I was drawn here by a cursory search for Blair Mackenzie Blake, and found your post on his “Collecting Crowley”. Your tone was refreshing, and I’ve found myself drawn in here.

This latest post strikes a chord with me – that is to say, I’ve been feeling less like a chord, and more like some incidental noise in the cosmic backdrop. Daily reality is commonly plagued by the echoes of a more harmonious time not so long ago, when I regularly acknowledged myself as a denizen of a spiritual ecosystem, and not simply a Tool in perpetual need of the human mechanism. For what is the Tool without its machines?

I believe similarly to you, if you’ll forgive my presumption, this disconnect is not so much experienced in a depressing light, but more as an impatience at my lack of Discipline (harkening to another of your posts from last year). It is not enough to uncover secrets, they must be harnessed and acted upon. It’s not enough to breath and eat, lest we become the self-victims of our own inertia. To be governed by that Inertia, the great Saturnian force, we are given over to the least of ourselves, chained but not bound, blinded but not unseeing.

I’m a writer myself, and I’d posit that a dialogue between two seemingly like-minded initiates would benefit the both of us. Even some of my closest friends who are familiar with the arcane, also writers, I find myself unfortunately discontent with their verbage, not to mention their pretention. I’ve enjoyed your posts so far, and found you void in the latter.

Otherwise, let this simply be a sign-post on your journey : I think you’re headed the right way, friend.

~Daniel

Mostly I get people comparing the 2S to Kill Bill. The Vengeful Bride is an archetype that needs more exploration someday.

There are interesting discussions and essays over at The Association for Renaissance Martial Arts (http://www.thearma.org/)

Also, I’m not sure of the pedigree of Icelandic Glima and its derivatives, but definitely worth looking into wrestling and boxing as it was spread among the Germanics as well as the Graeco-Romans. The Classical Olympic Games and Medieval Tournaments are both awesome to follow. The Heroes of Antiquity!