jarandhel

Life has been busy lately and I haven't had a lot of time for my usual online activities. Dreamhart.org, especially, has been a bit neglected; about the only thing I've had time for there lately has been keeping the links section up to date. I'm working on changing that, and getting the forums there more active again as well as (hopefully) getting some more essays done for the site. Currently I'm working on the final installment of my basic energywork series: thoughtforms. That's a really broad category, though, so I'm taking time and trying to organize that essay in a way which will hopefully make a complicated subject reasonably approachable.

Well, I'm happy to report that the first of my Matrix prototypes is
fully functional as of around 1am last night. This one is of a much
more "traditional" design (compared to the other Matrixes I have seen)
than the pyramidal one I am working on, which is still giving me
difficulties in assembly. Its core is comprised of a candle-holder I
bought at AC Moore on clearance for 15 dollars, with the glass plating
removed. I've strung silver wire from the remaining frame to hold my
orgone generator suspended over the candle area, which is the platform
I am using to hold the central stone for the matrix. Four tiny photo
"easels" are being used to hold the perimeter crystals, which is
working out so nicely (and were so cheap) that I intend to purchase
more of them for use with the other Matrix designs I am working on.
(I bought enough of the lab-grown quartz crystals that I should be
able to assemble as many as three full Matrixes without having to
order more, though I'm somewhat curious what effect adding more
crystals to a single Matrix would have.) I have dispensed almost
entirely with the use of magnets, though my current orgone generator
uses two very small neodymium magnets to help direct energy flow; I am
not suspending the stone within two circle magnets in this design, and
so far I have noted no negative effects from that decision.

As a note, the experience of making a Matrix yourself, rather than
using one someone else has made for you, is... interesting. I find,
much like with previous stone circles and Reiki grids I have made,
there is a distinct presence/awareness of the Matrix even when I am
not physically in the same room or even the same building with it.
From here at work, while the Matrix is at home, I can very easily
reach out and feel it and draw energy from it or add more energy to
it. The experience, and some of the things I am learning in the
process, are giving me a lot of material for my upcoming workshop. As
well as completely bulldozing some of my expectations and suppositions
about how the Matrix really works. Definitely a learning experience.

---

Yeah, so, some of you may have heard already but I've volunteered to do a workshop at Thresholds on the Balon Matrix (specifically focusing on otherkin uses and mutations of it). One of the big ones that I know it can be used for is gateworking. I have some experience in that realm, more than enough to pull something off, but I'd like to expand my knowledge-base a bit before doing so in a workshop setting. So... ideas/techniques/theories of gateworking anyone feels like sharing? I have my own ideas, and I'm mining the lists for more info, but I'd really love it if we could get a decent discussion going here to help me prepare for the workshop.

Got some more books in for my hoard from the shipments I was waiting on. This week I've gotten:

• Sacred and Herbal Healing Beers: The Secrets of Ancient Fermentation


• Preserving Food without Freezing or Canning: Traditional Techniques Using Salt, Oil, Sugar, Alcohol, Vinegar, Drying, Cold Storage, and Lactic Ferment


• Nourishing Traditions: The Cookbook that Challenges Politically Correct Nutrition and the Diet Dictocrats


• The Revolution Will Not Be Microwaved: Inside America's Underground Food Movements


• Making Sauerkraut and Pickled Vegetables at Home: Creative Recipes for Lactic Fermented Food to Improve Your Health


• Pickled: Vegetables, Fruits, Roots, More--Preserving a World of Tastes and Traditions

Now the only one I'm still waiting on is Real Food: What to Eat and Why. So far, I'm very excited, and now I don't know what book to read next! :)

My hoard is about to expand even further. Two more books were just added to my "waiting to arrive" list:

• Pickled: Vegetables, Fruits, Roots, More--Preserving a World of Tastes and Traditions
• Real Food: What to Eat and Why

My project list is getting a bit long again. Working heavily on the Babalon Matrix v2.0 project, trying to get the full design laid out on paper for the final device, at least as much as I can without seeing the specific motherboards I end up with for it. On top of this, I've been feeling a bit of a pull towards (finally) getting involved in fermentation, pickling, and cultured foods. I've been interested for a while, but it's never felt like the right time. Now, though, it does. To the point where, when making our lists for the office secret santa program, all three options I gave were books on that subject. Wild Fermentation, The Joy of Pickling, and Nourishing Traditions. (The last one was a compromise, I really wanted The Permaculture Book of Ferment & Human Nutrition, but that was way too expensive for an office Secret Santa.) I've also been dragging my feet about finding a local brewery supply store and finally trying to make my own mead. Mainly because I think I've asked Ri where one is about three times now, and I never seem to remember to write his answer down. I actually got to the point where I was telling myself that I would try to make a very small batch with baker's yeast and a nalgene bottle (pretty airtight and not too likely to be able to explode, even under pressure) and if that worked I might see about the more expensive equipment. Then tonight, I was out at a store that under no circumstances should carry this kind of stuff, with no thought in my head about getting anything relating to brewing. I was at CVS, looking to see if they carry space heaters. (They carry fans in the summer, why the heck don't they carry space heaters in the winter?) And what to my wondering eyes should appear, but a microwbrew kit and it's called MrBeer. It's not the fanciest, it's probably a piece of crap compared to the better ones, but it's cheap and I'm reasonably certain that it will work for making mead. I'll probably toss the corn syrup solids ("Booster") and West Coast Pale Ale Beer Mix (wort) that came with it, unless anyone wants that, but at the very least I can use the brew keg, bottles, and brewing yeast. Even if they only last for a few batches, they didn't cost much, and I can see if I want to try doing this at a more serious level. Of course, since it's beer yeast it will have a lower alcohol tolerance, but that's not necessarily a bad thing... it's not the relatively low alcohol content that makes me object to drinking beer in the first place, it's the flavor and smell. And I know to use less honey to make mead with beer yeast than I would with champaign yeast or wine yeast. I've already got enough honey to try to start making a batch, and I think I might do so either later tonight or tomorrow. If this batch turns out alright, I've got a few ideas for future batches already. HMart, for those who don't know, sells two types of honey that I like a lot... one of them is cactus honey infused with pomegranate extract. The other is cactus honey infused with deer velvet antler extract. Each of them has instructions on how to mix it with warm water to create a nice, flavored honey tea. Both are quite enjoyable. I really enjoy mixing the two together and drinking that as a tea. I wonder how those would taste made into a mead, either separately or together?

I don't always network as well as I should. I have an annoying tendency to go to people I think may be most likely to be able to help with a particular issue based on what I already know about these people, and don't regularly poll my friends to see if there is anyone else who might be knowledgeable in a given subject who I don't already know about. At the moment, I'm feeling somewhat pulled to go against that tendency. I've already put out a couple feelers on this subject privately, but here is the question I would like to pose to my friends:

Does anyone know of a NLP trainer (preferably in the DC metro area, but that is not necessarily a deal breaker) who offers NLP training at a reasonable price? I've been looking into NLP more and more, and I'd be rather interested in getting formal training in it, but frankly the prices I have seen so far are outrageous. The average NLP training seems to run around 98 to 112 hours for practitioner certification, and appears to cost somewhere around $2,300 US as far as I can tell. As contrast, massage therapy training (which is arguably more complex as it requires a functional knowledge of anatomy in order to avoid doing harm to patients) generally requires around 500 hours of training for practitioner certification and typically run around 5,000 USD on average. That means that NLP courses cost, on average, around $10.50 per hour more than massage training does. I don't see anything that justifies those sorts of fees for NLP. A massage course of similar length, in states which only require 100 hours of training for certification, could be acquired for one thousand or less. Frankly, the only reason I can see for NLP's inflated pricetag is its popularity in the world of business and politics where companies and organizations are likely to pay for their employees to receive the training. Which hedges out private individuals of lesser means from receiving the same training.

I've got a lot of metaphysical projects on my plate right now. The big one, obviously, is the research into the Babalon Matrix, but I've got a few other subjects simmering on the back burners as well. And today I found aspects of my orgone research connecting up with them in very interesting ways. Which led me to the following thought: it may be time to expand my website again.

Right now, I have a Reiki Annex up there with a lot (though not nearly all) of the material I have found about Reiki. I really like where I've been able to go with that portion of the website. And I've been thinking for some time now about adding in other parts, like a section on Huna, detailing how those systems can add to Reiki.

Now, though, I'm kind of leaning away from adding those aspects under the Reiki Annex. They're unique systems, and while they can definitely be used well together, they deserve a better and more thorough individual analysis than simply what they can do in the light of reiki practice. So I'm thinking it might be time to move the Reiki Annex into a larger section on magical/energetic systems which could contain my research into a variety of magical systems and healing methods. Then I could put all my research into Huna, Orgone, Faery, Alchemy, Qi Gong, Shamanism, and anything else relevant up there.

What do you all think? Would that be a useful change for the site?

After much searching online, I finally found a reasonably cheap source of synthetic quartz crystals: http://www.teachersource.com/catalog/page/Earth_Science_Biology/Rocks_Minerals/

They're available for just 9.95 each for approximately six inch lengths. From the photo, they appear to be as-grown crystals, rather than lumbered.

I'm still going to be looking for a cheaper source, but so far this is the cheapest I've found. The site also has a number of other interesting products available, including ring-shaped neodymium magnets, a variety of rather strong rare earth magnet.

PS: The posts on the basics of orgonomy for this thread are coming, I'm just pouring over a lot of material on the subject and trying to figure out how to properly summarize it.