Birthday of Sanctus Karl Heinrich Ulrichs and Atham (first day of ഓണം)

Today is the third day of my budding muppet nun practice, in which I have set aside 9 times during the day for prayer to the mup gods and operating with a schedule that includes 3 hours a day set aside for spiritual reading (so far that means checking on the new blog posts of the blogs to your right, catching up on Aedicula Antinoi, and reading The Flower and the Scorpion: Sexuality and Ritual in Early Nahua Culture), and 8 hours of work here at Wolf Creek Radical Fairy Sanctuary, every day.  I've been thinking, inspired by some writings at Gods & Radicals and by my friend and co-religionist Finnchuill, about the connections between monastic practices, drag, and anti-capitalist pagan/ploytheist practices.  To re-enchant the world, we must destroy Capitalism; to destroy Capitalism, we must re-enchant ourselves.  Both monasticism and drag are or can be about re-enchanting ourselves.  I get the sense that Orthodox monasticism might be closer to my thinking on this than my native Catholicism . . . .  Expect more writing on this in the future!

It also means that I will be incorporating more of the Book of Days practice back into my life, honoring and celebrating the holidays of the various traditions from which mup draws its gods and its practices.  Today, for example, is the birthday of Sanctus Karl Heinrich Ulrichs and also Atham, the first day of the Kerala holiday of ഓണം!

For Sanctus Karl, I waited until just now (it's about halfway between my sunset prayer and my full dark prayer to make an offering to him.  Here at the Sanctuary, we have an altar for the dead (specifically, the Plague Dead) next to the bridge that allows access to the land.  At that shrine, I offered Karl a cup of coffee, praying that it give him some of the quickness of life, that he might live for a short time again.  I then sang Ignis corporis infirmat, ignis sed animae perstat (the standard Ekklesia Antinoou prayer for the dead) and ended with a round of Haec est undes.  It was nice to be on faggot/queer land for these rituals, the first time I felt I could be as loud as I needed to honoring a Sanctus.  Hopefully, Karl appreciates my efforts!

Most of the celebrations for ഓണം seem like a little much for me to whip up on the fly, sadly, so to celebrate the holiday, I will be posting two or three ഓണം-related things to this blog for the length of the festival!

First, Wikipedia has thankfully provided the lyrics (and a translation!) of a traditional song sung at ഓണം, so here they are:

"Maveli nadu vaneedum kalam,
manusharellarum onnupole
amodhathode vasikkum kalam
apathangarkkumottillathanum
kallavum illa chathiyumilla
ellolamilla polivachanam
kallapparayum cherunazhiyum
kallatharangal mattonnumilla
adhikal vyadhikalonnumilla
balamaranangal kelppanilla

”
... (Translation)

“

When Maveli ruled the land,
All the people were equal.
And people were joyful and merry;
They were all free from harm.
There was neither anxiety nor sickness,
Deaths of children were unheard of,
There were no lies,
There was neither theft nor deceit,
And no one was false in speech either.
Measures and weights were right;
No one cheated or wronged his neighbor.
When Maveli ruled the land,
All the people formed one casteless races"

And, second, a recipe for Kerala-style plantain chips, which seem to be a traditional beginning to the feasts of the festival.

How to Make Kerala Style Banana (Plantain) Chips
Make yourself the famous Kerala banana chips - a.k.a - " kaya varathathu "
1
It would be good if you apply some oil on your hand, plantains discharge a gluey serum that is both hard to get off the skin and also gets between your nails. It would be good if you apply some oil on your hand, plantains discharge a gluey serum that is both hard to get off the skin and also gets between your nails.
Comment
2
Get fresh raw plantains. Ripe ones can also be used, if you use ripe plantains the chips will have a sweet tang Get fresh raw plantains. Ripe ones can also be used, if you use ripe plantains the chips will have a sweet tang
Comment
Recommended For You
Main image for 'How to Cook Salted Egg Yolk Prawns' How to Cook Salted Egg Yolk Prawns
Profile Photo for Jasmin Foo by Jasmin Foo
20
Main image for 'How to Make a Prawn & Spinach Salad With an Asian Touch' How to Make a Prawn & Spinach Salad With an Asian Touch
Profile Photo for Karin Siöö by Karin Siöö
13
Main image for 'How to Make Shrimp Pad Thai Zoodles' How to Make Shrimp Pad Thai Zoodles
Profile Photo for Cilla's Cooking Chronicles by Cilla's Cooking Chronicles
21
3
Carve straight on the skin, this gives you a slit to remove the skin. Carve straight on the skin, this gives you a slit to remove the skin.
Comment
4
Open with your thumb, if you have to peel a lot I suggest using a thumb protector Open with your thumb, if you have to peel a lot I suggest using a thumb protector
Comment
5
You should get something like this You should get something like this
Comment
6
Take a big bowl and put the peeled plantains and half a teaspoon of turmeric powder and add water until all plantains are submerged. Slightly stir and set aside for 30 mins Take a big bowl and put the peeled plantains and half a teaspoon of turmeric powder and add water until all plantains are submerged. Slightly stir and set aside for 30 mins
Comment
7
The turmeric wash is only for cleaning and has no color adding value. Plantain chips can be bright yellow even without doing a turmeric wash. You can skip this if you don't get turmeric or dislike it
Comment
8
Add half a teaspoon of turmeric powder Add half a teaspoon of turmeric powder
Comment
9
Ready for adding water to submerge all plantains Ready for adding water to submerge all plantains
Comment
10
Leave for 30 mins Leave for 30 mins
Comment
11
Take the plantains out of the solution and pat them all dry
Comment
12
Pat dry the plantains Pat dry the plantains
Comment
13
Here is a picture of my tools and plantains getting ready to dive into hot oil one slice at a time. Here is a picture of my tools and plantains getting ready to dive into hot oil one slice at a time.
Comment
14
Heat coconut oil ( or any oil of your choice ) - remember the oil that you choose adds to the taste.
Comment
15
Use pure coconut oil for authentic taste Use pure coconut oil for authentic taste
Comment
16
Let the oil get hot Let the oil get hot
Comment
17
When the oil is quite hot ( sacrifice some tester bits to see if the small pieces go down the pool of oil and surface back up with bubbles around the edges ) start slicing the plantains directly in.
Comment
18
Put a tester Put a tester
Comment
19
When the tester bits are put in they should surface up When the tester bits are put in they should surface up
Comment
20
The bit surfaces up
The bit surfaces up
Comment
21
Don't worry about some getting over cooked etc. Just keep your pace and try to finish one plantain at a time into the hot oil. ( Important - do not rest your slicer on the wok ) Take care HOT OIL.
Comment
22
All getting fried All getting fried
Comment
23
You should get these kind of chips after some few minutes. Now when you start moving these with a strainer you should hear nice crackling sound. That is when they are ready. You should get these kind of chips after some few minutes. Now when you start moving these with a strainer you should hear nice crackling sound. That is when they are ready.
Comment
24
Prepare this salt ( optional - sugar ) solution Prepare this salt ( optional - sugar ) solution
Comment
25
If you want sweet and salty add sugar If you want sweet and salty add sugar
Comment
26
Dissolve it in water Dissolve it in water
Comment
27
You should get something like this You should get something like this
Comment
28
Now before you carry them out sprinkle salt water as per your taste. ( Be very careful as this step splashes out a lot of hot oil and water mixture out ) - You can also try salt and sugar solution
Comment
29
Be careful when you add water to oil
Be careful when you add water to oil
Comment
30
Strain out excess oil and carry the fried chips out of the oil and rest them on a big bowl with newspaper or oil absorbent paper as backing.
Comment
31
There you have it nice crispy, salty plantain chips. Store in an air tight container. There you have it nice crispy, salty plantain chips. Store in an air tight container.
Comment
INGREDIENTS

1 Bunch Raw banana ( Plantain )
½ kilograms Coconut oil or vegetable oil
1 Big wok or deep fryer
Salt to taste
1 Turmeric powder
1 Vegetable slicer
1 Big bowl
1 Air tight container

"Hermaphroditus", by Algernon Charles Swinburne

I
Lift up thy lips, turn round, look back for love,
Blind love that comes by night and casts out rest;
Of all things tired thy lips look weariest,
Save the long smile that they are wearied of.
Ah sweet, albeit no love be sweet enough,
Choose of two loves and cleave unto the best;
Two loves at either blossom of thy breast
Strive until one be under and one above.
Their breath is fire upon the amorous air,
Fire in thine eyes and where thy lips suspire:
And whosoever hath seen thee, being so fair,
Two things turn all his life and blood to fire;
A strong desire begot on great despair,
A great despair cast out by strong desire.

II
Where between sleep and life some brief space is,
With love like gold bound round about the head,
Sex to sweet sex with lips and limbs is wed,
Turning the fruitful feud of hers and his
To the waste wedlock of a sterile kiss;
Yet from them something like as fire is shed
That shall not be assuaged till death be dead,
Though neither life nor sleep can find out this.
Love made himself of flesh that perisheth
A pleasure-house for all the loves his kin;
But on the one side sat a man like death,
And on the other a woman sat like sin.
So with veiled eyes and sobs between his breath
Love turned himself and would not enter in.

III
Love, is it love or sleep or shadow or light
That lies between thine eyelids and thine eyes?
Like a flower laid upon a flower it lies,
Or like the night's dew laid upon the night.
Love stands upon thy left hand and thy right,
Yet by no sunset and by no moonrise
Shall make thee man and ease a woman's sighs,
Or make thee woman for a man's delight.
To what strange end hath some strange god made fair
The double blossom of two fruitless flowers?
Hid love in all the folds of all thy hair,
Fed thee on summers, watered thee with showers,
Given all the gold that all the seasons wear
To thee that art a thing of barren hours?

IV
Yea, love, I see; it is not love but fear.
Nay, sweet, it is not fear but love, I know;
Or wherefore should thy body's blossom blow
So sweetly, or thine eyelids leave so clear
Thy gracious eyes that never made a tear —
Though for their love our tears like blood should flow,
Though love and life and death should come and go,
So dreadful, so desirable, so dear?
Yea, sweet, I know; I saw in what swift wise
Beneath the woman's and the water's kiss
Thy moist limbs melted into Salmacis,
And the large light turned tender in thine eyes,
And all thy boy's breath softened into sighs;
But Love being blind, how should he know of this?

Au Musée du Louvre, Mars 1863.

H.P. Lovecraft's "Azathoth"

When age fell upon the world, and wonder went out of the minds of men; when grey cities reared to smoky skies tall towers grim and ugly, in whose shadow none might dream of the sun or of spring’s flowering meads; when learning stripped earth of her mantle of beauty, and poets sang no more save of twisted phantoms seen with bleared and inward-looking eyes; when these things had come to pass, and childish hopes had gone away forever, there was a man who travelled out of life on a quest into the spaces whither the world’s dreams had fled.
Of the name and abode of this man but little is written, for they were of the waking world only; yet it is said that both were obscure. It is enough to know that he dwelt in a city of high walls where sterile twilight reigned, and that he toiled all day among shadow and turmoil, coming home at evening to a room whose one window opened not on the fields and groves but on a dim court where other windows stared in dull despair. From that casement one might see only walls and windows, except sometimes when one leaned far out and peered aloft at the small stars that passed. And because mere walls and windows must soon drive to madness a man who dreams and reads much, the dweller in that room used night after night to lean out and peer aloft to glimpse some fragment of things beyond the waking world and the greyness of tall cities. After years he began to call the slow-sailing stars by name, and to follow them in fancy when they glided regretfully out of sight; till at length his vision opened to many secret vistas whose existence no common eye suspects. And one night a mighty gulf was bridged, and the dream-haunted skies swelled down to the lonely watcher’s window to merge with the close air of his room and make him a part of their fabulous wonder.
There came to that room wild streams of violet midnight glittering with dust of gold; vortices of dust and fire, swirling out of the ultimate spaces and heavy with perfumes from beyond the worlds. Opiate oceans poured there, litten by suns that the eye may never behold and having in their whirlpools strange dolphins and sea-nymphs of unrememberable deeps. Noiseless infinity eddied around the dreamer and wafted him away without even touching the body that leaned stiffly from the lonely window; and for days not counted in men’s calendars the tides of far spheres bare him gently to join the dreams for which he longed; the dreams that men have lost. And in the course of many cycles they tenderly left him sleeping on a green sunrise shore; a green shore fragrant with lotus-blossoms and starred by red camalotes.

A tiny quick little note about death

I am secretly desperate to know what stories y'all are going to tell of me after I die - I have but little control in the form my agency takes after my gross body dies, leaving only my subtle body, my ghost, in the stories and the magick. Once I convert to a mostly noospheric entity, once my memes have overtaken my genes, once I have died, it is the stories that are told of me that will determine what kind of entity, what sort of spirit, who I am at that point. And I won't be telling the stories, so I would love insight from others about how those stories might start -- any guesses about my developing mythos are just that: guesses.

My ethical duty then (owed, here, to myself) is to provide inspiration for stories that I would like to die into, to provide the Kether of the godform I will eventually step into, inhabit, and become. Embodied tulpa drag, you might say. Many, if not most, of my actions, and all the better ones, derive in part from this origin.

I found a translation of the Obelisk Antinoi that I've never seen before

And, oddly, its faces are all twisted around from how PSVL and the Ecclesia Antinoi list them . . . Curious.

I found it at https://archive.org/stream/twelveegyptiano00parkgoog/twelveegyptiano00parkgoog_djvu.txt

"North Side, Pyramidion,

Ra or the Sun hawk-headed seated on a throne having before him a jar and
water-plants. Before him stands the Emperor Hadrian offering Truth (a figure
of) on a pedestal. The inscriptions are, " Says Harmachis [Ra] I gire thee all
life and healA for ever." Hadrian says, ^ Said by the son of the Sun Hadrianus
the ever4iving I give thee glory which thy heart loves."

The first line on this side reads,

** A made the Osirian (deceased) Antinous the justified his heart reign-
ing in the two great horizons he depicted his name by his own form alone, he
walks alive, he sees the solar disk, he goes saying Oh Sun Har-Khuti ^ over the
gods, listening to the prayers of gods, m^i, spirits, (and) dead. Thou hearest
prayers, thou hast returned a recompense to those which made to thee thy be-
loved son the king of Southern and Northern Egypt having honour in the midst
of the lands and places, pleased are all districts of them at the lord of the world
the beloved of the Nile and the gods the Lord of Diadems Hadrianus the
Pharaoh the ever-living."

The second line,

" The chief of the South and North, being the great lord of every country, the
ruler of the tributaries of Egypt, Libya being entirely subdued under his sandals,
likewise the captives of the two lauds they were submissive at his feet daily. He
reaches everywhere, he brought the tributes of this world out of its four quarters.
Bulls and their numerous cows multiply their produce for him making him to
rejoice with the great royal lady loving him the ruler of the countries, Sabina of
life and health established, Augusta the ever-living. Hail father of the gods pro-
ducing the horizons of the earth for them, making the celestial waters for them
to drink at the time."

East Side, Pyramidion,

The god Thoth ibis-headed wearing on his head the moon seated on a throne
giving life and health, having an altar placed before him bearing cakes and vases
before which stands Antinous wearing the head-dress of Socharis offering vase and
holding an emblem of life. Thoth says "I give thee festivals of hundreds of
thousands of years." (The speech of Antinous is indistinct.)



The first line on this side reads,

*' The Osirian Antinous was a youth making to celebrate his memorials ....
his heart triumphant letting fall the arms he received the commands of the gods
as it were his joy, renewed were all the forms in him of each of the gods, and all
his actions for unknown is the (extent) of the circulation of his name in the whole
earth for exploring the men and adjusting speech. Never was done like by
those who were before, daily his altars, his tonples, his titles upon them. He
breathed the breath of life, he was esteemed in the hearts of men (Thoth) the
lord of Hermopolis, lord of the divine words, made his soul young like the
spirits."

• Ungarelli Int. Ob. Tab. vi *» Form of Harmachis



2Q Barberini Obelisk.



Second line,

" In their time night and day constantly. He was beloved in the hearts of
youths he came in all . . . his praises to intelligent beings making him go to his
place in the temples, amongst the followers, and wise spirits who are in the power
of Osiris iti the land of the Hades divine for ever. They made hiiA justified,
they set up his words in the whole earth they delighted in him, he went where-
ever he liked. The doorkeepers of the regions of Hades said to him, Glory to
thee • they drew their bolts they opened their doors before him m the course of
every day, his time of existence was not cut short."

South side. Pyramidion.

The god Amen Ra under his usual attributes seated on a throne holding
a notched palm-branch terminating in a tadpole emblem of iOo,oco of ypars,
before him an altar of cakes and jars and Antinous standing wearing the head
attire of Socharis offering a symbolic eye. The god says " I give thee thy titles."

First line.
"The Osirian Antinous is justified as a spirit « having rested within his city of
Aann devoted is its name to his name by the multitudes who are in this land,
and the crews rowing (boats) in the whole country and all the persons likewise
who are at the place possessed by the god Thoth. We give (they say) an orna-
ment and crowns of flowers to his head very often and additional things to his
shrine, he has been given the peace offering of a god before him m the course

of every day."

Second line.

«' He has been adored by workmen of Thoth by whose spirits he goes to in . . ,
his temples of the whole country to hear the requests addressed to him to remedy
that which was unsound •* watching over what he has done working for beings he
has made the transformation of his heart being transformed a god engendered
.... the belly of his mother completed through his birth . . . ."

West side. Pyramidion.

The scene is incomplete the figure of the god being wanting but there remains

the notched palm-branch and tadpole which he has held in his hand, the altar

and the figure of Antinous.

First line.

♦* Spiritualized as a spirit at rest within the limits of the countries of the
powerful lady Hruma (Rome) he has been recognised as a god in the divine
places of Egypt which have been founded for him he has been adored as a god
by the prophets and priests of the South and North of Egypt, likewise they gave
the title of a city to his name proclaiming him to be highly honoured of the
Greeks of Ra and Set who are in the temples of Egypt they offered."

Second line.
" Their towns and territories to make good their life .... great opening the
temple of this god, which was t<t his name for the Osirian (deceased) Antinous
the justified, built of good white stone sphinxes round it, and figures and numer-
ous columns, as were made to ancestors in time past so did the Greeks also to
every god and goddess who give the breath of life, for he has breathed again
renewed with youth."

« Or fUiam^ divum^ " divine," "being as divine."
^ Alluding to miraculous cures. "

Solemn Profession

my dear sisters,

i know you will understand
when i say it's been another night
of whiskey and cigarettes.

it was the taking of my perpetual vows.
i never realized (of course) that was what
i was doing.
i did something only a strong
one of us would do.
i talked back.
i got beat into submission.
i still talked back.
i got beat again.  this time much worse.
i still spoke back.  i still got beaten.
you and i wondered how long
this abuse could go on.
until sister sword of righteousness
took her religious name
and her immaculate white veil,
until she was able to bring to climax
the major contradiction.
oh!  what a passion of silence.
the wonder of freedome.

my dear sisters,

the perpetual vows
this monastic enclosure
this sacred life.

i promise perpetually and eternally
to fight for the poor
to love chastely
and to obey devotedly
these holy
these perpetual vows.

**************************
-sister species of crow, o.c.

Chu Shu Chen

i think of you daily
while you are gone.
the dogwood is in bloom
and sometimes a violet shooting star
is crushed beneath the heavy
black nun's shoes that i wear.
the forest is still the forest.
i am still here.
i think of you daily,

and if it then seems sometimes
that i am a great burden to you
please remember that
in this flowering springtime
when the woods are alive
with two of a kind,
the blossoming dogwood
is a great burden to me.

*********************************************************
-sister species of crow, o.c.
-24 april 1984