Turds: The World Meeting of Families

The Catholic Church is holding its World Meeting of Turds in Ireland. Actually it may be over now, but I had to comment.

My Hero Miss Cleo

Ok, let's get the bad press out of the way first. If you look up this doyenne of 1990s US phone psychic lines you invariably find her name (or one of her many pseudonyms) attached to the word fraud.
People don't get that a high proportion of magic is theatre, creating the right environment for your subconscious to make the change. You might feel it necessary to dress u in turbans or speak patois, for example. It's unreal. That's the point.
But I've suspected for some time that Miss Cleo was the real deal. Witches recognise each other for one thing, and when she tells people suffering with psychic gunk to clean the house, I just knew she was real. That's some ancient magic right there, and you find that in the US and other places in the African diaspora, because slaves took their magic with them.
Of course as always the Hound's nose is not deceived:

And despite being dubbed clairvoyant, Harris also said she never claimed to be one, and instead studied voodoo under a Haitian mambo for 30 years.

“So they refer to me as psychic – because the word voodoo scares just about everybody. So they told me, ‘No, no, no, we can’t use that word; we’re going to call you a psychic.’ I said, ‘But I’m not a psychic!’” she told Vice.

“I’m more a shaman, an elder in a community who has visions and gives direction to people in their village. My clients and my students are my village. I take care of this community. If you sit down at my table, you have to take away a lesson and not just learn what is going to happen tomorrow. I also perform weddings – both gay and straight marriages – and house cleansings and blessings,” she said in an interview with Advocate magazine.

The link above should take you to an interview about her coming out as lesbian. I recognise a magical person when I see one, after all I'm a fraud myself. You didn't really think I was a dog, did you?

Now I'm Being Stalked by the Queen of Cups

Last month I posted that I was being stalked by the four of Wands. With some relief that I can write that that card seems to have stopped stalking me for the present, I am being stalked by the queen of cups.
This is a queen with whom I have never felt a great affinity, always a sure sign that a card represents a shadow side of one's personality (posh, eh?). And so to start at the beginning, what we see is a woman sitting on a stone throne on a beach. The throne is highly and very campily carved with images of cherubs. The solidity of the throne is in contrast to a number of stones on the beach, and naturally also some sand. The waves of the sea, almost to the Queen's feet and I have always thought of her as representing a rock of stability in a changeable world. Not forgetting that cups represents the realm of emotion, she would be the sort of person who would represent affection carried on over many years despite ups and downs in a relationship. The sort of person you know you can rely on and know where you will stand with them.
Because this is a card that I don't gel with very well, I naturally had some difficulty applying this to my own situation, so I pulled some more cards, asking the Queen what it was she had to say to me.
I got the three of Wands and the four of Wands. The whole tarot deck is now screaming at me to get the message of the four of Wands. A water card is there for telling me to stick with the fiery message of the four of Wands to stand by my own will hadn't carry on to the end, at which point I will get a party. I have a feeling there's going to be a lot of steam around, but otherwise business as usual in my life.

How Google Sees Me Revisited

Not for the first time I have been amusing myself by doing a Google image search using a picture of myself and seeing what Google thinks I look like. Using a bare-chested picture of course results in a post with a high nipple count. Any excuse... While it is not the picture I used you can of course check out what my manly chest actually looks like in my profile pic.

https://www.mma-core.com/photos/Jonah_Carrion_Profile_Photo_January_21_2017/136513

While this man's body shape is quite like mine, and it's gratifying that I could look like an MMA artist, Google seems determined to give me a hairy chest I haven't got!

https://www.pof.com/viewprofile.aspx?profile_id=73488539

I can see what's happened here, it's the ink that's done it.

http://valet.ru/user/93883546/

No, not near. I wasn't wearing a hat, these guys have no ink and again there's the chest hair thing.

http://valet.ru/user/81402015/

That's quite some rug you've got going on there. But you don't look like me!

https://twitter.com/thatniggatonne

Just promise not to confuse us if you bump into us in the street.

https://plus.google.com/114037299976597100023

Still more chest hair than I'll ever have.

http://valet.ru/user/145079531/

Ink, yes, but again I didn't have a hat on and Google wants me to be Russian!

https://www.corrieresalentino.it/2013/12/antonio-santoro-ha-litalia-in-pugno-el-dynamita-e-il-nuovo-sfidante-al-titolo-nazionale-dei-superleggeri/

Fond dream...

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCSywM5c8Qad63pAn0MIT4Ag

I wish, but again I just can't compete.
Obviously Google is never going to see me as I am lol.

You Can Rely on Birmingham People

...to do the right thing. This weekend it's been Summer in Southside, which reminds me of the series of YouTube videos in which kids meet all sorts of people. In reality, if you stand on a Birmingham street for an afternoon you'll meet all they meet and more.

I'm Being Stalked by the 4 of Wands

I am being stalked by the four of Wands - of course it isn't literally hanging out outside my house waiting for me and making phone calls in which it only heavily breathes without speaking - this is the jargon for a card which keeps reappearing in readings in a particular time.
Normally it wouldn't really be my sort of card, at least as far as it looks in the rider Waite deck. I'm obviously not really a party sort of person! This is that's all probably an example a card in which Pam's illustration may not perfectly match the meaning, and I am beginning to see why the Marseille fanatics I so critical of this deck.
One of these days I am going to memorize the titles given to the cards by the Golden Dawn if it kills me, and

I see that they called this card the Lord of Perfected Work. So it looks as if the party depicted in the card is actually a party celebrating something finished or brought completion in some way.
Another way of understanding tarot cards is a comparison between different decks, and strangely pam perfectly depicts Etteilla's meaning for this card rather than that of the golden dawn: Upright or reversed, prosperity and society are pretty much what she is describing. Of course it is possible that she is intending to unite the two meanings, depicting a celebration of something completed, but unless you know the Golden Dawn's title for this card you would not be able to get it from the illustration, and it is strange that for a deck which supposedly draws so much on the Golden Dawn tradition it's meaning is not that close.
So what have I completed? My idiot colleague at work has left, so that's good, but in typical Hound Style it has revealed a number of other things which have never been dealt with by management and which reinforce my impression that for that and a few other reasons it is time to move on. I am in fact applying for other jobs as I have written, and perhaps the Work completed title signifies that it it's time to move on rather than celebrate. This is also not the end of the work really, card is only number three of the suit so it isn't really the end but maybe perhaps a comma.
Yet another way of understanding the cards is one which is genuinely traditional and certainly predates the golden dawn, also I am not completely sure whether it would also predate Etteilla also it is certainly French. I have written about it before here and it is a way of understanding the minor cards as manifestations of the relevance major card in their suit. So this card for example manifests the energy of the emperor (order, stability, organisation) in the areas of Life detected in Wands (actions, decisions, creativity). It is interesting that this way of understanding gives a much more subtle interpretation to the card, inviting planning, clear thinking, and decisive actions. This interpretation would also be supported by the astrological corresponces in which the Emperor, and the 2, 3, and 4 of Wands are all assigned to Aries. Which is very me, because I am an Aries!
Ok, I get the message. Now will you stop stalking me please?

Spirit of Place: Digbeth Art Gallery Revisited

I girded my loins for an explore today. The art you see in this post is further out than the art I've posted here before, beyond the Custard Factory. This is a completely personal and idiosyncratic choice, simply because nothing really caught my eye closer to the City Centre. The pictures are completely unedited and of course this is to allow a sense of placement and not the result of laziness. My favorite is the one with Chinese script.

Finally a scene which amused me. I hope *that* isn't how they get their spares!