pjthompson: quotes (quotei)

Random quote of the day: 

“I don’t believe in magic, but I believe in interpreting coincidence exactly the way you want to.”

—Sherman Alexie, Twitterfeed, 2/29/12

coincidence4WP@@@

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this random quote of the day do not necessarily reflect the views of the poster, her immediate family, Siegfried and Roy, Leonard Maltin, or the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. They do, however, sometimes reflect the views of the Cottingley Fairies.

Mirrored from Better Than Dead.

Color magic

May. 5th, 2014 10:11 am
pjthompson: quotes (quotei)

Random quote of the day:

“With color one obtains an energy that seems to stem from witchcraft.”

—Henri Matisse

 color4WP@@@

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this random quote of the day do not necessarily reflect the views of the poster, her immediate family, Siegfried and Roy, Leonard Maltin, or the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. They do, however, sometimes reflect the views of the Cottingley Fairies.

Mirrored from Better Than Dead.

pjthompson: quotes (quotei)

Random quote of the day:

“Above all, watch with glittering eyes the whole world around you because the greatest secrets are always hidden in the most unlikely places. Those who don’t believe in magic will never find it.”

—Roald Dahl, The Minpins

eyes4WP@@@

 

Disclaimer:  The views expressed in this random quote of the day do not necessarily reflect the views of the poster, her immediate family, Siegfried and Roy, Leonard Maltin, or the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. They do, however, sometimes reflect the views of the Cottingley Fairies.

 

Mirrored from Better Than Dead.

pjthompson: quotes (quotei)

Random quote of the day:

“Above all, watch with glittering eyes the whole world around you because the greatest secrets are always hidden in the most unlikely places. Those who don’t believe in magic will never find it.”

—Roald Dahl, The Minpins

eyes4WP@@@

 

Disclaimer:  The views expressed in this random quote of the day do not necessarily reflect the views of the poster, her immediate family, Siegfried and Roy, Leonard Maltin, or the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. They do, however, sometimes reflect the views of the Cottingley Fairies.

 

Mirrored from Better Than Dead.

Magic pasta

Nov. 8th, 2012 09:40 am
pjthompson: quotes (quotei)

Random quote of the day:

 

“Life is the combination of magic and pasta, of fantasy and reality.”

—Federico Fellini, I, Fellini

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Disclaimer:  The views expressed in this random quote of the day do not necessarily reflect the views of the poster, her immediate family, Siegfried and Roy, Leonard Maltin, or the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. They do, however, sometimes reflect the views of the Cottingley Fairies.

Mirrored from Better Than Dead.

Magic pasta

Nov. 8th, 2012 09:40 am
pjthompson: quotes (quotei)

Random quote of the day:

 

“Life is the combination of magic and pasta, of fantasy and reality.”

—Federico Fellini, I, Fellini

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Disclaimer:  The views expressed in this random quote of the day do not necessarily reflect the views of the poster, her immediate family, Siegfried and Roy, Leonard Maltin, or the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. They do, however, sometimes reflect the views of the Cottingley Fairies.

Mirrored from Better Than Dead.

pjthompson: quotes (quotei)

Random quote of the day:

 

“[Rudolf] Otto referred to ghosts and miracles as aspects of the numinous, though as degenerate forms of it.  Both are now embarrassments in academe; they seem superstitious.  Nevertheless, ghosts and miracles continue to be reported…. Rationalization did not really entail the elimination of magic from the world, but rather the elimination of the conscious awareness of it among cultural elites.”

—George P. Hansen, The Trickster and the Paranormal


 

 

 

Disclaimer:  The views expressed in this random quote of the day do not necessarily reflect the views of the poster, her immediate family, Siegfried and Roy, Leonard Maltin, or the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. They do, however, sometimes reflect the views of the Cottingley Fairies.

Mirrored from Better Than Dead.

pjthompson: (pilgrim)
prayer sticks



What are prayer sticks? A way of making a prayer manifest in physical form, an offering to the gods and spirits in hope they will please them and persuade them to grant your prayer.

There are many ways to make prayer sticks, many traditions, including fake ones. If you type prayer sticks into Google, you'll see what I mean. They aren't strictly an American Indian tradition, but exist in many forms in many cultures. The thing is: one tradition will have you plant them in the earth to soak up the earth's magic; another will tell you they must hang in trees and never touch the earth or the magic is void. I suspect the "truth" is more along the lines of "as you think, so shall it be."

The way I was taught is this: first, get yourself a stick. Now, some traditions say it has to be a stick gathered from a certain kind of tree (the kind of tree varying depending on who you're talking to), stripped of its bark and sanded; others say leave the bark on; still others say the stick itself is less important than the intent put into it. A piece of wooden dowling will do if you do not have a tree handy to harvest switches from. So, I got me some wooden dowling. Second, on the top part of the stick you paint or write your prayer in some kind of permanent medium. Next, you cover up the prayer with bright cloth or leather and bind it with string or leather thongs. I have a special piece of batik cloth which a soldier brought back from Vietnam for his mother. She gave it to my mother, who gave it to me. I use it for all my ceremonial art pieces. Then you decorate the cloth—with things of a more natural bent, not plastic. In my case, I used shells, bells, tile beads, shell buttons (some dyed blue, some natural), bone beads, ribbons, and feathers. Feathers are very, very important. Almost every tradition I've read of speaks of feathers. They help the prayer fly up to the gods, you see. After all this—in the way I was taught—you find a secluded place where you can plant your stick in the ground, somewhere where it's not likely to be disturbed because if someone touches it, the magic all goes away! You visit the stick every day at sunset or sunrise for ten days, and reiterate the prayer inked on it. After ten days it becomes just another decorated stick and you can pluck it from the ground again and do whatever you like with it. I placed mine on display in my room, and they have journeyed around with me now from place to place to place to place.

prayer sticks closeup


And no, I will not say what the prayers were for. I have a superstition of my own, that telling the prayer will make the magic all disappear. In fact, I'm only totally sure what one of those prayers was for (both were done many years ago). I also have a superstition about unwrapping the stick and peaking at the prayer. See above about magic disappearing. The one I'm sure of came true, so the stick did the trick. I suspect I know what the other one was, but I'm not entirely sure, and if it was what I think, then the gods found my prayer stick and me wanting. The prayer did not come true. No harm, no foul. Prayers sticks are about asking, not about receiving.

I did a lot of asking back in the day, back in that day.

This post is really about cultural appropriation. )

Big magic

Feb. 23rd, 2011 08:58 am
pjthompson: quotes (quotei)

Random quote of the day:

“There’s a true sense of mystery with magic…like you’re having a meaningful dialogue with something bigger than you—bigger than anything you can imagine.”

—Charles de Lint, “The Invisibles”

I can highly recommend this Etsy shop to those who might be interested in wonderfully whimsical assemblages, cards, prints.

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this random quote of the day do not necessarily reflect the views of the poster, her immediate family, Siegfried and Roy, Leonard Maltin, or the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. They do, however, sometimes reflect the views of the Cottingley Fairies.

Mirrored from Better Than Dead.

pjthompson: (Default)
Random quote of the day:


“A good cook is like a sorceress who dispenses happiness."

—Elsa Schiaparelli, Shocking Life







(Thanks to [livejournal.com profile] stillnotbored.)






Illustrated version. )


Disclaimer: The views expressed in this random quote of the day do not necessarily reflect the views of the poster, her immediate family, Siegfried and Roy, Leonard Maltin, or the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. They do, however, sometimes reflect the views of the Cottingley Fairies.
pjthompson: (Default)
Random quote of the day:


"Magic isn’t something you do. Magic is something you are."

—Daniel Michael Kraig, The Encyclopedia of Magic and Alchemy





Since the random quote of the day is a function of me being at work, this will be the last quote of the year as I will be on vacation starting tomorrow. I'll be around on LJ, just not quoting. And maybe this isn't a completely random quote. Maybe I paged through them until I found one a little more appropriate for the year's parting message. Don't tell anyone, okay?

Joy to you in the season in whatever way you celebrate it (or not)!




Illustrated version. )


Disclaimer: The views expressed in this random quote of the day do not necessarily reflect the views of the poster, her immediate family, Siegfried and Roy, Leonard Maltin, or the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. They do, however, sometimes reflect the views of the Cottingley Fairies.
pjthompson: (Default)
I believe the Universe is what it is: neither benevolent nor malign, just indifferent most of the time. It isn't here to reward me, nor is it here to punish me. It just is . . . what it is: unknowable, beyond the imagination or perception of humans, a great iceberg of the cosmic tide, more of it hidden than shows on the surface. Every time we think we've seen the ultimate tiniest particle at the heart of matter, gravitational perturbations show up to let us know that nuh-uh, somebody else is hiding down there in the depths. The only thing that is truly certain about the Universe is that it doesn't wish to be known at its most profound level.

At those deepest levels, it is deeply strange, composed of protean particles that somehow agree to hang together to make matter. Shapeshifters of extraordinary talent, they seem to like pleasing their audience, bending with the observer to be what is expected of them. Particle? Wave? Sure, I can do that. Just tell me what you want, I'll make it happen.

That's why I think that if we marshal our forces, strive for a change, believe in it, commit to it, or simply change our way of looking at a problem, we can sometimes nudge the Universe in the direction we want to go. I believe in the butterfly effect. If there's any realm of magic, it's there, where quantum physics and chaos theory meet, where particles that are also waves change form according to the expectations of the perceiver, where tiny local conditions cause a chain reaction that leads to major effects.

I don't believe in from-the-top-down change. Usually massive programs are too cumbersome and passive to have the intended effect. I believe in change that happens within each human heart—whether inspired from the top, or locally, everyone doing what they can, no matter how small—and in the spreading waves of influence those tiny changes can bring.

That's the surest form of magic I know: that somewhere in the world, the flapping of a butterfly's wings can bring a nation to its knees—or, conversely, call up a strong and favorable wind for an amazing journey of discovery.

Invisible

Oct. 7th, 2008 10:31 am
pjthompson: (Default)
Random quote of the day:


"The trouble with magic is that there's too much it just can't fix...The useful magic's never at hand. The three wishes and the genies in bottles, seven-league boots, invisible cloaks and all. They stay in stories, while out here in the wide world we have to muddle through as best we can on our own."

—Charles de Lint, The Onion Girl




Illustrated version. )
pjthompson: (Default)
I can't remember where on my flist or feedlist I got this from (and, sadly, it was only yesterday), but it's a fascinating article and I wanted to share. I'm all about the sharing, I am. So thanks to whoever originally shared this.
pjthompson: (Default)
Random quote of the day:


"Touch magic, pass it on."

—Jane Yolen


Illustrated version. )
pjthompson: (Default)



That's not a rabbit!

ETA: Anyone else notice the guy in the gorilla suit? I didn't on first watching either.
pjthompson: (Default)
I was reading a post by [livejournal.com profile] handworn yesterday in which he was talking about his earliest memories. Naturally, that started me thinking about mine.

There is a bit of familial controversy about what I classify as my earliest memory. My parents used to take me out to a local lake where we'd float on a raft. My father would go swimming and he'd sometimes hold me in the water next to him and the raft, bobbing me up and down while I splashed and laughed and loved it loved it loved it. I remember the joy of that water quite clearly, the cool temperature on a hot day, the feeling of buoyancy, the worn, dark wood of the raft, my mother sitting on it watching us, dressed in some light colored shirt over a bathing suit, and she was laughing—just a moment in time, but a lovely one, preserved in my memory.

The trouble is, my mother says that they never went to that lake once I was past a year old, and she doesn't think I was more than ten or eleven months old the last time they went. Both science and my mother say I shouldn't (couldn't) remember something from that early in my life. Scientists would insist that I'd heard family stories, or seen pictures, and created a false memory for myself—and I'm familiar enough with how easy it is to create false memories to see how that could be so. The problem is I don't ever remember my family talking about those outings until I mentioned them many years later, "Remember when we used to go out on the raft? Where was that?"

"How do you know about that?" my mother asked, startled. I told her I remembered it. She said it couldn't be so.

If that isn't my earliest memory, then I just materialized one day when I was maybe four, playing by myself in the lovely green alcove between the front of my childhood home and the house which stood on the front of the property. This was my sacred combe, my favorite place in early childhood, always cool even on the hottest days, always the place of greenest, lushest grass, the high wall behind me covered in fragrant yellow climbing roses, the tall march of calla lilies along our house beside me, the other house tucked in on my other side. A small space, no more than ten feet square as I think back on it now, but a cozy, green place of dreams.

Reaching back for that memory, I can sort of see why some people believe in magic. Our consciousness just comes into being on a certain day, as if by some conjuration. The who that we are emerges from our instincts at that moment and starts marching forward through our personal history. But who were we before that? Why is it so misty and gone from our minds?

Oh yes, I'm well familiar with the science of consciousness, false memory, early memories and their explanations for these things. But for me, none of it can hold a bell, book, and candle to the mystery of who we are.
pjthompson: (Default)
I got Amalia Rodrigues cranked up to the max, sea scallops marinating in the fridge for the grill, a kitty snoring in the chair nearby...and at this moment in time, I want nothing more from life. Will. Not. Last. But that's okay, too. Knowing something good is transitory adds to its piquancy.

The last two weeks the roommate has been having her bathroom remodeled. It really needed it, as the floor beneath the shower was sagging, and the contractor did a lovely job, enlarging the shower and doing a nice tile job of the shower, bathroom floor, and counter. Lots of disruption, what with borrowing of showers and sinks and toilets, but the results have been worth it.

But Min, never the bravest of cats, goes into hiding for as long as the guys are in the house working—under the bed, under the sofa, under the chair, squeezing into spaces that will barely contain her Larger-Than-When-She-Moved-In girth. It doesn't matter how much poobie woobie talk I do, I can't convince her to come out.

Unless I get on the computer. The computer, apparently, is so much a part of our normal weekend routine that Min feels utterly reassured. When she hears the start up chords of the Mac, I hear rustling from under the chair, and by the time the keys are tapping, she's squeezed out and climbing over the couch so she can come onto the desk for a scritch.

Nothing can hurt a kitty when mom is on her Magic Normalcy Machine.

Scatterings

Jan. 2nd, 2007 03:32 pm
pjthompson: (Default)
☛ You know when that little disk icon pulses at the bottom of the document when you're saving the file? When I see it, I think, "heaving bosom."

☛ Really, in good conscience I can no longer defend Laurell K. Hamilton. It's not because everyone is unloading on her, or because she's asstard du jour—that's never prevented me from defending her before. And it's not because I've suddenly turned into a prude after reading gazillions of her books. It's because she's subverted the damned story to sex and isn't even trying to work out plots anymore.

ETA: Inspired by a discussion over at [livejournal.com profile] athenais's place (among other places).

☛ Can your magic genie desert you overnight? One day he's flying you through the clouds like he always has, the next he never calls.

☛ My cat was upset this morning when I changed my the sloth routine of the last week and a half of vacation. "Wait! You're leaving? I thought I'd broken you of that bad habit."

Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting


Min: Get off the computer now! It's laptime.


Random quote of the day:

"To move forward you must first look behind."

—Jeffrey Ford, The Portrait of Mrs. Charbuque
pjthompson: (Default)
Random quote of the day:


"Loneliness can make magicians of us, not to mention prophets."

—Jeffrey Ford, The Portrait of Mrs. Charbuque

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pjthompson

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