Reading

Current Mood: calm
Current Music: Malcolm Daiglish, "The Ice Bear"

Entry tags:

Magic Monday

It's midnight, and so it's time to launch a new Magic Monday. Ask me anything about occultism, and with certain exceptions noted below, any question received by midnight Monday Eastern time will get an answer. Please note: Any question or comment received after that point will not get an answer, and in fact will not be put through. If you're in a hurry, or suspect you may be the 341,928th person to ask a question, please check out the very rough version 1.3 of The Magic Monday FAQ here.

Also: I will not be putting through or answering any more questions about practicing magic around children. I've answered those in simple declarative sentences in the FAQ. If you read the FAQ and don't think your question has been answered, read it again. If that doesn't help, consider remedial reading classes; yes, it really is as simple and straightforward as the FAQ says. And further: I've decided that questions about getting goodies from spirits are also permanently off topic here. The point of occultism is to develop your own capacities, not to try to bully or wheedle other beings into doing things for you. I've discussed this in a post on my blog.

(The image? I've finished the sequence of my published books; while I decide what I want to do next, I have some memes to share.)

Buy Me A Coffee

Ko-Fi

I've had several people ask about tipping me for answers here, and though I certainly don't require that I won't turn it down. You can use either of the links above to access my online tip jar; Buymeacoffee is good for small tips, Ko-Fi is better for larger ones. (I used to use PayPal but they developed an allergy to free speech, so I've developed an allergy to them.) If you're interested in political and economic astrology, or simply prefer to use a subscription service to support your favorite authors, you can find my Patreon page here and my SubscribeStar page here.

I've also had quite a few people over the years ask me where they should buy my books, and here's the answer. Bookshop.org is an alternative online bookstore that supports local bookstores and authors, which a certain gargantuan corporation doesn't, and I have a shop there, which you can check out here. Please consider patronizing it if you'd like to purchase any of my books online.

And don't forget to look up your Pangalactic New Age Soul Signature at CosmicOom.com.

With that said, have at it!

Entry tags:

ogham,
readings

Ogham Readings on Saturdays

I am happy to read your Ogham free of charge -- that's how I hone my divination skills. Please limit your reading request to four or fewer Ogham cards: though this can take many forms, here are some common ones (all of them are basically combos of 4 cards):

-a single three card reading for the week or month and a one-off, one card reading

-four questions about four separate items that require one answer (card) per item
-a one card reading to answer a specific question and a three card for a more nuanced question
-Two separate readings, two cards a piece exploring the positives and negatives of two different choices

I am happy to do Ogham readings confidentially via email -- just email me at k steele studio at gmail during the allotted time/before deadline. I cannot answer health questions. If you have a question about health or another sensitive, private matter, provide a bunch of non-identifying information and the Ogham will be able to figure it out even if I don't. I'm serious... the Ogham actually tend to "know" things without me being privy to what is going on.

Please note I take time off during Solstices and Equinoxes for Druid stuff and because sometimes I simply need a break.

My next planned break is from October 23 - November 6.

I take reading requests from whenever this post goes up on Friday night until 8pm US Central Time Saturday.

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.

Current Mood: mildly harried
Current Music: Jethro Tull, "Too Old to Rock and Roll"

Entry tags:

Frugal Friday

Welcome back to Frugal Friday! This is a weekly forum post to encourage people to share tips on saving money, especially but not only by doing stuff yourself. A new post will be going up every Friday, and will remain active until the next one goes up. Contributions will be moderated, of course, and I have some simple rules to offer, which may change further as we proceed.

Rule #1:  this is a place for polite, friendly conversations about how to save money in difficult times. It's not a place to post news, views, rants, or emotional outbursts about the reasons why the times are difficult and saving money is necessary. Nor is it a place to use a money saving tip to smuggle in news, views, etc. I have a delete button and I'm not afraid to use it.

Rule #2:  this is not a place for you to sell goods or services, period. Here again, I have a delete button and I'm not afraid to use it.

Rule #3:  please give your tip a heading that explains briefly what it's about.  Homemade Chicken Soup, Garden Containers, Cheap Attic Insulation, and Vinegar Cleans Windows are good examples of headings. That way people can find the things that are relevant for them. If you don't put a heading on your tip it will be deleted.

Rule #4: don't post anything that would amount to advocating criminal activity. Any such suggestions will not be put through.

Rule #5: don't post LLM ("AI") generated content, and don't bring up the subject unless you're running a homemade LLM program on your own homebuilt, steam-powered server farm.

With that said, have at it!

Current Mood: worried

Entry tags:

Warning Signs of an Epic Crash Ahead?

While most people are paying attention to other things -- notably the raucous political theater in the US and EU and the various wars raging in eastern Europe and the Middle East -- certain things going on in US speculative markets have my hackles up.

First, crucially, is the ongoing frenzy around LLM ("AI") companies. Unbelievable amounts of money have poured into the "AI" market and everything connected to it. Investors seem to be convinced that "AI" is the biggest thing ever. As a business proposition, though, "AI" appears to be turning into a massive flop. Most companies that have introduced "AI"-based applications have not profited at all from the investment, and most of the companies that produce the applications survive solely on vast ongoing infusions of money from venture capitalists. If this reminds you of the run-up to the dotcom crash of 1999-2000, let's just say you're not alone.

None of this is surprising if you've stayed away from the hype around LLMs. The reason I put quotes around the letters "AI" is that these programs aren't intelligent. All they do is generate strings of statistically likely words or other symbols in response to queries. They've been labeled "stochastic parrots," and the label's a good one. Is that technology useful in some applications? Sure, but that doesn't come close to justifying the hype, or the valuations.

All this is bad enough, but it comes at a time when the US economy in particular has been so thoroughly riddled with financialization that any significant shock could cause drastic repercussions. That was shown a few weeks ago by the sudden collapse of First Brands, an auto parts company. First Brands looked financially sound, but it produced that illusion via an impressive amount of financial gamesmanship, including such things as taking out loans from different lenders using the same assets as collateral. It turns out some billions of dollars have vanished without a trace, and a lot of high-end investment banks are facing huge losses. It's likely safe to assume that the games played by First Brands are also under way in many other companies -- which implies in turn that any sort of sudden shock could bring down a great many firms in a hurry.

Then there's the elephant in the room, the possible role of diverted federal funds in propping up US speculative markets. Billions upon billions of dollars were being siphoned off federal agencies such as USAID through a labyrinth of consultancies and shell corporations. Quite a bit of that was ending up in the pockets of congresscritters and top-level bureaucrats, and some was being used to fund political activities, but it would not surprise me if at least some was flowing into speculative markets. That tap is being turned off. The impact may be impressive.

Trying to time the collapse of a speculative bubble is a fool's game. (Isaac Newton tried to time the collapse of the South Sea Bubble and lost his shirt in the crash. I am not as smart as Isaac Newton, and neither, dear reader, are you.) Even so, readers whose interests might be affected by a sudden crisis in the tech and banking industries may want to prepare for rough weather, and all of us may find it wise to brace for hard times. Clearing your debts, getting any investments you may have out of vulnerable sectors, and making other sensible preparations for collective crisis would be wise.

Also, if you haven't done this yet, please pick up a copy of John Kenneth Galbraith's book The Great Crash 1929 and read it. It's a good lively read -- Galbraith was one of those all but unimaginable figures, an economist who was genuinely good at writing -- and his chronicle of the great boom and bust of 1929 is the best intro I know of to the mechanics of speculative bubbles and crashes. Once you've read it, look at the financial news and see how many parallels you spot. Yes, the phrase "target-rich environment" comes to mind.

Oh, and avoid the sidewalks around your local financial districts. You don't want to be hit by falling financiers. (Ahem: highly NSFW due to language. It's still funny, and besides, the singer was my t'ai chi teacher when I lived in Oregon.)

Current Mood: bracing for the dentist

Entry tags:

Open (More or Less) Post on Covid 216

We are now into the fifth year of these open posts. When I first posted a tentative hypothesis on the course of the Covid phenomenon, I had no idea that discussion on the subject would still be necessary all these years later, much less that it would turn into so lively, complex, and troubling a conversation. Still, here we are. Crude death rates and other measures of collapsing public health remain anomalously high in many countries, but nobody in authority wants to talk about the inadequately tested experimental Covid injections that are the most likely cause; ~~public health authorities~~ government shills for the pharmaceutical industry are still trying to push through laws that will allow them to force vaccinations on anyone they want; public trust in science is collapsing; new revelations are leaking out about just how bad the Covid vaccines are for human health; and the story continues to unfold.

So it's time for another open post. The rules are the same as before:

1. If you plan on parroting the party line of the medical industry and its paid shills, please go away. This is a place for people to talk openly, honestly, and freely about their concerns that the party line in question is dangerously flawed and that actions being pushed by the medical industry and its government enablers are causing injury and death on a massive scale. It is not a place for you to dismiss those concerns. Anyone who wants to hear the official story and the arguments in favor of it can find those on hundreds of thousands of websites.

2. If you plan on insisting that the current situation is the result of a deliberate plot by some villainous group of people or other, please go away. There are tens of thousands of websites currently rehashing various conspiracy theories about the Covid-19 outbreak and the vaccines. This is not one of them. What we're exploring is the likelihood that what's going on is the product of the same arrogance, incompetence, and corruption that the medical industry and its wholly owned politicians have displayed so abundantly in recent decades. That possibility deserves a space of its own for discussion, and that's what we're doing here.

3. If you plan on using rent-a-troll derailing or disruption tactics, please go away. I'm quite familiar with the standard tactics used by troll farms to disrupt online forums, and am ready, willing, and able -- and in fact quite eager -- to ban people permanently for engaging in them here. Oh, and I also lurk on other Covid-19 vaccine skeptic blogs, so I'm likely to notice when the same posts are showing up on more than one venue.

4. If you plan on making off topic comments, please go away. This is an open post for discussion of the Covid epidemic, the vaccines, drugs, policies, and other measures that supposedly treat it, and other topics directly relevant to those things. It is not a place for general discussion of unrelated topics. Nor is it a place to ask for medical advice; giving such advice, unless you're a licensed health care provider, legally counts as practicing medicine without a license and is a crime in the US. Don't even go there.

5. If you don't believe in treating people with common courtesy, please go away. I have, and enforce, a strict courtesy policy on my blogs and online forums, and this is no exception. The sort of schoolyard bullying that takes place on so many other internet forums will get you deleted and banned here. Also, please don't drag in current quarrels about sex, race, religions, etc. No, I don't care if you disagree with that: my journal, my rules.

6. Please don't just post bare links without explanation. A sentence or two telling readers what's on the other side of the link is a reasonable courtesy, and if you don't include it, your attempted post will be deleted.

7. Please don't post LLM ("AI") generated text. This is a place for human beings to talk to other human beings, not for the regurgitation of machine-generated text. Also, please don't discuss large language models (the technology popularly and inaccurately called "artificial intelligence" these days) except as they bear directly on the Covid phenomenon. Here again, my finger is hovering over the delete button.

Please also note that nothing posted here should be construed as medical advice, which neither I nor the commentariat (excepting those who are licensed medical providers) are qualified to give. Please take your medical questions to the licensed professional provider of your choice.

With that said, the floor is open for discussion.

Entry tags:

The Clean One Corner Exercise from My Upcoming Book, Sacred Homemaking

In my upcoming book, Sacred Homemaking: A Magical Approach to Tidying, I don't advocate dramatic purges of stuff, regardless of organization by category, unless that is what you are into. I suppose there is somebody out there who has several weeks to radically de-junk their domicile, starting by taking all of their clothing and piling it into a great heap in the middle of a bed they are supposed to sleep on later. In my book, I do not suggest that clothing should take the lead in any mass decluttering; instead I assert my opinion that one must start with EIP or Extremely Important Paperwork. Nothing bad is going to happen if you procrastinate donating your skinny pants to GoodWill, but if you procrastinate finding and logically storing your lease or home insurance papers, that is a potential disaster.

One of the cover design ideas for Sacred Homemaking.
I'm not sure what the final book will actually look like.

As satisfying as it is to watch videos of whole house purges, most of us, including myself, are never going to have the kind of time and resources one needs to purge our dwellings of all clutter in hopes that it will never return.

What people do have time for, including busy, full-time workers with multiple side gigs like me, is the Clean One Corner exercise.

The neglected spaces of our homes feel sadness. Luckily, our neglect does not mean our spaces will starve to death as they are not animal or even vegetable, but spaces do have feelings all the same. A good way of thinking of these spatial emotions is "vibes". You know how when you walk into a friendly person's home, it feels like a warm hug? That is a vibe. Those friendly feelings often come from the person's love for their home and their constant maintenance of it. The hypothesis of Sacred Homemaking is that if you approach raising your home's vibe from various angles -- discursive meditation, cleaning, talking to the space, treating all of its denizens (humans, pets, spirits of objects and place) with respect -- it will create a protective net of spells around you and your human and animal family.

I also say throughout the book that perfection is not possible, and everyone must treat homemaking like a beginner approaches learning the piano: you must start small and where you are. Rome wasn't built in a day. You must write a song before you attempt a symphony.

To try out the Clean One Corner exercise, choose a messy, neglected corner of your space. If you are so inclined, take a photo of the space so you can remember what it was like before. Verbally or silently apologize to the space for neglecting it and allowing it to fall into disorder (you can also do this exercise to your car if you own one) and start cleaning.

The cabinet BEFORE... Ay yi yi. I should not have let it get this bad.

After I took the shelves and almost everything else out.

I chose my very messy bathroom cabinet. The dark stains are from an herbal oil I give to one of my cats to help regulate her blood sugar. I apologized to the cabinet, took all the stuff out, threw a great deal of it away after thanking it for its service, washed the shelf and everything that had the sticky herbal oil and other nastiness, and then put it all back in order with some new storage baskets I bought from an upscale thrift store near me called New Uses.

It took me about an hour to clean everything out and put it back. I thanked the space and made the commitment to keep it in a state of good repair. I also cleaned it with some homemade essential oil perfume so it smells lovely now.

Now I have distinct areas for cat supplies in the lower cabinet, plus my own toiletries in the upper one so I can store my bath pouf and pedicure supplies.

An excellent finishing touch for this cabinet would be to put in some puck lights so that I can turn them on if I have to see something in the deep and shadowy part of the cabinet. Decorative shelf liners would also be another good idea.

I have done the Clean One Corner exercise on most of my home, but I have yet to get to my desk, my bookcases, and under my bed. My car could also use an encore. I hope this inspires you to find a corner, clean it, and thank it and bless it for its gifts.

Sacred Homemaking: A Magical Approach to Tidying is coming in Summer 2026. We are in the copyediting phase at the moment.

Current Mood: tired
Current Music: Mozart, The Magic Flute, "March of the Priests"

Entry tags:

Magic Monday

It's just before midnight, and so it's time to launch a new Magic Monday. Ask me anything about occultism, and with certain exceptions noted below, any question received by midnight Monday Eastern time will get an answer. Please note: Any question or comment received after that point will not get an answer, and in fact will not be put through. If you're in a hurry, or suspect you may be the 341,928th person to ask a question, please check out the very rough version 1.3 of The Magic Monday FAQ here.

Also: I will not be putting through or answering any more questions about practicing magic around children. I've answered those in simple declarative sentences in the FAQ. If you read the FAQ and don't think your question has been answered, read it again. If that doesn't help, consider remedial reading classes; yes, it really is as simple and straightforward as the FAQ says. And further: I've decided that questions about getting goodies from spirits are also permanently off topic here. The point of occultism is to develop your own capacities, not to try to bully or wheedle other beings into doing things for you. I've discussed this in a post on my blog.

(The image? I've finished the sequence of my published books; while I decide what I want to do next, I have some memes to share.)

Buy Me A Coffee

Ko-Fi

I've had several people ask about tipping me for answers here, and though I certainly don't require that I won't turn it down. You can use either of the links above to access my online tip jar; Buymeacoffee is good for small tips, Ko-Fi is better for larger ones. (I used to use PayPal but they developed an allergy to free speech, so I've developed an allergy to them.) If you're interested in political and economic astrology, or simply prefer to use a subscription service to support your favorite authors, you can find my Patreon page here and my SubscribeStar page here.

Entry tags:

ogham,
readings

Ogham Readings on Saturdays

-a single three card reading for the week or month and a one-off, one card reading

Please note I take time off during Solstices and Equinoxes for Druid stuff and because sometimes I simply need a break.

My next planned break is from October 23 - November 6.

http://buymeacoffee.com/kimberlysteele

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

Current Mood: awake
Current Music: some piece of sky syrup on the hotel PA system

Entry tags:

Frugal Friday

Current Mood: busy
Current Music: Led Zeppelin, "When The Levee Breaks"

Entry tags:

Open (More or Less) Post on Covid 215

We are now into the fifth year of these open posts. When I first posted a tentative hypothesis on the course of the Covid phenomenon, I had no idea that discussion on the subject would still be necessary all these years later, much less that it would turn into so lively, complex, and troubling a conversation. Still, here we are. Crude death rates and other measures of collapsing public health remain anomalously high in many countries, but nobody in authority wants to talk about the inadequately tested experimental Covid injections that are the most likely cause; ~~public health authorities~~ government shills for the pharmaceutical industry are still trying to push through laws that will allow them to force vaccinations on anyone they want; public trust in science is collapsing; new revelations are leaking out about just how bad the Covid vaccines are for human health; and the story continues to unfold.

So it's time for another open post. The rules have been slightly expanded due to a recent discussion here:

1. If you plan on parroting the party line of the medical industry and its paid shills, please go away. This is a place for people to talk openly, honestly, and freely about their concerns that the party line in question is dangerously flawed and that actions being pushed by the medical industry and its government enablers are causing injury and death on a massive scale. It is not a place for you to dismiss those concerns. Anyone who wants to hear the official story and the arguments in favor of it can find those on hundreds of thousands of websites.

2. If you plan on insisting that the current situation is the result of a deliberate plot by some villainous group of people or other, please go away. There are tens of thousands of websites currently rehashing various conspiracy theories about the Covid-19 outbreak and the vaccines. This is not one of them. What we're exploring is the likelihood that what's going on is the product of the same arrogance, incompetence, and corruption that the medical industry and its wholly owned politicians have displayed so abundantly in recent decades. That possibility deserves a space of its own for discussion, and that's what we're doing here.

3. If you plan on using rent-a-troll derailing or disruption tactics, please go away. I'm quite familiar with the standard tactics used by troll farms to disrupt online forums, and am ready, willing, and able -- and in fact quite eager -- to ban people permanently for engaging in them here. Oh, and I also lurk on other Covid-19 vaccine skeptic blogs, so I'm likely to notice when the same posts are showing up on more than one venue.

4. If you plan on making off topic comments, please go away. This is an open post for discussion of the Covid epidemic, the vaccines, drugs, policies, and other measures that supposedly treat it, and other topics directly relevant to those things. It is not a place for general discussion of unrelated topics. Nor is it a place to ask for medical advice; giving such advice, unless you're a licensed health care provider, legally counts as practicing medicine without a license and is a crime in the US. Don't even go there.

5. If you don't believe in treating people with common courtesy, please go away. I have, and enforce, a strict courtesy policy on my blogs and online forums, and this is no exception. The sort of schoolyard bullying that takes place on so many other internet forums will get you deleted and banned here. Also, please don't drag in current quarrels about sex, race, religions, etc. No, I don't care if you disagree with that: my journal, my rules.

6. Please don't just post bare links without explanation. A sentence or two telling readers what's on the other side of the link is a reasonable courtesy, and if you don't include it, your attempted post will be deleted.

7. Please don't post LLM ("AI") generated text. This is a place for human beings to talk to other human beings, not for the regurgitation of machine-generated text. Also, please don't discuss large language models (the technology popularly and inaccurately called "artificial intelligence" these days) except as they bear directly on the Covid phenomenon. Here again, my finger is hovering over the delete button.

Please also note that nothing posted here should be construed as medical advice, which neither I nor the commentariat (excepting those who are licensed medical providers) are qualified to give. Please take your medical questions to the licensed professional provider of your choice.

With that said, the floor is open for discussion.