Memetic Engineer: Interview with author Elizabeth Barrette

"Memetic engineering comes from "meme" (a transmittable idea) and "engineering" (conscious design of structures and processes). I come up with new ideas; I also identify extant ideas that are worthy of promotion; and I devise ways of making them concise, sticky, and leggy. A well-crafted meme is a tiny little gem of a thing, like a gene; it sticks in people's minds and travels far, replicating itself as it goes.



Here's an example of my work as a memetic engineer: I started with the extant idea, "You can't keep spending money like water." There's a shortage of fresh water in the world, and people often fail to be careful and conservative with it. You can blather at them all day and change nobody's mind -- but a meme might do the trick. So I flipped the concepts: "You can't keep spending water like money." It makes the brain go, "Wait -- WHAT?" It's unexpected. But then you start thinking of how water can be "spent," and how very profligate some people are with money. We create money; we can print more of it if the money we have is insufficient for the economy's needs. We can't make more water; if we waste it, we're in trouble. People are used to conserving things that must be "spent" so putting money in that category helps them take it more seriously."

Read the entire interview and Elizabeth's poetry at the Elodrym Library.


http://elodrym. org/elibrary/index. php?option=com_content&task=view&id=72&Itemid=30

Mount Diablo State Park
Juniper Campground (Ask for us at check in.)
3 PM Friday, May 2 - 11 AM Sunday, May 4
Cost: State Park camping fees

Spend the weekend with other magickal folks at one of the ecological treasures of the San Francisco Bay Area.
Maypole Ritual, storytelling, hiking, spontaneous activities and relaxation.

Please bring your camping gear. All meals are potluck so bring food to share. Register before April 15th by emailing elodrym@elodrym.org

Limited space is available at the Elodrym reserved site. Staying in this camp will be around $5 share of cost. It is recommended you reserve a site now if you want a separate area.

Mt. Diablo Information http://www.parks.ca.gov/?page_id=517

Campsites booked through Reserve America.

Instructor: Myrddin Masery - BA in Mass Communications and a minor in religion from Southeast Missouri State Univserity. Masery has taught spirituality and mysticism since 1998. More information at www.elodrym.org/myrddin.htm
Location: http://elodrym.suddenlaunch3.com
Course Length: three months (12 lessons)
Dates: May 5th - July 25th, 2008
Cost: $90
Course fees will be donated to the creation of the Elodrym Mage Academy.
Other fees: DVD rental or purchase

This is a fun and easy course!

Course includes viewing DVDs, reading an online cinema guide, and participating in the weekly class discussions.

The class begins with film definitions and the basics of film analysis. The course includes four films chosen by the instructor and students vote on three other films. Some films are in French, English, and African native languages. Foreign films include subtitles.  After viewing a film the students participate in a discussion of the spiritual themes and the techniques used to portray it. In the final weeks, students will present cases for their nominees for best actor, actress, director, documentary and film. Winners will be chosen by the class.

Instructor's Picks:

War/Dance - nominated for best documentary 2008 Beliefnet Film Awards
Into the Wild - Emile Hirsch won best actor  2008 Beliefnet Film Awards
Angel-A
Touching the Sound

Movies to vote on:
Dark Crystal
Legend
Matrix
Atonement - nominated for 2008 Beliefnet Film Awards
Juno - nominated for 2008 Beliefnet Film Awards
Amazing Grace - nominated for 2008 Beliefnet Film Awards
Cider House Rules
American Beauty

For more information on these films visit www.beliefnet.com/bfa/ and the International Movie Database www.imd.com

Enroll with Masery email=masery76@sbcglobal.net

Creating your daily spiritual path.

Strengthen the mind, body, spirit connection through discussion, meditation, music, movement

and much more.

Four Gatherings starting Sat., April 5

7:30 - 8:30 PM @ the Sacred Grove

For Women Ages 18 and Over    

 $20 suggested offering

924 Soquel Avenue in Santa Cruz, between Pine Street and Pennsylvania Avenue

Hosted by Masery and Syprus from The Order of the Elodrym. www.elodrym.org/myrddin.htm

    masery76@sbcglobal.net

(831)459-8612

The Seven Principles of Magick as taught by the Elodrym.

The Principle of Attraction
The Principle of Polarity
The Principle of Return
The Principle of Unity
The Principle of Manifestation
The Principle of Harmony
The Principle of Power


The Principle of Return
"All things return to where they initially began. Now while this can mean a physical place, it generally means a situation or state of being. For example, a living being is made up of the materials found within nature around them, i.e. the atoms and molecules that were in the food you eat and the air you breathe eventually come to make up the physical body you inhabit as your body uses the material to grow and repair. Eventually however, in physical death, all of that material is returned to the natural system from which it came to be used again by other life.
However, in a spiritual sense, the return is not a circle, but more of a spiral, in that the journey we take along our path in life changes us, and so when we return to our origin (which could be a situation or state of being) we are changed by our journey, and so that which was once familiar is, by our change in perspective, once again new to us, and we are given to react differently than we once did, because though the situation may be the same, we are no longer who we once were. We have returned to our origins, but we are not the same as the person who originally left." Myrddins Arkayne Magii and Masery

February 2007 was my first year at Pantheacon and my first time at a West African inspired ritual. I attended an ancestors reverence ritual with Uzuri Amini and Vance Williams priest and priestess of the Ifa tradition and faculty members of the School of Ancient Mysteries/Sacred Arts Center in Oakland, California. Louisa Teish, author and priestess, was there to teach the songs and dances.
At this ritual, Uzuri lead us through a visualization to meet our ancestors. In the otherworld, I was greeted by grandfathers I knew and many other ancestors I had never met. They offered overwhelming support and healing. They asked me to end the lineage of suffering that had coursed through my family. It was important for my healing and for the healing of others to come was their reasoning for doing so but they didn't explain how I was to do this. When Uzuri brought the participants back to the physical world, I shook and sobbed. I knew what my ancestors where talking about. My sisters, mother, and I had survived years of physical and mental abuse and to keep up appearances, my family didn't talk about it.
Uzuri consoled me when the ritual was over. My ancestors had opened all of my chakras to start the healing process. I was lit up and hyperventilating. Uzuri helped me control my energy flow and refocus. I told her about what had happened in my family. She advised me to start wearing light colors and to take a long hot shower then sleep with white wrapped around my head that night. I went back to my room and took a long hot shower. I cried and begged my ancestors to help me know what to do! I felt their hands supporting me, moving black energy out of my body as light poured in up through my feet and down through my crown chakra. I didn't have anything white, so I slept with a towel around my head.
I went on as usual, doing some daily mantras, thinking I would be fine and the cord of pain would dissolve on its own. Finally in late February, I became severely depressed and felt empty and lost. I went to urgent care sobbing saying I couldn't cope anymore with what had happened to me. I was put on anxiety medication and told to take some time from work. I went out on disability and joined a survivors healing group. Slowly, I began to loose my fear and gain confidence.
I reached out to my uncles and told them everything that had happened. What I got in return was support and understanding. My mother and grandmother spent a week with me in the summer and we cried and hugged and made amends. My mother had been silent because she didn't think I wanted to speak of the horrible events and I hadn't spoken with her about them for the same reason! I eventually confronted my father, and though he is in denial, I healed from speaking my truth.
At Pantheacon this year, I attended "Olokun - Finding Your Treasure Within the Deep". Again I was lead through the ritual by Uzuri, Vance, and Luisa. This time on a journey to the bottom of the sea, Olokun the divine deep, presented me with a mirror so that I could see all of my parts and reconcile who I thought I was with who I truly am. She knew I had done the healing work. I was no longer hiding in shadow afraid of the world. I was stepping out and the next step was to adore who I was. She also gave me and old book of knowledge and strands and strands and strands of gold and pearls. I grabbed all of them and tried swimming to the surface but I was weighed down until I agreed to share. The treasure became light as a feather and I broke the ocean's surface. The pearls and gold transformed into the sunset. Golden light blazed across the sky and reflected off the ocean. "All is radiance." I thought and I knew it was my life's path to share this radiance through teaching, which is what the book represented.
I recently went to urgent care because of a sore throat. The same doctor greeted me with a smile. "How are you?" He asked. It had been almost a year to the day that I had seen him last. "I am doing so much better!" I exclaimed.
I was back at the beginning. The place where I first admitted I needed healing and I couldn't do it alone. This time I wasn't drowning in emotions of despair and endless silence. I was confident and had found happiness. The secrets are now stories of strength and power. I am thirty one and I feel that my life is just beginning. I can be who I want to be. I can love all of me.