at a Standstill

-the Pandemic has taken such a great toll on me and the world at large

it feels as if everyone and everything were frozen in time almost- thankfully that’s not true, we’re all still here and you can find us in the usual places even after all that period of radio silence

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Happy Solstice Eve!

Tomorrow, on the 21st, it will be the Longest Night of the Year here in Tampa

some of us folks are going to light a candle with the intention of eliminating the Pandemic, and the lighting will start around the time the dark rises at 5:38pm (also, if you’re not in Tampa, you can find your sundown times at TimeAndDate.com)

whether you participate in the Group Ritual or not, I want to wish you a Happy Solstice and a Wonderful New Year!

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Happy Samhain!!

this is belated on my part, but I hope y’all are having a wonderful day this Saturday and enjoy the rest of the month and the cooler temps in and around Tampa too

-Cres

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Halloween Cemetery Crawl @ 5pm!!

The Occulture Club will be hosting one of our Premier events this year, the Halloween Cemetery Crawl!

It will take place at 5pm on the 31st, at Oaklawn Cemetery 606 E Harrison St, Tampa, FL 33602, with mandatory masking and social distancing for safety~

We hope to see you and your friends there soon!

Cres

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and the beat goes on

-sorry for the Radio Silence as of late, living through a Pandemic makes it hard to do or say much of anything sometimes

Sadly, the Club is still refraining from having our physical meetups since COVID is still at large, but we’re still available to chat online from time to time- so please make use of either Discord or Telegram to reach out

It is important to keep a safe physical distance from others, but that’s not true in other areas, we need to talk to friends now more than ever.

I wish y’all all the best, now and in the future,

Cres

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Black Lives Matter, now and always

-in matters great and small, we all have a long ways to go to rid ourselves of racism and anti-black sentiments

Many times black voices are left out of the occult community- I ask that we make all our spaces welcome for all POC, especially BIPOC since they sometimes are left out- not necessarily by choice, but being overlooked is also bad (perhaps even moreso).

At any rate, here are some black tarot/oracle/astrology folks you can support and also, an important cause you can help out with and educate yourself more about too:  8toabolition.com

[cw: police brutality, violence, killings]

“99% of killings by the police from 2013-2019 did not result in officers being charged with a crime.”

“If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor” -Desmond Tutu

*****
Anyway, I’m sorry that it took me so long to say what was on my mind and in my heart- it took me time to find my voice and all the resources above, I hope that this post is serviceable and does BLM and the rest of us justice…

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Covid 19 update

We will be postponing our public meet ups while Covid 19 is still at large. Our community is organizing digital meetups whenever possible until the situation changes. Expect an official update for when our public meetups are reinstated. Please stay safe out there while we all do our best to keep the virus from spreading too quickly.

Ego Dormo Cum Spiro,

Magical Musing: Failure, A Magickal Perspective

Is it possible for a Magician to fail?

A Magician is a student of perspective. We make a study of different mindscapes, worldviews, and archetypes. In doing so, much of the source of our power is in how we can frame our situations. This arcane sensibility is possibly more important to the Magician than the immediate outcomes of our decisions.

In our mundane lives, we are faced with failure all the time. Usually, we refine our approach, soothe our wounds, and carry on. Sometimes we reverse or change our course entirely. And we learn.

As Magicians, our awareness illuminates that we are part of something greater. In this domain, it is possible to see any failings on our part as simply part of the current expression of everything. Our successes and failures exist within a larger web of events and probabilities.

Taken within context, we failed because we needed to, because it was necessary. It happened, along with everything else. As an extension of all manifestation, contiguous of and congruent with, Infinity.

Lacking foward progression in the goals of our current linear mortal organism means to remain in place, to feel stuck or even pushed backward. But sometimes, even we have other places we might rather be, the current work isn’t done. The Wheel isn’t ready to turn. And so we remain.

All the things that hold us back from success are each in their own a part of the All. We can despise them, or choose a different way. Therefore, our unintended wisdom is this: fear of failure, and failure itself, are not our enemies. They counsel caution, and to broaden our conscious understanding of ourselves within the Great Now. They are a reminder to us, to use our Magician’s tools. With every breath, with every step forward, in every ringing immediate moment, as everything changes into everything else.

As Magicians, there is power in our failures – the freedom to see ourselves, and our world, with greater clarity and grace; to challenge us to grow in our knowledge and forsake our old assumptions. To know our risks before us as obstacles to be overcome, problems to be solved, and experiences to be gained. There is divinity of power in everything, so too in our failures.

So it is merely a matter of perspective to say when we have done a particular thing, we were doing “failure”. An overly simplistic one, at that. To a Magician, there can be awe and amazement to do anything at all, because to do is to manifest creation. To share, in no matter how small or mundane a part, with Magos. ⬟

Club Changes in the New Year

Hello everyone,

As an illustrious fuddy dudy it falls on me to outline some major changes in the club this year. We’ve come a long way since we established the club two years ago and because of this fact our focuses and situations have developed and changed. We are in the process of updating the club to better reflect the concerns of its membership.

The first major change is the discontinuation of the regular St. Pete meet ups. We unfortunately did not have a lot of St. Pete member participation and for the members that did participate the travel to St. Pete was a major hurdle. We will still visit St. Pete for special events, such as our planetarium visits, but we will no longer be meeting at Mad Hatter’s for regular events.

The second major change is a refocusing of the club’s messaging to highlight ourselves as a queer space. The concerns of club membership have begun to crystallize on the intersection of the occult and queer lives and so I do not anticipate major deviations from our discussed content. This by no means indicates we will be restricting membership to queer practitioners or that the club will not continue to seek to accommodate all members. We more wish to acknowledge the composition of the club and to better position ourselves to serve the ends of its membership. I will likely write at length about this intersection in another article.

The third major change will be the selection of an outdoor space for regular meetings. We are still evaluating options, but we wish to vary the environments in which we hold our meetings and establish a long term camping ground for the club.

Finally, we are working on compiling articles and other content for a club publication. We are not yet committing to a timeline, I believe that our interests will be better served by waiting for submissions and publishing when we have a decent collection to really sit down and edit into a classic ‘zine. This is the beginning of our official long term projects.

There will be many other changes coming up, though they are not far enough along for me to outline them with certainty. Regardless, I am excited to see newfound momentum within the club and at the prospect of better supporting our community. To the successful start of an exciting year!

Ego Dormio Cum Spiro,

What to do if you get “stuck” during a Tarot Card Reading:

Beforehand, remember to always make Empowering Queries or Requests of the Cards that give the Querent the focus and direct power to influence their situations with each Reading done; that way, they can better take action and be more in control of what happens in their lives.

Still, sometimes, despite one’s best efforts, the Cards’ Messages don’t make any sense at all.

If this happens to you, there are some things you can do:  

– slow down and take some deep breaths
this will help you to be calmer and think more clearly

– touch the Cards one-by-one
interacting with them physically can help to ground you and better absorb what is being said via touch

– add more physical light to the area where the Cards are laid out
seeing clearly/clairvoyance sometimes starts with better lit physical conditions so don’t neglect this just for the sake of ambiance, you need to be able to perceive what you are doing to be able to interpret things

– repeat the Query/Card Request aloud
this way you can have greater recall and focus of what you are seeking to know in the first place, and that can help get the thoughts and words to come out better

Also, review your expectations and try not to let your assumptions overshadow what is being said- especially if you don’t want to take in the message, in that case it’s best to listen even more closely to it!

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