Till We Meet Again

In our communities, as otherkin and therians and vampires, much of our interaction takes place online. To the point that the vampire community has even coined the phrase OVC, or, “Online Vampire Community” to refer to that portion of things.

This document, however, is about taking our community off the screen and into the real world. It is, simply put, a guide to meetups, mini-gathers, gatherings, howls, and conventions. It is intended to cover the questions of how-to, how-not-to, and what these events are like for both the person or people organizing them and those simply attending.

This guide was last updated on Tuesday, 13th September, 2016.  Please feel free to suggest any additions, corrections, questions, or changes in the comments section at the bottom of the page.

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Come Away

If you read this website with any regularity you most likely know that it is my practice to occasionally do a magical working that I term a “calling”, literally meant to draw others who meet certain criteria to find me and/or the otherkin community itself.  I typically use what I term a “poetic focus” as the basis for this calling – or, in other words, a spoken invocation.  Two of the invocations I have used in the past are here and here.

It is time once again to renew that calling.  But this time, after the recent essays on sigilization and thoughtfoms, I thought I might do so a little differently.  This time, I am going to build a servitor.

The core of this servitor will be a sigil.  I wanted something easily reproduced and with an obvious association with the otherkin community, so I have created a starlike image with seven arms, each arm drawn from the outside moving in.  It is not the typical septegram, but the association between the two symbols should be obvious.

As a name for the servitor, I will chose the word “Shakto”, being part of the Aloryan phrase “Shakto-tha lien” which means roughly “show yourselves” or “come forward”.

For the purpose of the servitor, three tasks:

1. To seek out those with nonhuman or otherworldly lives which have touched them deeply, and to help them awaken and to find the otherkin community.

2. To help those otherkin who have shared such lives in the past find one another again.

3. To help restore the spirit and the vitality that the community once had, that has been lost

The next step is, of course, to decide on a form for the servitor itself.  At first I was thinking a white hart, as in some celtic myths, but in this case I am feeling more inclined towards a modern myth: the white rabbit.  One might even picture his sigil as the many hands of a very strange pocket-watch, though this rabbit is never late.  Nor is he early.  He comes precisely when he needs to.  But he will lead you down the rabbit hole.

After charging and empowering the servitor I have linked it to both of my existing callings, and sent it out into the wild and the web.  It is self-sustaining and from one point of view replicating (it is a rabbit after all) though from another it simply takes advantage of a rather interesting understanding of time.

I look forward to observing it at work.

The Death and Rebirth of Glamourbombing

You probably didn’t know this, but glamourbombing is dead.  Shot through the heart by the grim specter of consensual reality we call the Mundane World.  I would like to say that she waged a valiant battle against overwhelming odds – but the truth is, she didn’t.  Instead, I’ll say this: never bring glitter and mailbox doilies to a gun fight.

Glamourbombing was, at heart, an idealist who wanted to believe that if mankind could be convinced of the reality of magic, of glamour, that it would help to breach the veil between worlds. To this end she left glitter-encrusted messages for the mundanes touting that their wings were real.  She glued pennies to sidewalks in strange and wondrous designs.  She even, on Thursdays after a new moon in months ending with a ‘y’, put on elaborate performances known as “Goblin Markets,” plying whimsical wares to the bemused and banal. The one thing she didn’t try very often? Magic.

That was her secret, you see.  She loved magic, would use any trick or gimmick of guerrilla art or stage magic to convince a sleeping populace of its reality.  But deep down, in her heart of hearts, she didn’t – couldn’t – believe in it herself.  Certainly could not believe in a magic strong enough, powerful enough, effective enough to break open a sleeper’s mind and introduce them to the reality of the supernatural.

She didn’t know – couldn’t see – how very wrong she was. Magic is not some sickly, impotent wretch whose presence and reality need to be faked to be convincing. And by acting as a charlatan on its behalf, she was not helping but betraying it. Giving the world one less thing to believe in. One more proof that magic is simply tricks and illusions with no real substance.

But now, rising from the ashes of the old, we find a new glamourbombing taking her place. One no longer afraid of the power of magic, nor afraid to wield it. This glamourbombing is a true creature of Dream. A will-worker. A weaver of wonders.

The tools of this new glamourbombing have changed as well. Glitter has been set aside in favor of the simple tools of chalk and marker. And sites are tagged not with cheap inspirational phrases but with empowered sigils. Sigils to link them together in a network of magic. Sigils to invoke spirits, angels, gods and demons. Sigils to stich the physical and the astral together like Peter Pan and his Shadow. Sigils to infect the mind, or to warp reality itself.

This new glamourbombing creates fresh variations on prayer wheels, using them to spread fey energies and create new thin places. She attunes others to otherworldly energies and condenses such energies into objects of power. She invokes the otherworlds themselves, calling them into alignment with our own. And she invokes those who, like ourselves, share an otherworldly heritage.,

But her greatest workings are found in the oldest of magics. The magic of blood. Our blood, for she has re-enchanted it with the blessing and curse of all that makes us fey. All that makes us living gates between the worlds. Our natures, spread virally forward and backward along the river of blood. We are the changelings, and she has stolen us.

This is the new glamourbombing. No more a timid mouse, but a QUEEN in black and RED. This is glamourbombing, and her name is Alice, spelled E-L-L-I-S.  This is glamourbombing. Are you ready to see how deep the rabbit hole really goes?