Merry Xmas

Just look.

'Something good is gonna happen'

Kate Bush and Wilhelm Reich, a dynamite combination. One of my favourite songs of hers, Cloudbusting. It was a while before I realised it was about Reich (played by Donald Sutherland in the video) and his arrest by the authorities:

Aliaa Magda Elmahdy Pt 2

Well, well, look at this

Female nudity in the Middle East as a political statement . . . it would have seemed unthinkable a week ago.

OK, it may be said that an old pervert like me is merely pleased at the thought of lots more naked women (which, admittedly, is always a good thing) but, hey, there are zillions of female bodies on the net for those who wish to view them. I really think that there is something quite magickally archetypal about this, something that goes right to the source of things.

Hope it's the start of an method for international protest . . .

Maybe it is

Ken Russell

Another genius gone. Obituary
I loved his films. Nearly all of them are worth seeing. He always pushed the boundaries as well as having great visual flair.
Personal favorites - Women In Love, The Music Lovers, Savage Messiah, Altered States and, of course, The Devils, One of the best examinations of the idea that Christian sexual repression leads to madness and cruelty I've ever seen. Reichian in it's vision.
(And we're still waiting for an uncensored version)
But see it anyway. It's still great.

Aliaa Magda Elmahdy

On the surface this would appear to be just another pic of a naked woman - very pretty, nice touch with the red shoes and hair decoration, but like so many others.

Except that it isn't. This woman may well be putting her life on the line.
She is Aliaa Magda Elmahdy, an Egyptian blogger. She's posted this on her blog (here) because - to use her own words - it "screams against a society of violence, racism, sexism, sexual harassment and hypocrisy."

Article about it here.

To do this in an Islamic country, even a relatively relaxed one like Egypt, is an act of utter bravery. She has a hell of a lot of repressive forces ranged against her and I wish I had a fraction of her courage.

It did remind me of years ago when sexual freedom and political freedom were entwined. But with the rise of the new PC puritanism, this is no longer the case. Pity. It's interesting that she describes herself as a feminist.

Aliaa is providing us with one of the great classical images of truth and freedom. unashamed, and challenging anyone who sees it to say it is wrong.

Sex Magick in the truest sense of the phrase.

I really hope she triumphs, and I really hope she comes to no harm.
I urge those of you out there to send some energy her way, in whatever form you choose.

Hallow's Eve

On this night I always find myself thinking of those who've gone before. My parents, family members, some friends . . .

The feeling of loss is always there, but the conviction that there is more to all of us than this physical life, and there is a continuation after that ends, has never left me.

As for those of us still here, we miss them, we should honour them and live our lives as fully as we can.

Because that is what life is for.

So tonight we take a little time from our lives to think of them. I've posted this quote before but it surely belongs here:


The End. Unto them from whose eyes the veil of life hath fallen may there be granted the accomplishment of their true Wills; whether they will absorption in the Infinite, or to be united with their chosen and preferred, or to be in contemplation, or to be at peace, or to achieve the labour and heroism of incarnation on this planet or another, or in any Star, or aught else, unto them may there be granted the accomplishment of their wills; yea, the accomplishment of their wills. AUMGN. AUMGN. AUMGN.

-AC: Liber XV

Black And Red

Nice use of colour here . . .