My mother is posting her own Birthday card, from the other side, where she has resided peacefully for ten years now, though it's hard to believe it's been that long. This image is scanned from her visual diaries during the period of her last illness, during which terrible time, her art truly flowered. It is quite amazing how relevant to me it is today, and how prophetic. I am working on building a site for her, but I'm not sure if I will ever upload it. A very selfish part of me wants to keep all her inspirational ideas for myself. But when you consider just how temporary we all are, perhaps it is a gift that has to be given to the world, rather than perish forever with me.

She was raised in an atheist family but insisted on being Christened at the age of ten, choosing for herself the middle name Magdalene. I don't think she ever really came to understand consciously the full implications of this choice. But I most certainly do, which is why I have adopted it for myself as well. Not hopefully, as some Messianic ego trip, but as a tribute to both my mothers, flesh and divine.

I have not revealed her full name or my own. I'm not sure why exactly, except that my Scorpio moon and rising make me very secretive. I have yet to even make her a watermark, but I think it would be a foolish and doomed act to steal her work. I have to admit my contact with Earthly reality is minimal at best, but I have found a benefit in even this very limited sharing. It seems to have brought on the inspiration. If you don't let things go out into the world they start to stagnate.

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The Joyous, hexagram 58.
Haha, she doesn't look all that joyous. She looks a bit bored. But like all the cards she has a positive side and a negative side. She is receptive and reflective, open to all influences, and this makes her very popular, but also inclined to self indulgence. A glorious overdose of a card, as a friend of mine so aptly put it.

She is the Watery part of Water. As Crowley says:
"The characteristics associated with this card are principally dreaminess, illusion and tranquility. She is the perfect agent and patient, able to receive and transmit everything without herself being affected thereby...normally people of this type have no character at all of their own."

Well, this is always the problem with being very Yin. I suppose you could say she was a Siren, and the extent of her powers over any individual are inversely proportional to the acceptance and manifestation of their own Anima.

"The softest thing on earth
overtakes the hardest thing on earth.
The non-existent overtakes even that
which has no interstices.
From this one recognizes the value of non-action.
Teaching without words, the value of non-action
is attained by but a few on earth."
Tao Te Ching
(Wilhelm 47)

It is quite uncanny the correspondences between the Tarot and the I-Ching and the Tao Te Ching. It demonstrates the common core of human wisdom so perfectly. This common understanding really is like an ocean connecting us all together, which is why there is much power in this particular card. This wisdom does not originate in the plodding logical conscious mind but in the vast intuitive sea of the collective unconscious. This is why emotion should never be under rated as a force of nature or within the individual personality. I suppose I am being ironic calling her the Emo Queen. Embracing a derogatory label that is like a clue to the rationalist disease of Western civilization. The 666 of Yang unbalanced that has led us almost to the brink of destruction.

I am writing this here in the hope that I can make all this clearer in my own mind. Because it is high time I connected together the theory of my practice. The ocean is sweeping me on to the shore it would seem.

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"The Queen of Wands represents the watery part of Fire, its fluidity and colour. Also, she rules in the Zodiac from the 21st degree of Pisces to the 20th degree of Aries. Her crown is topped with the winged globe and rayed with flame. Her long red golden hair flows down upon her armour of scaled mail. She is seated upon a throne of flame, ordered into geometrical light by her material power. Beneath the throne the surging flames are steady. She bears a wand in her left hand; but it is topped with a cone suggestive of the mysteries of Bacchus. She is attended by a couchant leopard upon whose head she lays her hand. Her face expresses the ecstasy of one whose mind is well in-drawn to the mystery borne beneath her bosom.

The other side of her character is that she may have a tendency to brood, come to a wrong decision thereon, and react with great savagery. She may be easily deceived; then she is likely to shew herself stupid, obstinate, tyrannical. She may be quick to take offence, and harbour revenge without good cause. She might turn and snap at her best friends without intelligible excuse. Also, when she misses her bite, she breaks her jaw!"
Crowley
Book of Thoth

Personally I think Aleister is a bit of a sexist Beast, but there's no denying his vast scholarship. Of course I don't follow his guidelines religiously. Or even at all often, but for this card he was very useful.

To me this card is more about the intense suffering of creativity. Ya know, choosing to sit in the hot seat. Accepting the fire of "god" (sic) can be a very painful process. Though in a way the pain comes first and the creativity is just a way of processing it.

" The true division of humanity is between those who live in light and those who live in darkness....But to talk of light is not necessary to talk of joy. One may suffer in the light; its excess burns....To burn without ceasing to fly, that is the achievement of genius. When you have reached the stage of knowing and loving you will still suffer. The day is born in tears. The enlightened weep, if only for those still in the darkness."

Victor Hugo
 

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Abe b

You might find this hard to believe but I am actually quite shy, and the more I like an artist the harder it is for me to write about them. This is the most difficult post I have written so far. Difficult because it's so hard to convey my awe and amazement satisfactorily.

As I was saying last time I was hugely impressed by Abe Yoshiharu after watching the Unicorn reunion dvd, and listening to all the stunning Unicorn albums. There was something very mysterious about his intense level of charisma, something very unusual about him generally, that I just couldn't figure out.
Then I watched Unicorn movie 3.
@______@
And it all fell into place. Abe B suddenly made total sense. I was completely astonished by his performance. I just LOVE being surprised like that. Surprised and totally enchanted. It felt as if I had arrived home at last after a whole lifetime of wandering. I won't spoil it by going into detail, but everything about that live is stunning. They are on full throttle as a band, incredibly powerful and subtle at the same time. It's a total treat to watch from start to finish. You can see from their faces they know they are peaking musically. I think they are getting so much pleasure from what they do that it becomes a totally magical event, superceding anything I have seen from rock music before. Quite appropriate that the tour is called Beast of a Storm (Kedamo no Arashi) because it really is a totally cyclonic performance.
 
It is certainly Abe Bs energy that sets them all off, opening with such a blistering and highly dramatic performance of CSA. There is something quite Kiba-esque about the way he sings and moves in this song. So much impact! I am really awed! And its not just because he also does some really pretty moves and wears his silks so beautifully. I am full of admiration for anyone with good kung fu, but on its own it's nothing unusual. What IS unusual is every other facet of his talent combined.
.
Of course the voice is paramount. I have been listening to his solo while I paint the last few weeks, and I am totally addicted to his breathy warm honey tones. And thrilled by all that leonine roaring. Such a beautiful paradox that he can be so gentle and also so fierce. I suspect this is a large component of his fatal attraction, which is amply illustrated in movie 4...
He also writes the most wonderful songs, and has an inate gift for instrumentation. He is a real composer, not just a songwriter.
*sighs*
And so funny too. They all are. How could they not be? They are far too intelligent to not be funny.

All this impresses me much more than kung fu, but the combination is unstoppable. I have honestly NEVER seen anyone burn up the stage like he does. He has that quality about him that just draws your attention like a vortex. I think it's partly because he so very engaged. So dedicated and involved in what he is doing, genuinely loving playing with the crowd, and doing his mad beautiful cabaret. He is an incredibly courageous performer, a natural actor and a gifted dancer too. A born artiste. Made for the stage. There is this other thing I've noticed about him too. His ability to absorb the energy from an audience, so that the more adulation he gets the more he seems to literally glow with it. I wonder if when you do this you get their pain as well as their joy?

Oh and about 1173. My friend AlienMaskedCreature figured out what this means. "Ai no keyword 1173" is a line from the WAO! single Abe wrote which has been translated into English here.

11 is ii which is good.
7 is nana, so na
3 is mi
so "ii nami" = GOOD WAVE

The Keyword of Love is a Good Wave.

I totally agree with this statement needless to say. :)

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Doctordoctor

Because I say so fool!
:D
Actually I was among the last to know, but in a way that makes it all so much more fun. I have had lots of catching up to do. I have been listening to the albums continuously recently, since being totally mind blown by the reunion dvd, and they are all spectacular. What is most stunning about this band is their originality, versatility and their musical skill. I cannot find anyone to compare them to East or West. Unique Unicorn. If anyone deserves world wide fame it is them, or maybe looking at it from the other direction, we all need their soul medicine most urgently in these end times. Whether or not the world is capable of comprehending them is another question. Perhaps having never experienced good music they are no longer capable of recognizing it.

The whole phenomena of the Eighties band boom in Japan is quite unique. There was no such creative flowering in the West at that time. Of course there were buds, but mostly these ended up shriveled on the bush due to the fact that the corporate swill machine had taken effective control of popular rock and pop. Any original successful musicians around in the Eighties had usually already become established in the Seventies. Of course the Eighties now seem almost interesting in comparison with the oceans of bland shite that have followed in the last two decades, but the fact remains music was dead and buried in the West.

Strange then that Japan should have not one great band but a dozen, and probably many more I am as yet unaware of. Strange and very delightful, from the point of view of someone just discovering it all. It's almost like someone rewrote the Eighties, and made it cool. XDD

Unicornbloodtypes

It has to be said, I was at first blinded by the Tamio. I guess it's to be expected, as I am particularly interested in vocals, and he is the best. I have heard his singing described as Rococco or maybe you could even say Baroque. Whatever it is its way beyond the skill level of any other rock musician. He is not just technically skilled either but fully connected heart and soul and beyond. Totally spectacular really. And his solo is an epic sonic adventure that I am still half way through.

But all of them together is something else again. It's a very powerful magic, and you only really understand how it beautifully it works when you see them live. Now I think the others are all just as cool as Tamio, and I love all of their songs and personalities and I love the chemistry they all have together. Every member of this band can and does do everything brilliantly. They swap roles and instruments continually. This makes for an amazing show, a collective experience that demonstrates the ultimate truth that we are all stars. I guess that's why they have always been so empowering and powerful. Though of course there is probably a great deal I am missing out on. The feeling coming from the vast crowd was amazing. It was a really potent love helix they had going down. You could feel all the happy memories awakened by familiar songs, peoples life times coming around again, all the emotion of it. They generated so much warmth and affection. They are basically a happiness machine, which in these times is a very good thing to have handy. It's a funny thing just how truly world changing something like that can be.

And I have to admit, I was totally starstruck by Abe Yoshiharu. For his electric charisma on stage, and also for the gorgeous songs he wrote for the reunion. He is the Fire Starter. Unicorn are two snake trees grown wild and profuse in the earth of Nishikawa Koichi,  and the water of the fluid fingered Tessy, then set on fire by the mad pyromaniac Professor Abe. Ebi is the Yin snake and Tamio the Yang, so they make a very pretty spectacle especially when all lit up. What is most cool about Abe B though, are his transformations. He hovers behind his wall of keyboards looking all sultry and boffinish and then suddenly he explodes out into crazy karate Elvis pastiches! ADORABLE! XD

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Kenji

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50kaitenz

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