Grey School Newspaper 24
Content
WHISPERING GREY MATTERS
2
ISSUE
24
Whispering Grey Matters
ISSUE 24
SAMHAIN 2009
STAFF
Literal Magick
CONTENTS
Faculty Advisors:
Moonwriter & Jymi X/0
Faculty Advisor’s Article .................................... 3
Editor-In-Chief: Starwynd Panther
NEWS
Santeria Priest Wins Right to Sacrifice Animals ... 4
Publisher: Jymi X/0
Assistant Publishers: Laneth & Calyxa
Copy Editor: silverlocke
GSW DESK
Editor: Silver Raven
Sapphire Soleil
NEWS DESK
Editor: Jymi X/0 (temp)
Sapphire Soleil, Silverlocke
WIZARDING DESK
Section Editor: Pratus
Jymi X/0, Areeya (on hiatus)
SCIENCE DESK
Editor: Calyxa
Moonwriter, Silver Raven
OPINIONS DESK
Editor: Sapphire Soleil
Areeya (on hiatus), Silthoron
ARTS & CULTURE DESK
Editor: Jymi X/0 (temp)
SilverLocke, Pratus
FOOD DESK
Editor: Moonwriter (temp)
ART DESK
Currently overseen by the Publishing Minions
UNPLACED WRITERS:
Relache, Belenus, Artemis Gryphon Snowhawk
Whispering Grey Matters is a quarterly newsletter produced by and for the students and faculty
of The Grey School of Wizardry (www.greyschool.
com). All contents herein are © 2009 Grey School,
except where otherwise noted. Copyrights revert to
original authors and artists upon publication.
WIZARDING
Other Worlds: The Astral Plane ......................... 5
Ancient Runes Today ...................................... 6
Tarot: The High Priestess ................................... 7
SCIENCE
On Other Worlds ............................................. 8
Synthetic Landscapes ...................................... 9
LCROSS .................................................... 10-11
Is There Another Earth? .................................. 12
OPINION
My Life as an Ant ........................................... 13
FOOD
Out of This World Squash .............................. 15
ART & CULTURE
Review: Rising Sign ........................................ 16
The Wizard’s Grotto ..................................... 17
GSW NEWS
A Report from your GSW Captains ............. 18
Cosmology Class: December 21, 2012 ........... 19
Oregon Conclave 2009 .............................. 20-21
New York Conclave 2009 ............................. 22
WHISPERING GREY MATTERS
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ISSUE
As if One World Wasn’t
Enough to Worry About!
-- Jymi X/0
Other worlds!
What does the idea conjure
up in your imagination...
Astral travel? Space exploration? Discovery of new
people and cultures? Maybe just curling up with
a good storybook and letting the author take you
somewhere else?
My favorite otherworldly place to visit is the Internet. I project my consciousness through the screen,
and I can go anywhere I want. It takes some digital
dexterity -- you have to dance your way between
the silly copycat cut-n-paste home pages and those
mortgage-refinancing ads with the inane dancing
cartoons. But underneath all the fluff, the ‘net contains some priceless treasures.
One of the Internet worlds in which you’ll often find
me is called Second Life. It’s a 3d social networking
site, where users can obtain or create their own custom bodies (or “Avatars”), clothing and (if you want
to drop a little money into it every month) a piece of
digital land all their own. We design fashions, construct fantastic buildings and other objects, and write
programming scripts to bring the objects in the world
to life. Some people like to go dancing or shopping.
Others enjoy role-playing games (there are plenty of
Harry Potter groups!) or finding like-minded people
to chat with. I just like building things. Some days
I’m hard at work on my own creations, other days,
I like to fly all over the grid and see what other creators have come up with. (The main site is adultsonly, but there is a Teen Second Life, for the younger
crowd who can’t wait to check it out!)
I’ll go out on a limb here and say that I believe this
is the next step in human evolution: the ability to
unhook our consciousness from our bodies at will, either via traditional “astral travel” techniques or modern techno-neuromancy, and enter environments
that we’ve created for ourselves. (Not necessarily via
the Second Life program, but something along those
lines.) Some sci-fi stories, and a few semi-serious
philosophers, have suggested that this very world
that we call “real” is the result of just such a scenario,
and we’re just digital blips moving through someone
else’s programmed environment! If that was true,
how could we tell? If you found out that this was the
case, would you change the way you live?
Some people believe that anything we can think
about is actually physically real on some plane of
existence. What makes a world “real,” anyway? Is
the Grey School real? Sure it is. But where does it
exist? Where are you when you chat on the Forums
or study your lessons? You body may be in a chair
in room, but your mind -- your awareness -- is...
where?
Then there are the days when
anything seems better than
the world we’ve got right here
in front of us. It’s sometimes
tempting to think that our lives
would be better if we were living
them somewhere else. However,
traipsing off into other worlds - whether you reach them by
book, by computer, by spaceship
or otherwise, isn’t the answer to
most problems. No matter what
avatar you’re wearing, that’s still
you underneath it!
Geek Alert! My avatar in Second Life
reading AD&D 2nd Edition manuals.
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WHISPERING GREY MATTERS
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ISSUE
Santeria Priest Wins Right to
Sacrifice Animals
by silverlocke
The city of Euless, Texas last year barred Santeria priest and Puerto Rican native
Jose Merced, 46, from sacrificing goats on his property despite Merced’s claim
that such a ban deprived him of his free exercise of religion. Merced had been
conducting such animal rituals for over 15 years, but “a couple” of anonymous
complaints triggered the action by the city which claimed such sacrifices jeopardized public health and violated an animal cruelty ordinance. Merced asked
the city for a permit to slaughter animals, but his application was denied and he
claims he is unable to initiate new priests. A U.S. District Judge later upheld the
ban imposed by the Fort Worth suburb.
But recently a federal appeals court in New Orleans reversed the ban, ruling in
a final judgment last month that such a ban violated Merced’s religious rights
and “… placed a substantial burden on his free exercise of religion”. U.S. District
Judge John McBryde also ordered the city of Euless to pay for Merced’s court
costs.
Animal sacrifice has been a routine and accepted practice in nearly all the world’s
major religions at some point in history. Jews abandoned the ritual after a temple
devoted to animal sacrifice was destroyed—such sacrifice cannot be resumed
until a new temple is designated by God. Muslims commemorate the end of the
Hajj by sacrificing a sheep. Christians consider that Jesus’ death on the cross
replaced the need to sacrifice animals.
Eric Rassbach, attorney for the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, who represented Merced said, “ … goat sacrifice is never going to be particularly popular
in Euless, Texas but that’s not the point. Religious liberty protections are only as
good as they can be for the religions that need the help.”
Merced himself told The Associated Press, “Now Santeros can practice their religion at home without being afraid of being fined, arrested or taken to court.”
Works Cited
“Santeria Leader Fights Religious Ban”. Diaspora Orisha Network. 05 Jan 2007.
<http://diasporaorishanetwork.yuku.com/topic/366/t/Texas-Santeria-Lawsuit.
html>.
“Euless to ask court to rehear Santeria animal sacrifice case”. Dallas News. 10
Aug 2009.
<http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/religion/stories/DN-santeria_10met.ART.State.Edition1.4bd9280.html>.
For more information about this story, follow these links:
http://http://www.dallasobserver.com/2009-10-22/news/a-courtcase-forced-a-santeria-priest-to-reveal-some-of-his-religion-s-secrets-it-s-ritual-of-animal-sacrifice-he-revealed-on-his-own/
http://http://www.dallasobserver.com/content/printVersion/1560451
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WHISPERING GREY MATTERS
5
ISSUE
Other Worlds:
The Astral Plane
By Pratus Ater Lupus
Astral projection is a very interesting subject, and talking to people you can hear
many different things. For instance, some
may say it is dangerous, it is amazing, it is
just a dream, and many other comments. I
want to take us through the door way into
the fantastic astral plain.
Everyone has had the weird dreams before
that didn’t make sense, but what if they did
and we just remembered them wrong. For
instance, you dreamed a giant hot fudge
sundae was chasing you down the street of
ancient Egypt and then the great god Zeus
threw a lightning bolt at the sundae to stop
it, and when the sundae was struck it turned
into Jennifer Love Hewitt who then climbed
Mount Rushmore with you...okay maybe
that was only me!
Raymond Buckland says that they are probably jumbled up dreams and that is why they
don’t make sense. In my case I could have
been hungry or craving ice cream when I
went to bed, so I could have dreamed of
going to the local ice cream shop and had
a giant sundae. I then could have eaten
too much and got a horrible tummy ache. I
could’ve dreamed of going to Egypt which is
somewhere I have always wanted to travel.
Some of my favorite legends are of the Greek
pantheon and I dream of Zeus quite often.
For the last dream I could’ve dreamed that
I was climbing Mount Rushmore, another
place on my bucket list, and I think Jennifer
Love Hewitt is self explanatory!
So what if traveling in your dreams is actually possible. What if you could do your
bucket list from your own bed? Of course,
there have been stories of astral projections
for thousands of years, as examples there
were the shaman path walking, spirit walking, and there again the astral projections.
Oberon Zell Raven-Heart gives a great ex-
planation on attaining and training yourself
for the astral projection using the visualization technique. You can read over it in
the “Grimoire for the Apprentice Wizard” on
page 210. It tells you to use a long mirror so
that you can start to ready your astral self;
so that you will be able to see yourself from
your astral and physical self.
Once you have the visualization technique,
or while you are doing this make sure you
keep your dream journal, and write in it everyday right when you wake up. If you have
a dream wake you up during the night, keep
your dream journal on your night stand, or
right next to your bed so you can record it.
Don’t do anything until you have written the
dream down.
Learning to control or freely astral project
takes a lot of time, practice, and patience.
Once you start to feel like you are “going” to
these different places, start controlling yourself, one example is look around to see your
physical body. Start giving yourself places to
visit; it doesn’t have to be a place you have
seen before. When you wake up write down
the dreams you remember, and every detail
you can think of in the back ground and look
on the internet for the pictures of the areas
you believe you sent yourself to.
As time goes by, as long as you keep practicing, you will get better and better. There
are many ways to use this wizardly gift of
walking the astral world. I believe it is a
very important practice to learn.
References:
1.Zell-Ravenheart, Oberon. “Grimoire for
the Apprentice Wizard”. Franklin Lakes, NJ:
NewPage Books, 2004.
2.Buckland, Raymond. “Gypsy Dream Dictionary”. St. Paul, Minnesota: Llewellyn Publications, 1999.
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WHISPERING GREY MATTERS
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ancient runes today
Ancient Runes Today
By Pratus Ater Lupus
I really enjoy the runes column and have enjoyed it in WGM since it was started. I am sad to
say that Areeya was not able to do this article.
I do hope that soon she will be able to pick the
column back up, but until then I will continue
the runes column because I think runes are a
very important and powerful magick symbols. I
do hope you will continue to enjoy the column.
I have decided to send us on a magickal journey
using the rune named Raidho. Raidho is wonderful for traveling or in a ritual for internal or
external changes, so I think we can mix this
rune with a little mirror magick. We are going to
go on a wonderful journey using the runes and
a mirror.
The mirror has been used for centuries for all
types of magick, from cleansing energy and
your soul to creating and holding spells to great
adventures, like Alice’s when she entered the
looking glass. The perfect thing about mirrors
is that they reach down into the deepest part
of our psyche and helps to pull it forward to our
conscious minds.
First we need a mirror. You may want to add
some aesthetics like seashells, flowers, or anything that strikes your fancy, remember if you
are a young apprentice to have a parent help
you! Then again you can just buy one and skip
these last few steps!
Take a small piece of wood and burn or carve
the rune raidho into it and glue it on the mirror.
Once raidho has been settled where you would
like it on the scrying mirror get familiar with the
mirror and use some sage incense on the mirror
reciting in a dreamy voice:
Mirror of magick,
Door of the worlds,
Shimmer and glow with power,
Assist me in my safe travels within and without.
Sometimes when you are just beginning a cup
of mugwort tea will help you get into the mode.
Concentrate on your image looking yourself in
the eyes reaching into your deep subconscious.
To do this use what I call your wizard glare,
which is stare you use when you aren’t really
concentrating on one particular thing. Use this
mirror in any manor of travel; you can use it to
go to your happy place, to concentrate on astral
projection, to visit far away places from your
own sanctuary. A scrying mirror will also do you
well in this type of situation.
WHISPERING GREY MATTERS
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ISSUE
The High Priestess:
Doorway to Elsewhere
by Jymi X/0
The Fool has gained his
bearings and stepped into
the role of the Magician.
What’s the first thing he
sees when he continues on
his path?
As we know, magical powers are just the beginning
of the adventure. We’ve still
got a long way to go, and in
many cases, the stakes get
higher from here on. The
High Priestess sits at the
doorway to the real tests.
She represents balance,
true, but it’s not a given;
this balance must be nurtured and maintained within
the Self in order to forge the
direct-line spiritual connection between the Creator
and our own ideal worlds
that we, in turn, Create for
ourselves.
Temperance Trump (meaning: the passage of time, the
necessity of trial and error).
The third segment is Tau,
the 32nd path, and the final Trump, “The World.” This
path connects the Archetypes
to the Material World of Malkuth.
The two columns on either
side of her, one black and one
white, represent the Pillar of
Mercy and the Pillar of Severity on the Tree of Life. They
are said to correspond to
the columns at the doorway
of Jerusalem’s First Temple,
built by demonic forces under
the command of the Biblical
Wizard, wise King Solomon.
In many decks, the columns
they bear the letters “B” and
“J” -- these are initials of two
Biblical characters, Boaz and
Joachim, whose stories symThe High Priestess has been
bolize the qualities we seek
interpreted as a “Papess,” or
in order to achieve that perfemale Pope, as a feminine
fect equilibrium: the recovery
counterpart to the Magician,
of our rightful estate and the
but it’s more likely that she
realization of the Unity of All
represents the Mother GodThings. In other words, if we
dess in her prime function “The High Priestess” from the Rider-Waite Tar- accept our roles and respon-- the womb as the forma- ot deck, illustrated by Pamela Coleman Smith sibilities as Creator-Gods, we
tive chamber of the Self
can combine our personal en(where the Fool accepted
ergy with that of the Omnihis potential and became the Mage), and the birth verse without losing our Selves in the process.
canal as gateway to a world of our own making.
WORKS CITED
The High Priestess is shown sitting between two col- Sources of the Waite/Smith Tarot Symbols: The High
umns. In the Kabbalah’s Tree of Life design, she is Priestess. Tarot Passages. Accessed 6 October, 2009.
associated with the Middle Pillar, and the 13th Path, <http://www.tarotpassages.com/old_moonstruck/
Gimel. Imagine this path as a cord that connects the oneill/2.htm>
Mind of God to each individual Self. This cord is the
only link that we have through the Daath, the Abyss Troward, Thomas. The Hidden Power. New York: R.M.
that separates our chaotic “real world” from eternal McBride & Co. 1921.
stability and perfection. There are two other seg- Accessed 6 October, 2009, from the Internet Sacred
ments to the Middle Pillar: the 25th Path, Samekh, Text Archive.
which connects the Self to the Astral plane where <http://www.sacred-texts.com/eso/thp/thp22.
the Archetypes dwell. This path corresponds to the htm>
24
WHISPERING GREY MATTERS
On
Other Worlds...
By Relache
... you won’t be the same age as you are on the
Earth. Days and years are based on how long it
takes the Earth to rotate on its axis and how long
it takes to make one orbit around the Sun. No two
planets have a rotation or orbit that matches another since they are all different sizes and different
distances from the Sun. If you are 14 years old on
Earth, you’ll just be a little over one year old on Jupiter and you’ll almost be 50 years old on Mercury!
Your Age On Other Worlds:
http://www.exploratorium.edu/ronh/age/index.html
... you won’t weight the same as you do on Earth. Your
“mass” can be thought of as how much of you there
is. The actual weight of your mass depends on the
gravitational force of the planet you are on. How big
the planet is will change the gravitational force. If you
weight 100 lbs. on Earth, your weight on Jupiter will
measure just over 236 lbs and that’s with your body
staying exactly the same size! And if you took a trip to
the Moon, you’d find you only weighed about 16 lbs.
Your Weight On Other Worlds:
http://www.exploratorium.edu/ronh/weight/
Image: Sapphire Trees on New Marsia by Calyxa
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... plants might not be green! Although there are
some plants on Earth that aren’t green, most of
them are. Have you ever wondered why that is? It
turns out it’s due to the color of the light that comes
to us from the Sun. Plants use sunlight to convert
nutrients into energy, a process called photosynthesis. The wavelength of light that reaches Earth is affected by the type of star our Sun is, and how our
atmosphere filters it. On other worlds, if they had a
different type of star as their Sun, and a different atmosphere, that would mean that very different light
would reach the planet, and plant-life will be different. In order to be able to absorb the spectrum of
light, plants on other planets would most likely evolve
as some other color than green in order to survive.
Resources:
Exploratorium: the museum of science, art and human perception, http://www.exploratorium.edu/index.html,
The Color of Plants on Other Worlds, http://www.
scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=the-color-ofplants-on-other-worlds, © April 2008.
WHISPERING GREY MATTERS
Synthetic Landscapes
By Calyxa
The word ‘synthetic’ originally meant to create a
new thing out of two or more sources. More recently the word has taken on the implication of being
artificial, made by humans rather than by a natural process. For example, synthetic fabrics are created through creating chemical chains which do
not occur in nature. Synthetic music is created by
using electronic waveforms to drive the speakers directly. Synthetic landscapes are digital images created with a computer program. Sometimes
this type of computer generated landscape art is
called a fractal landscape because of the mathematics which make creating such images possible.
A fractal you may have heard of is the Mandelbrot
set. Beniot Mandelbrot is a mathematician who specialized in the study of complex dynamics, a branch
of mathematics pioneered by Gaston Julia at the beginning of the 20th century. The name ‘fractal’ refers
to how the equations describe a space having fractional dimensions. A sheet of paper can be thought
of as a two-dimensional space, having height and
width. A sculpture is a three-dimensional object,
having height, width, and depth. Fractal mathematics used for generating synthetic landscapes can
be thought of as having two and a half dimensions.
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Today there are several more, ranging in price from
free to as much as thousands of dollars. Bryce is currently at version 6.1, but the earlier 5.5 version is
available for free. For a while, Musgrave worked on
the Bryce team when version 4 was released. Shortly
afterwards, he went on to form his own company
and to “do it right” as far as a synthetic landscape
software program goes. His product, MojoWorld, was
not a commercial success, but it remains one of the
most powerful commercial packages for generating synthetic landscapes. All of the images accompanying this article were rendered with MojoWorld.
Synthetic landscapes had been created before the
mid-1990s with software also based on fractal
mathematics. The 1982 film, Star Trek: The Wrath
of Khan, included a sequence of a fly-through animation when the Genesis device gets detonated
on the barren planet. The original version of this
fly-through included a hastily cut trench through
one mountain when the camera’s path accidentally was routed through the synthetic terrain.
Since that time, the use of synthetic landscapes
in movies has become more and more common.
Resources:
Ebert, D., Musgrave, K., Peachey, P., Perlin, K., and
Worley, S. Texturing and Modeling: A Procedural Approach. San Francisco, CA: Morgan Kaufmann Publishers, 2003.
A student of Mandelbrot’s, F. Kenton Musgrave wrote
his doctoral thesis on synthetic landscapes in 1993.
Mandelbrot called Musgrave the first true fractalbased artist. Musgrave’s work was presented at a
computer graphics conference where it was seen by
many people including a man named Eric Wenger.
Wenger was so inspired by what he had seen in
Musgrave’s work that he wrote a computer program using Musgrave’s principles to create his own
synthetic landscapes. Wenger showed his program
to Kai Krause who developed a friendly user interface for it. The resulting software was called Bryce.
It was one of the first commercially available computer programs for creating synthetic landscapes.
Internet Movie Database - Star Trek: The Wrath
of Khan. <http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0084726/
goofs> Oct. 2009.
Kitchens, Susan, and Victor Gavenda. Real World
Bryce 4. Berkeley, CA: Peachpit Press, 2000.
Synthetic Landscape Images by Calyxa
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WHISPERING GREY MATTERS
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ISSUE
24
LCROSS: Crashing an SUV into the Moon
By Prof. Moonwriter
Over the last few weeks, those with an ear to the
ground and an eye to the sky probably heard that
NASA was planning to crash an unmanned probe into
the Moon. Sounded outlandish, right? The project even
had its own Twitter feed. Did you believe it, or pass it
off as some sort of joke-SPAM or conspiracy theory?
In September 2009, Science magazine added to
the fun by reporting evidence that solar wind particles release tiny amounts of water from the moon’s
soil all the time—constantly. Granted, the amounts
of water are minute, but real: which means there
is water on the Moon. The question is… where?
This time, you should have believed it. The Lunar Crater
Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS) was an
unmanned satellite designed to observe and then crash
into the lunar surface. The purpose? A search for water.
Hungry eyes have seen the Moon as an untapped
source of minerals and natural resources. The problems with gathering or using these potential resources are real and significant. In order to harvest lunar materials, a facility would have to be
built on the Moon’s surface, capable of manned
or unmanned drilling and collection, as well as
the ability to transport materials back to Earth.
Scientists on Earth have long considered the Moon
to be a dead world, at least geologically. The Moon
missions of the 1960s and 70s were aimed at landing on the lunar surface, gathering samples of soil
and rock, and examining the geology around the
landing site. Those missions lacked the ability to
probe deeper beneath the Moon’s surface, but even
so, no one believed we’d find water on the Moon.
This all changed in 1999, when NASA’s Lunar Prospector mission revealed unexpected evidence of water or water ice deposits in the Moon’s polar regions.
Long before any such operations could be considered comes the need to figure out what really lays
under the Moon’s surface. In particular, NASA has
been anxious to discover whether sources of liquid or frozen water exist on the Moon, for if a human base was to be established there, a water
source would be essential. Water would also be
critical in terms of manufacturing or drilling and
Image: The LCROSS impact flash, shown at three different levels of magnification, courtesy of NASA.
WHISPERING GREY MATTERS
could be used as a source of hydrogen-based fuel.
In seeking to explore the Moon’s depths, present-day
NASA scientists had two choices. The most labor-intensive and expensive option, would have been to
set up a test drilling site, either semi-permanently
or through a series of manned missions. The second
option was simpler, cheaper, and much less elegant:
NASA could simply crash a rocket probe into the Moon
and see what sprayed up around the impact site.
And that’s exactly what LCROSS did. Launched on
June 18, 2009, a carrier spacecraft (the shepherding
spacecraft, or SS) guided a second-stage Centaur
rocket to a pre-selected site on the Moon. The site was
in the shadowed area of a prominent regolith (a rocky
outcropping covering an area of bedrock) in Cabeus
crater, near the Moon’s south pole. Temperatures in
shadowed areas on the Moon don’t rise much about
-300 deg F. at any time; this type of cold site may
have the greatest likelihood of concealing a source of
water or ice, particularly in the coldest polar regions.
Once in correct position, the Centaur rocket (about
the size of a sport utility vehicle) separated from
the SS and propelled itself into Cabeus crater at a
speed of about 6000 mph. The impact took place at
4:31:19 AM, GSW Clocktower time, on Friday, October 9. While this was happening, the SS monitored
the descent and crash as well as the plume that followed the crash. Minutes after the impact, the SS began a descent towards the plume and the lunar surface, analyzing and sending back data as it traveled.
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of spending this kind of money on something seen as
“frivolous,” especially during an economic recession.
Nonetheless, scientists continue to tout the value of
learning more about the universe around us. The US
government—along with NASA—continues to consider the future possibility of colonizing the Moon, with
a ready supply of water being an important first step.
One wonders what LCROSS thought as it hurled
towards the Moon. Around the world, many
conjured words from Douglas Adams’ Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy to frame the
possible
reactions
of
the
LCROSS
probe:
“What’s this thing coming toward me very fast? So
big and flat and round ... it needs a big wide sounding
name like ‘Ow’, ‘Ownge’, ‘Round’, ‘Ground’! ... That’s
it! Ground! Ha! I wonder if it’ll be friends with me?”
Resources:
Adams, Douglas. Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.
1979
Cowen, Ron. “Water Found on the Moon.” 23 September
2009
<http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/09/water-moon/ >
Day, Brian. “LCROSS.” October 2009 <http://lcross.
arc.nasa.gov/>
“LCROSS_NASA on Twitter.” 9 October 2009 <http://
twitter.com/Lcross_Nasa>
Want to learn more about the Moon?
Scientists at NASA began analyzing from the SS as it
poured in, looking for evidence of water (ice or vapor),
hydrocarbons (organic materials that involve water in
their formation), and hydrated (“water soaked”) materials. The SS moved through the Centaur crash plume
and crashed into the lunar surface about four minutes
after the Centaur impact, at 4:35:45 am, GSW time.
The crater created by the two impacts is estimated at 60-100 feet in diameter and 12-15 feet deep.
For many who stayed up late to watch the impacts,
the results were disappointing. Scientists had believed the crash plume would be visible from earth,
but observers saw nothing. Although dust was
blown hundreds of feet into space, there was no visible plume. The prevailing theory seems to be that
the trajectory of the impact caused much of the
material to blow laterally, rather than straight up.
Information from the SS sensors, Hubble telescope,
and Earth’s giant terrestrial telescopes will keep scientists busy for months analyzing visual, sensor, and
spectrographic data from the LCROSS impacts. Besides looking for water, scientists will examine the
impact crater itself, gaining valuable insights into
the natural history of lunar impacts and geology.
The LC mission cost US taxpayers $80 million—cheap,
as space missions go, yet many question the ethics
Sign up for the GSW classes “Naked Eye Astronomy 101” or “Moon 201: The Science.”
Check out the Office of Cosmology to find
out what’s visible in tonight’s night sky!
ACADEMIC CITATION TUTORING BY CALYXA
Unsure about how to properly attribute your sources? I was recommended by Dean Moonwriter as
a tutor in academic citation. If I don’t know off
the top of my head how to properly attribute your
sources, I know where and how to find out! Email
me at: HYPERLINK “/mc/compose%3Fto=greys
[email protected]”greyschool@calyxa.
best.vwh.net and please include “GSW citation
help” in the subject header.
24
WHISPERING GREY MATTERS
Is
There Another Earth?
By Silver Raven
The existence of other habitable planets has been
on mankind’s collective minds for years, maybe even
centuries. We know that our Earth is a “diamond in
the rough” in our Solar System. But could there be
other planets like ours out there? Scientists around
the world have been trying to answer this question.
Let’s look at how extra-solar planets are discovered. We know that planets do not make their own
light. They rely on their host stars for that. Basically, this makes it hard to spot them. It’s kind of
like looking for a needle in a haystack. This means
we must find them using other means. Astronomers have developed four ways to hunt for planets.
Each way is very different, and lengthy to explain.
As such, I will only mention each type in this piece.
We have Doppler Shift, Astrometric Measurement,
Transit, and Gravitational Microlensing. Each of these
methods have been proven to work. So much so that
we have discovered well over 300 extra-solar planets.
Image: Another Earth by Calyxa
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If you’d like to learn more about these methods, feel
free to visit the links in the article resources below.
So far, most of the planets that have been found are extremely large; larger even than mighty Jupiter. There
have been, in recent years, the discovery of smaller,
rocky planets like ours. But we aren’t sure if these are
habitable. More research is needed on this subject.
Maybe in a Galaxy far, far away, there is another planet like Earth. Maybe ours is an anomaly, existing only here. Only time, and research,
can answer these questions. I, for one, will remain hopeful that another planet like ours will be
found. I hope after reading this and other articles
like this, that you will hope for the same thing.
Resources:
Nasa
2009 http://planetquest.jpl.nasa.gov/science/science_index.cfm
Nasa 2009 http://planetquest.jpl.nasa.gov/science/
finding_planets.cfm
WHISPERING GREY MATTERS
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We Just Do What We Do:
My Life as an Ant
Sapphire Soleil
This is a true story.
While working at my desk in the College of Education one day, the subject of life on other planets came up.
One of our masters students piped up:
“There is no life on other planets,” he said with a voice of absolute authority.
I just stared at him for a moment and started to laugh.
“What makes you say that?” I asked when I got myself under control again.
“They would have contacted us by now. No one has, so there is no life on other planets.”
He was completely serious. I tried to explain my point of view regarding extraterrestrial worlds and he just
kept saying no, no, no. Eventually, I gave up. When someone is that adamant, changing their opinion is
an exercise in futility. But I was amazed that a person training to be an educator (and not only that but a
science educator) could have such a closed mind on any idea. What happened to the scientific process? As
far as I know no one has disproved life on other worlds, even if it hasn’t been absolutely proven either.
As I walked home that night, still pondering his answer, I purposely lifted my foot over a trail of ants making
their way down the same path I was taking. I stopped and looked at those ants. They did not notice me.
They were busy doing what ants do. Did they even think about other life around them? Probably not (well,
not until the moment it is about to kill them.) Here I was, a “higher” species with a capacity for rationale
thought and self-awareness. I saw the ant, but could I, with my huge brain in comparison to that ant, communicate with it? Nope. I could not tell them to move out of the human path for their own safety, nor could
I direct them to a better source of food. For all my “greater intelligence” I couldn’t communicate with an
ant. I could but observe them and try not to kill them.
I wished that masters student had been present. I would have said. “Look, I can’t speak to an ant!! Maybe
we are ants to another world’s inhabitants. They are observing us, but we are so much smaller they can’t
even let us know they exist. We just keep doing what we do, in ignorance of their presence.”
I always wonder what he would have said to that.
COSMOLOGY TUTORING BY SILVER RAVEN
Have you ever gazed at the nighttime sky, and wondered what else is out there? Have
you looked at the classes here at GSW, and told yourself that you’d never get those
parts of Magick?
If you answered yes to either question, then do I have a service for you.
Greetings to all, I am Silver Raven. I am a Cosmology Major, and your Cybermage of
Support. I have accepted the role of Tutor within the Office of Cosmology. Together with
a few other dedicated individuals, the Dean of Cosmology included, we look into the
Heavens for guidance.
If you have an assignment related to Cosmology, or within its many fields of interest,
and feel like you can’t get anywhere with it, come see me. Click on the Office of Cosmology, and look around for my Help Desk.
I wish everyone a great Samhain, and may the Cosmos guide you always.
24
WHISPERING GREY MATTERS
14
ISSUE
Photo by Relache
24
WHISPERING GREY MATTERS
15
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24
OUT OF
THIS WORLD
SQUASH
by Relache
4 saucer squash (aka scallop or patty pan squash)
1 Tbsp. extra virgin olive oil
1 clove of garlic, mince or pressed
1⁄2 C. onion, diced
3/4 C. soft bread crumbs
1/4 C. Parmesan cheese, grated
1/4 C. crumbled bacon or diced chicken (optional)
Salt and pepper
Directions:
1. Preheat the oven to 350° F.
2. Cooking the squash - Put about an inch of
water in a saucepan and bring to a boil. Put in
the squash, cover and cook until they are just
tender, about 10 minutes. Pierce with a knife
to test.
3. Making the saucers - When squash are done,
removed from sauce pan. You will want to trim
just a little bit off the bottom of the squash with
a sharp knife so that they can sit upright on a
plate. Slice off a little of the top and save aside,
then scoop out the insides using a small spoon
or melon baller, being careful not to break or
crack the squash shell. Leave the shell 1/4” to
1/2” thick. Save the squash you scoop out, as
it is used in the stuffing. Put squash shells on a
baking sheet and set aside.
4. Making the stuffing - If you are going to do
the bacon or chicken variation, cook that first,
crumbling the bacon or dicing the chicken when
done, and set aside. In a clean skillet, heat the
olive oil and then cook the onion until it turns
translucent. Then add the garlic and cook until
the garlic gets really fragrant (about a minute).
If you are doing bacon or chicken, add at this
point. Add the squash that got scooped out of
the shells and cook the mixture for one to two
minutes. Turn off the heat, then add the bread
crumbs and Parmesan cheese and mix all together. Add salt and pepper to taste.
5. Stuff the squash - Get your baking tray of
squash shells and gently fill them with the
stuffing mixture. You want each squash to be
overfilled a bit. For the final baking, cover the
stuffed squash loosely with some aluminum foil
and then slide the tray into the pre-heated oven
and bake for about 15 minutes. You want everything to get heated all the way through.
6. When you serve the squash, put the tops
back on for a decorative touch.
TUTORING BY OBSIDIANSTORM JAGUAR
ObsidianStorm Jaguar
Lore Major/Divination Minor
As a University graduate, I offer Grey School students my expertise in a wide range of essay related
skills, including proofreading papers; formatting
reference lists and inserting images into papers. I
take the time to work closely with each student and
give each paper or project the attention it deserves.
I am also happy to recommend additional sources
to the students if it will help them.
WHISPERING GREY MATTERS
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24
RISING SIGN
Book 1 of The Star Child Trilogy
by Starwynd Panther
(writing as Jared R. Lopatin)
First Edition: May 2009. Available at starchildtrilogy.com in a special edition and at Amazon in both printed and Kindle editions.
Review by silverlocke
The prologue grips us with the introduction of
an enigmatic phrase uttered as prophecy, “When
thousand spins of Terra twins ...” A little girl named
Sereny records the phrase in her spiral notebook
as her mother speaks them while in a trance-like
state and later, asks her, “What does it mean?”
Her mother responds for the first time since having the vision, “It means that it is starting.”
Tim Dalis seems an ordinary enough young man
with an apartment and a cat and people who give
him grief at his job. His friend Nell (although preoccupied with a new boyfriend) tries to cheer him
up by taking him to a reading by a psychic (named
Sereny) where he learns about Astrology and the
existence of The Gathering, a group formed to
not only watch for the appearance of the Signs-eleven other people like Tim who happened to
have been born with ten planets under their sun
sign and known collectively as The Guardians-but also for the Star Child who will be born when
each planet will be in its natural sign and each
sign will be in its natural house.
And then one night after discovering his cat has
run off, Tim meets the first of the other Guardians
and is whisked into a whirlwind of activity and
action as The Gathering expends all its powers to
collect the twelve Signs, fight Merel and the Astranihl, and to locate and protect the Star Child.
Oh, and along the way he finds his cat, strangely
transformed and much more communicative.
If this first volume is any indicator, readers of the
trilogy are in for a very enjoyable, imminently
readable, fast-paced, action-adventure fantasy
set within the vast cosmic framework of Magick
and Astrology.
WHISPERING GREY MATTERS
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ISSUE
The
Wizard’s Grotto
by Relache
Do you expect to see Gollum from the Lord of the Rings when you look at this picture? It
does seem like a perfect home for him. What you are viewing isn’t another world, it’s the
“Wizard’s Grotto,” part of the Lost River section of the Lehman Caves National Monument
in Nevada. In 1965, a movie called “The Wizards of Mars” was partially filmed in the cave.
This low-budget, space adventure was a take-off of the Wizard of OZ, where four astronauts (Dorothy, Steve, Charlie, and Doc) journey to Mars. The underground grotto was
the set for the planet Mars.
To learn more, you might like:
http://www.nps.gov/grba/historyculture/lehman-caves-national-monument.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wizard_of_Mars
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WHISPERING GREY MATTERS
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24
A Report from your
GSW Captains
by Sapphire Soleil
Greetings to all at Grey School!
A new school term is upon us and the school fairly buzzes with excitement and study. The Equinox saw the bi-annual changeover of
Captains and Prefects. We’d like to send our heartfelt THANKS to
our outgoing Captain Mysty for her marvelous work for GSW over
the past year. Captain’s Terms take a year to complete and there is
always so much happening it is hard to keep up, but Mysty made it
all seem so easy. Big shoes to step into, but she blazed a clear and
steady path to sail on. Thanks Cap’n!
I would also thank House Captain Raistlin Loreseeker for a continuing job well done and new Vice Captain Aamber Phoenix who is
already ready to take the helm of the good ship Grey School.
Also a hearty “well done” to our outgoing prefects: Calyxa (Stones)
Artemis Gryphon Snowhawk (Winds) Borkya (Waters) Laneth
(Flames) Crystalfire (Gnomes) Tree Nymph (Undines) and to two
who are continuing: Dragon of Anubis (Salamanders) and X-Wolf
the White (Sylphs).
And lastly, Welcome! To the new prefects! Snoopy Alchemist (Stones)
Swirlsdancing (Winds) Earth Song (Waters) and Nydia (Flames) Let
me tell you, these folks are active and ready to tackle any issue as
well as lead us in some fun activities in the next six months.
Thanks and Welcome Everyone!
Sapphire Soleil
Captain, Grey School of Wizardry
WHISPERING GREY MATTERS
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Cosmology Class Pre-view:
December 21, 2012
By Belenus
As Dean of the Cosmology department at Grey
School, I am always thinking about what classes
would be relevant for our students. During a discussion with some other faculty one evening, we came
up with the idea for a class on the subject of December 21, 2012, the future date that many prophecies
have picked out as a time of tremendous change for
us on our planet.
The subject of this class will encompass many ideas
and areas of study. Well just take a look at the description Rilana and I came up with. She is co-writing
the class with me:
The class will cover the prophecies about the date
of December 21, 2012 and the implications of those
prophecies. The class will review the historical records of these prophecies and the mythologies of the
cultures in which they occur, as well as the astronomical science involved in the predictions about this
future time on planet Earth.
The history of the use of astrology and other methods used by prophets such as Nostradamus and
Edgar Cayce will be examined, as well as modern
astrological interpretations of the date. The use of
math, modern science, and current world trends will
be covered as they relate to the prophecies and predictions about the importance of this date, and the
question of whether it is likely to be a “doomsday”
scenario vs. a transitional period for humanity’s spirituality will be examined.
Modern Astrological Interpretations
That same evening, I took a look at the chart of the
date from the location of Washington, DC. The reason for this location is that according to many astrologers, what happens at the location of important
cities and centers, can be extrapolated to the rest
of the country or world more easily. The District of
Columbia is arguably the power center of the world,
currently.
Taken out of the conversation, this is what I saw that
evening in the chart for that date.
It doesn’t look like any ordinary day at all! There
is a Yod (a planetary configuration for a fated day)
involving two of the malefics, Pluto and Saturn, with
the object of the Yod being Jupiter. The other Malefic, Mars is found in the house of death and endings. The Sun is square Uranus, the Sun being the
most important point in a chart (the self) and it is
in a hard aspect to Uranus the planet of sudden and
drastic change and revolution. The moon is in Aries
that day a moon of war or at least lots of energy and
impatience.
The slow moving planets involved in the Yod are in
almost exact aspect, just a few minutes off among
the three. That is highly unusual, and the object (the
problem to be solved) is Jupiter and it’s found in the
fourth house of the home. If home here is the world
and the tools to solve the problem involve, power,
death, time, and limitations, we have a recipe for a
very important day indeed.
There is much more, but I’ll save it for the class.
Hope to see you there!
24
WHISPERING GREY MATTERS
Oregon
Conclave
2009
by Moonwriter
The third Oregon Conclave took
place on August 10-14, 2009 at
Silver Falls State Park in Oregon’s
Cascade mountains. Led by planners Flamekeeper and Kalla, the
event was a rousing success and
a vast amount of fun. Grab your
Time-Turners and give them a spin
or two, taking you back to ….
20
ISSUE 24
Monday, August 10. We checked in on a sunny
afternoon, greeting old friends and other times exchanging first hugs with new ones. Participating
this year were Calyxa, Catafreyja, Corvin, Ebon
Hawke, Feriluce, Flamekeeper, Glanecia, Jymi x/0,
Kalla, Psylchi, Relache, Rainmaker, Rowan Sylvanus, Stargazer, Treeotter, and three canines: Owen,
Ringo, and Sadie. Check-in involved the issuance of
color ties and Conclave field guides for all, as well
as selecting campsites among the sky-high Douglas-fir trees covering the site. It was fun watching
everyone get set up. Moonwriter put up her walkin Hobbitat, Relache festooned her small tent with
gorgeous strings of Goddess flags, and Stargazer
created an entire camping complex, guarded by
Stanley the Gnome. Later in the week Stargazer
could be heard shouting, “Hey you kids—get off my
lawn!”
Our evening campfire followed the “Earth” element
and featured a mini-ritual of thanks, in which we
added our own ashes and home earths to the communal fire pit. We took time for star study and settled into our tents for an excellent night’s sleep, the
sounds of the forest close around us.
Tuesday, August 11. Classes began! Moonwriter
led a Nature Studies internship and taught nature
journaling. Rainmaker once again taught her Conclave chants class, and Kalla did a terrific introduction to Icon Magick. Dinnertime found everyone
back in Rainmaker’s campsite, where she taught the
miracle of the one-pot camp meal, i.e., her famous
Mulligan Stew. Relache led the evening campfire,
following the “Air” element. The festivities included
singing, music, and a ritual of “letting go.” It rained
in camp that evening, but the rain came and went
quickly, and we escaped pretty much unscathed.
WHISPERING GREY MATTERS
Wednesday, August 12. What a fun day! Flamekeeper taught a fabulous set of classes, including
ritual basics, defensive techniques, spell writing on
the fly, and a participatory class on circle energy.
During the day, Conclavians worked on class projects
and outdoor tasks, including individual service projects toward their Nature Studies Internships. Calyxa
shared her Elemental Hexagons deck, which was fascinating.
The Wednesday evening campfire featured the element of “Water.” We held a bardic circle and allowed
time to “Ask the Elders.” We also held a water-sharing ceremony in Oberon’s honor, and asked for healing for him, Morning Glory, and our absent friend
Aaran’s brother, Scott.
Thursday, August 13. After a morning Nature Studies session, Flamekeeper taught a class on “paying
attention.” Then everyone trooped into the lodge
kitchen for Rainmaker’s class on magickal eggs, including natural dyes and making “spelled eggs.” Next
up was Jymi with a fabulous presentation on Quantum Physics; this was videotaped and has since been
made into a GSW class. Wrapping up the class day
came Kalla with a session on energy techniques:
gathering, directing, and grounding. Treeotter went
missing at one point—we found her about fifteen feet
up a tree. So much for grounding!
As always, one of the best parts of Conclave was
the chance to simply hang out with fellow magickal
people. We spent as much time with heads together
over cups of coffee or relaxing in conversation next
to the fire as we did in classes. At any moment, one
might be talking tool craft with Rainmaker, dark arts
with Kalla, protective magicks with Catafreyja, alchemy with Relache, or the merits of wearing Ughs
and prom dresses (together!) with Treeotter, also
fondly known to us as Cabinet Girl.
21
ISSUE
The last night in camp is traditionally a time of Conclave ceremony, and this was no exception. We began with a stupendous potluck feast, then donned
magickal garb for our closing campfire. We honored
the “Fire” element, bringing the week’s energy to a
peak as we shared good times, exchanged gifts, and
presented awards and recognitions. The evening featured an Ordo Erronum induction, with Stargazer being tapped for membership. Flamekeeper and Kalla
handed out awards to everyone and began a brand
new northwestern Conclave tradition, the presentation of the “Wizarding Weiner.” This wizard-garbed
dachshund figure was declared a spirit award and
presented to Rowan Sylvanus, along with the charge
to return next year and present it to another Conclavian. Moonwriter capped off the evening with a
Dutch oven peach cobbler, after which we sat around
visiting as the fire ebbed into coals.
On Friday morning, we met after breakfast for our
closing ceremonies, honoring the element of “Spirit.”
Kalla led a poignant ritual and then we signed Grimoires and scooped up shares of the campfire ashes.
We broke camp, everyone pitching in to help everyone else and to police the entire campground. In a
final moment together, we instituted what will surely
become a northwestern Conclave tradition; the sacred “I’m a Little TeaPot” ritual. Nothing more may
be said of this—it is secret knowledge of the highest
sort, kept safe by those who were there.
Leaving was bittersweet…. But it was
time to go, and we knew we’d see each
other again in 2010. As Flamekeeper
wrote in a beautiful poem on the last
page of our Conclave field guides, “My
soul tells me it’s time to begin the long
journey home.”
24
WHISPERING GREY MATTERS
22
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24
2009 new
york
conclave
i
s a wrap!
by Artemis Gryphon SnowHawk
The 2009 New York Conclave was a great
place to be in August - despite the flooding
that threatened us all! The Great Blue Heron site was magnificent, including the Festival of Lights held during our stay. Conclave
participants were asked to don magickal
regalia and walk the path during the Festival. We could speak about our garb, school
or anything else to those who attended the
Festival. Some of us didn’t have cloaks with
us, but were able to wear cloaks thanks to
the ‘closets’ of Luna Bear and Farielover!
The Festival was absolutely beautiful thanks
to those who helped string lights and clear
paths while the rest of us went to Lily Dale.
No class was more important than the LBRP
and Elemental Connections which tied together with three rituals. One was for the
Head Masters’ operating team to have
steady hands. The second was to see Oberon through the operation safely and to heal
well. The last was held on one of the last
nights of the Conclave, with the four defensors leading the LBRP.
Movie night was exciting. ‘Camping’ out on
the stage and watching Race to Witch Mountain we snacked on leftovers. Next year,
we’ll have pizza!
No one seemed to mind taking kitchen duty.
Lily Dale is a community founded in 1879 by We rotated so each day was a new pair of
the Fox sisters of Rochester, New York for people making the meals, cleaning up and
those interested in spiritualism. The most keeping everyone happy with food.
powerful experience while there happened
while visiting a place in Lily Dale called In- Fire tenders diligently made the fire each
spiration Stump. You can feel the magick night (after the rains, of course) and Fariwhile standing near this stump. It is a won- elover made use of these fires. She was the
derful little town filled with psychics, me- official fire-keeper and s’mores-maker exdiums, spiritualists, shops and a wonderful traordinaire.
library right on the lake!
Our last fire was emotional; no one was eaClasses were plentiful. We made manda- ger to part. We all promised to meet at the
las so everyone could take a piece of the same place next year!
other Conclavians home. We made beautiful
wands or staffs thanks to Zu Dragonfly Elm; New York Conclave 2010 will be held again
the herb walk helped us learn how to look at at the Great Blue Heron from July 26 to Authings in more than one way - such as wood gust 1, 2010. Bring your regalia!!! A day trip
sorrel, which many of us took to be clover.
to Niagara Falls and another movie night are
in the plans!
Photo by Jymi X/0
WHISPERING GREY MATTERS
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24
Whispering Grey Matters
is a quarterly publication created
by and for the students and faculty of the
Grey School of Wizardry.
JOIN US!
We’re always looking for talented
artists and writers to add to our staff!
Bring your...
ideas!
artwork!
imagination!
...and pizza!
Contact one of our friendly, not-at-all-scary
Faculty Advisors today:
Professor Moonwriter
[email protected]
or
Jymi X/0
[email protected]
2
ISSUE
24
Whispering Grey Matters
ISSUE 24
SAMHAIN 2009
STAFF
Literal Magick
CONTENTS
Faculty Advisors:
Moonwriter & Jymi X/0
Faculty Advisor’s Article .................................... 3
Editor-In-Chief: Starwynd Panther
NEWS
Santeria Priest Wins Right to Sacrifice Animals ... 4
Publisher: Jymi X/0
Assistant Publishers: Laneth & Calyxa
Copy Editor: silverlocke
GSW DESK
Editor: Silver Raven
Sapphire Soleil
NEWS DESK
Editor: Jymi X/0 (temp)
Sapphire Soleil, Silverlocke
WIZARDING DESK
Section Editor: Pratus
Jymi X/0, Areeya (on hiatus)
SCIENCE DESK
Editor: Calyxa
Moonwriter, Silver Raven
OPINIONS DESK
Editor: Sapphire Soleil
Areeya (on hiatus), Silthoron
ARTS & CULTURE DESK
Editor: Jymi X/0 (temp)
SilverLocke, Pratus
FOOD DESK
Editor: Moonwriter (temp)
ART DESK
Currently overseen by the Publishing Minions
UNPLACED WRITERS:
Relache, Belenus, Artemis Gryphon Snowhawk
Whispering Grey Matters is a quarterly newsletter produced by and for the students and faculty
of The Grey School of Wizardry (www.greyschool.
com). All contents herein are © 2009 Grey School,
except where otherwise noted. Copyrights revert to
original authors and artists upon publication.
WIZARDING
Other Worlds: The Astral Plane ......................... 5
Ancient Runes Today ...................................... 6
Tarot: The High Priestess ................................... 7
SCIENCE
On Other Worlds ............................................. 8
Synthetic Landscapes ...................................... 9
LCROSS .................................................... 10-11
Is There Another Earth? .................................. 12
OPINION
My Life as an Ant ........................................... 13
FOOD
Out of This World Squash .............................. 15
ART & CULTURE
Review: Rising Sign ........................................ 16
The Wizard’s Grotto ..................................... 17
GSW NEWS
A Report from your GSW Captains ............. 18
Cosmology Class: December 21, 2012 ........... 19
Oregon Conclave 2009 .............................. 20-21
New York Conclave 2009 ............................. 22
WHISPERING GREY MATTERS
3
ISSUE
As if One World Wasn’t
Enough to Worry About!
-- Jymi X/0
Other worlds!
What does the idea conjure
up in your imagination...
Astral travel? Space exploration? Discovery of new
people and cultures? Maybe just curling up with
a good storybook and letting the author take you
somewhere else?
My favorite otherworldly place to visit is the Internet. I project my consciousness through the screen,
and I can go anywhere I want. It takes some digital
dexterity -- you have to dance your way between
the silly copycat cut-n-paste home pages and those
mortgage-refinancing ads with the inane dancing
cartoons. But underneath all the fluff, the ‘net contains some priceless treasures.
One of the Internet worlds in which you’ll often find
me is called Second Life. It’s a 3d social networking
site, where users can obtain or create their own custom bodies (or “Avatars”), clothing and (if you want
to drop a little money into it every month) a piece of
digital land all their own. We design fashions, construct fantastic buildings and other objects, and write
programming scripts to bring the objects in the world
to life. Some people like to go dancing or shopping.
Others enjoy role-playing games (there are plenty of
Harry Potter groups!) or finding like-minded people
to chat with. I just like building things. Some days
I’m hard at work on my own creations, other days,
I like to fly all over the grid and see what other creators have come up with. (The main site is adultsonly, but there is a Teen Second Life, for the younger
crowd who can’t wait to check it out!)
I’ll go out on a limb here and say that I believe this
is the next step in human evolution: the ability to
unhook our consciousness from our bodies at will, either via traditional “astral travel” techniques or modern techno-neuromancy, and enter environments
that we’ve created for ourselves. (Not necessarily via
the Second Life program, but something along those
lines.) Some sci-fi stories, and a few semi-serious
philosophers, have suggested that this very world
that we call “real” is the result of just such a scenario,
and we’re just digital blips moving through someone
else’s programmed environment! If that was true,
how could we tell? If you found out that this was the
case, would you change the way you live?
Some people believe that anything we can think
about is actually physically real on some plane of
existence. What makes a world “real,” anyway? Is
the Grey School real? Sure it is. But where does it
exist? Where are you when you chat on the Forums
or study your lessons? You body may be in a chair
in room, but your mind -- your awareness -- is...
where?
Then there are the days when
anything seems better than
the world we’ve got right here
in front of us. It’s sometimes
tempting to think that our lives
would be better if we were living
them somewhere else. However,
traipsing off into other worlds - whether you reach them by
book, by computer, by spaceship
or otherwise, isn’t the answer to
most problems. No matter what
avatar you’re wearing, that’s still
you underneath it!
Geek Alert! My avatar in Second Life
reading AD&D 2nd Edition manuals.
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WHISPERING GREY MATTERS
4
ISSUE
Santeria Priest Wins Right to
Sacrifice Animals
by silverlocke
The city of Euless, Texas last year barred Santeria priest and Puerto Rican native
Jose Merced, 46, from sacrificing goats on his property despite Merced’s claim
that such a ban deprived him of his free exercise of religion. Merced had been
conducting such animal rituals for over 15 years, but “a couple” of anonymous
complaints triggered the action by the city which claimed such sacrifices jeopardized public health and violated an animal cruelty ordinance. Merced asked
the city for a permit to slaughter animals, but his application was denied and he
claims he is unable to initiate new priests. A U.S. District Judge later upheld the
ban imposed by the Fort Worth suburb.
But recently a federal appeals court in New Orleans reversed the ban, ruling in
a final judgment last month that such a ban violated Merced’s religious rights
and “… placed a substantial burden on his free exercise of religion”. U.S. District
Judge John McBryde also ordered the city of Euless to pay for Merced’s court
costs.
Animal sacrifice has been a routine and accepted practice in nearly all the world’s
major religions at some point in history. Jews abandoned the ritual after a temple
devoted to animal sacrifice was destroyed—such sacrifice cannot be resumed
until a new temple is designated by God. Muslims commemorate the end of the
Hajj by sacrificing a sheep. Christians consider that Jesus’ death on the cross
replaced the need to sacrifice animals.
Eric Rassbach, attorney for the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, who represented Merced said, “ … goat sacrifice is never going to be particularly popular
in Euless, Texas but that’s not the point. Religious liberty protections are only as
good as they can be for the religions that need the help.”
Merced himself told The Associated Press, “Now Santeros can practice their religion at home without being afraid of being fined, arrested or taken to court.”
Works Cited
“Santeria Leader Fights Religious Ban”. Diaspora Orisha Network. 05 Jan 2007.
<http://diasporaorishanetwork.yuku.com/topic/366/t/Texas-Santeria-Lawsuit.
html>.
“Euless to ask court to rehear Santeria animal sacrifice case”. Dallas News. 10
Aug 2009.
<http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/religion/stories/DN-santeria_10met.ART.State.Edition1.4bd9280.html>.
For more information about this story, follow these links:
http://http://www.dallasobserver.com/2009-10-22/news/a-courtcase-forced-a-santeria-priest-to-reveal-some-of-his-religion-s-secrets-it-s-ritual-of-animal-sacrifice-he-revealed-on-his-own/
http://http://www.dallasobserver.com/content/printVersion/1560451
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WHISPERING GREY MATTERS
5
ISSUE
Other Worlds:
The Astral Plane
By Pratus Ater Lupus
Astral projection is a very interesting subject, and talking to people you can hear
many different things. For instance, some
may say it is dangerous, it is amazing, it is
just a dream, and many other comments. I
want to take us through the door way into
the fantastic astral plain.
Everyone has had the weird dreams before
that didn’t make sense, but what if they did
and we just remembered them wrong. For
instance, you dreamed a giant hot fudge
sundae was chasing you down the street of
ancient Egypt and then the great god Zeus
threw a lightning bolt at the sundae to stop
it, and when the sundae was struck it turned
into Jennifer Love Hewitt who then climbed
Mount Rushmore with you...okay maybe
that was only me!
Raymond Buckland says that they are probably jumbled up dreams and that is why they
don’t make sense. In my case I could have
been hungry or craving ice cream when I
went to bed, so I could have dreamed of
going to the local ice cream shop and had
a giant sundae. I then could have eaten
too much and got a horrible tummy ache. I
could’ve dreamed of going to Egypt which is
somewhere I have always wanted to travel.
Some of my favorite legends are of the Greek
pantheon and I dream of Zeus quite often.
For the last dream I could’ve dreamed that
I was climbing Mount Rushmore, another
place on my bucket list, and I think Jennifer
Love Hewitt is self explanatory!
So what if traveling in your dreams is actually possible. What if you could do your
bucket list from your own bed? Of course,
there have been stories of astral projections
for thousands of years, as examples there
were the shaman path walking, spirit walking, and there again the astral projections.
Oberon Zell Raven-Heart gives a great ex-
planation on attaining and training yourself
for the astral projection using the visualization technique. You can read over it in
the “Grimoire for the Apprentice Wizard” on
page 210. It tells you to use a long mirror so
that you can start to ready your astral self;
so that you will be able to see yourself from
your astral and physical self.
Once you have the visualization technique,
or while you are doing this make sure you
keep your dream journal, and write in it everyday right when you wake up. If you have
a dream wake you up during the night, keep
your dream journal on your night stand, or
right next to your bed so you can record it.
Don’t do anything until you have written the
dream down.
Learning to control or freely astral project
takes a lot of time, practice, and patience.
Once you start to feel like you are “going” to
these different places, start controlling yourself, one example is look around to see your
physical body. Start giving yourself places to
visit; it doesn’t have to be a place you have
seen before. When you wake up write down
the dreams you remember, and every detail
you can think of in the back ground and look
on the internet for the pictures of the areas
you believe you sent yourself to.
As time goes by, as long as you keep practicing, you will get better and better. There
are many ways to use this wizardly gift of
walking the astral world. I believe it is a
very important practice to learn.
References:
1.Zell-Ravenheart, Oberon. “Grimoire for
the Apprentice Wizard”. Franklin Lakes, NJ:
NewPage Books, 2004.
2.Buckland, Raymond. “Gypsy Dream Dictionary”. St. Paul, Minnesota: Llewellyn Publications, 1999.
24
WHISPERING GREY MATTERS
6
ISSUE
24
ancient runes today
Ancient Runes Today
By Pratus Ater Lupus
I really enjoy the runes column and have enjoyed it in WGM since it was started. I am sad to
say that Areeya was not able to do this article.
I do hope that soon she will be able to pick the
column back up, but until then I will continue
the runes column because I think runes are a
very important and powerful magick symbols. I
do hope you will continue to enjoy the column.
I have decided to send us on a magickal journey
using the rune named Raidho. Raidho is wonderful for traveling or in a ritual for internal or
external changes, so I think we can mix this
rune with a little mirror magick. We are going to
go on a wonderful journey using the runes and
a mirror.
The mirror has been used for centuries for all
types of magick, from cleansing energy and
your soul to creating and holding spells to great
adventures, like Alice’s when she entered the
looking glass. The perfect thing about mirrors
is that they reach down into the deepest part
of our psyche and helps to pull it forward to our
conscious minds.
First we need a mirror. You may want to add
some aesthetics like seashells, flowers, or anything that strikes your fancy, remember if you
are a young apprentice to have a parent help
you! Then again you can just buy one and skip
these last few steps!
Take a small piece of wood and burn or carve
the rune raidho into it and glue it on the mirror.
Once raidho has been settled where you would
like it on the scrying mirror get familiar with the
mirror and use some sage incense on the mirror
reciting in a dreamy voice:
Mirror of magick,
Door of the worlds,
Shimmer and glow with power,
Assist me in my safe travels within and without.
Sometimes when you are just beginning a cup
of mugwort tea will help you get into the mode.
Concentrate on your image looking yourself in
the eyes reaching into your deep subconscious.
To do this use what I call your wizard glare,
which is stare you use when you aren’t really
concentrating on one particular thing. Use this
mirror in any manor of travel; you can use it to
go to your happy place, to concentrate on astral
projection, to visit far away places from your
own sanctuary. A scrying mirror will also do you
well in this type of situation.
WHISPERING GREY MATTERS
7
ISSUE
The High Priestess:
Doorway to Elsewhere
by Jymi X/0
The Fool has gained his
bearings and stepped into
the role of the Magician.
What’s the first thing he
sees when he continues on
his path?
As we know, magical powers are just the beginning
of the adventure. We’ve still
got a long way to go, and in
many cases, the stakes get
higher from here on. The
High Priestess sits at the
doorway to the real tests.
She represents balance,
true, but it’s not a given;
this balance must be nurtured and maintained within
the Self in order to forge the
direct-line spiritual connection between the Creator
and our own ideal worlds
that we, in turn, Create for
ourselves.
Temperance Trump (meaning: the passage of time, the
necessity of trial and error).
The third segment is Tau,
the 32nd path, and the final Trump, “The World.” This
path connects the Archetypes
to the Material World of Malkuth.
The two columns on either
side of her, one black and one
white, represent the Pillar of
Mercy and the Pillar of Severity on the Tree of Life. They
are said to correspond to
the columns at the doorway
of Jerusalem’s First Temple,
built by demonic forces under
the command of the Biblical
Wizard, wise King Solomon.
In many decks, the columns
they bear the letters “B” and
“J” -- these are initials of two
Biblical characters, Boaz and
Joachim, whose stories symThe High Priestess has been
bolize the qualities we seek
interpreted as a “Papess,” or
in order to achieve that perfemale Pope, as a feminine
fect equilibrium: the recovery
counterpart to the Magician,
of our rightful estate and the
but it’s more likely that she
realization of the Unity of All
represents the Mother GodThings. In other words, if we
dess in her prime function “The High Priestess” from the Rider-Waite Tar- accept our roles and respon-- the womb as the forma- ot deck, illustrated by Pamela Coleman Smith sibilities as Creator-Gods, we
tive chamber of the Self
can combine our personal en(where the Fool accepted
ergy with that of the Omnihis potential and became the Mage), and the birth verse without losing our Selves in the process.
canal as gateway to a world of our own making.
WORKS CITED
The High Priestess is shown sitting between two col- Sources of the Waite/Smith Tarot Symbols: The High
umns. In the Kabbalah’s Tree of Life design, she is Priestess. Tarot Passages. Accessed 6 October, 2009.
associated with the Middle Pillar, and the 13th Path, <http://www.tarotpassages.com/old_moonstruck/
Gimel. Imagine this path as a cord that connects the oneill/2.htm>
Mind of God to each individual Self. This cord is the
only link that we have through the Daath, the Abyss Troward, Thomas. The Hidden Power. New York: R.M.
that separates our chaotic “real world” from eternal McBride & Co. 1921.
stability and perfection. There are two other seg- Accessed 6 October, 2009, from the Internet Sacred
ments to the Middle Pillar: the 25th Path, Samekh, Text Archive.
which connects the Self to the Astral plane where <http://www.sacred-texts.com/eso/thp/thp22.
the Archetypes dwell. This path corresponds to the htm>
24
WHISPERING GREY MATTERS
On
Other Worlds...
By Relache
... you won’t be the same age as you are on the
Earth. Days and years are based on how long it
takes the Earth to rotate on its axis and how long
it takes to make one orbit around the Sun. No two
planets have a rotation or orbit that matches another since they are all different sizes and different
distances from the Sun. If you are 14 years old on
Earth, you’ll just be a little over one year old on Jupiter and you’ll almost be 50 years old on Mercury!
Your Age On Other Worlds:
http://www.exploratorium.edu/ronh/age/index.html
... you won’t weight the same as you do on Earth. Your
“mass” can be thought of as how much of you there
is. The actual weight of your mass depends on the
gravitational force of the planet you are on. How big
the planet is will change the gravitational force. If you
weight 100 lbs. on Earth, your weight on Jupiter will
measure just over 236 lbs and that’s with your body
staying exactly the same size! And if you took a trip to
the Moon, you’d find you only weighed about 16 lbs.
Your Weight On Other Worlds:
http://www.exploratorium.edu/ronh/weight/
Image: Sapphire Trees on New Marsia by Calyxa
8
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24
... plants might not be green! Although there are
some plants on Earth that aren’t green, most of
them are. Have you ever wondered why that is? It
turns out it’s due to the color of the light that comes
to us from the Sun. Plants use sunlight to convert
nutrients into energy, a process called photosynthesis. The wavelength of light that reaches Earth is affected by the type of star our Sun is, and how our
atmosphere filters it. On other worlds, if they had a
different type of star as their Sun, and a different atmosphere, that would mean that very different light
would reach the planet, and plant-life will be different. In order to be able to absorb the spectrum of
light, plants on other planets would most likely evolve
as some other color than green in order to survive.
Resources:
Exploratorium: the museum of science, art and human perception, http://www.exploratorium.edu/index.html,
The Color of Plants on Other Worlds, http://www.
scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=the-color-ofplants-on-other-worlds, © April 2008.
WHISPERING GREY MATTERS
Synthetic Landscapes
By Calyxa
The word ‘synthetic’ originally meant to create a
new thing out of two or more sources. More recently the word has taken on the implication of being
artificial, made by humans rather than by a natural process. For example, synthetic fabrics are created through creating chemical chains which do
not occur in nature. Synthetic music is created by
using electronic waveforms to drive the speakers directly. Synthetic landscapes are digital images created with a computer program. Sometimes
this type of computer generated landscape art is
called a fractal landscape because of the mathematics which make creating such images possible.
A fractal you may have heard of is the Mandelbrot
set. Beniot Mandelbrot is a mathematician who specialized in the study of complex dynamics, a branch
of mathematics pioneered by Gaston Julia at the beginning of the 20th century. The name ‘fractal’ refers
to how the equations describe a space having fractional dimensions. A sheet of paper can be thought
of as a two-dimensional space, having height and
width. A sculpture is a three-dimensional object,
having height, width, and depth. Fractal mathematics used for generating synthetic landscapes can
be thought of as having two and a half dimensions.
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ISSUE
Today there are several more, ranging in price from
free to as much as thousands of dollars. Bryce is currently at version 6.1, but the earlier 5.5 version is
available for free. For a while, Musgrave worked on
the Bryce team when version 4 was released. Shortly
afterwards, he went on to form his own company
and to “do it right” as far as a synthetic landscape
software program goes. His product, MojoWorld, was
not a commercial success, but it remains one of the
most powerful commercial packages for generating synthetic landscapes. All of the images accompanying this article were rendered with MojoWorld.
Synthetic landscapes had been created before the
mid-1990s with software also based on fractal
mathematics. The 1982 film, Star Trek: The Wrath
of Khan, included a sequence of a fly-through animation when the Genesis device gets detonated
on the barren planet. The original version of this
fly-through included a hastily cut trench through
one mountain when the camera’s path accidentally was routed through the synthetic terrain.
Since that time, the use of synthetic landscapes
in movies has become more and more common.
Resources:
Ebert, D., Musgrave, K., Peachey, P., Perlin, K., and
Worley, S. Texturing and Modeling: A Procedural Approach. San Francisco, CA: Morgan Kaufmann Publishers, 2003.
A student of Mandelbrot’s, F. Kenton Musgrave wrote
his doctoral thesis on synthetic landscapes in 1993.
Mandelbrot called Musgrave the first true fractalbased artist. Musgrave’s work was presented at a
computer graphics conference where it was seen by
many people including a man named Eric Wenger.
Wenger was so inspired by what he had seen in
Musgrave’s work that he wrote a computer program using Musgrave’s principles to create his own
synthetic landscapes. Wenger showed his program
to Kai Krause who developed a friendly user interface for it. The resulting software was called Bryce.
It was one of the first commercially available computer programs for creating synthetic landscapes.
Internet Movie Database - Star Trek: The Wrath
of Khan. <http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0084726/
goofs> Oct. 2009.
Kitchens, Susan, and Victor Gavenda. Real World
Bryce 4. Berkeley, CA: Peachpit Press, 2000.
Synthetic Landscape Images by Calyxa
24
WHISPERING GREY MATTERS
10
ISSUE
24
LCROSS: Crashing an SUV into the Moon
By Prof. Moonwriter
Over the last few weeks, those with an ear to the
ground and an eye to the sky probably heard that
NASA was planning to crash an unmanned probe into
the Moon. Sounded outlandish, right? The project even
had its own Twitter feed. Did you believe it, or pass it
off as some sort of joke-SPAM or conspiracy theory?
In September 2009, Science magazine added to
the fun by reporting evidence that solar wind particles release tiny amounts of water from the moon’s
soil all the time—constantly. Granted, the amounts
of water are minute, but real: which means there
is water on the Moon. The question is… where?
This time, you should have believed it. The Lunar Crater
Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS) was an
unmanned satellite designed to observe and then crash
into the lunar surface. The purpose? A search for water.
Hungry eyes have seen the Moon as an untapped
source of minerals and natural resources. The problems with gathering or using these potential resources are real and significant. In order to harvest lunar materials, a facility would have to be
built on the Moon’s surface, capable of manned
or unmanned drilling and collection, as well as
the ability to transport materials back to Earth.
Scientists on Earth have long considered the Moon
to be a dead world, at least geologically. The Moon
missions of the 1960s and 70s were aimed at landing on the lunar surface, gathering samples of soil
and rock, and examining the geology around the
landing site. Those missions lacked the ability to
probe deeper beneath the Moon’s surface, but even
so, no one believed we’d find water on the Moon.
This all changed in 1999, when NASA’s Lunar Prospector mission revealed unexpected evidence of water or water ice deposits in the Moon’s polar regions.
Long before any such operations could be considered comes the need to figure out what really lays
under the Moon’s surface. In particular, NASA has
been anxious to discover whether sources of liquid or frozen water exist on the Moon, for if a human base was to be established there, a water
source would be essential. Water would also be
critical in terms of manufacturing or drilling and
Image: The LCROSS impact flash, shown at three different levels of magnification, courtesy of NASA.
WHISPERING GREY MATTERS
could be used as a source of hydrogen-based fuel.
In seeking to explore the Moon’s depths, present-day
NASA scientists had two choices. The most labor-intensive and expensive option, would have been to
set up a test drilling site, either semi-permanently
or through a series of manned missions. The second
option was simpler, cheaper, and much less elegant:
NASA could simply crash a rocket probe into the Moon
and see what sprayed up around the impact site.
And that’s exactly what LCROSS did. Launched on
June 18, 2009, a carrier spacecraft (the shepherding
spacecraft, or SS) guided a second-stage Centaur
rocket to a pre-selected site on the Moon. The site was
in the shadowed area of a prominent regolith (a rocky
outcropping covering an area of bedrock) in Cabeus
crater, near the Moon’s south pole. Temperatures in
shadowed areas on the Moon don’t rise much about
-300 deg F. at any time; this type of cold site may
have the greatest likelihood of concealing a source of
water or ice, particularly in the coldest polar regions.
Once in correct position, the Centaur rocket (about
the size of a sport utility vehicle) separated from
the SS and propelled itself into Cabeus crater at a
speed of about 6000 mph. The impact took place at
4:31:19 AM, GSW Clocktower time, on Friday, October 9. While this was happening, the SS monitored
the descent and crash as well as the plume that followed the crash. Minutes after the impact, the SS began a descent towards the plume and the lunar surface, analyzing and sending back data as it traveled.
11
ISSUE
of spending this kind of money on something seen as
“frivolous,” especially during an economic recession.
Nonetheless, scientists continue to tout the value of
learning more about the universe around us. The US
government—along with NASA—continues to consider the future possibility of colonizing the Moon, with
a ready supply of water being an important first step.
One wonders what LCROSS thought as it hurled
towards the Moon. Around the world, many
conjured words from Douglas Adams’ Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy to frame the
possible
reactions
of
the
LCROSS
probe:
“What’s this thing coming toward me very fast? So
big and flat and round ... it needs a big wide sounding
name like ‘Ow’, ‘Ownge’, ‘Round’, ‘Ground’! ... That’s
it! Ground! Ha! I wonder if it’ll be friends with me?”
Resources:
Adams, Douglas. Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.
1979
Cowen, Ron. “Water Found on the Moon.” 23 September
2009
<http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/09/water-moon/ >
Day, Brian. “LCROSS.” October 2009 <http://lcross.
arc.nasa.gov/>
“LCROSS_NASA on Twitter.” 9 October 2009 <http://
twitter.com/Lcross_Nasa>
Want to learn more about the Moon?
Scientists at NASA began analyzing from the SS as it
poured in, looking for evidence of water (ice or vapor),
hydrocarbons (organic materials that involve water in
their formation), and hydrated (“water soaked”) materials. The SS moved through the Centaur crash plume
and crashed into the lunar surface about four minutes
after the Centaur impact, at 4:35:45 am, GSW time.
The crater created by the two impacts is estimated at 60-100 feet in diameter and 12-15 feet deep.
For many who stayed up late to watch the impacts,
the results were disappointing. Scientists had believed the crash plume would be visible from earth,
but observers saw nothing. Although dust was
blown hundreds of feet into space, there was no visible plume. The prevailing theory seems to be that
the trajectory of the impact caused much of the
material to blow laterally, rather than straight up.
Information from the SS sensors, Hubble telescope,
and Earth’s giant terrestrial telescopes will keep scientists busy for months analyzing visual, sensor, and
spectrographic data from the LCROSS impacts. Besides looking for water, scientists will examine the
impact crater itself, gaining valuable insights into
the natural history of lunar impacts and geology.
The LC mission cost US taxpayers $80 million—cheap,
as space missions go, yet many question the ethics
Sign up for the GSW classes “Naked Eye Astronomy 101” or “Moon 201: The Science.”
Check out the Office of Cosmology to find
out what’s visible in tonight’s night sky!
ACADEMIC CITATION TUTORING BY CALYXA
Unsure about how to properly attribute your sources? I was recommended by Dean Moonwriter as
a tutor in academic citation. If I don’t know off
the top of my head how to properly attribute your
sources, I know where and how to find out! Email
me at: HYPERLINK “/mc/compose%3Fto=greys
[email protected]”greyschool@calyxa.
best.vwh.net and please include “GSW citation
help” in the subject header.
24
WHISPERING GREY MATTERS
Is
There Another Earth?
By Silver Raven
The existence of other habitable planets has been
on mankind’s collective minds for years, maybe even
centuries. We know that our Earth is a “diamond in
the rough” in our Solar System. But could there be
other planets like ours out there? Scientists around
the world have been trying to answer this question.
Let’s look at how extra-solar planets are discovered. We know that planets do not make their own
light. They rely on their host stars for that. Basically, this makes it hard to spot them. It’s kind of
like looking for a needle in a haystack. This means
we must find them using other means. Astronomers have developed four ways to hunt for planets.
Each way is very different, and lengthy to explain.
As such, I will only mention each type in this piece.
We have Doppler Shift, Astrometric Measurement,
Transit, and Gravitational Microlensing. Each of these
methods have been proven to work. So much so that
we have discovered well over 300 extra-solar planets.
Image: Another Earth by Calyxa
12
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24
If you’d like to learn more about these methods, feel
free to visit the links in the article resources below.
So far, most of the planets that have been found are extremely large; larger even than mighty Jupiter. There
have been, in recent years, the discovery of smaller,
rocky planets like ours. But we aren’t sure if these are
habitable. More research is needed on this subject.
Maybe in a Galaxy far, far away, there is another planet like Earth. Maybe ours is an anomaly, existing only here. Only time, and research,
can answer these questions. I, for one, will remain hopeful that another planet like ours will be
found. I hope after reading this and other articles
like this, that you will hope for the same thing.
Resources:
Nasa
2009 http://planetquest.jpl.nasa.gov/science/science_index.cfm
Nasa 2009 http://planetquest.jpl.nasa.gov/science/
finding_planets.cfm
WHISPERING GREY MATTERS
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ISSUE
We Just Do What We Do:
My Life as an Ant
Sapphire Soleil
This is a true story.
While working at my desk in the College of Education one day, the subject of life on other planets came up.
One of our masters students piped up:
“There is no life on other planets,” he said with a voice of absolute authority.
I just stared at him for a moment and started to laugh.
“What makes you say that?” I asked when I got myself under control again.
“They would have contacted us by now. No one has, so there is no life on other planets.”
He was completely serious. I tried to explain my point of view regarding extraterrestrial worlds and he just
kept saying no, no, no. Eventually, I gave up. When someone is that adamant, changing their opinion is
an exercise in futility. But I was amazed that a person training to be an educator (and not only that but a
science educator) could have such a closed mind on any idea. What happened to the scientific process? As
far as I know no one has disproved life on other worlds, even if it hasn’t been absolutely proven either.
As I walked home that night, still pondering his answer, I purposely lifted my foot over a trail of ants making
their way down the same path I was taking. I stopped and looked at those ants. They did not notice me.
They were busy doing what ants do. Did they even think about other life around them? Probably not (well,
not until the moment it is about to kill them.) Here I was, a “higher” species with a capacity for rationale
thought and self-awareness. I saw the ant, but could I, with my huge brain in comparison to that ant, communicate with it? Nope. I could not tell them to move out of the human path for their own safety, nor could
I direct them to a better source of food. For all my “greater intelligence” I couldn’t communicate with an
ant. I could but observe them and try not to kill them.
I wished that masters student had been present. I would have said. “Look, I can’t speak to an ant!! Maybe
we are ants to another world’s inhabitants. They are observing us, but we are so much smaller they can’t
even let us know they exist. We just keep doing what we do, in ignorance of their presence.”
I always wonder what he would have said to that.
COSMOLOGY TUTORING BY SILVER RAVEN
Have you ever gazed at the nighttime sky, and wondered what else is out there? Have
you looked at the classes here at GSW, and told yourself that you’d never get those
parts of Magick?
If you answered yes to either question, then do I have a service for you.
Greetings to all, I am Silver Raven. I am a Cosmology Major, and your Cybermage of
Support. I have accepted the role of Tutor within the Office of Cosmology. Together with
a few other dedicated individuals, the Dean of Cosmology included, we look into the
Heavens for guidance.
If you have an assignment related to Cosmology, or within its many fields of interest,
and feel like you can’t get anywhere with it, come see me. Click on the Office of Cosmology, and look around for my Help Desk.
I wish everyone a great Samhain, and may the Cosmos guide you always.
24
WHISPERING GREY MATTERS
14
ISSUE
Photo by Relache
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WHISPERING GREY MATTERS
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24
OUT OF
THIS WORLD
SQUASH
by Relache
4 saucer squash (aka scallop or patty pan squash)
1 Tbsp. extra virgin olive oil
1 clove of garlic, mince or pressed
1⁄2 C. onion, diced
3/4 C. soft bread crumbs
1/4 C. Parmesan cheese, grated
1/4 C. crumbled bacon or diced chicken (optional)
Salt and pepper
Directions:
1. Preheat the oven to 350° F.
2. Cooking the squash - Put about an inch of
water in a saucepan and bring to a boil. Put in
the squash, cover and cook until they are just
tender, about 10 minutes. Pierce with a knife
to test.
3. Making the saucers - When squash are done,
removed from sauce pan. You will want to trim
just a little bit off the bottom of the squash with
a sharp knife so that they can sit upright on a
plate. Slice off a little of the top and save aside,
then scoop out the insides using a small spoon
or melon baller, being careful not to break or
crack the squash shell. Leave the shell 1/4” to
1/2” thick. Save the squash you scoop out, as
it is used in the stuffing. Put squash shells on a
baking sheet and set aside.
4. Making the stuffing - If you are going to do
the bacon or chicken variation, cook that first,
crumbling the bacon or dicing the chicken when
done, and set aside. In a clean skillet, heat the
olive oil and then cook the onion until it turns
translucent. Then add the garlic and cook until
the garlic gets really fragrant (about a minute).
If you are doing bacon or chicken, add at this
point. Add the squash that got scooped out of
the shells and cook the mixture for one to two
minutes. Turn off the heat, then add the bread
crumbs and Parmesan cheese and mix all together. Add salt and pepper to taste.
5. Stuff the squash - Get your baking tray of
squash shells and gently fill them with the
stuffing mixture. You want each squash to be
overfilled a bit. For the final baking, cover the
stuffed squash loosely with some aluminum foil
and then slide the tray into the pre-heated oven
and bake for about 15 minutes. You want everything to get heated all the way through.
6. When you serve the squash, put the tops
back on for a decorative touch.
TUTORING BY OBSIDIANSTORM JAGUAR
ObsidianStorm Jaguar
Lore Major/Divination Minor
As a University graduate, I offer Grey School students my expertise in a wide range of essay related
skills, including proofreading papers; formatting
reference lists and inserting images into papers. I
take the time to work closely with each student and
give each paper or project the attention it deserves.
I am also happy to recommend additional sources
to the students if it will help them.
WHISPERING GREY MATTERS
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24
RISING SIGN
Book 1 of The Star Child Trilogy
by Starwynd Panther
(writing as Jared R. Lopatin)
First Edition: May 2009. Available at starchildtrilogy.com in a special edition and at Amazon in both printed and Kindle editions.
Review by silverlocke
The prologue grips us with the introduction of
an enigmatic phrase uttered as prophecy, “When
thousand spins of Terra twins ...” A little girl named
Sereny records the phrase in her spiral notebook
as her mother speaks them while in a trance-like
state and later, asks her, “What does it mean?”
Her mother responds for the first time since having the vision, “It means that it is starting.”
Tim Dalis seems an ordinary enough young man
with an apartment and a cat and people who give
him grief at his job. His friend Nell (although preoccupied with a new boyfriend) tries to cheer him
up by taking him to a reading by a psychic (named
Sereny) where he learns about Astrology and the
existence of The Gathering, a group formed to
not only watch for the appearance of the Signs-eleven other people like Tim who happened to
have been born with ten planets under their sun
sign and known collectively as The Guardians-but also for the Star Child who will be born when
each planet will be in its natural sign and each
sign will be in its natural house.
And then one night after discovering his cat has
run off, Tim meets the first of the other Guardians
and is whisked into a whirlwind of activity and
action as The Gathering expends all its powers to
collect the twelve Signs, fight Merel and the Astranihl, and to locate and protect the Star Child.
Oh, and along the way he finds his cat, strangely
transformed and much more communicative.
If this first volume is any indicator, readers of the
trilogy are in for a very enjoyable, imminently
readable, fast-paced, action-adventure fantasy
set within the vast cosmic framework of Magick
and Astrology.
WHISPERING GREY MATTERS
17
ISSUE
The
Wizard’s Grotto
by Relache
Do you expect to see Gollum from the Lord of the Rings when you look at this picture? It
does seem like a perfect home for him. What you are viewing isn’t another world, it’s the
“Wizard’s Grotto,” part of the Lost River section of the Lehman Caves National Monument
in Nevada. In 1965, a movie called “The Wizards of Mars” was partially filmed in the cave.
This low-budget, space adventure was a take-off of the Wizard of OZ, where four astronauts (Dorothy, Steve, Charlie, and Doc) journey to Mars. The underground grotto was
the set for the planet Mars.
To learn more, you might like:
http://www.nps.gov/grba/historyculture/lehman-caves-national-monument.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wizard_of_Mars
24
WHISPERING GREY MATTERS
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24
A Report from your
GSW Captains
by Sapphire Soleil
Greetings to all at Grey School!
A new school term is upon us and the school fairly buzzes with excitement and study. The Equinox saw the bi-annual changeover of
Captains and Prefects. We’d like to send our heartfelt THANKS to
our outgoing Captain Mysty for her marvelous work for GSW over
the past year. Captain’s Terms take a year to complete and there is
always so much happening it is hard to keep up, but Mysty made it
all seem so easy. Big shoes to step into, but she blazed a clear and
steady path to sail on. Thanks Cap’n!
I would also thank House Captain Raistlin Loreseeker for a continuing job well done and new Vice Captain Aamber Phoenix who is
already ready to take the helm of the good ship Grey School.
Also a hearty “well done” to our outgoing prefects: Calyxa (Stones)
Artemis Gryphon Snowhawk (Winds) Borkya (Waters) Laneth
(Flames) Crystalfire (Gnomes) Tree Nymph (Undines) and to two
who are continuing: Dragon of Anubis (Salamanders) and X-Wolf
the White (Sylphs).
And lastly, Welcome! To the new prefects! Snoopy Alchemist (Stones)
Swirlsdancing (Winds) Earth Song (Waters) and Nydia (Flames) Let
me tell you, these folks are active and ready to tackle any issue as
well as lead us in some fun activities in the next six months.
Thanks and Welcome Everyone!
Sapphire Soleil
Captain, Grey School of Wizardry
WHISPERING GREY MATTERS
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ISSUE
Cosmology Class Pre-view:
December 21, 2012
By Belenus
As Dean of the Cosmology department at Grey
School, I am always thinking about what classes
would be relevant for our students. During a discussion with some other faculty one evening, we came
up with the idea for a class on the subject of December 21, 2012, the future date that many prophecies
have picked out as a time of tremendous change for
us on our planet.
The subject of this class will encompass many ideas
and areas of study. Well just take a look at the description Rilana and I came up with. She is co-writing
the class with me:
The class will cover the prophecies about the date
of December 21, 2012 and the implications of those
prophecies. The class will review the historical records of these prophecies and the mythologies of the
cultures in which they occur, as well as the astronomical science involved in the predictions about this
future time on planet Earth.
The history of the use of astrology and other methods used by prophets such as Nostradamus and
Edgar Cayce will be examined, as well as modern
astrological interpretations of the date. The use of
math, modern science, and current world trends will
be covered as they relate to the prophecies and predictions about the importance of this date, and the
question of whether it is likely to be a “doomsday”
scenario vs. a transitional period for humanity’s spirituality will be examined.
Modern Astrological Interpretations
That same evening, I took a look at the chart of the
date from the location of Washington, DC. The reason for this location is that according to many astrologers, what happens at the location of important
cities and centers, can be extrapolated to the rest
of the country or world more easily. The District of
Columbia is arguably the power center of the world,
currently.
Taken out of the conversation, this is what I saw that
evening in the chart for that date.
It doesn’t look like any ordinary day at all! There
is a Yod (a planetary configuration for a fated day)
involving two of the malefics, Pluto and Saturn, with
the object of the Yod being Jupiter. The other Malefic, Mars is found in the house of death and endings. The Sun is square Uranus, the Sun being the
most important point in a chart (the self) and it is
in a hard aspect to Uranus the planet of sudden and
drastic change and revolution. The moon is in Aries
that day a moon of war or at least lots of energy and
impatience.
The slow moving planets involved in the Yod are in
almost exact aspect, just a few minutes off among
the three. That is highly unusual, and the object (the
problem to be solved) is Jupiter and it’s found in the
fourth house of the home. If home here is the world
and the tools to solve the problem involve, power,
death, time, and limitations, we have a recipe for a
very important day indeed.
There is much more, but I’ll save it for the class.
Hope to see you there!
24
WHISPERING GREY MATTERS
Oregon
Conclave
2009
by Moonwriter
The third Oregon Conclave took
place on August 10-14, 2009 at
Silver Falls State Park in Oregon’s
Cascade mountains. Led by planners Flamekeeper and Kalla, the
event was a rousing success and
a vast amount of fun. Grab your
Time-Turners and give them a spin
or two, taking you back to ….
20
ISSUE 24
Monday, August 10. We checked in on a sunny
afternoon, greeting old friends and other times exchanging first hugs with new ones. Participating
this year were Calyxa, Catafreyja, Corvin, Ebon
Hawke, Feriluce, Flamekeeper, Glanecia, Jymi x/0,
Kalla, Psylchi, Relache, Rainmaker, Rowan Sylvanus, Stargazer, Treeotter, and three canines: Owen,
Ringo, and Sadie. Check-in involved the issuance of
color ties and Conclave field guides for all, as well
as selecting campsites among the sky-high Douglas-fir trees covering the site. It was fun watching
everyone get set up. Moonwriter put up her walkin Hobbitat, Relache festooned her small tent with
gorgeous strings of Goddess flags, and Stargazer
created an entire camping complex, guarded by
Stanley the Gnome. Later in the week Stargazer
could be heard shouting, “Hey you kids—get off my
lawn!”
Our evening campfire followed the “Earth” element
and featured a mini-ritual of thanks, in which we
added our own ashes and home earths to the communal fire pit. We took time for star study and settled into our tents for an excellent night’s sleep, the
sounds of the forest close around us.
Tuesday, August 11. Classes began! Moonwriter
led a Nature Studies internship and taught nature
journaling. Rainmaker once again taught her Conclave chants class, and Kalla did a terrific introduction to Icon Magick. Dinnertime found everyone
back in Rainmaker’s campsite, where she taught the
miracle of the one-pot camp meal, i.e., her famous
Mulligan Stew. Relache led the evening campfire,
following the “Air” element. The festivities included
singing, music, and a ritual of “letting go.” It rained
in camp that evening, but the rain came and went
quickly, and we escaped pretty much unscathed.
WHISPERING GREY MATTERS
Wednesday, August 12. What a fun day! Flamekeeper taught a fabulous set of classes, including
ritual basics, defensive techniques, spell writing on
the fly, and a participatory class on circle energy.
During the day, Conclavians worked on class projects
and outdoor tasks, including individual service projects toward their Nature Studies Internships. Calyxa
shared her Elemental Hexagons deck, which was fascinating.
The Wednesday evening campfire featured the element of “Water.” We held a bardic circle and allowed
time to “Ask the Elders.” We also held a water-sharing ceremony in Oberon’s honor, and asked for healing for him, Morning Glory, and our absent friend
Aaran’s brother, Scott.
Thursday, August 13. After a morning Nature Studies session, Flamekeeper taught a class on “paying
attention.” Then everyone trooped into the lodge
kitchen for Rainmaker’s class on magickal eggs, including natural dyes and making “spelled eggs.” Next
up was Jymi with a fabulous presentation on Quantum Physics; this was videotaped and has since been
made into a GSW class. Wrapping up the class day
came Kalla with a session on energy techniques:
gathering, directing, and grounding. Treeotter went
missing at one point—we found her about fifteen feet
up a tree. So much for grounding!
As always, one of the best parts of Conclave was
the chance to simply hang out with fellow magickal
people. We spent as much time with heads together
over cups of coffee or relaxing in conversation next
to the fire as we did in classes. At any moment, one
might be talking tool craft with Rainmaker, dark arts
with Kalla, protective magicks with Catafreyja, alchemy with Relache, or the merits of wearing Ughs
and prom dresses (together!) with Treeotter, also
fondly known to us as Cabinet Girl.
21
ISSUE
The last night in camp is traditionally a time of Conclave ceremony, and this was no exception. We began with a stupendous potluck feast, then donned
magickal garb for our closing campfire. We honored
the “Fire” element, bringing the week’s energy to a
peak as we shared good times, exchanged gifts, and
presented awards and recognitions. The evening featured an Ordo Erronum induction, with Stargazer being tapped for membership. Flamekeeper and Kalla
handed out awards to everyone and began a brand
new northwestern Conclave tradition, the presentation of the “Wizarding Weiner.” This wizard-garbed
dachshund figure was declared a spirit award and
presented to Rowan Sylvanus, along with the charge
to return next year and present it to another Conclavian. Moonwriter capped off the evening with a
Dutch oven peach cobbler, after which we sat around
visiting as the fire ebbed into coals.
On Friday morning, we met after breakfast for our
closing ceremonies, honoring the element of “Spirit.”
Kalla led a poignant ritual and then we signed Grimoires and scooped up shares of the campfire ashes.
We broke camp, everyone pitching in to help everyone else and to police the entire campground. In a
final moment together, we instituted what will surely
become a northwestern Conclave tradition; the sacred “I’m a Little TeaPot” ritual. Nothing more may
be said of this—it is secret knowledge of the highest
sort, kept safe by those who were there.
Leaving was bittersweet…. But it was
time to go, and we knew we’d see each
other again in 2010. As Flamekeeper
wrote in a beautiful poem on the last
page of our Conclave field guides, “My
soul tells me it’s time to begin the long
journey home.”
24
WHISPERING GREY MATTERS
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24
2009 new
york
conclave
i
s a wrap!
by Artemis Gryphon SnowHawk
The 2009 New York Conclave was a great
place to be in August - despite the flooding
that threatened us all! The Great Blue Heron site was magnificent, including the Festival of Lights held during our stay. Conclave
participants were asked to don magickal
regalia and walk the path during the Festival. We could speak about our garb, school
or anything else to those who attended the
Festival. Some of us didn’t have cloaks with
us, but were able to wear cloaks thanks to
the ‘closets’ of Luna Bear and Farielover!
The Festival was absolutely beautiful thanks
to those who helped string lights and clear
paths while the rest of us went to Lily Dale.
No class was more important than the LBRP
and Elemental Connections which tied together with three rituals. One was for the
Head Masters’ operating team to have
steady hands. The second was to see Oberon through the operation safely and to heal
well. The last was held on one of the last
nights of the Conclave, with the four defensors leading the LBRP.
Movie night was exciting. ‘Camping’ out on
the stage and watching Race to Witch Mountain we snacked on leftovers. Next year,
we’ll have pizza!
No one seemed to mind taking kitchen duty.
Lily Dale is a community founded in 1879 by We rotated so each day was a new pair of
the Fox sisters of Rochester, New York for people making the meals, cleaning up and
those interested in spiritualism. The most keeping everyone happy with food.
powerful experience while there happened
while visiting a place in Lily Dale called In- Fire tenders diligently made the fire each
spiration Stump. You can feel the magick night (after the rains, of course) and Fariwhile standing near this stump. It is a won- elover made use of these fires. She was the
derful little town filled with psychics, me- official fire-keeper and s’mores-maker exdiums, spiritualists, shops and a wonderful traordinaire.
library right on the lake!
Our last fire was emotional; no one was eaClasses were plentiful. We made manda- ger to part. We all promised to meet at the
las so everyone could take a piece of the same place next year!
other Conclavians home. We made beautiful
wands or staffs thanks to Zu Dragonfly Elm; New York Conclave 2010 will be held again
the herb walk helped us learn how to look at at the Great Blue Heron from July 26 to Authings in more than one way - such as wood gust 1, 2010. Bring your regalia!!! A day trip
sorrel, which many of us took to be clover.
to Niagara Falls and another movie night are
in the plans!
Photo by Jymi X/0
WHISPERING GREY MATTERS
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24
Whispering Grey Matters
is a quarterly publication created
by and for the students and faculty of the
Grey School of Wizardry.
JOIN US!
We’re always looking for talented
artists and writers to add to our staff!
Bring your...
ideas!
artwork!
imagination!
...and pizza!
Contact one of our friendly, not-at-all-scary
Faculty Advisors today:
Professor Moonwriter
[email protected]
or
Jymi X/0
[email protected]
