"The Faerytale Brigade" – February 10, 2002

It was then I heard the Call, to head out on the Questto Trust the song that sat within, the beat within my chestAnd so I said goodbye to friends and promised I’d returnwith the magic in my grasp, the treasure I would earn

The Quest begins in New York in 2002, where James Vogel and I were part of a group of avatars of Story I coined ‘The Fairytale Brigade’. After many years of difficulty trying to make sense of the World, I had arrived back in the city.

It was challenging. I felt raw on the World. Awash in a flush of energies and nearly constant drowning, where I struggled to navigate my way through a sensate overwhelm that was both the source of my sanctity and my suffering. It was as if I lived in another dimension. A facet of reality rare and tumultuous, holding within it the traps and treasures of a more subtle experience.

At this time I had a deep brother by the name of James Vogel, sharing with me a devotional passion for the nature of Story.

We shared a sense of the magics that underlay the World. One where the elemental intelligence of Gaia pushed through the fog of forget.

I had such deep admiration for the brigade. After so many years of trying to make sense of the world, here was a set of avatars that embodied the energies of Story. That forged worlds of wonder in the realms of film and sculpture. In them, I saw the manifestation of the Goddess of Story, each wielding an aspect of Her grace and glory in their own unique way. They didn’t know it, but they were the first beings i’d encountered in many years who I sensed walked the line between magic and mundanity, who opened windows through their very presence.

While each of the members of the brigade had their own magic, it was with James Vogel that I had the deepest connection, a sense of brotherhood and shared kinship in the realms of magic and faerie that were more real to me than the so-called “civilized” world. Like myself, he had an amazing ability to shapeshift, to become different aspects of himself. Over time we were in nearly constant contact, finding our way through the endless labyrinth of adventures that lay within the great city of New York.

It should be said – photography was just about the only thing I could do. Flickering through the dimensions as I did, I could not land in the world. Could not understand the most basic aspects of society. I moved through another dimension of life, a world within the world defined by ever-shifting tides of sensation that I could barely comprehend. It was as I was listening to a cacaphony of music made of color, hammering and shaping me in the tides. My world was an elemental thing made of primal gravities where I struggled to find a sense of grounding, and photography, requiring only a lightningbolt moment of clarity, was my salvation. A way of somehow tracking the shifting tides and timbres of my self.

Characters Appearing in this Episode

James Vogel

Burke Hefner

Veronica Varlow

Zina Brown

OLD CONTENT

– Encountering the crew of James, Burke, Zina, Tara-Lee & associated Seth Trucks and others in NYC, feeling the energy of story around them, a texture of storytelling that felt familiar and comfortable to me. A touchstone with what I would come to call the Commonwealth. Witnessing them creating magics which layered their own world onto the cityscape, and feeling myself as a character within those worlds. The realities within the reality. It was here i'd encounter the Dollhouse, feeling the energies of that multidimensional space, that sense of Gods and Heroes existing here and now.

Looking back, I see how my experience with the characters of the Faerytale Brigade was an initiation, a sense of moving from the imaginal space of mythos deeper into it's actuality. There was a different sensation here, one that sank into the earth, that shaped it's skins and costumes, that moved through a pulse of storytale which had felt stronger, deeper. More embodied in the mythos of life's mysteries. I had felt a certain kinship here, one that related to the sense of Story which had defined my life. (this deeply relates to

- The Fairytale Brigade –Confusion & overwhelm in New York city, major anger & flickering. Recognition that I must do something else in order to survive.
- Knowing the deeper magick is out there and choosing to leave the City
- Overwhelmed in New Yorke, feeling the chaos and confusion. Flickering between realms. Barely able to hold consistency.
- Encountering Delerium in the fields
- Wandering through Central Park and other areas, feeling the Deva Loci of New York, feeling York herself, the people as movements of her substance
- Going to comic book stores on the regular, feeling the underlying texture of the prana

The Fairytale Brigade

2002 – Leaving Yorke

“The Faerytale Brigade“

The Faerytale Brigade. A group of artisans thick with the energies of magick. It is 2002, in the great city of New Yorke; and the air is thick with Story.

These were, for me, realms of such madness. Such confusion. Endless thunderstorms touched by moments of clarified lightning. Places where I could See, and many places where I could not.

I had a best friend, here; an artist by the name of James Vogel. A masterful sculptor living in a faerie sanctuary in the middle of New Yorke. As well, there was what I called the Faerytale Brigade; a group of artisans all of whom radiated the energies of Story. A familiar flame; flickering but constant, of a sense of community and togetherness.

Looking back, I see the larger Pattern; how these were the current forms, the current incarnate bodies of a group of avatars of Story; converging together in the Big Apple.

(more text on this)

"The Story's there, across the lines, always there inside of time, feel it as the work Divine, telling tales in verse and rhyme."

"The King is dead. Long live the King." I said, as the journey began. It was 2002. The towers had fallen, and chaos ruled. My father had died, leaving me a small fortune. I wandered the streets of New Yorke, lost in the madness of the drift. A ghost upon the World.

My life was chaos then, barely able to relate to the ways in which the human condition operated. Everything was alien to me, shifting and changing. I could not function in the Commonwealth. It was as if the nature of the thing distant, and barely understandable. It had been this way most of my life, a strangeness of character, as if I did not belong or could not understand the modern World.

I was fortunate though, to have a wealthy family, that arranged for me to have an apartment and a small amount of money for food and bills. It sustained me, yet left me alone in the dust and detritus of a barely occupied form. I realize now, only after fourteen years of journey and a encyclopedia's worth of personal healing practices, that I simply could not land in the human condition. That the splinter in my Heart was so great that I could not live in my body. In this place and this planet.

Even then, my nature was evident. I spent much time alone, or connecting with the deva, the elemental spirits of the City. Their voices spoke to me from the trees and the streetlights, in the mirror neon from a rainy day. At the time, it did not occur to me that such was unordinary, yet I was naive then, inexperienced with the nature of awareness in the mortal condition.

Simultaneous, even then, I was surrounded by avatars of Story. A cadre of beings flush with the texture of Tale and Telling. Burke Hefner, Veronica Varlow, Zina Brown and my deep brother-angel, James Vogel. They were a sanctuary for me, as I strove to make sense of a strange World. I called us the "Faerytale Brigade", a hallmark of things yet to come.

Even then, I had a sense of the real World that underlay the shallows of surface awareness. The subtle imprints that defined our incarnations. Looking back, I am filled with the deep sense that I was always meant to create the Mythica, that I always Saw what was going on, even through the madness and detritus of my personal resolutions.

It was difficult. So much of life was chaos and confusion, pocketed by flickers of transcendent lightning. It was not so much that I was perpetually unhappy or happy, but rather a manic shift between the extremes of the Self.

A moment of dark amusement, as I wonder how a being so confused with the human condition could possible keep itself safe. Such was a shadowy time, in Yorke, where I drowned in the chaos of an untempered mind.

Yet still, I saw something. A Light that lay beneath the muddy footprints of our sleeping awareness. That there was a pattern, beneath the patterns fo our lives. A light, beneath the mud and madness of a World in crisis.

Such was a difficult time for me. I was angry so often, lost in the haze and madness of my own splintered mirror. It is the hallmark of the unrealized state that it does not realize it's own nature.Such was a difficult time for me. I was angry so often, lost in the haze and madness of my own splintered mirror. It is the hallmark of the unrealized state that it does not realize it's own nature.

Yet though I was confused, the pieces of my dharma were still present. Even then, I communed with the deva, the stones and spirits of the Land, wrought into the symbols and signposts of the City. Even though, wandering my fugue through what I would later call the realms of the Mythica. It was a sense of nascent divination, tracking my way across the realms of the hidden Worlds.

There was a sense of signs and portents hidden in plain sight. Omens and sigils that marked our progress on the journey. What would become the physics of the quest and the revelation of the sacred mirror playing out in flickers and light, was present, even then.

As I wandered through the City, It was another World that I saw. One of light beneath the layers, the underbelly of things not as they seemed to be, but what they were.

Even then, I felt more attuned to the realms of fae, of the deva, than to the human condition. James and I would spend endless happy hours, witnessing the unfoldment of our own artistry, sharing the alchemy of Light. I remember a time when the brigade made their way to the Central Park, one of the Hearts of the City.

With casual ease, Vogel brings out the faces of the deva from the rock. His talent is amazing. There is a sensation, hanging about him, of light passing through pigment and poise.

Such are not drawings alone, but revelations, showing the essence of the elementals, waiting to be seen by subtle eyes.

I remember seeing him then, with Zina upon the rock, my vantage flickering between how they appeared on the surface of awareness and the deeper vibrational truth.

NOTES

The Quest begins in New York in 2002, where James Vogel and I were part of a group of avatars of Story I coined 'The Fairytale Brigade'. After many years of difficulty trying to make sense of the World, I had arrived back in the city.

At this time I had a deep brother by the name of James Vogel, sharing with me a devotional passion for the nature of Story.

We shared a sense of the magics that underlay the World. One where the elemental intelligence of Gaia pushed through the fog of forget.

Such were the faces in the rock. The wisdom in the stones, the voices of the wind and the water. Even then, in the din and rumble of the city, such was my nature. The element of my form.

Yet I knew. There was another World. One that I could see when I was in the right shape. When my endless shifting brought me into the magical reality. A window into the Worlds.

It was a thing tied directly to the land. Even then, in the chaos and uncertainty of the early Quest, I Knew. I could feel the voice of the Goddess, the intelligence of the devas of the land. They were my natural language. The place that I called Home. To me, it was the trappings of the grey World, of right-angles and buried emotion, that was the illusion.

This was the quintessential Call to Adventure for me, in which I knew I had to leave the city, to find my way back to the Green, to the Natural World, to clear the chaos and confusion that was my constant treading through the overwhelm of my senses …

Such would be the beginning of my understanding, in which I would learn the physics of the quest and the nature of the akasha over many years of travel deeper into the Mythica.

Such were the faces in the rock. The wisdom in the stones, the voices of the wind and the water. Even then, in the din and rumble of the city, such was my nature. The element of my form.

Such would be the beginning of my understanding, in which I would learn the physics of the quest and the nature of the akasha over many years of travel deeper into the Mythica.

Yet I knew. There was another World. One that I could see when I was in the right shape. When my endless shifting brought me into the magical reality. A window into the Worlds.