COMING SOON!

   I've always liked challenging games, like Survivor or Amazing Race; and loved that movie National Treasure, but didn't ever think I could go on a show or be in a movie like them. So, I created my own.  For More details, check it out, I call it:

Cyber-Quest HUNTERS.

For The First Degree?

Circle of the Quill and Serpant; would be an active learning group.
After the 25 question application is returned; and the individual is accepted as a member, they have one year and a day in which to meet the following for their 1^st Degree Initiation:  The object lesson here is for the "student" to become accustomed with researching, study, and writing and original thoughts,  and sharing of ideas.  The Quill is for study.  The Kabala Serpant is for the Journey along the Path of discovery.
Attend at least 2 holiday Circles
Attend at least 2 Rituals
Compose at least 2 Spells of Coven BOS
Compose at least 2 Rituals of Coven BOS
Learn Theban and transcribe text
Write 4 essays:Your work must be referenced from at least one verifiable book source, and two web sites; or four web sites:
Must include: Founder, major leaders, dates, structure, doctrines of Deity, the afterlife, and scriptures used/ dogma.
1)TOPIC; pick one:
Jehovah’s Witnesses, Mormons, Scientology.
2)TOPIC; pick one:
Catholic, Lutheran, Presbyterian, Baptist, Seventh Day-Adventist, Pentecostals.
3)TOPIC; pick one:
Judaism, Muslim, Christian
4)TOPIC; pick one:
Hinduism, Buddhist, Confuses.

ALL of these written documents would be returned to the individual and make up part of their beginning BOS.
　
　
　TOPIC; pick one:

Questions?

0 Degree
　
After an “interview” an accepted the new neophyte would answer the following and return.
Name
Today’s Date {Anniversary their acceptance}
Snail mail address
e-mail address
Phone number
DOB {happy Birthdays later}
Please do not write on this page. On a separate page, a 3 hole punched, lined page; please re-write the questions then reply in your own words. This assignment will be given back to you at a later date. [Part of their beginner’s BOS].
1. What brings you to be interested in the Wiccan Path?
2. Why are you interested in joining this group?
3. How long have you been solitary?
4. Have you been in any other group?
5. Why did you leave?
6. What do you hope to gain from our group?
7. What do you hope to bring to our group?
8. What do you hope to learn as a member?
9. What do you hope to teach as a member?
10. What makes a good teacher?
11. What makes a good student?
12. Should a man be over a woman?
13. Is it right for a woman to be in a leadership role over a man?
14. What was your religious background?
15. What does the word: “God/god” mean to you?
16. Does “salvation by grace” having meaning in your spiritual belief system; and explain why/why not?
17. If someone had been dismissed from another magickal group would you be willing to have them join; explain your answer?
18. What would be some examples of things that would justifiy someone being “kicked out” of the group?
19. What does “magic” mean to you?
20. What is death?
21. Are you willing to keep an oath of secrecy?
22. What consequences for the breaking of loyalty would you be willing to uphold against another member?
23. Some believe in reincarnation; your thoughts?
24. What is evil to you? Are there demons?
25. Some groups have some/ all rituals “sky clad” or nude - would you be willing to do so as well; explain your answer?
Date completed:

　
　

My Cyber-Quest

   I've begun a new venture, actually it 's just following through on an idea I had awhile back.  I've devised an oline game called: CYBER-QUEST HUNTERS.  Check it out and tell me what you think...

Over Again

Daniel Arthur O`Ryan lay silent beneath his hospital covers as the heart monitor intermittently sounded its annoying alarm. The eighty-three year old man had been stricken with brain cancer, and now faced his final moments with a barrage of silent noises. The mechanical whirl of his feeding pump began to tone its beep that his meal bags were empty. As per hospital procedures with all patients on a ventilator, Dan’s two middle fingers on both hands had been taped to the bed rails to prevent him from pulling the tube out of his throat. He was quite a sight to behold, all wired up.

Even after the neurologist had told his wife, Sally that he was brain dead, and had drifted off into a coma after having aspirated on his breakfast orange juice, Dan was somehow aware of everything around him. It was as if he had been standing in the corner of the room watching every gory detail to the bitter end, like some damn spectator.

Then, it happened. Just moments after Dan’s cardiologist and his two student nurses departed through the ICU’s sliding glass door, Sally froze where she stood at the foot of the bed. Aghast, in-between excitement and total horror, his wife was speechless. With lightening speed, Dan rose up on both elbows, leaned forward toward his wife’s direction and pulled the breathing tube out of his mouth in one swift motion. Abruptly coming out of his long coma, with eyes wide open, hoarsely told Sally, “To do it all over again --.”

Suddenly every alarm rang out along with his screaming wife as a medical team ran in, witnessing his flat lined computer screen. A second later they began to comfort the DNR’s newly pronounced widow.

A black, silencing moment later everything changed.

Dan found himself totally aware of everything that had just transpired at the moment he died, and yet, somehow -- afterwards as well -- almost. Yet the shock of his present state took him half a moment longer to recover.

Seeing Sally standing in her regular spot behind the teller’s counter of The Second National Bank immediately brought a smile to his now twenty-one year old face. Realizing that this was the very day they were to meet for the first time in their lives, and that a month later he would propose marriage to her made Daniel’s perfect brain race. Being the fourth person in line gave him enough time to compose himself, and figure out why he would have gone back in time to this very moment baffled him tremendously. For he had had no regrets whatsoever about his life with Sally.

Suddenly, his inner thoughts were interrupted as Dan turned about to respond to the tapping on his shoulder. A beautiful, slightly older than him, brunette stood behind him all dressed in black. Aggressively shoving an automatic weapon into his hands, she yelled, “Take it and get to work buddy.”

From that breath onward everything that followed was a complete blur: the chaos of gunfire, people dropping, Sally’s blood splattered against the back wall, the maze of police vehicles and lights, ever changing court dates, and the prison experience itself. As he lay there, all stretched out on the padded gurney, with an audience just beyond the bullet proof, wire re-enforced windows, Dan numbly watched in slow motion as the fluid of his execution edged its way up the tube entering his left arm. A moment later the guard standing next to the controls heard the prisoner say, “To do it all over again.”

Fighting against the waves as more loomed off in the distance, threatening to silence his gasping calls for help, Daniel saw Sally leaning over the side of their blue and white yacht. Holding her usual Long Island Iced-Tea, she was laughingly scolding him to stop his horse play so far in the open waters of the ocean. Suddenly, shouting and pointing to a fin slicing its way through the overpowering currents several yards beyond his bobbing head, they both screamed in unison. Bathed with thoughts of scenes from the movie Jaws, Dan spat out salt water while trying to say, “To do it all over again.” Out of a flash of red came a new realization.

Two men sitting under a covered bus stop grimaced a half smile to one another as a light drizzle of rain began to pour. Growing a little concerned that maybe his bus-stop companion was from loony Ville, the young man replied to the older gentleman as his looked at his watch again, “Wow, man. What in the world did you do to deserve all that?”

Interrupting the multiple stories of his fantastic life, Daniel O`Ryan stood up and cautiously approached the curb so as to hail a yellow cab. His worn expression answered back to his restless companion, “You wouldn’t believe me even if I told you, son.”

Suddenly, without warning the young man jerked back in shock as a FedEx truck jumped the curbed hitting the old man throwing him aside into the oncoming traffic like a discarded rag doll.

As the medical team quietly worked around them, turning off the life support machines, the Psychiatric Hospital’s Chaplain spoke softly to Sally as comforting as his could, “You know, my child only The Father knows the true heart of man.” Then making the sign of the cross, Sally slowly walked out of the room looking for her children down the hall.

Short Story: REMBER WHEN

Of all the Hollywood moments on film or the idealistic wishful thinking of tradition, they would always have the reality of their cherished memories.

He recalled how they first met. She was a beautiful young woman no more that 19 years old. She was walking from the back to the store to the front counter to greet the good looking young man who was obviously eagerly awaiting her to be his cashier. It was a metaphysics shop, loaded with all the usual fair of scented candles, wind chimes and tarot cards and the like. She wore a vale like purple dress, trying for that gypsy look with the over sized hooped ear rings, bangles too many on her left wrist and rings galore on both hands. A shy - look but don’t overly stare at me - glance at the young man, of whom she now let the other brunette clerk take over in her stead. The bait and switch worked for it made the eager customer want to strike up a conversation with the red head all the more. What was her name? That perfume? Her eyes. They - they were beautiful and he could not soak them in enough.
Sally, how could he forget a name like that, never in a million years, nor when they first met over rice and baked beans in the service line of his church’s Fellowship Hall. How he accidentally bumped into her, ruining her Easter dress with his weak red punch. Yet after the clean up she had hardly remembered it at all because of how they had gotten lost in conversation over their forgotten meal and each others eyes.
Really, they had met on their way to a friend’s house. A group had come by a week after his eighteenth birthday; in a friend of a friend’s old beat up ford pickup to be exact. As he piled into the bed of the truck along with the other gaggle of smiling wind blown faces, the young man locked in on her face. Brilliantly lit eyes, whose slightly round facial features were framed by an auburn Farah Fawcett hairstyle of the day. Softy pouting full lips that just beckon to be kissed, yeah that was his first thought of her grin in his direction. She turned out to be the younger sister of a newly made friend of a friend, but at that moment the young man just wanted to know her name. She seemed to have brushed him off into forgetfulness after that first glance, but for him it was love at first sight and he meant for her to know it too. The young man had taken over one of his dearest friend’s girlfriends, but this one here would be his the first time around. There was just something undeniably fascinating about her eyes, and that smile -- he could not get out of his mind. How could he have ever guessed that they would have gotten married and it would last over forty wondrous years.

Her father had offered him a Cuban cigar in the hospital’s waiting room, and as a gift to him for the arrival of the new granddaughter, a fancy promotion as head salesman at his radio station.

Sally never knew her father because he had never been in her life, but her mother and the rest of her extended family of uncles and aunts were there eagerly awaiting the birth of her first child, with balloons and presents to boot.

Actually, it had only been her young nineteen year old husband and just barely a handful to family that joyously greeted their red faced-pointed ear daughter into the world in that small town’s hospital. Taking their new bundle of love home for the first time was scary as hell for him, yet seeing the sheer delight in his young wife’s eyes and those full smiling lips made all the anxiety of how to deal with it all just melt away. Never was there ever a happier day for the two of them as that day when they began their lives so many years ago.

Then again there was the time he had surprised her with a new puppy to cheer her up from having lost her job as a secretary.

Sally had never worked outside the home before, well other than being a nursery worker in the local church they attended. But seeing her receive that singing telegram lit up her face more than he had ever seen.

Seriously, even though he had intended to a thousand times over he had never had flowers delivered to her at home. But seeing her glow at their daughter’s wedding rivaled that of her birth, and the joy with which she radiated.

The old man heard an ambulance round the bend entering the apartment complex’s maze of parking lots. Of all the regrets he had in not making her life better was that of losing her and not being able to have her longer in his life. As he slowly rose off the park bench, and unhurriedly began walking home, he felt content beyond fulfilled - though a little tired. The day was quiet as if someone had turned off all the sound in the world but crying.

Presently, standing outside the faded wood banister of their patio, the old man watched as the coroner loaded the covered body into his station wagon from the sidewalk he himself had paced a thousand times.

The crying that came from beyond the opened door of his own apartment was a deep sobbing gasp. A horrific mournful weeping no man wishes to ever hear from his wife.

***

Re-inventing yourself

Every so often I try to re-invent myself. Since 2000 I have let my hair grow long, nearly to my mid-back. I cut it twice since then: once when my dad passed away and then again when my brother-in-law passed; as an outward sign of my lose. My hair's getting long again, nearly passed my shoulders and getting that Sage look again.
Re-inventing myself is a way of keeping the world fresh. I read a neat quote in OMNI magazine years ago: "Change if often desireable, frequently necessary, but always inevitable." I have found that to be a true and fair statement.
Change, though it can be scary should not be feared; yet, the older I become the more I see myself changing even when it was not consciencely done. Embrace it all, for tomorrow may never come and today lost as it arrives. Truth is free but finding it sometimes takes a lot of hard work.
I'm finding the best investment is the one I make in myself, then I'm better able to help those around me.

Michael's Book

The Unpublished Tales of Casmar and Duke by Michael Thomas Smith. Here's my Preface:

These are the unpublished works of my brother-in-law, Michael Thomas Smith. I encouraged Michael several times to get his voluminous work out of his head and onto paper, but the depths of his procrastinations were fueled by an overwhelming depression since the death of his wife, Kathirene. Before his own death in 2009, our relationship had become considerably strained, due to his procrastinations to follow through on even the most mundane of tasks in his personal life.

We can never take back the harsh words spoken nor deeds done after a loved one has passed on, so it was with my own regrets. However, about a year after his passing, I came across a folder that had been packed away in the back of our closet of Michael’s most prized imaginative writings. I vowed to myself that his story would, in some form or fashion, become known to others.

These stories are about the misadventures of two friends, and take place in an ancient fantasy realm called: The Land of the Seven Empires. Inspired by Fritz Leiber’s tale of Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser, Michael’s two main characters were loosely based on himself and a close friend of his named, Don E. Walker. In fact, it was both Michael and Don themselves who first collaborated in conjuring these stories into being, but Michael who later developed their detailed background histories and genealogies further.

Along with the stories is a map, I drew from rough sketches by Michael. There was even a time when Michael and I created the actual board game of KINGS; which was the vehicle that brought the two main characters together. Our game-making venture later fell through, but it was quiet an adventure in itself to invent and craft. The rules of the game are provided in an appendix as another insightful example of Michael‘s complex thinking.

It is my sincere hope the reader will enjoy these brief stories as much as those of us who first heard them told.

2009 Merry Christmas

HAPPY YULE, One and All!

I'm am bless this season by having my wife home, safe and sound. Last Christmas she was in the hospital. We enjoyed ourselves this year in our on home surrounded by family, friends and pets. Gifts were piled high under the tree, food was abundant and laughter supplied by the grand kids was joined by the adults alike.

I have to work Christmas Day so we had our presents and gathering X-Mas eve. It was great having Alice home, I am so blessed!

Merry Christmas and Happy Yule to all!

THE LESSON

    Eighty-seven year old Emily Madison found herself aimlessly wondering in the woods nearby her nursing home. Though she had been diagnosed with Alzheimer a few months back, to the devastation of her family, she had not yet descended into the bowls of its horrific hands, or so she thought. But still, she could not account for having wondered off into the woods alone by herself. The farther she followed the path the closer her bare feet brought her to the sound of voices. One was almost recognizable, the others too indistinct to make out.

   Suddenly, like a brilliant burst of soft light she felt herself being pulled backward. Landing in the past of her youth was excitingly mind whirling as she came to recognize her six year old self. Wearing a new Easter dress hunting for eggs along with a half dozen other children from Church. Emily smiled, remembering it was the day she first met Tommy Madison, later to become her husband of fifty-two years. Her home lay on the other side of the woods and through which she now suddenly found herself being flashed forward through to a secluded area.

   Seeing herself, now as a teenager, receiving her first kiss from Samuel Davenport took her breath away. Samuel’s tender advancements got out of hand and it was Tommy who had come along just in time to rescue her from being raped. Three days later they began seriously dating and became fast friends. Emily’s eyes teared up at seeing how heroic the smaller framed Tommy was, defending her honor against the brawn of Samuel‘s six foot stature. Tommy covered Emily with his coat and embraced her with every bit the savior he showed himself to be throughout their enduring marriage.

   

  Wanting so much to stay and relieve those moments, Emily felt the tug of fate whisk her away to yet another memory of their first born daughter’s wedding day. It had been preformed by their pastor, Thomas Smith, standing atop a stump that marked the beginning of the Lakeview woods she so dearly loved. Michelle and her new husband would later give Tommy and Emily five grandchildren and nine great grandkids; all the joy of her life. Emily was so proud of how her life was turning out, seeing Michelle begin her live was like restarting her own all over again.

   Without warning she had again been thrown forward in time to her near present. She saw herself lying in her bed at the Lakeview Care Nursing Home. Standing over her was Angela Stillman, an RN every family member loved but the residents detested because of her two face-ness.

   Her nurse was now acting like an Angle of Mercy: smothering Emily with her own pillow. A panic attack of terror thrashed through Emily’s mind as all she could do was simply lay there without the use of her arms to fight back. The darkness engulfed her vision as her labored gasped were shallowed to a stop of nothingness.

Yet, out of the black void, Emily felt herself through the opened doors of her childhood church. Ever so slowly she glidingly floated down the center isle through the congregation filled pews toward the flower laden alter. Seeing an oversized portrait herself and several various pictures that had been taken throughout her life were surreal to observe. A strange yet unsettling happiness came over her at not seeing a casket but a beautifully decorated wooden urn. Her daughter had fulfilled Emily’s wishes of being cremated. It was rather bothersome to take in, hearing the somber pre-recorded music softly playing in the background overlaid with her family’s crying. Her favorite grandson; Albert’s weeping was most disturbing to Emily who wanted so much to console him that everything was alright, and that her newly diagnosed cancer was no longer an unbearable pain to endure.

   The eerie humming of low murmured voices began to grow louder, and came from all directions. She felt sick, uneasy in her stomach. Emily looked down to see her feet had burst into flames, with her legs and lower torso engulfed like smoldering ash amid the gathered logs of an out door camp fire. There was no burning sensation only the growing tingle of nausea growing in her thoughts. A nausea; like coming home from a great outing with your loved ones only to find your home had been burglarized, a gut wrenching wave of having victimized.

   The smoke had consumed Emily. In utter bewilderment she looked at both her raised hands, which now appeared almost transparent, for they existed only as smoky apparitions of their former state. Just when she wanted to scream out for someone to explain what was happening the answer came quickly on its own.

Her grandson, Albert, was standing several feet away from the bon fire Emily now found herself the center piece of; as a group of his friends were gathered in a circle about the burning logs.

     Emily’s mind was all a whirl as to why they were standing in the woods in the middle of the dark of winter. Was it a college fraternal gathering, she wondered? They were dressed in dark colored robes humming or chanting as Albert continued to walk backwards behind the gathering. He appeared to be empting a box of dust out upon the ground. Emily’s nausea tingled throughout her body as her hands became less smoke like and more solid.

     Stan Branford, Albert’s childhood friend was standing directly in front of Emily with his arms raised, dagger in hand, chanting, “Mah-thran You-Soor Veth-lu-mare Cor-van--” Then suddenly stopped. His half bored expression abruptly changed to one of total panic and fear. Just completing the Magick Circle, Albert caught a glimpse of his fully formed grandmother standing in the middle of the camp site’s fire, glaring angrily back at him. Albert stopped, frozen in his tracks staring at his grandmother’s burning yet unconsumed form in the fire before him. “Nan Na?!”

    Realizing that she had unwittingly been summonsed for protection, and her ashes used to outline the perimeter of where some conjured entity was allowed to appear set Emily off into a rage. She yelled at Albert, as the entire gathering stood frozen listening to her admonishments, “You left the Church for this? What’s wrong with you, boy? Your parents -- I taught you better than to fool around with all that Satanic nonsense.”

   Before she could berate him any farther, several thick armed tentacles came out of nowhere from up behind Emily. She began screaming at how she had been betrayed and who did they think they were to use her ashes in such a disrespectful manner, when all of a sudden the squid like arms began piercing through the air, lancing the gathered shadows before Emily. Bodies were entangled, waved in the air high above the darkened tree tops and smashed into the earth. Heads crushed, and bodies mangled. Two, three at a time the scattering statues were caught running for their lives only to be snuffed out by the multi-appendage creature. Finally, a great tentacle limb coiled itself around Albert’s trembling body. From foot to neck it grabbed him in mid scream he was silenced as the great arm slowly brought him gliding through the air to hover before Emily’s boring gaze.

   Softly her tenuous voice whispered, “I’m disappointed in you, grandson…”

   But before she could say any more, the wooden urn slipped from Albert’s one free hand, releasing the box into the roaring flames. Albert fell to the ground just as the great squid-like arms and his grandmother both evaporated into embers of the dissipating smoke.

   Laying on the ground a few feet from the dying camp fire, Albert looked about to see that none of his companions remained alive, and whispered the demonic entity‘s name, “Cthulhu!”