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Trials of Tempeh
May. 6th, 2026 07:33 am
I make my own tempeh because the cost of this simple staple in the store is astonishingly stupid high. My methodology is pretty simple and I wanted to simplify it even further by seeing if I could go to a system where everything was done in an instant pot, but it just doesn’t seem to be panning out.
Tempeh is pretty simple: boil some beans, strain and cool, add some starter and put in a warm place for a couple of days. The folks who invented it usually wrapped it in banana leaves and left it around, but Oregon doesn’t quite have that kind of climate. So I needed to figure out a kitchen style “incubator” that could control the temperature around 85℉ ∓ 5℉
I started the process a couple of years ago using ziplock bags with holes punched in them with a toothpick to incubate the cooked beans. My system for incubation was a cooling rack used for baking, a mat normally used for starting seedlings, a temperature controller highly recommended by an acquaintance who grows both pot and magic mushrooms, a big roasting pan, and a big towel (for some reason, I always used a “Star Wars” themed bath towel for this, it seemed to help). No failures here, but I wasn’t super fond of using ziplocs for the incubation so I tried something else.
Something else was an beat up old casserole style crockpot and the temperature controller mentioned above. The inoculated beans went into the crock pot and a wet towel went over the top (I cannot remember why I did this) and the lid loosely placed over the towel. This worked quite well, a pound of dried beans, a tablespoon of vinegar and a tablespoon of my homemade tempeh starter and I was off and running.
But then, being an inveterate “improver” who finds it difficult to say “good enough”. I tried using my instantpot for the entire process and I had my first batch failure. For some reason, the batch started off just fine but then got stuck halfway and then petered out.
Right now my problem (and it is my problem), do I go all hard headed and try to figure out why the failure occurred, or should I write off the lesson and go back to my tried and true?
May 2026 Open Covid Post
May. 5th, 2026 10:36 am
As many of you will already be aware, these open posts on the Covid fiasco and its aftermath have changed from weekly to monthly; message traffic has decreased far enough at this point that weekly posts get too few comments, but there are still plenty of people who want access to a forum for discussion on that topic not dominated by either of the two heavily promoted narratives -- the medical-industry party line or the conspiracy-culture party line. My current plan is to post a new one of these on the first Tuesday of each month, and keep it open and active until the next one goes up.So here we are. Yes, the memes will continue until morale improves; if this one suggests to you that an entirely mythical being out of Greek mythology might do a better job of disease control than the corrupt bureaucratic flacks who had that role during the Covid mess, why, that occurred to me as well.
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.
Replaced image for royal visit post
May. 5th, 2026 10:41 am
I replaced this with a 3-month view for Meyers, 'The Daily Show,' Kimmel, and the Marsh Family take closer looks at the royal visit.
pestererer
May. 4th, 2026 09:20 amI am considering becoming a “pesterer”.
So I have sent two letters off to my congresscritter in the past two weeks and for some reason I have decided that I like the process.
I suppose that doing this will reduce my output here, I am trying to figure out timing but I probably need to make certain that I continue this project and if it seems if it does any good.
Magic Monday
May. 3rd, 2026 09:13 pm
It's just past 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 quote? 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!
***This Magic Monday is now closed and no more comments will be put through. See you next week!***
I Watched Nosferatu So You Don't Have To
May. 3rd, 2026 09:00 pm
Johnny Depp's daughter is like this for a huge chunk of the movie. No wonder it was popular.
I am a busy, busy lady and though I have always enjoyed movies, I rarely have time to watch them like the good old days. Horror has always been my favorite genre, especially well-done psychological horror where one is required to read between the lines and copious gore isn’t necessary to induce chills. I do not believe I can be frightened by a horror movie — like Michael Keaton’s eponymous character in Beetlejuice, the Exorcist gets funnier every time I watch it. I love the Amityville story but it’s nowhere near scary. Hereditary was fascinating as a study in the mass invocation of the demon Paimon as he relates to the Covid 19 scare. Was it scary though? Not to me. My main takeaway after watching that film for the first time was that it was unfortunate the director decided to write a love letter to that particular entity, but whatever. I always loved The Ring, both the original Japanese Ringu version and the one with Naomi Watts. Neither were scary. Insidious, the yarn about the comatose kid who wanders the lower astral plane because his father has been stalked by the Hag since forever ago, is a ton of fun. Scary it is not — the demon/devil guy who is part of the lower astral dream sequence (they keep calling the lower astral plane The Further which always makes me giggle for no apparent reason) looks like the lovechild of the pointy haired boss from Dilbert and a lost member of the Insane Clown Posse. He is goofy and fun, not scary, at least not to me.
Despite my voracious appetite for horror films, it still took me two solid years to get around to watching Nosferatu, a remake of the 1922 classic film of the same name, which in itself was the film version of Bram Stoker’s novel, Dracula. This newish version was directed by Robert Eggers, whose breakout film was The VVitch (the Witch) which was a genuinely good original story by Eggers about a 1630s family who is cast out by their Quaker/Shaker brethren into the wilderness for being too radically, rabidly Christian. The dysfunctional, patriarchal family falls apart and succumbs to demonic influence out in the deep woods while they struggle to survive. A young girl named Thomasin (played by a not-yet-emaciated or plastic-surgeried Anya Taylor Joy) is the fascinating centerpiece of a complex and ultimately understated story.
The protagonist of 2024’s Nosferatu is a young lady named Ellen in 1830s Germany. Right out of the gate, Ellen is dramatically victimized when she wanders the bleak halls of her family’s mansion at night and stupidly conjures a demon lover out of loneliness and boredom, much like the urban legends of the teen girl who conjures the Candyman by saying “Candyman, candyman, candyman” while holding a candle in front of a bathroom mirror at a sleepover. The demon dude wastes no time hopping aboard that virgin train, and we are subjected to Ellen’s hentai-whimpering while she is deflowered by an invisible man.
Time passes and Ellen is a happily married newlywed. There is trouble in paradise, however, because she has night terrors and premonitions that are the consequence of having picked up that horny demon incubus-astral attachment from her younger years. Ellen, to abuse a more modern vernacular, can’t get no satisfaction, so when her new hubby tries to extricate himself from the bedchamber to go to a job interview, she tries to cajole, badger, and worry him into another round and makes him a bit late.
He gets the job anyways, and that is because it is rigged.
Can you rape a willing victim?
The New Yorker’s film reviewer Richard Brody sees Ellen as a victim and in its annoyingly paywalled review (of which I somehow got a sneak preview and am suddenly denied access, as if I could be bothered to care about or subscribe to the New Yorker) Ellen is depicted as a sweet young thing who is repeatedly raked over the coals by evilly evil vampire Orlok, according to Richard Brody:
“In Eggers’s telling of her past, Ellen, a lonely girl desperate for affection and attention, is supernaturally visited and physically raped by Orlok, with the result that she bears both his curse and his connection to the beyond.”
Despite her gothy darkness, Ellen is a Mary Sue who can never truly do anything wrong in Nosferatu. She’s less of a milksop than Bella of Twilight, but the tubercular vibe isn’t far off. Pale, wan, prone to crying fits and existential melancholy, we are supposed to be drawn in and enchanted by the girl who fell under the spell of the ghostly villain. Yet whenever we see Ellen being visited by her incubus, she appears to be having the time of her damn life, and that is because we are supposed to be titillated by her beatific innocence being corrupted.
Ellen is seen as cursed for the entire movie, but it is she who invited the curse, and until the absolute end of the movie, she keeps on inviting it in. The old lore about a vampire not being able to step over the threshold unless you invite him was meant to inform us that evil cannot truly get to you if you refuse to polarize with it, and modernites have utterly missed that memo as is proven by Nosferatu. Ellen is Persephonized as an eternally pure angel who could not possibly be held accountable for rolling out the red carpet for her incubus night after night, and this reluctance to shed the heavy victimization mantle is a signal that our culture still is tragicomically hung up on the Victorian era binary of virgin-whore.
Oh, holey plot
Eggers did a much better job realistically portraying the brutality and horror of 1630s pilgrim life in the Witch than he did with the stifling, Victorian repression of 1830s Germany in Nosferatu. For one, could we just set the story in England, considering that everyone in the movie has a British accent? When Count Orlok travels to Germany via boat from landlocked Transylvania/Bohemia, that would certainly make a great deal more sense if he was trying to get to the British Isles.
The scenes where Ellen’s husband Thomas runs off to the Carpathian mountains to get Orlok to ink a real estate deal are entertaining. Orlok’s environment features beautiful cinematography and lovely, artistic milieus that are often worthy of printing and framing.
The cringe does not happen until we hear Orlok, who is played by the typecast, always-relegated-as-a-monster-since-IT actor Bill Skarsgård, who for the life of him cannot speak in anything except bastardized, Harry Potter Latin and mangled, heavily-accented faux Russian-English. Dear gods, it’s so laughably bad. He’s supposed to be a reanimated corpse, yet he has had the mojo to groom his handlebar mustache and shave off his beard. His shoulders and arm muscles look as if he has spent time a gym. Presumably there were 24 hour gyms in 1830s Carpathia, or maybe he has a workout room in his castle basement?
Pornstache Nosferatu, ready to get some
Ellen is not scared of him — in fact, she can hardly wait for his arrival, at one point donning her damn wedding dress to be with him as she eagerly pants and pretends to protest her fate. She wants that gray-fleshed, hunchbacked creature with every fiber of her being, but because she’s a manic horndog, she also has a consistent appetite for her husband.
Ellen’s long-suffering cuck husband, Thomas, ends up being drained/raped by Orlok while at the castle, and unlike his wife, he does not seem to enjoy it.
Portrait of a lady and her simp
He manages to escape by jumping out of a window into a river, somehow managing not to break his neck or both legs. He is carried downriver and rescued by a bunch of nuns.
Meanwhile, Orlok bails on his castle, having secured the land deal, and starts his pilgrimage for Ellen’s hometown, Wisburg, Germany. Like I said earlier, he does the illogical thing and takes a boat instead of just retracing the same route Thomas took to arrive at his castle. Orlok’s ship is full of fresh-from-the-coffin plague rats that infect the unfortunate sailors and eventually the village with blood-borne Yersinia pestis.
Ellen manifests increasing psychosis, including sexual psychosis where she tears at her own bodice and generally goes crazy for Orlok’s etheric vampire dick. In order to keep her “safe”, her husband has her shack up with their friends Friedrich and Anna, who is pregnant, and their two young girls. Ellen sleepwalks and generally turns the household into a godforsaken possession depot. Doctors are called in, including Ellen’s own doctor Wilhelm Sievers and his eccentric occultist-alchemist buddy, Albin von Franz (played by Willem Dafoe), who takes on the role of Van Helsing from other Dracula remakes.
As Thomas arrives home, having barely been healed by the nuns, the plague ship has arrived. Rats run around spreading bubonic malaise in Wisburg like a scene from the Decameron.
The superficial stuff
I think I have given enough spoilers at this point, so please indulge me as I complain about the superficial aspects of this film. The camera angles were annoyingly Hollywood, and the close ups and perfectly symmetrical, central frames of a single character were very narcissistic and self-conscious. Maybe this worked for The Witch but it falls flat in a vampire film. The whole film feels claustrophobic, despite being set outdoors for half the movie.
The costumes and wigs of this film were butt ugly. Not once do any of the female characters wear a pretty dress! I get it that Anna, Ellen’s friend, is a pregnant mom-to-be, but can we please dress her in something that does not look like it could be found in the 1800s equivalent of Target, if there was such a thing?
Look at the crinkling and straining of the material around the shoulders and the lack of ornament. Also note the ghastly wig and the not-found-in-nature hairline.
The costumes of Nosferatu 2024 are so basic, they look like something I might be able to manage to sew from a Butterick or Vogue pattern, and trust me, I do not sew very well at all. The material chosen for the women’s gowns is consistently drab and ugly and the designs were frumpy and amateur. Compare this random photo of an 1830s dress:
Note the attention to detail around the bodice, the gathered bodice, the dropped, corseted waist, the pragmatic yet cute pattern, the pretty sleeves, and the lace detail at the shoulders. Now that second dress I could not sew if my life depended upon it.
The wigs on the characters are hideous. They were so bad, I could think of almost nothing else when Ellen or Anna appeared in one. It is patently obvious that none of these women (or men) have ever had long hair. They don’t know how to carry it. Even Willem Dafoe’s hair looked fake as hell — his was a wig that would have made more sense on a barrister in British Parliament. Also, in this age of lace fronts, why does the hair in this film look so fake?
The film is also dismal and dreary. The reviewer I mentioned before used the term lugubrious to describe it and I’ve got to say he hit the nail on the head. Compare the 1990s Francis Ford Coppola version of Dracula with Winona Ryder as Mina and Gary Oldman as the vampire: at least that film, though campy and cheesy, had some joy in it. There are opportunities to be lush, voluptuous, and sumptuous in any given period film that Nosferatu missed entirely with its basic-ass Walmart discount costumes, its obvious, squirting sexuality, and chintzy, suburban, human-as-framed-doll portrait shots.
Nepo babies
Lily Rose Depp, the actress who plays Ellen, is the daughter of actor Johnny Depp and model Vanessa Paradis. I dimly remember reading something back in the day where claims were made that Johnny Depp and Vanessa Paradis were sensibly raising their kids outside of Hollywood and that when Paradis divorced Depp, she took the kids and stayed in her home country of France. I don’t pay attention or care about Johnny Depp or his family, but upon seeing that his daughter clearly did not escape Hollywood, I was disappointed. Lily Rose Depp is an obvious product/victim of the System, and she is being foisted upon us as the new It Girl. No thanks, I’ll pass. I know how those people are created and manufactured for public digestion. Gross.
This thing had nepotism written all over it. The screenwriting and the acting was awful. We are given no reason as to why the vamp seeks Ellen except that she randomly called him on the psychic telephone. When Dafoe’s character likens her to an Egyptian priestess late in the film, I’m like “Why?” Depp’s Ellen is the common bar slut of paranormal heroines, allegedly chosen and special because she’s somewhat attractive without discernible makeup. Why does Ellen love Thomas? She’s supposedly very into him but we never get a scene about how they met or why they fell in love. She cuckolds Thomas from the first to the last frame of this film — she was not a virgin when they’re married and we find this out quite bluntly in one scene — and she is not lovable. She’s a mope who spends three out of four nights on average being obsessed by her etheric rapist/annoying psycho vampire ex-boyfriend.
Overacting is the name of the game when you have no real plot to go off of and you are supposed to wring your hands and cry the entire movie for . . . reasons. Anna, the young wife/matron character played by Emma Courin, is a bad actress. Not for one second do we believe that she is a mom (even if she is one in real life), nor do be believe she is Christian (even if she is a Christian, which I have no idea), nor do we believe she is anything except desperate for her big break in Hollywood. Her death scene by rats is ridiculous in its melodramatic fakery.
Anyway, I am grateful for this film. This piece of crap movie that made more than expected at the box office because of Lily Rose Depp showing her small, natural, 24 year old breasts for long stints of the film and being “raped” by an ugly, pornstached, hunchback dude was the straw that broke the camel’s back.
I am finally getting a DVD player and I am finally quitting every movie made after the year 2000 unless I can find that rare unicorn of a modern film that is worth my time to watch.
The real star of this film was my future DVD-R.
Divination Offering
May. 3rd, 2026 03:27 pm
Thanks for stopping by!
If you wish to make a donation for the readings in order to provide a cup of something warm to the diviner in turn you can do so through Paypal by clicking the pentacle.
Even though questions about medical, legal or spiritual issues are okay: any actions taken from the information of the readings are entirely the responsibility of the querent. Divination is part of a spiritual practice and does not replace nor pretend to be professional legal or medical advice nor psychological counseling.
Unused video for SNL post
May. 3rd, 2026 12:25 pmThe flow of 'SNL' opens with a Hegseth-Patel press briefing about Iran war and FBI bypassed this video.
Top posts of 4/2026 at Crazy Eddie's Motie News
May. 2nd, 2026 05:22 pmCrazy Eddie's Motie News earned 541,681 page views during April 2026, the blog's second most ever.
( The most read, commented on, liked, shared, and clicked on posts of last month behind the cut. )
( The most read, commented on, liked, shared, and clicked on posts of last month behind the cut. )
JMG back in NYC
May. 2nd, 2026 02:34 pm
Just a fast heads up to my readers in and around NYC. Yes, I'll be spending that weekend basking in the warmth of Zohran Mamdani's collectivist paradise, such as it is. If anybody wants to get together before or after the talk, let me know.
The event is free of charge, btw, and you don't need to register -- just show up.
Ogham Readings on Saturdays
May. 1st, 2026 11:10 pm
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
-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 emails -- 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 June 18 - July 5, 2026.
My next planned break is from June 18 - July 5, 2026.
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.
Thank you for your generous donations. They often buy cat food and litter, groceries, and take out burritos and sandwiches for my Mom and me. If you would like to donate, please do it here:
For a more in depth look into how I read and interpret the Ogham's symbols, please visit my website druidogham.wordpress.com.
Thank you for your generous donations. They often buy cat food and litter, groceries, and take out burritos and sandwiches for my Mom and me. If you would like to donate, please do 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.
Saved comments during April 2026
May. 1st, 2026 02:14 pmMy comments on Howtown explains why 'The Moon's origin story doesn't add up' for Throwback Thursday.
Thanks to Infidel753 for linking to this entry in Link round-up for 18 April 2026 and welcome to his readers who came here from his link. Also, welcome to my international readers from Brazil, Singapore, Argentina, Germany, India, Chile, Columbia, Canada, Iraq, Bangladesh, Spain, Vietnam, France, Mexico, Venezuela, Russia, the United Kingdom, Italy, and the rest of the planet. Thank you! Looks like you're checking in on the mood here in the U.S. May my blog be the right place for you!
Oops! I knew I made a mistake when I checked it in the middle of my field trip. Here's the correct link: Link round-up for 18 April 2026.
My comment on The OLDEST Things at Disney Parks. 1:18 "What would the theme of a Disney World/Disneyland bathing pavillion be?" One can just look at the water parks. River Country was Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer. Blizzard Beach is Frozen. Typhoon Lagoon is not IP, just a shipwreck after a hurricane. Then there are the themes of all the hotel pools...
I wasn't very chatty last month. I guess I was busy in real life.
Thanks to Infidel753 for linking to this entry in Link round-up for 18 April 2026 and welcome to his readers who came here from his link. Also, welcome to my international readers from Brazil, Singapore, Argentina, Germany, India, Chile, Columbia, Canada, Iraq, Bangladesh, Spain, Vietnam, France, Mexico, Venezuela, Russia, the United Kingdom, Italy, and the rest of the planet. Thank you! Looks like you're checking in on the mood here in the U.S. May my blog be the right place for you!
Oops! I knew I made a mistake when I checked it in the middle of my field trip. Here's the correct link: Link round-up for 18 April 2026.
My comment on The OLDEST Things at Disney Parks. 1:18 "What would the theme of a Disney World/Disneyland bathing pavillion be?" One can just look at the water parks. River Country was Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer. Blizzard Beach is Frozen. Typhoon Lagoon is not IP, just a shipwreck after a hurricane. Then there are the themes of all the hotel pools...
I wasn't very chatty last month. I guess I was busy in real life.
Oh The Horror
May. 1st, 2026 09:12 am
Eastern Washington Wheatfield
I admit it, I tend toward the slightly paranoid prepper mindset. For what it is worth, I have finally gotten the “gun-up” part of that mindset purged, but I am still of the opinion that we are smack dab in the middle of a long-term decline. But the way that I look at such things has changed over the years. In the long ago, I saw myself as a stalwart warrior, protecting hearth and home from barbarians. Now I see myself as a tired peasant trying to figure out how to ride out a particularly irksome period of multi-government insanity.
Now, the vile trumpster and the cabal that feeds him his stupid ideas is running headlong into the problem of only having stupid and harmful options available to them. There is no way that we can get out of the shitshow better off than we are today. Most everyone who seems to have what I feel as a grip on reality outline a near and mid-term scenario of “you ain’t seen nothing yet”.
So, do I think the end of the world is coming……naw. Do I think that the luxuries that have somehow become essentials are going to be heavily modified…most certainly. Do I think that our present governing elite has the desire or ability to make the necessary changes to allow the least precipitous decline…certainly you jest.
So you ask, what do you propose? Well, truthfully, there really isn’t all that much I can do. I write to congress and they return nicely formatted form letters telling me how they tried but failed. Living in Oregon means that, for the most part, legislation is accomplished only in a performative, virtue-signalling way because, well, that is what Oregon is all about, but it makes for a comfortable, non-useful decline but appears to be mostly involved with kicking cans down the road. I like to peek in at county and local levels, because those poor sad saps are like the student body officers that infest every high school in America. Useless offices with no true control of anything.
But I am oddly optimistic anyway. I suppose this is because I have given up on the odd idea that my desires and values have anything to do with how the world turns. Using the phrase I always tell my sons, I think that after 72 years, I have managed to “calibrate my expectations”.
I work on daily projects and try to not take other people's drama too seriously. I mind my own business and try to stay on good terms with the folks around me. Rice and beans are my friends and I can even manage some portions of pork routinely. I just diluted my nine-year old whiskey and I take walks and try to raise my step count back to >5,000 (steps take a hit in the winter)
I just watch and try to realize that I am not in charge and it certainly isn’t my world anymore.
Old Prose: "Hot Art" by Joshua Knelman
Apr. 30th, 2026 08:28 pm
This journal is starting to look a little thin since Frugal Friday and the Covid open post both went to once a month, and so I've decided to try something a number of readers have suggested from time to time: little potted reviews of books I've read recently that might be of interest. "Old Prose" will be the label for these, if you want to search for them. * * * * *
This inaugural review goes to Hot Art: Chasing Thieves and Detectives Through the Secret World of Stolen Art by Joshua Knelman. Why am I reading about art theft? Well, Ariel Moravec, the heroine of my series of occult detective novels, has already gotten tangled up in one case that involved stolen art (The Carnelian Moon), and in the story I'm writing right now (The Greater Key), the Macguffin at the center of the case is a letter, maybe authentic, maybe forged, that might just pass on some of the lost secrets of Giordano Bruno's system of magical memory.
This kind of research is essential in good fiction, and is too often neglected by novice writers. Knowing something about a subject that comes up in a story is essential to capturing the sense of reality that makes a novel convincing and gripping. Partly it's that anybody who knows something about a subject will be able to tell at a glance if you're faking it, but there's more to it than that. Reality is more richly textured than your imagination, and borrowing bits of texture and detail from reality to fill out the products of your imagination makes for more vivid scenes in fiction.
Knelman's book is a good source for this sort of texture and detail because he's a journalist in the modern mold, as interested in the personalities he meets and his own experiences while researching his book as in the facts of the matter. The facts are intriguing enough. The short form? The art industry is among the most corrupt economic sectors in modern life, full of theft, forgery, insurance fraud, money laundering, and the like. Most deals are cash, most transactions go unreported, and many collectors, dealers, and auction houses are perfectly happy with illegal activities. Art crime accounts for an estimated US$6 billion in criminal transactions every year, and a lot of it ties into other criminal enterprises as well.
If you want detailed statistics and analysis of the field, Knelman's not your source, but as a lively narrative with colorful characters and plot twists, it stands comparison well with the better sort of mystery novels and true-crime books. I give it four out of five stars.
Links from and about partners shared at the Coffee Party USA Facebook page during April 2026
Apr. 30th, 2026 08:15 pm
Talking about Sacred Homemaking with Isaac and AC on the Plant Cunning Podcast!
Apr. 30th, 2026 01:54 pm
I had a wonderful conversation with AC and Isaac of the Plant Cunning Podcast. We discussed my book, Sacred Homemaking: A Magical Approach to a Tidier Home, which is available from Aeon Books.
PLANT CUNNING EPISODE #229 SACRED HOMEMAKING with KIMBERLY STEELE
"In this Plant Cunning Podcast episode, AC & Isaac interview Kimberly Steele about her first book, Sacred Homemaking, on making the home a sacred space through everyday practices. Steele shares her path from a casual Christian upbringing and decades of atheism into Druidry and daily spiritual discipline, including meditation and long-term practice of Sphere of Protection rituals, and discusses gratitude and generosity as transformative forces. She explains perceiving multiple “planes” (physical, etheric, astral, spiritual) and how tidying, thanking household objects, cleaning (especially the toilet), and avoiding both hoarding and sterile perfection can shift a home’s “vibe.” Steele offers practical suggestions such as removing “haunted” objects, using sprays and salt, and placing symmetrical sacred geometry patterns as “demon traps,” critiques materialism and doomscrolling, and introduces the idea of “astral pyramids” and group spirits."
Watch and listen to this podcast episode on these channels and more:
Spotify https://open.spotify.com/episode/2wed4EEeUy7U2xsWbv10ro
YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JTlmfgUfnsU
Apple Podcasts https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/plant-cunning-podcast/id1534970138
Don't Worry, Be Happy
Apr. 30th, 2026 08:08 am
My current state of mind is that of semi-willful ignorance. I am on hiatus from my tarot project, not because I doubt it's validity, but I am currently of the opinion that knowing what is coming down the pike doesn't really give me anything other than worry and an uncomfortable feeling of helplessness.
Sort of a cop out I guess. But right now, I cannot think of a think that I can do, even in the case that I could somehow magically know and understand the course of current/future events.
The times, they are a changin'. I am quite annoyed that too many of my plans and predictions have turned out to be so much dross, but I am relieved that I am not alone in that. My plan currently is to just live the remainder of my life dancing with what brung me. It isn't that bad a deal. It probably won't change much.
As a side note, my current opinion is that the Waite tarot deck is the one that works best for me. I have around four or five others and the only other one that works reasonably well for me is the Hall-Knapp. I still try to pull a card every day to get an idea of the meme that it it trying to get across, but I am just trying to learn vocabulary, I am not trying for self-improvement or clairvoyance.
Getting Ahead of the Curve: Managing Your Resources
Apr. 30th, 2026 07:03 am We live in a time of rapid change and uncertainty. The 50 year failure of the environmental movement has left us with a tangle of interconnected problems. Ecosystem destruction; freakishly high levels of pollution of the land the water and the atmosphere; and resource depletion combine to create a looming crisis of epic proportions. We are faced with increasing political and economic instability and it’s clear that there will be no large scale co-ordinated efforts to address any of it.
We are in the midst of an economic shift from the abundance industrialism of the latter half of the 20th C into the scarcity industrialism of the 21st C. Most of us are already feeling the pinch of poor quality manufactured goods and inflated prices encapsulated in the colourful term “enshitification.” In the poor world scarcity industrialism has already given way to the salvage economy.* As the saying goes, “The future is here. It’s just not evenly distributed.”
This blog is about what we can do, as ordinary people in families and small groups, to create lives worth living; to build a future worth having; and to be a force for renewal and regeneration in our much depleted world. I hope to provide some possibilities based on our universal human strengths and the strategies that have allowed us to thrive in the past.
If you care about this planet; the future; and your own ability to make your way in these crazy times this blog is for you.
We are in the midst of an economic shift from the abundance industrialism of the latter half of the 20th C into the scarcity industrialism of the 21st C. Most of us are already feeling the pinch of poor quality manufactured goods and inflated prices encapsulated in the colourful term “enshitification.” In the poor world scarcity industrialism has already given way to the salvage economy.* As the saying goes, “The future is here. It’s just not evenly distributed.”
Given that our most pressing ecological issues are resource depletion and monumental levels of pollution, it is essential that we change our attitudes and practices around the resources that flow through our lives. We’ll take a deeper look at the distinct types of resources that make up whole systems and examine how they move through the system in a future post. For now understanding the use patterns is what is important for learning to use your resources strategically.
Resources fall into 5 different use patterns:
1) Those that disappear or degrade if not used.
2) Those that increase with modest use.
3) Those that are unaffected by use.
4) Those that are reduced or consumed by use.
5) Those that pollute or destroy others if used.
The first type, those that disappear or degrade if not used, are easily identified. Ice melts; boiling water cools to ambient temperature. Fresh produce wilts; ripe fruit degrades and rots. These are the “use it or lose it” resources and using them before they’re wasted is obviously the first priority.
The second type is a little trickier. There are several systems of production like selective logging and coppice forestry that fall into this category but the most obvious in your life is probably the goodwill of neighbours and colleagues. Everyone gets a good feeling from helping someone out and as long as you are modest in your requests and willing to reciprocate, good will flourishes and social capital is built up. The priority for resources in this category is to make sure your use of them remains moderate.
The third type is also fairly easy. The sun shines whether you hang out your laundry to dry or not. Gravity is completely unaffected by the downhill flow of water, soil, or anything else. Animals in biological systems of production are unaffected by use. The resources in this category are mostly underused and it’s worthwhile to consider whether there are ways you could make better use of them. There are many ways to use solar energy for example that don’t require huge investment or complicated technology.
Number 4, those that are reduced by use, clearly need to be treated with more respect and used more carefully. Fresh potable water is the most obvious category 4 resource, although, many other things fall into this category because of how they are used. Wood is, potentially, a renewable resource, but clearcutting destroys forests and the current approach to replanting has not resulted in successful remediation. Clay is a finite resource. It can be shaped and air dried, soaked and reshaped almost infinitely** but once it’s been fired in a kiln it can’t be used again.***
Number 5, the final category, is the most problematic. Unfortunately these resources are the foundation of industrialism. The extraction, production, and use, of fossil fuels contaminates and destroys our atmosphere, our land, and our water, the very resources we are most dependant on for survival. Our modern society, in its current form, cannot exist without them. Bunker fuel powers international shipping. Jet fuel (kerosene) is essential for air travel. Fully 60% of the world’s electricity is produced by burning coal, oil, and natural gas.
Industrial agriculture is massively fossil fuel dependant. Fuel to power agro-industrial machinery, food processing facilities, and transportation is just the start. Fossil fuels are also used for the production of chemical pesticides and herbicides, and as a feed stock for synthetic fertilizers. Reducing our dependance on these resources is both our the highest priority and our biggest challenge.
The permaculture guidelines for resource management are natural extensions of the permaculture ethics: Earth Care; People Care; Fair Share. The principles for resource management are:
1) Catch and Store Energy and Materials: collect and slow the flow of resources through your system;
2) Use Biological and Renewable Resources: identify use patterns and prioritize resources in categories 1-3;
3) Waste is a Resource: minimize waste and practice highest order use, repair, re-use, re-purpose.
Reducing your energy dependance and valuing the material resources that come into your life is both ethical and pragmatic. In the words of Mahatma Gandhi: “The world has enough for everyone's need, but not enough for everyone's greed.”
*This, like many of the ideas that underpin this blog, is lifted directly from the writings of John Michael Greer. I highly recommend his blog ecoshphia.net and his books. The Ecotechnic Future; and Green Wizardry are particularly relevant to this blog.
** India has (or had) a whole industry making and re-making “disposable” dishes using sun dried clay.
***The Japan practice of Kintsugi has developed ceramic repair into an art form using lacquer mixed with gold or other precious metals to transform broken pottery into items more beautiful and more precious than the unbroken originals.