DUKE OF INSUBRIA

Lughnasad could have passed me by today, had I not read the date on the bank's clock while I was talking to the clerk... it's at times like these that I feel like I'm living in a desert.
Luckily I still have my virtual coven!

Greetings.

Alex/ShadowHunter

This was the answer I got (published with the author's consent and translated from Italian):

Greetings back at you, even though it's late. Just today I thought to email you about Lughnasad. I need to gloat about some with friends.. uhuh. No thing to speak of with maya-four-years-olds* [see footnotes] I'm stuck with as classmates!

In this moment I'm in Peching and up till the day before yesterday, the color of the sky couldn't be seen due to the shroud of smog; the sun was a vague ball of light which maight as well have been a very high lamp post; the moon and stars, I had nearly forgotten how they looked like. At some point I decided that "'nuff". I was so genuinelly exasperated (and half suffocated by the heat and the stench) that I wanted to cast a spell to send the smog away, in concomitance with the lughnasad ritual. Did it the 31st in the afternoon cause the 1st of August I'd been busy.
It was no pic-nic, cause I've got my very personal theories about the Gods to call upon when abroad. Expecially in China, they're fucking proud here (ever heard of the Boxer Revolt?) and to go to somebody else's home and start moving energies about as I wished without so much as a "by your leave" didn't seem right anyway. That's why, part of my ritual included an invocation in Chinese to the Goddess of Air and the Wind (Feng Po-Po) and the Earth Goddess (Hu-Tu) to explain what I meant to do to them, and ask permission to do it. A bit like when they say you shouldn't do a rite of healing without the ill person's knowledge. This wasn't the "worst" anyway, the "worst" is that since I'm at ease with symbols, I had the very bright idea to buy a large white bowl and write in fat indeleble ink the city's name Peching in chinese characters (had to represent the city) and then fill it with some self-made soup, boiling in water an unproposable quantity of nori algae (salted seaweeds, dunno if you like 'em but I find them revolting, expecially like this on their own). The spell's aim'd have been: I use simpathetic magik, like acts on like, I gulp the stinking concoction down, which in my body will... well come out as natural stuff, ant the Goddess'll make the smog disappear in the same way, turning it into something innocuous. Ok, coulda done it 'nother way, less disgusting perhaps. But after spending two weeks here I feel guilty in lieu of the whole of mankind, for the way the land is treated here. And then, well, I had to show to the Goddesses that I was really making an effort. I Don't think I've Jesus Christ Syndrome** [see footnotes] cause I did it only for Nature and a bit for myself, surely not for other people (for me mankind may as well choke in its own poison /I agree/). In any case, if I ever started to say that I can walk on the waters and bring this world to Salvation, kill me and remember me for what I was.
Did it work in the end? Dunno, that is I don't know whether it was my own doing, but it rained for two days in a row and last night you could see the STARS!! Today's terrific, the sun shines, the clouds are white, the sky is blue (let's say that if grey=0 e blue=10, today we are around 8, 8.5. At the Great Wall, which is a bit outside Peching, we're close to 9, 9.5. The other days it was hardly above 4). That's why I'm a bit gloating.

How are you doing?

Bye

(name witheld)

_________________________________________________

Footnotes:

* Maya-four-years-olds: people who believe that everybody belongs or should belong to their religious creed. Such definition comes from Paolo Legrenzi's book "Credere" /Believe, N.d.T./ in which the author writes about some cognitive experiments performed on maya four-years old children, who proved unable to distinguish their own beliefs from the other people's. That is, they thought that everybody should know what they knew and believe what they believed (a natural attitude up until five years of age). Later on it's reported as an example a XIII century Franciscan frair from whose scripts on the costumes of Asia's Mongols is deduced that, "in the same way as the maya four-years old children, [the frair] thinks that everybody should share his beliefs".
Hence the expression "maya-four-years-olds" as a metafore for "people who reason like maya four-years old children", expecially concerning religion.
Examples of maya-four-years-olds in modern society: Catholic, Witnesses of Jeohvah, evangelics, scientologysts and all those making an effort at proselitism. Add there the Italian Government and all the non practicant catholics which notoriously foment the "presunption of di catholicity" (that is the unconscious assumption that if you happen by an Italian, he or she will be catholic).
NOTE: if you declare to be intollerant toward "those motherfuking maya-four-years-olds" in front of somebody who doesn't know the reference, you could end up in a very embarassing situation.

**Jesus Christ Syndrome, AKA Holy Syndrome (That "holy" is obviously sarcastic. Its a play with words cause it sounds like "Holy Sindone /Holy Shroud, N.d.T./", which is a whole different thing): it means, in simple words, to delight in suffering "for the good of others" or, worse, "for one's own religion". Believers of the Book are particularly affected, but most cases appear amoung Catholics and in a minor percentage all other Christian confessions. /From what psychology I've read, I think that something called "messianic syndrome" does exist.../[...]

The symptoms are easily recognizable, exspecially in Christians: posing as some thragic hero and spauting out vehement lamentations unsupported by any tangible proof watsoever are unmistakeable signs. Once the citation phase is reached: "Blessed ye shall when insulted, persecuted and, lying, all manner of evil shall be said about ye for my sake. Exult and rejoyce, for great is your reward in the Heavens", for the patient is already too late. I'm currently working on an experimental method of treatment, consisting of grabbing a copy of an official Bible and using it as a hammer to violently hit the ill person untill the title is printed clearly on his cheeks and forehead, screaming "Kyuss, come out of this body!!" For now it doesn't appear to be working, but it's very relaxing.

NOTE: Obviously the "Jesus Christ Syndrome" denomination should be exclusively used in talking about the affected person with a colleague. Cuz if you tel to the affected person's face "You seem to have the Jesus Christ Syndrome", the poor deluded one could take it as a compliment, and to recieve a compliment with no previous psycologic preparation might prove fatal for someone affected by Jesus Christ Syndrome. It would be better to say to him "You have Harry Potter syndrome", which is pretty much the same (instinct to sacrifice one's self for the common good) but lacking any religious connotation, such affirmation shall be certainly recieved as a most derogatory insult. Even if the ill person will be hardly able to understand what you have said to him, he lacks the references.

At this link instead, you can find some funny stripes made by my friend (caution, they are in Italian).