Adventures in olfactory and other thoughts

Apparently we can look forward to some very strange days ahead of us. What with it being October and the natural thickness of the veil well...not being so thick, and the added impact of Pluto surging (still need to look more into that) AND Mercury in retrograde, you have yourself one hell of a month.

And Hell's bells did it start out strange. If you have contact with me today you've probably already heard this story and thusly have my permission to skip ahead, but it's a tale I'd like to put on the records so humor me.

I started my day as I usually do, loaded up my iPod and headed out the door for work, before I reached the bottom of my porch my senses were invaded with the smell of rain. I throughly enjoy the smell of impending rain and took a moment to savor the unique and rare aroma before heading back in the house for a jacket on the prediction of precipitation in the near future.

Heading up Dwight throughly enjoying my brisk walk pounding the pavement to the beat of Rammstein (which I definitely need to get more of) and as I stop at Shattuck waiting for my walk light I'm hit with the most horrible wall of rank raw sewage stench ever to be wiffed by my poor little nose.

Let the record state quite clearly, that I am not accustomed to being mowed down by smells often. I have your average human nostrils that can detect scent, but surely not at any hyper-sensitive levels as some (my mother specifically comes to mind)

I had to stop and check both my shoes for fear that I had stepped in something vile and of human bio-production. But thankfully, both soles proved clean. Yet the smell lingered, oppressively from all sides. With no source in sight I hurriedly jaunted up the street trying to out run the stench.

As my trek took me to the Telegraph my nose was again accosted by smell, this time the distinctive smell of wet rotting garbage (yummy no?). It was just hanging there in the air around the Andronico's, no garbage in site. Not a can, nor truck that the eye could see and yet by my nose's estimation I should have been standing next to the City dump on a rainy day.

The trifecta of this smelling extravaganza was at this point causing me some preponderance, especially seeing as the last two were of an oddly foul nature for our society that is for the most part past the time period of waste and sewage being an everyday olfactory experience.

I questioned my coworkers if they too had smelled the foul smells afoot in Berkeley this morn, I questioned those on my gmail chat in the area, all answered in the negative.

Granted a part of me would have chalked it all up to a "weirdo Branwen's reality sharply differing from actual reality" but after a talk with one of my coven sister's over a delicious bottle of cider about the negative effects self-doubt can play on ones growing spiritual ability. I decided to take it at face value as I smelled some weirdo stuff that no one else did and was a good chance it had something to do with the Otherworld. Bob's your uncle, Mary's your aunt and that's that.

But wait my story gets better. No actually it does , on my way back to work from lunch, once again bad assly pounding pavement to the melody of Drowning Pool and an Incubus cover (noticing a theme here? Yes October has heralded in Branwen's Heavy Rock Genre of music, well at least heavy for me anyways lol) And once again I'm stopped in my tracks by the fragrance in my nasal glands. This time it was a much more pleasant experience in that it was like I'd just walked into a grand field of flowers, it was beautiful smell, very feminine though I could not pin down the specific pedal that create the effect. And once again I found myself on a street without a floral in sight.

It was simply odd. Especially for me. See I don't usually have those spiritual otherworldly experiences. Generally speaking I'm too distracted by thoughts and images in my head to pay attention to THIS plan of existence let alone what's beyond it.

I'm not entirely certain what to take from it either. My coven brother brought up an intriguing notion that scents and memories are interconnected and that I had walked between the worlds for a bit. Which I find somewhat hair raising...well for at least two of the spots anyways. It does make me somewhat glad that I haven't the gift of sight to the otherside, I don't necessarily want to know what it was I walked through on Shattuck. Though I suppose it could have just been the goblins as they aren't the most hygenic of creatures...but even they I don't think would smell of human waste.

In any event I will be keeping my eyes and nose open as I head off into the wilderness this weekend.

That's right folks as much as I love you all, and as much as I enjoy participating and being busy and having stuff to do, there is that part of me that is going a little bit stir crazy being here in the city. The wandering star I was born under has been pulsating for the past month or so and if I don't relieve it now I'm sure to go balls to the wall mad these holidays.

So I found this nice cabin out in the back forty up by Willits, 20 acres of wildreness to explore and not a neighbor in sight, rented it out for the weekend and am THROUGHLY looking forward to the seclusion with my favorite person on earth.

Two whole days of being out in the country, preparing good food and breathing forest air. No cable or TV to further enrage my sense of unjustice and despair in the state of our nation. No crappy neighbors to be annoyed with or having to worry about our noise level. I can scream and holler, and chant and bang drums, and howl till the sun rises and no one will give a damn. I am so excited I could bump the moon.

Plus I'm hoping to do some real communing out there in the woods, hopefully I can make a real solid connection to my aspecting deity. Maybe if I'm farther away from the white noise of town I'll be able to open up those channels better. Who knows maybe I'll have an ephiany.

So this is one white raven signing off for the weekend, hope all you fabulous folks enjoy your weekends while you have them. I have a feeling this holiday season is going to be...interesting lol.

Branwen