2006; It was the best of times, it was the worst of times

[feranaja]

Well I'm up (uncharacteristically) late and in a (more typical) reflective mood; we share a lot here about how our days were, what happened that made us smile and so on; now I'm inclined to ask a question about this whole cycle. I just spent an hour on the phone with one of the wisest, funniest people I know and we shared a lot of tears and laughter about the losses and lessons we've gone through this year...made me think of AF, my friends here, and the struggles and victories we are all facing and have faced throughout this past year.

What was good about 2006? What was difficult/challenging?

What did you learn - how did you grow?

Please share whatever reflections you might want to about the year that's just past. I will think about my own and post, errr..when I'm sober.

Happy New Year! What an incredibly great forum this is!:yes:
<hugs> fera

[Kain]

What was good about 2006? What was difficult/challenging?

What did you learn - how did you grow?What was good is that my personal work on self-development has advanced a whole lot. I've learnt enough things to approach all this stuff from a whole new level and I feel like I'm just getting warmed up in this respect. 2006 was also a year of bringing down to rock-hard manifest terms a distance from a lot of things I engaged in while I always knew they were best left alone...so perhaps the most challenging thing has been to balance this "all-out" life-redefinition of my life while still managing to achieve my goals in the bigger picture without any turbulance brought their way. In other words manage to contain this massive outburst from getting more broad than I'd like, and from affecting my creative faculties in any way other than desired.

What was also good is that this whole thing actually worked as intended and the pressure has subsided, having me finding myself in a very advantageous position at the years resolution. Nearly blew some important things up, but thankfully good sense has prevailed.

Kain

[Lucian]

I spent the first part of the year secretly being absolutely barking mad. This was a huge challenge because, being absolutely barking mad, I had a hard time seeing things for what they were. It was also nearly impossible to do the things I needed to, like be consistent with my hours at work so I could pay rent, buy food, etc. I was moody all the time, taking my visions waaaaay too seriously, feeling totally disconnected from everything and everyone. I was utterly lost in unreality.

And this is where I think the most important lesson of the year was learned:

You can't quite understand the warnings of magicians to avoid unhealthy obsession until you have been in its grip, and see what it does to your equilibrium and your life in general. Now when someone writes about the need to be very careful not to tempt obsession, and warns against taking your visions, dreams, and magical exploits too seriously - I know exactly what they mean. It's a trap even the best can fall into.

The madness sort of wore off in late spring and allowed me to get my shit together somewhat. In summer I met a friend, and that whole melodrama can be found elsewhere on the forums.

I'm not sure exactly what lessons I'm taking from him -

I'd say he might have taught me not to trust, but that's not really true. Certainly he taught me by being an example of what not to do and be. I think I learned valuable lessons about my own power. But who can really say yet? It's not quite over.

I'm starting this year in a completely different place than last year. I am far more centered and grounded (which isn't hard to achieve considering I was a loon before - lol). I think I see things more as they are, though I still have work to do in that area. I feel stronger and more resolute about my new values and goals.

It was certainly an interesting year. An adventure. But I guess every year is an adventure of sorts, isn't it?

[Radiant Star]

Spent most of 2006 studying hard and also most of it offline with only occasional internet connection. It was amazing how much I got done too lol

My personal highlight was meeting up with a couple of people in Belgium and spending a fun five days eating, drinking beer and discussing anything occult related.

From October, things went downhill fast with a series of illnesses and nearly failing my exam I had worked hard for all year. The only saving grace was the last fortnight of the year, I found out I had passed my exam and also went away and chilled out, studied the TwinStar, ritualled a lot and drank too much. God it was good :D

[Okazaki Castle]

Well, like Lucian I spent the first part of 2006, until around April, being crazy. It was fun, I enjoyed it lots. I had a lot of money to spend, after being quite poor for a long time (in terms of liquid funds I could actually get my hands on - even had to ration my ganga smoking by Zeus!!). So I assumed godform, which I am reliably told is something the Golden Dawn aim to do and... went around building paradox locks, which is apparently what you've got to do to break this system. It's a bit like Tai Chi, and revolves around the connundrum that mortals (humans) can't get their heads round even a simple paradox lock (eg arrogant and modest at the same time) let alone things like triple accelerated counterweighted paradox locks.

So it was fun the beginning of the year. It started when Sheikh Maktoum bin Rashid died on January 4th, at the same time that Ariel Sharon suffered a stroke in the middle of the night. I had Maktoum slotted for the Quaral-il role (second in command of The Zhedhi Order) to replace the previous candidate who'd disappeared for a while. So the powers-that-be had that in the background and I proceded to Athens from Ikaria, a Greek Island where I was based at the time, and proceded to do Aiki principle (harmonize and redirect) with the shit which was heading my way to hit the proverbial fan.

I started this by going to a medium-range hotel, buying some ganga, then leaving it in open sight to be found by the hotel proprietors - as ganga is quite a hefty crime in Greece - the day after I'd spent the night quite obviously fucking a whore in that room, leaving a lighter from a different cabaret to the one she was from next to the ganga for them to also find, hence ambiguity. Then I come in the next day having bought a whole new set of fairly expensive-looking clothes and a red masonic ring and convince the hotel owner that I want to buy his hotel, which he happens to be selling. Whilst he's debating greed vs being an upright citizen, I leave his hotel implying it is of too poor a quality, having no view of the Acropolis, and move to the Caravel in Pankratio: a nice, luxury hotel with Five Pentagrams on top of it which I can run energies thru. Meanwhile, I go round downtown Athens telling all the shop owners surrounding the Acropolis that I'm I'm an alchemist doing physical binds for the communist revolution. They find it quite funny, cuz I'm spending lots of money in thier shops, cracking jokes, posing with the masonic ring which they all have some fear of, and saying I'm a member of Epsilon en Delphois, a well-known 'secret society' in Greece that deals with mysteries and stuff.

Meanwhile, I've come to the attention of the powers-that-be and they stage a conference hall for me in the hotel where I meet Karamanlis, the Greek PM (who I didn't recognise at the time, not bothering to watch news or anything) and some people from Epsilon. They find it funny too... and quietly send some people over to Tibet (as I later find out when I meet them in the Hilton of Pankratio, opposite the one where I'm staying, and we have a little chat) to check with the Dalai Lama who the heck I am doing this sort of shit. Obviously, they think it's stupid to arrest me for ganga when I've got death of kings and PM's in the background, and they kinda like the anti-Turkish and Megali Idea slant. So they let me get on with it, and join in the joke at times...

Meanwhile, I keep on smoking ganga in public places, go round telling people about the coming communist revolution (which started in Ikaria, an all-communist island where the majority of members of the homegrown terrorist organisation 'November 17th' are from) and laughing at how you can't be rich *and* mad, you're just eccentric. Keep buying stuff from them and looking rich and respectable and they just think you're onto something and want to be near the glory. Many even find it funny, and join in. Hence we have Pan Kratio: the State of Pan, also The State of Everything, a bit like the United Nations. Then we have I Karavaiki Roi tou El - The Carribean Flow of The Els and stuff like that cuz Greeks like word games and thier lagnuage is cool.

Meanwhile though the British have found out about this all, and send some of their people over, who talk to me in a restaurant, and it's quite cool, but I've been taking the piss out of them mercilessly with the Greek stuff. Eventually, I get the feeling it's time to go over to the UK, cuz London is Illuminati HQ in many ways, and so get round to it but not before breaking into the Russian Embassy to give them info on the Che Guevara pattern, having them pass me over to the Greek police, who send me a female psycholgist (now you know that's just asking for trouble when I'm in my piss-taking mood) who I tease with the male cops for her bad memory and the fact that she doesn't want to join us for a tobacco smoke, They decline my offer of ganga tho, and ask me not to smoke in the station, which, being courteous, I don't. They ask me who I think I am, I say 'I'm God', they say 'Well, what did you expect him to tell you' and then let me go. That told me a useful thing about how governments work in this system, and why it's good to claim you're god or divinely inspired: it's the religion clause, lets you get away with anything pretty much....

Then I went ot England and did some boring stuff, sent ultimatums and information packs to the world's Leading Countries Embassies plus MI5 and MI6, then went to The Netherlands to see what the DemonKings were up to. I got arrested there, so I simply projected the relatively gentle godform I was being at the time out and let myself be Dark Khaos pure, ie primal void, to see if they felt like holding on to that, seeing as some of them there knew what the implications would be...

Rest of the year was spent waiting for the retard slow karmic threads of this system to catch up, and pretending to be normal and human-ish, basically by not talking much and being introverted and silent. That was boring though. It's much more fun being rich and acting crazy, but with wisdom and purpose

Never killed anyone physically during that whole period, though came close twice it must be said. Would like to repeat the adventure with some friends, cuz its more fun then, and you can buy swords in pretty much any European or other city and then do poser Musashi or Aikido on them with their guns. That would be fun I think, and is only considered crazy by the norms cuz they like to keep their heads bowed like good slaves and believe really, really strongly in the Power of Their Guns....

It's things like this that make my life fun and an adventure. Sanity? Well, I like the ethical case there... Plus, they're stupid and League of Shadows never talks to them, but they'd need such when you've got Magi Society involved. Oh, and if it gets too sticky there's always Aum Shinrikyo to target-lock them with their earthquake-causing scalar tech or plasma beams for frying personnel even in deep bunkers... You can see why I can't take the puppetts of this world seriously, or their stupid commercial games. Life's a lot more fun when you don't give a damn about death...

all the best,
Oazaki.

[Ci Celli Ddu]

1.What did you do in 2006 that you’d never done before?

Buy loads of stuff, now Ive got my own little occult library, all my occult equipment, bought a few swords, computer, oh, and started university.

2. Did you keep your new year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year?

I never bother with crap like that, and anyway the Celtic New Year begins with Halloween.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?

My brother's wife if that counts, baby girl last january. She's pregnant again with their third child. But they have a television!!!

4. Did anyone close to you die?

Nope. Unless you count that dude in the next room to me in a hostel I was staying at. Died on his first night there from a combination of being fat and climbing stairs. Fair play to him though, he did stop snoring.

5. What countries did you visit?

Normally I'd roll off half of Europe to a question like that, but amazingly in 2006 my only trip abroad was to England.

7. What date(s) from 2006 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?

None because I don't keep a calendar or pay attention to stuff like that. The last exception being 9/11.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?

Finding and renting a house. Not easy to do in North Wales unless you're single and pregnant.

9. What was your biggest failure?

Hanging the clothes out to dry in November. It's still raining now.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?

Injury. Must remember not to fight at night, Im nightblind.

11. What was the best thing you bought?


I'll read "aquire" for "bought". The computer, courtesy of the Council because Im visually impaired

12. Whose behaviour merited celebration?

I live alone so I win by default. Seriously though, an old friend who invited me down to his studio at Easter. We used to busk Dublin together and I hadnt seen him since then in the early nighties. Found him via myspace. Nice nostalgic get together with alcohol, drugs and showbiz thrown in to boot.

13. Whose behaviour made you appalled and depressed?


The TV licence man. The bastard caught me at home.

14. Where did most of your money go?

The Global Economy

16. What song will always remind you of 2006?

Probably I don't feel like dancing by Scissor Sisters. It was always playing in one of my locals.

17. Compared to this time last year, are you:

happier or sadder? happier, in a cynical kind of way
thinner or fatter? the same
richer or poorer? richer

18. What do you wish you’d done more of?

Sex

19. What do you wish you’d done less of?

Talk

20. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2006.

Playing Star Wars Galaxies does not boost your academic performance

[feranaja]

1.What did you do in 2006 that you’d never done before?

A nip and a truck on abody part that previously didnt feel like it was falling off and then one day - yikes. I'm much happier now it's learned its lesson and is behaving like that particular bodypart is supposed to.:laugh:
Let that be a lesson to any other errant parts considering misbehaving in the near future - I WILL PREVAIL...

2. Did you keep your new year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year?

No. I almost never do though.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?

Not of the two legged variety.

4. Did anyone close to you die?

Yes, the love of my life, Friday September 1, but you all know about that.


5. What countries did you visit?

Well, while I was invited to visit the US, England and Denmark on work related stuff and Turkey on - well I'm not sure what to call that - finances, and then Luke's death precluded any travel.

7. What date(s) from 2006 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?

Friday September 1, for obvious reasons.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?

Surviving the last few months of it.

9. What was your biggest failure?

I don't know...I think spending a lot of money on things I now know were frivolous and silly, but I enjoyed at the time. yes...wastefulness, and not spending enough time with the things that really matter.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?

No, I'm in the best shape of my life despite a battering of abuse late in the year.

11. What was the best thing you bought?

Daniel. :)))

12. Whose behaviour merited celebration?

WEll, my ex drove four hours a day every day for two months to stay here at night after Luke died so i wouldnt die of grief myself alone out here. He's totally demented in many ways and we cant live together, but you gotta love a peoosn with that kind of generosity. Especially after I'd been such a cow to him the months before.

And yeah - we may give it another go. Im not making decisions when I'm still depressed, but - we'll see.

13. Whose behaviour made you appalled and depressed?


This is really private, but appalled would be an understatement. Suffice to say I am thinking now that there may be truly evil people in thisworld, irredeemable people. Delight in anothers suffering is...beneath contempt. Live and learn. Hatred is a thing I just dont get.


14. Where did most of your money go?
Dogs and turning back the clock - pretty much the same as ever.:)

16. What song will always remind you of 2006?

Hung Up by Madonna
I Want You by Holly Cole
Vampyra by Inkubus Sukkubus

17. Compared to this time last year, are you:

happier or sadder? massively sadder
thinner or fatter? a bit fatter, it will pass
richer or poorer? massively poorer - this isnt looking too good is it:laugh:

18. What do you wish you’d done more of?

Spent time with Luke

19. What do you wish you’d done less of?

Instant Messaging

20. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2006.

Love is precious and life is fragile. We can't control everything and the unthinkable does happen. Live like you have one year, one MONTH left. Cherish your loved ones above all. Take nothing for granted. And count your blessings, they can be gone in a heartbeat.

What you think will make you happy, often doesn't and happiness may be right underneath your nose now. Don't let it go.

fera

[Okazaki Castle]

You got swords Ce Celli Ddu? Coolness, which ones? Sharp battle-ready swords I am presuming, not the display versions... Pics would be cool... :)

20. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2006.

None. I refuse to learn lessons from this retard system. I like myself just the way I am, thank you very much. My character is perfect IMO. However this system learnt a valuable lesson from me in the year 2006 I think: try and make me learn your crap, stupid lessons and I'll fucking break you. And it would not be too many.

It's how you overrule karma: you say 'OI!! I'm bigger than you, yield or be crushed'. It's where the Dark Matter, or the aether if you like, comes in useful: the shiny, sparkly shit which we know as Maya, or the visible, created reality, is small and weak in comparison to it. It's kinda similar to what m1thr0s was talking about in reference to slaying godforms (http://forums.abrahadabra.com/showthread.php?p=4357&highlight=slaying#post4357). Didn't see any reason not to do that on this whole fucking creation. Indeed, fro where I was standing it looked like the best and most obvious target, who was asking for it the most... Stupid idiot school system, like I want holidays not learning stupid godforms' retard small lessons... Behold the power of the Dark Side *cue Vader's March music*

Regards all,
Oazaki, Dark Lord of Lords of The Sith :D .

[Ci Celli Ddu]

You got swords Ci Celli Ddu? Coolness, which ones? Sharp battle-ready swords I am presuming, not the display versions... Pics would be cool... :)


Pics big problem, as I have no reception and have to wander round the streets everytime I want to send a photo from my mobile. I have a katana, a wakizashi, and a La Tene. here's me with the La Tene

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/155/355687289_379b4054eb_m.jpg

[Okazaki Castle]

Are they sharp and of good steel, or more ceremonial?

Cool pic btw, you look like a Sith Lord there with the black robe and all...

all da best,
Oazaki.

[Ci Celli Ddu]

Are they sharp and of good steel, or more ceremonial?

Cool pic btw, you look like a Sith Lord there with the black robe and all...

all da best,
Oazaki.

Nah, they're off ebay. Most of the guys at my dojo have usable katanas and know where to get something that's reasonably priced and practical for use, so I might get a good one later. It's a well established shotokan dojo with a good membership, and loads of us have katanas at home. Weve got a university in the area, so there's loads of martial arts classes here, though the majority of MA students are locals, not Uni students. If a Iaijitsu master came up here he/she'd find his/her classes full from our dojo alone.