I want to buy five acres or so of land. I want it to not be in an urban area and it to be west of the Cascades.
Anyone have any clues about how to find such land?
The idea is to have a place to put a cabin/yurt/cob-house (etc.) on that can be used for weekends, spiritual retreats, and such.
R and I got back in Seattle this afternoon and back to the house a few hours ago. Her dad is staying with us for the week while her mother attends a conference here in Seattle.
Our weekend trip to California went fairly well. As I said in my previous posting, we stayed at the Red Victorian Thursday night on Haight Street in San Francisco. The hippie vibe there was fairly omnipresent but it was a rather nice place and I’d go there again. They had a nice kitty named “Mr. Mouser” there as well. (Yes, I am the Cat Man.)
Friday, we drove down to Santa Cruz and went out to the world famous “Mystery Spot“. That was fairly interesting though obviously done to death in a silly way. R and I both found the place to be odd, even when avoiding the cabin on the site which is (they admit) set up partially to make optical illusions. Some of the weirdness with perspective that we saw on seemingly level concrete surfaces was odd. I don’t think it is anything even vaguely supernatural but it was definitely disorienting and worth the few bucks that it cost in order to see.
That evening, we went and looked around the newish shopping district in Santa Cruz and had dinner at an Irish Pub there. Afterwards, we finally went and saw Underworld, which actually turned out quite a bit better than I expected. After all of the bitching from certain friends, I did expect it to suck and I was pleasently surprised. It’s still a silly Vampires and Werewolves movie so it isn’t Oscar material no matter what but I liked it quite a bit (better than the first Blade movie, which I own).
After spending a night trying to ignore the partying kids in our motel, R and I met Lefty for lunch and conversation. I think that we all had a nice time and it was pretty cool to put a name to a face after all of this time of speaking online. Following this, we hit the Boardwalk and rode on the roller coasters and such there. A couple of hours of sun and crowds was about all that we could handle.
For Saturday evening, we drove up to San Francisco again and met Kat for dinner at a nice place in Berkeley. She’d called us when we’d gotten into town and invited us to an event but we’d already made plans for Santa Cruz. We hooked up and then went with her to a birthday party for one of the members of the Open Source Order of the Golden Dawn that R and I had hung out with during our previous trip to Berkeley. We got to see a number of famliar faces and had a nice time.
Today was taken up by going to the airport, waiting for our delayed plane and then flying into town with R’s parents. Eventually I went off for long enough to meet Sarastro and Monk for a magical meet-up.
R and I are just off of Haight in San Francisco now. We flew in uneventfully after getting up at God-awful-early and are staying at the Red Victorian Bed and Breakfast on Haight tonight. I always love coming here and never seem to spend enough time down here. If it wasn’t so damn expensive (and if I didn’t have a child and career in Seattle), I’d move here.
We’re going to bum around and maybe shop a bit. heh. We’ve already gone to Field’s Books today. Tomorrow we are going down to Santa Cruz…
My mom is coming to town. Feel free to come see her present:
Seattle Pagan Scholars presents Gretchen Faulk on “Nuit, The Limitless Goddess”
Date: Sunday, October 19, 2003
Time: 1 p.m. socializing, 2 p.m. lecture
Place: Seattle Art Museum downtown
Cost: $5 suggested donation (not mandantory! everyone is welcome!)
Presentation description:
Nuit The Limitless Goddess
Popular Egyptology refers to Nuit as “The Sky Goddess.” To the ancients, Nuit was more than the stars above, she was the very fabric of space within whose body were the dimensions of all life and eternity. What is the relation of this Goddess to the modern day? Who is she now?
This presentation by Gretchen Faulk will explore Nuit’s role in Egyptian cosmology and religion. An overview of her iconography will equip you to recognize and appreciate her in Egyptian art. Then we move on to 1904 Cairo, and the experiences of Aleister Crowley with the Lady of the ‘Stele of Revealing.’ Nuit speaks for herself in Liber al vel Legis. A personal spiritual interpretation reveals Nuit as the Initiator of a new paradigm for modern Magick. Please join Sor. Ashera as we explore the symbols, character and message of the Starry One of Heaven.
The program was recently offered at the International O.T.O. Conference in Portland, Oregon; Notocon ‘03. This version is slightly expanded.
Presenter’s Bio: Gretchen Faulk
Gretchen lives in Salt Lake City and works in local government. For over 15 years she has pursued her education as a Wiccan Priestess studying history, world religions, cross-cultural mythology, and theology. She is known for her devotion to the Goddess and the neo-pagan community, maintaining ties with diverse pagan and international religious traditions. Over the years she has had presented at panel discussions, talk shows, University of Utah lectures, police departments, schools, pagan workshops and lead many, many rituals. This summer she was a featured presenter at Notocon, an international spiritual convention. Her personal spiritual focus is eclectic and devotional. For the last 9 years Gretchen’s scholarship and energy have been directed to the founding and administration of Salt Lake City’s only open, legal Wiccan Church; the Goddess Worship Service.
For more information:
http://www.speakeasy.org/~bwilliam
SeattlePaganScholars@hotmail.com
All original work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.