity/deities of your choice are welcome whether or not you can donate.

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Kimberly Steele

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