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Saturday, March 7, 2026

Tales of the Sanctum: Era of the Spellbound - Episode 11: The Tarot Be Joined (Another new chapter March 7, 2026 11:59 EST)


Despite this storyline taking place mostly in Shepperton off the Thames, United Kingdom, it is entirely written in Moss Park, Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Shepperton is close to my heart in ideas rather than kilometers.


I am Brian Joseph Johns and this is Shhhh! Digital Media at https://www.shhhhdigital.com or https://www.shhhhdigital.ca in Toronto, Ontario, Canada at 200 Sherbourne Street Suite 701.


[Spellbound - Siouxie And The Banshees]



Do you like enigmatic characters, engrossing story, magic and the ever atemporal weave?

Play Baldur's Gate 3 [On Steam]


Chapters

  1.  An Unveiled Past - A Veiled Future
  2. Change Comes in Small Packages
  3. Gillie's Cards Speak
  4. Sanctum Meet - Compare Notes

This content is produced by the artists indicated on the site, including myself, Brian Joseph Johns.

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I'd like to point out that it was the incredible Gary Sinese Foundation that brought the issue of Veteran's rights to my attention. I've always had little respect for those who'd forget the great contribution made by those who've risked life and limb to defend those values that so many of us espouse. Perhaps the true measure of one's principles are by that for which they'd risk their life.

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In all truth, there's a good chance that thanks to the works of Edgar Allan Poe, Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain), William Shakespeare, Jane Austen, Jonathan Swift, Mary Shelley, Robert Louis Stevenson, Herbert George Wells, Jules Verne, Dr. Seuss, Stephen King, Clive Barker and Pierre Burton (for The Secret World Of Og and his ground breaking interview of Bruce Lee) that all of us are literate. Actually that goes back much farther to the Phoenecians and their first 22 character system of symbols. Literacy is important. Really it is. Literally. It allows us to approach our employer at the end of the week (with a big club) and ask: where my money?! Math important too. It help us count our thirteen fingers and toes.


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Brian Joseph Johns


Shhhh! Digital Media Presents:

Tales of the Sanctum: Era of the Spellbound - Episode 9: The Tarot Be Joined

by Brian Joseph Johns





 An Unveiled Past - A Veiled Future


Since the beginning of time, and our perception thereof. From the first moments that we became aware that something through which we ventured on this journey was forever ebbing away. Gone, regardless of the direction we took any step. Forward. Backward. To either side. Or even if we simply remained where we stood. Our time behind us was gone and the time ahead of us yet to come. Constantly in motion along an axis we could not yet perceive, even while we were perfectly still.


We realized that our vision allowed us to see things that had come to pass, for we could recollect them, and often did as dreams and nightmares. We relived them through our mind's eye. As memories of what had come and gone. Of the things we'd wished we'd done when we had the chance, or the things we'd wished we hadn't.


Regardless of this ability of recollection. Of reflection upon what had come and gone. We could never reflect upon what was to come.


And yet, if day has the night, and they seem so opposite to one another, and we can experience both, then why can't we remember the future like we can the past.


We started looking. Trying to find ways to do so. For clues in nature. In patterns. For a long time, we made headway in discerning the symbolic cues given us, but when it came to deciphering and wielding knowledge of what was to come, we made little progress.


And then, something remarkable happened. In the Mid and Far East of Asia. Where rapid progress had bought much time for the contemplation of the natural world. To the realization that there was a pattern to the way of things. There were clues for us hidden in the most obvious of places and deep within the darkest depths.




Recognizing patterns was our first clue, but what the East gave us was the ability to recognize their opposite. The opposite of pattern.


That which does not repeat in a discernably predictable manner, either in nature or in causality. There must be something that is not repetition, for its everywhere in nature, and yet there is something so similar about everything in nature despite its seeming dissimilarity.


Someone who noticed, heard the noise of a stream. The water trickling, and its sounds a garble of absence of any kind of pattern. The opposite of pattern or as very nearly as causality could produce. And yet others on the shores of the Pacific Ocean, who heard the sound of the crashing waves, became introduced to it as well.


They called it noise. Without pattern or structure. 


Without meaning or precedence.


Therefore, somewhere in between that noise, and pattern, there had to exist the clues of what was to come.


At first, philosophers who were ardent students of nature, observed the bubbles in their tea, and how  in each cup of tea, no matter how carefully poured, that there occurred the shapes of bubbles and they were different every time.




There was action upon form, and it yielded something between noise and pattern.


For many years these philosophers contemplated this, and observed nature and coincidence between the two, eventually adapting their manufactured noise and pattern into various different approaches and  with each of them, they slowly interpreted and adapted to a means of predicting change and its very nature.


Yarrow sticks were initially used, of a variety of possible lengths, and they were drawn without knowing their length, to form resolute noise and pattern and deciphered to interpret the nature of change.


The bleached bones of a bird were dropped to the dirt. The action of dropping them upon the form of the earth revealed noise and pattern and there within, predictions became visible to those who could read them.


Within this paradigm, a hidden language began slowly to reveal itself. Painstakingly meticulous, the observations of these first seers into the hidden language of the universe, and as if through osmosis, the same insights began arising in other parts of the world, and from many different cultures.


A vast secret of immense power was the ability to remove the veil from that which was to come.


In another part of the world, this noise and pattern and where they met, produced something else. The Portuguese arrived with it on the doorstep of Japan in the form of playing cards. Stuck in a trading port and in unfamiliar territory while awaiting repairs to their boat, the sailors of those ships had little else to do. And so they played cards with the Japanese workers of these ports, and taught them to gamble with the cards, and an immense spark was ignited at that moment that led to many other places within those same shores, and in each of the cards of their hand of their games were written that future. Regardless of it being a tool for gambling, it still held the secret language hidden between noise and pattern.




On  the other side of the world, where the crowned heads and the clergy of Europe bickered and often fought over the minds and real estate of Europe, perhaps from the same insight that had permeated the Far East of Asia, those craftsmen whose craft it was to make playing cards, began to notice the same thing about the nature of noise and pattern, especially as they were revealed through something so simple as the dealing of a hand.


They too began to explore the cards, realizing that each of these hands, whether they were part of a game or not, contained clues about the nature of what was to come. Many years passed and those who studied such phenomenon did so in secret, and in doing so, uncovered one of the greatest mysteries of the universe.


Some feared that power. Citing its birthplace in a deck whose primary use was for gambling, an activity highly regarded as the devil's claim. They of a more zealous origin who speculated that the origins of this hidden language were from hell itself, and the Satyr beast form of the devil, and with this idea gaining traction, it became dangerous to use cards for such purposes, except for those of the highest privilege in the land, who employed those who understood this language as their seers, while those of lesser resources and stock, were left to study in the darkness, trusting few with the knowledge of their practice of scrying, to avert the risks of being labeled as in league with the devil.



Through the ages, and through the courts of many royals, the cards changed from the form of those used in gambling and gaming, as these seers and artists worked together to transform their philosophy with the alchemy of pre-modern archetypes. Though ultimately still in the hands of the wealthy and powerful, these works of art became synonymous with the activities of many secret societies who sprung up during the middle ages and into the renaissance, when these specialized works of art in the form of a deck, went from being the secret weapon of royal courts, to an amusement and pass-time in the age of scientific discovery.




Their immense power and hidden secrets forever veiled behind the mask of the archetypes, the works of art that inspired them, and the secret language hidden between noise and pattern that is the tarot.


That power once upon a time, found its way to a young girl as a gift she received on her fourteenth birthday. Two years later, and after six volumes on the subject, Nathalie was ready to introduce her friend Gwendolyn to her favourite deck.




Change Comes in Small Packages


Spring
Six years ago



Nathalie pulled into the driveway in her 2014 Honda Civic, parking in the two car driveway beside her father's Land Rover. It was a warm spring day, in fact the warmest on record for over sixty years, and her attire reflected the weather as she wore a pair of fashionable loose fitting white shorts, and a lavender blouse which went well with her lightly made up face.


She opened the screen door and stepped into the house, quickly kicking off her shoes and grabbing her favourite pair of slippers and proceeding in.


"Hi Gwen. I thought I heard you. How was your day at Getaway Games?" her father asked her as he arrived from the back hall to greet her.


"Good. It was mostly quiet though. We took the lull in business we had and did an early inventory. Came out ahead thankfully. Oh, I picked up a new Scrabble board for you and Mom! I forgot it in my backseat, if you'd like to get it?" Gwen leaned over and gave her father a light kiss on the cheek.


"Thanks sweetie. There's some mail for you there by the way. Looks like it traveled a fair distance to get here..." he said to her, pointing to the kitchen table where a package about the size of box of banker's cheques sat, many stamps adorned its face.


"Oh goodie! Look at that! I wonder what's in it?" she said excitedly with a smile on her face as she approached the kitchen table and picked it up.


"I shook it a few times, but it didn't make a sound. Maybe its a stack of cash?" her father joked.


"Oh if it is. Just in time to give it all away to my insurer..." she said as she began unwrapping it.


"I'm just going to get the Scrabble from your back seat," her father disappeared out through the screen door as she got the last of the packaging off of the box.


"Could you grab my water bottle? Its in the front, in the driver's seat tray," she yelled to her father, placing the box on the table and carefully lifting the lid from it.


There within was a carefully folded piece of eight and half by eleven heavy paper, the kind best for  writing with a pen. Beneath the paper was another sealed box (inside of the first). She took the paper and unfolded it and was greeted with elaborately decorative calligraphy, styled in a combination of the Olde English style, and what appeared to be like Sumi-e brush strokes, giving the writing a mystique all its own. She took the letter in hand (carefully not to risk smudging the ink), and proceeded to read it as her father arrived with the freshly shrink-wrapped Scrabble game in hand. He placed Gwen's water on the table as she began to read aloud:



Dearest Gwendolyn,

I am writing to you from my new home and residence in Shepperton, by the Thames, here in the wonderfully historic and scenic United Kingdom.

I moved here about six months ago and have been thoroughly enjoying it, though I can't tell you how much I miss Belleville. I hope that they're still taking loving care of the turtle pond, and if the weather's nice enough before you leave, could you go there and take a few photos for me?

I could go on about many other things I miss, but you're probably by this point wondering who in the world I am. Well, to answer that question, we need to go back about a year and a half, and to the Belleville Art Association. I don't know if you remember, but you were working there when I had my first exhibit, and you were one of the curators' assistants who helped me to get setup for the presentation. I was the girl fortunate enough to have at that time attracted the attention of a wealthy benefactor, or at the very least, one of his representatives. A rather tall fellow, with greying clean cut hair? A fellow who walked with a rather ornate cane.

I had spoken with you before meeting this benefactor, and as a show of my gratitude for all of the help you afforded me, I wanted to invite you to my parent's place, with a date to give you my thanks. After we spoke, I was approached by that same benefactor, and he made an offer on one of my paintings that very much changed the fabric of my life.

Its been a long journey to get to this point, and there have been many changes along the way, but I am very fortunate to have had destiny smile upon me that day, and I always since that time wondered how you'd fared on your journey.

Given the fact that I am now established in a way where I can afford to reach out to the people who've done me a good turn, especially those for whom there was no indication of there being a gain from having done so, other than the exhibit of the kindness of their own heart.

I very much know that the reward for any act of the heart's grace, is in having done it, but perhaps some of us who are in the position of excess can appreciate our power to reward acts of that nature in some small and humble way. I believe that doing so affords humanity a degree of hope into the future and beyond. So it is that I'd like to invite you here to Shepperton to visit with me and stay while you visit for as long as you'd like.

I have provided two paid tickets to London Heathrow from Kingston, via Norman Rogers Airport, and I believe that there is one stopover at Pearson, before a direct flight to London from there. Its one fairly long flight, but at this time of year, the weather is improving immensely and I believe that you'd enjoy it.

The tickets are dated for two weeks from now, but I've made arrangements for you to change them to a more convenient time easily as they are first class. You only need to confirm with me at the number I've provided on the attached business card and I'll either make arrangements for you, or I'll come pick you  and your guest up myself.

I also seem to recall you having an affinity for a certain form of esotericism. I've included a little something that you might enjoy on that note.

R  S  V  P

Sincerely,

Your grateful friend

Mila Ren Dubel


Gwen carefully folded the paper up and placed it beside the box on the table, already considering having it professionally framed for her bedroom. She then proceeded to open the second box contained within the original one, and there within were two airline tickets in a fancy gold sleeve adorned with the Air Canada logo. A pink business card with Mila's artist's signature was tucked in beside the tickets.


Gwen put the tickets down, a look of disbelief upon her face as she focused on the unmarked box within. She quickly removed the shrink wrap and opened the box, withdrawing a another. A black box with the word Royal Tarot embossed upon it in gold foil writing.


She opened the this final packaging carefully so as not to scar the box or the writing, and pulled a fresh deck of tarot cards from it. She carefully fanned through the cards and found that they were works of art within, each part of a hand crafted set originally commissioned by the House of Tudor, and traditionally updated every fifty years since, with a new deck produced by commissioned artists. This most recent deck which she brandished in her hands was produced on the same year as her birth. She was holding a tarot deck that was her age: twenty-one years old.


"Well?  Are you going to go...?" her dad asked her, putting the Scrabble board down on the table a distance away from the opened packaging.


"But what about my job? My car? I mean, I can't just pack up and go..." Gwen suddenly seemed stressed that so much change had arrived in such a little box.


"Why not? Gwen, there are times in your life when you have to just take the chance. Here's an opportunity to visit another country. Part of Europe. I bet you could even turn this into a European tour if you wanted. You're young, and there's so much to do, and I know you. If you turn your nose up at this opportunity, you'll regret it. Not now. Not next year. But ten years from now. Twenty. You'll wonder what you might have missed out on, even if your life is going great," her father stood close to her, and kept his soft encouraging eyes upon her.


"But... What do I do if I lose my job? What if I can't get a flight back and I end up having to stay there? What if...?" Gwen began to shake and then cry.


It was just too much for her all at once.


"Awwwe honey. What if you lose your job? What if you can't get back here until a year from now? We'll still be here. So will your job. So will all of that stuff that you seem to think will disappear if you take a chance and have a little adventure in your life. You know, I used to really love working all the time at the bank. A desk jockey. I was one of the top sprinters in high school, and I went from that to being a desk jockey, in Toronto. One of my friends, one that I'd gone to school with called me from here, and insisted that I come out and visit him for a weekend. He'd done well for himself and he had a few lake toys to play with. A fast boat and a parasail. I almost turned him down, but then I thought, what have I got to lose? What's wrong with getting out and having a bit of fun every once in a while? I decided to go, and when I was parasailing with my friend, one of the girls who worked at the marina asked my friend about me and he said: why don't you ask him yourself? And so she did. You know who it was?" he asked her with a big smile on his face.


"Mom?" Gwen wiped one of the tears from her face, a smile peering in through the clouds.


"Close. It was Melissa. Your Aunt, and she was asking on behalf of your Mom. Now, if I didn't take that chance, I wouldn't be here on this very day that my daughter received a letter from someone who is grateful that she was born. Grateful enough to give her a gift that few people might ever receive. You earned it. So take it and enjoy it. Besides, you never know how it might work out for you and Rory," her father rubbed her shoulder.


"Rory and I are taking a break..." Gwen seemed a little bit pained by his having mentioned Rory.


"I thought you and him were... Didn't you go out with him just a few nights ago?" her father confirmed with her.


"Dad, that was like a month ago. I caught him. With another girl," Gwen said to him.


 "Oh, honey... What about Nathalie? She'd love to go!" her father said, continuing his encouragement of her.


"..." Gwen looked down at the envelope containing the airline tickets, and then to the tarot cards.


"Ask the tarot..." her and her father said at the exact same time.


Gillie's Cards Speak


The interior was darkened by the night, tucked away in her south London suburban backsplit post-war home. The air was fresh and clean, the walls bright, and the airflow kept a gentle breeze present from every point in her home. Her environment had changed as drastically as her life and health, though some habits held on tight, not the least of which she was about to enjoy.


She stood in the kitchen,  in the dark, the brightness of the room and the reflection of the setting Moon through the bay windows gave her enough illumination to pour her tea. She stirred it, still unwilling to surrender her sugar and cream habit, which in her cup contained a little wash of tea for flavour. She grabbed her cup and headed to the den, which had just been renovated to include a large double height window. She sat at her glass table and picked up the tarot deck conveniently located to one side, and began shuffling, the sound of the cards calming and soothing.


"Raawwwr. G'morning. What time is it?" asked Gwendolyn as she yawned from within Gillie's essence.


"I think its Four..." Gillie spoke curtly as she shuffled.


"Can you take a look around? I wanted to see how the den turned out," Gwendolyn asked her, and Gillie craned her head around the room, to give Gwendolyn a peek of the finished renovations.


"What do you think?" asked Gille of her.


"Its gorgeous. Really a good idea you know. I really like this setting for the cards," Gwendolyn admired the new scenery, Gilie's remarkable transformation barely five months old by that time.


"I think this spring is going to be different. Special," Gillie said to Gwendolyn quaintly as she continued her shuffle.


"Then here's to a new beginning," Gwendolyn smiled from somewhere in the depths of Gillie's body.


"I made it especially for you. Three sugars, two cream. There might even be some tea in there..." Gillie said before she picked up the tea, and took a sip from and savoured it for Gwendolyn.


"Mmmm. That's perfect. So what's the question, or would you prefer me to stay out of this?" Gwendolyn asked Gillie.


"Just a quick three-card past, present, future reading to start the day, though I don't know what for the life of me prompted me to get out of bed for this when I was having such a wonderful sleep and dream.


"Care to talk about it?" Gwendolyn asked her.


"Oh, it was something from another lifetime ago. Thirty-five years ago at least. Back when I was in my twenties. I think I was at a Top of the Pops concert at BBC studio 2. I can't recall whether it was Spandau Ballet or Heaven 17. I was definitely in a crowd of twenty-something aged girls screaming at the top of our lungs. It was based upon something that really happened to me, but there was one thing that was different about it. In my dream, I wasn't a smoker. Its as if my having quit in reality, rewrote the script in all of my memories. Funny, I can barely remember what it was like to smoke..." Gille explained to Gwendolyn who listened quietly until she'd finished before replying.


"I remember when I was in my twenties. I was such a boring girl back then, barely did anything. Did you go there with a date?" asked Gwendolyn.


"No. I think I was dating at the time though. Might have been Randy or possibly Melvin," Gillie paused as she recalled those times.


Meanwhile, something Gillie had said to Gwendolyn had triggered another series of memories, and more bits and pieces of her past began flooding her being and recall. Something about her work. A full-time/part-time job she had at a mall in Belleville, Ontario, Canada. She remembered colourful packaging. Poker chips of a variety of different shapes and colours. Dice galore, and not just cubes. Dice in all of the shapes of the Platonic solids, possibly used by board gamers as she recalled.


"You're quiet all of the sudden. Everything alright?" asked Gillie before taking another sip of tea and then returning to her shuffle.


"Something you said triggered another flashback. Something to do with games. Board games I think... Go ahead with your spread. I'm sorry to have troubled you," Gwendolyn paused as she concentrated, trying to reach more of her memories from her previous life outside of Gillie's body.


"No trouble dear. Just let me know if you need me," Gillie responded, as one of the cards flew from her deck and landed on the table before her face down. 


She continued her shuffle, and surreptitiously another two cards flew from the deck and landed on the table, one of the face down and the other face up and upright.


 Gillie was careful to retain their order and orientation and slid them into place as representing past, present and future.


The cards before her were as follows:

Past: The King of Pentacles


Present: The Page of Swords


Future: The World



Gillie sat motionless for a time, examining the spread while deep in contemplation.


"Did you see it?" she then asked Gwendolyn.


"...Yes," Gwendolyn responded, still searching herself for her lost bits and pieces, especially those that had revealed clues of themselves recently.


"The throne in the past? Stepping away from old values?" Gillie asked Gwendolyn for her opinion.


 "Definitely indicative of change. Leaving something behind. Something of structure and value, and maybe what appeared to be comfort. It seems to match your recent journey," Gwendolyn gave Gillie her interpretation.


"That's what I was thinking, especially with the Page of Swords in the present. Overturning old ideas to grow or possibly leaving the safety of the throne, of firm footing to risk a journey that seems that it might worth it... but at what risk? What cost?" Gillie continued their interpretation, adding her own perspective.


"The risk that such a drastic change might spell one's end as it very nearly did for you... Sorry about that. I meant us..." Gwendolyn had the sudden realization that the risk Gillie had taken had saved them both in the end.


But it seemed to her that she was missing something that had revealed itself to her. That the fact that Gillie's words had triggered her to recall more bits and pieces of her life, seemed circumspect and coincidental. As in a meaningful coincidence. And then, the world. At the end of a difficult and arduous journey, to find oneself arriving back where they started: at home.


"What's the date today?" Gwendolyn suddenly had a realization as she recalled something from her past of six years earlier.


"March 30, 2020. 4:23 in the morning, Greenwich time," Gillie responded, her sense of temporal awareness considerably improved since the changes she'd made to her life and health.


"The package... my father. We both said it at the same time. To ask the cards!" Gwendolyn suddenly realized the importance of what had just resurfaced in her memory.


"Ask the cards what? What are you talking about?" Gillie asked her, now lost.


"Three weeks ago, I was at home. I think I just got back from work. I was working as I said, with games or board games. A games shop! In Belleville! Getaway Games!" Gwendolyn exclaimed.


"And..." Gillie urged her to regurgitate more as the story started becoming interesting.


"I had just received a package. Sent by Mila! The girl I told you about. The artist who held the party... before the end... and then I was sharing your body with you," Gwendolyn explained to Gillie as the pieces came together like a magnificent puzzle.


"Mila had invited me to come visit her in Shepperton I think it was. I was in a bad headspace thanks to some relationship difficulties, and when I got the package and saw the invite, it was all too much. To just getup from Belleville and to fly to London. So I talked with my father, and we came to an impass, and then we both said at the same time: ask the cards!" Gwendolyn responded excitedly as she remembered that very day.


 "And what did they say?" asked Gillie, now very interested to hear the rest of this tale.


"That's what was odd about your spread. I got the exact same spread that day. The King of Pentacles. The Page of Swords and The World, and as you can imagine, after seeing that, my mind was made up, and I left three weeks later, on March 31, 2020..." Gwendolyn continued.


"That's like... in nineteen and a half hours. You're coming from where?" Gillie asked her.


"Belleville to Pearson to London Heathrow. It was about ten and a half hours. I left at ten in the morning and got to London at 1 AM London time. On a Tuesday," Gwendolyn told Gillie.


"Two days from now," Gillie responded and then they remained silent and they considered what had just happened.


"I think this is a definite sign. Synchronicity across time. We both drew the same reading, and this is occurring at the same time in both versions of your history, except that you're twenty-seven, and you're reliving a time from about six years earlier, when I woke up and found that you were a stowaway in my body," Gillie told Gwendolyn her theory.


"There's a reason this is happening, and the universe is trying to tell you something!" Gillie exclaimed.


"Do we even know what would happen if I saw myself?" asked Gwendolyn of Gillie.


"No. But we both know what will happen if we don't at least try..." Gillie responded to Gwendolyn.


"What? I mean, its an inconvenience for us both, but at least somehow, I got another chance..." Gwendolyn reasoned with Gillie.


"Yes, it has been an inconvenience, and a great inspiration for me, but if you stay, I'm not going to live forever. You're only twenty-seven. I'm up there already, more than twice that age, and probably older given my years of reckless treatment of my body. You don't deserve that. It was you who inspired me to make these changes. It might be your only chance..." Gillie pleaded with Gwendolyn as the two of them stared at the spread before them.


"Alright. Then we go, and meet... Mila, and me," Gwendolyn suddenly felt both terrified and exhilarated at the prospect that she might have a chance again, and in her own body.


However, that prospect came with some caveats, like, what if it was a case that only one of them could inhabit her body. Her, or the version of her whose body it originally was. She had to ask herself what she would do if their situations were reversed, not to mention how would she even react to the idea of being confronted by Gillie, a woman that looked nothing like her, and was more than twice her age claiming to be her, and claiming to have a copy of an older version of Gwendolyn living inside of her.


Trying to explain such a premise to anyone would likely end with the authorities carting Gillie off, wrapped in a white restraining coat and heavily sedated.


However, if she and Gillie spoke with Mila, and knowing that with her ties to Southeast Asian culture, not to mention her esoteric abilities as an artist, that they might be able to enlist her help in broaching the topic with the twenty-one year old version of Gwendolyn, due to arrive in London in forty-four and a half hours from then.


Gwendolyn weighed their prospects as Gillie contemplated the spread of cards that still remained on the table.


Sanctum Meet - Compare Notes


Their basement temple was darkened, a faded and flickering light emanating from the ten candles in all, two on each side of every station of the pentagram. Shadows like entropy rippled randomly over the walls.


At each of the stations, sat one of the five people present at their ceremony and meeting. Each of them sat, either kneeling of cross legged on a cushions custom crafted by a certain artist amongst their friendships, and one who was not present at their meeting physically, but was certainly there in heart and soul.


Their faces stood out from the rest of the room, especially Shaela's given her gothic warpaint as Nelony often liked to joke. The contrast of the shadows and light upon their features gave them both a celestial and infernal appearance, each of them quiet and in deep contemplation as they looked toward the center of the pentagram.


Mila flared her eyes, looking down to the small cup that sat before her. As looked at it, she recollected a moment not long ago where she had just put a handful of peanuts into the cup and left it outside of the sliding door on her back patio, the snow and ice long since having thawed, replaced by the nurturing warmth of sunlight.


She watched as the chipmunk who had recently emerged from his slumber, poked his head up from the edge of the patio, where the joists met the frame and railing posts. He peeked out between two of the posts, and then ran in an erratic and seemingly random line to arrive at the cup.


He very quickly loaded up his cheeks with bunch of peanuts and disappeared. A moment later, he'd returned and gathered a few more in much the same manner, Mila still watching and giggling in anticipation of the little creature's ambitions.


A short time later, two appeared. It was the same male, this time accompanied by a female. The two of them peered over the rim of the cup and between them, gathered what was left of the nuts, scurrying off and disappearing somewhere out of sight beyond the edge of the patio, near a group of shrub off to the right.


She had continued this ritual every day, first thing in the morning after her first wash and glass of water. She'd put the peanuts out in this cup, and one, or both of the chipmunks would come and collect them, leaving few if any within the first half hour of their having started their gathering.


Then, on one morning only a few days ago, when she arrived in the kitchen and went to take a peek out through the sliding doors, her heart stopped as she spied the body of one of the chipmunks. Lifeless. Warming under the sun but ultimately inanimate. Left there by one of the various hunters of the animal kingdom that lurked there. 


At that moment, she had another glimpse of something she'd with which she'd contended before.


The fragility and fleetingness of life. Despite the regimen with which we become comfortable, there are no guarantees. At one moment, one could be in the midst of their greatest joy, or sorrowful tragedy and then the next moment, its gone. Not just the experience itself, but from our perspective, the very essence through which those experiences were diverged.


Mila thought about this deeply as she placed the cup in the center of the the pentagram.


Nelony, bit her lip as she fought tears, for she recognized the cup immediately and gained a sad insight into Mila's offering at that moment. She then focused upon her own offering. Before her sat a what looked to be a little wooden house, though it was oddly shaped, as if some of the parts were longer than those on the opposite side. As if its symmetry were off kilter as a result of someone who was still accruing their skill at such an endeavor. 


Nelony, much like Mila, liked to care for the animals that lived on her property. Whether they were her room mates, or gypsies who'd taken up residence there. She having dedicated herself to nature, decided one day about three years earlier that she was going to learn to make bird houses. Out of wood. Using her father's rarely used power tools, as he was often far too busy with his wife (Nelony's mother) running their Apothecary/Natural  Foods and Remedies shop.


Nelony decided that with a stack of pine wood that had been in their basement for as long as she could remember, and with those same power tools which were accumulating dust as she considered her action, that she would do something useful and meaningful towards her ambitions with these unused materials and tools. After getting her father's permission, and a careful lesson in their safe use, she began setting about crafting bird houses. Her first, without any design at all. She just picked up the tools and cut wood, hoping that she'd end up with pieces she could then put together like a puzzle, and end up with a bird house. How hard could it be after all?


Her endeavor towards those ends continued for weeks, and then months until she'd run out of wood, and patience, and most certainly a pile of discarded/malfunctional bird houses.


Only a month and a half earlier (after she and Mila had returned from the casino), she discovered the unfinished bird house sitting in the bottom of her closet at home. She then looked around her room, and began to notice a variety of unfinished projects, and within herself felt a deep and profound sense of despair.


That feeling sat with her for a month, as she evaluated her life. What she'd actually finished, and initially, she found nothing but unfinished ambitions. They were like sores in her memory, and stains accumulating in her life, for since having realized their growing presence, she became debilitated with depression. Not wanting to get out of bed. For anyone or anything.


She knew she was still young, barely twenty, but at her realization of what she'd clearly observed. The discarded bits and pieces of her unfinished work, she reckoned that by the time she was ready to retire, she'd have a mountain of such things. There to remind her of what a failure she was.


Only a week earlier than the very late morning they were seated around the pentagram, she got out of bed. Still sore both in body and mind, and perhaps her essence as well. She got dressed and immediately set about loading the dishwasher and tidying up what her parents had left from the previous night. They too had gotten home from the shop, and were tired and had gone to bed. So Nelony went about cleaning up, and getting ready for her day.


As she usually did, she prepped food for the gypsy animals that lived on her property, lining them up in bowls and then carting them out to the patio. The squirrels and birds ate comfortably beside each other, mostly ignoring Nelony as she cleaned up around them. She then went over to the part of the backyard where the animals typically cloistered, and found that there was none of their refuse to clean.


She puzzled over this for a moment, and then decided to go and check the compost she'd built last summer, from the scraps of the pieces of wood she'd had leftover from failed bird houses. The compost had three compartments, one each for organic matter, alkaline solids, and acidic solids and waste. It wasn't a perfect work of art, but it was very functional, and she'd even cut holes where animals and decomposers could get at the interior if need be. She just figured it fit to do so.


When she checked the compost, she found that the animals had been using it, using the correct compartment for their own waste. She then stepped back from it, and admired it, realizing that it was a finished project. An ongoing one that was always in progress, but at the same time, it was finished. She then looked to the mostly empty bowls of food, and realized they too were a finished project. An ongoing one, but finished for this day. Just as the dishes she'd cleaned up were another.


As she continued examining all of these efforts and accomplishments in her life, most of which left no clue of their having occurred at all, she realized that the very nature of unfinished projects was that they often remained eyesores of both our vision, and memory. The things we accomplish, are often here for a short time before they're replaced by the ones that come the next day, and so on and so forth.


She took a deep breath as she sat on the cushion, picked up the unfinished bird house, and placed it into the center of the pentagram.


Neville looked to her bird house, squinting at it, even grimacing as if it were an abomination of some kind. He shook his head once, and then sighed, pulling a shoehorn from his own pocket and placing it in the center of the pentagram, perhaps hoping that nobody saw it.


There was a snicker from Wes. Which was echoed by Nelony as they looked to the shoehorn, trying to imagine what possible significance it could have. Mila finally broke out laughing as did Wes.


Neville looked around at each of their faces, puzzled, but completely not recalling how he'd looked at and scoffed at Nelony's offering.




"What could possibly be the story behind that...?" Wes finally broke his silence, still laughing.


"Don't even ask... We agreed! All of us!" Neville said in an offended tone, before a smile grew upon his face and he too began laughing.


"Its personal. Alright?!!!" he continued.


"As it is for all of us..." Nelony smirked at him, having seen his reaction to her offering.


"Look, can we just get on with this?!!!" Shaela's voice pierced the moment of silence that had emerged between their words, much like that of a starter pistol at a race.


"Get the point? These are all very personal to us. Nelony's too," Wes said to Neville.


"Save your disapproving visage for elsewhere," Shaela said to Neville, backing up Wes.


Wes took a heavily worn and folded up piece of paper and a faded photo from his pocket, and placed it in the center.


Shaela looked to her wrist, and to one of her many bracelets. She slowly wriggled it from her wrist and then placed it in the center, saying nothing further.


They sat silently for another minute, and then just before the timer went off, Mila switched it off and their faces greeted hers in the darkness and the light.


"We begin this meeting of the Sanctum Seclorum. Recognizing that each of us have our distinct and unique ideas and beliefs about the nature of reality and existence, and that despite the fact that we can't always make these ideas and beliefs compatible with one another, we can try to exist peacefully and cooperatively towards the ends of the greater good, which we will define as quality of life and experience, and protecting it for all the beings in our care as best we can, between our responsibilities and the time we each need to heal and recharge for the next challenge," Mila stated to those present.


"Is that our new mandate?" Wes asked of Mila.


"Yes. Nelony, Shaela and I put it together last night, over the phone," Mila responded to Wes.


"Its lovely. Even perfect," Wes said to her.


"And it will undoubtedly change to become even more perfect, which for the purpose of what we hope to achieve here, means applicable without sacrificing our integrity or our compass," Mila asserted thoughtfully and carefully.


"In the spirit of the law and not necessarily to the letter of the law. That's what my dad used to say. The letter of the law is a tool to deal with the legally and sometimes socially problematic and without crossing the line, I think is what he was saying," Shaela explained to them.


"So how does this lineup with the case of James Benley and Jorge Stockard, and how are we, without the kind of resources that the original Sanctum had, going to deal with these Norbid fellows?" Neville asked, this time focusing on a little bit more productive line of reasoning.


"With Susan... Miana that is. She's our guide. Our mentor after all. She's the only one of us who actually has a repeatable approach to thaumaturgy. She's the only one who can demonstrate her abilities consistently and very effectively, though I'm keeping a close eye on her," Shaela explained to them, erring ever so slightly on the side of caution.


"She's going to lead us to the ability to wield powers just like her. If we follow her tutelage, we'll be summoning shadows and all sorts of things that people will just be in awe of!" Neville's mind ran off with the possibilities.


"And that's precisely why we need to be cautious. What do we have, if she decides to return to these Norbid fellows? How can we ever hope to stop them, let alone her?" Nelony asked them.


"Me," a mysterious women's voice emerged from the shadows across the floor of their basement temple.


They could see movement in the flickering light, but heard no sound with any of the steps that brought the woman forward. When she arrived close enough to reflect the light, she became familiar to them as the woman that had confronted them at Sato's Curios and Treasures, though only the women could recall that part of their encounter.


The men had fallen silent, and were essentially no longer present at that moment.


"Katsura?" Mila turned to face the woman.


"You have come a long way since our last meeting," Katsura said to them, walking around their pentagram at a distance, not daring the come closer than an imaginary circle she dared not cross.


"We could say the same about you, given what we now know about you," Shaela spoke without fear.


"Distance and time are merely illusions, mortal. I might as well have come from everywhere and nowhere, all the same. You on the other hand, limited by your traversal of time in one direction, like a train that you can't seem to get off, except that your headlight only points backwards, to the past, and the future is a blinding darkness forever that evades even the best of your individual abilities to pierce it," Katsura paced around their pentagram in a clockwise direction when viewed from above.


"Yes, but we're improving on those grounds you know," Nelony said confidently, though knowing truly that the scope of their abilities was very limited, though their sights were set upon something much more.


"In the universe that seeded the Midspace. The universe from which the original Sanctum Seclorum was born, something happened that was supposed to change the nature of their possibilities. It arose out of one simple gesture. Gratitude," Katsura looked to each of them, wondering how often each of them had experienced such an emotion.


"Why do I get the feeling that one like you wields enforced gratitude as the means to keep us on our knees?" Shaela said boldly as she responded to Katsura.


"You are very astute, but I am not your enemy and you keep yourselves on your knees, most of you without even realizing it. You sell it undervalued to a buyer that every day takes advantage of you. Yourselves. Then, the moment you free yourself from those chains, you do it to someone else who isn't aware. The economy of keeping half of you in the dark and half in the light, and those in the light forever perform a secret show every day to those in the dark, and from their impression and judgement of this comes the mechanism that keeps your civilization where it is and where it will be. Your enemies, they have plans for this arrangement, and they are well under way in securing your future as their own," Katsura immediately stopped upon having arrived at the mention of their enemy, and stared walking in a counter-clockwise direction around the pentagram when viewed from above.


"You're weaving with us, aren't you?" Mila observed the change in direction.


"Since you set that thing up on the floor, you've been playing with powers you do not comprehend. Just like you have a secret performance every day that determines your fate, so do we have ours, and that game plays out across a vastness that would obliterate your tiny mind and essence if you even got so much as a glimpse of it," Katsura responded to Mila, feeling the sudden urgent need to withdraw closer to the pentagram.


"Then what is the importance, the significance we hold to you?" Shaela asked Katsura.


"That's right. You wouldn't bother with us if we were so meaningless. Unimportant," Mila added.


"I think that our impression of you has some semblance of power over you," Nelony suddenly realized.


"That's right. That's why you withhold so much, and why you seem to constantly attempt to keep us in awe or fear of you," Mila followed up.


Katsura once again changed the direction of her pacing around the perimeter of the pentagram, and Mila, Nelony and Shaela all felt a sudden change in their feelings. Where their guard had suddenly been propped up, as if approaching fight or fight syndrome, they suddenly felt at ease. Calm.


"Now do you understand? There are those amongst you. Mortals who have long wielded what I just demonstrated to you as a weapon against you. As chains to keep you bound, and most of you have no idea. That something so simple could so quickly could have such a drastic effect upon you. We can't take away that which is and always has been your legacy, but we can affect the vessel through which you perceive the world around you in ways that skew your perception, and that is exactly the weapon of choice of your enemy, and they come in twos. One side to make you feel good, the other side to make you feel bad. Your greatest threat is when those two sides work together against you, and they already are..." Katsura once again changed direction upon the mention of enemy, walking a short distance until she finished her statement and then once again began walking the other way around the perimeter.


"I'm not manipulating you. I'm sparing you the danger that comes with awareness," Katsura stopped and they suddenly felt at equilibrium, their bodies no longer producing hormones pushing them towards the brink of anxiety.


"This is why the men are silent. I have isolated them from this. The menstrual cycle strengthens women in ways that push them way beyond the ability of men to withstand the risk of these dangers. Now that you have seen and understand this, I will let them join us," Katsura's words had barely left her lips when Wes and Neville began looking around in confusion, as if they had been suddenly dropped there.


Katsura this time neither moved left nor right. She simply stood facing the center of the pentagram near the same point with Mila.


"Is there a particular reason we just lost who knows how much time...?" Wes asked, looking around the room startled and confused.


"Don't leave your cushion. You're safe. She's assured us," Mila quickly responded to Wes.


"That was absolutely the most bizarre and frightening thing..." Neville spoke as if he were almost out of breath, feeling like he'd been imploded, and then upon being released, exploded.


"You'll have to speak to them for me. My voice would kill them," Katsura explained to Mila, Nelony and Shaela who now understood a great deal more about the significance of why it was them that the Norbids first appealed to destroy Wes in order to prevent him from breaking the line.


Their line. The line of the Wytches.


The line whose power they were seeking to tame.


To be continued...


Written by Brian Joseph Johns and this is Shhhh! Digital Media at https://www.shhhhdigital.com or https://www.shhhhdigital.ca in Toronto, Ontario, Canada at 200 Sherbourne Street Suite 701.


Credits and attribution:


Special thanks to Udemy, whose courses I have relied upon for the last few years to allow me to grow my skills at my own pace, even finding time between my frantic work pace here at Shhhh! Digital Media.


Thank you to ComfyCloud, whose web based desktop interface and cloud based rendering solution is one of the best solutions I've found yet. I first learned of ComfyUI from YouTubers MickMumPitz and PixelArtistry. If you're looking to get into using AI on your local machine under ComfyUI, then I'd highly suggest checking either of their sites for tutorials covering the topics you'd like to explore.

Thank you to Grok (via ComfyCloud) who was the key artist behind: (Danger Tiger), (Tea Reading), (Sailors at Port), (King's Court), Tarot Cards: (The King of Pentacles), (The Page of Swords), (The World)

Thank you to Kling O1 Image (via ComfyCloud) who was the key artist behind: (Nathalie and Gwendolyn).


Special thanks to Perplexity AI and their Comet browser, who have recently become a part of my software toolkit. Their AI powered helpers accelerate your research, reference at every step of the way, not to mention built in tools for content generation, though Shhhh! Digital Media does not rely on text generation for any of its stories, though I do work with AI for suggestions, and scientific accuracy of concepts in Butterfly Dragon, and for delving into the more esoteric traditions of mysticism that are aligned with the story and background of Era of the Spellbound.


Special Thanks to the Natural History Museum in London, England and of course to the Royal Ontario Museum in my own home of Toronto, Ontario, Canada.


Special Thanks To Rocket Fuel Lakeshore Blvd West, perhaps the best place in history to get a coffee, circa 2001-2004. Miss you all very much.


Artwork: Amy Wong, Wendy Pusey, Ghastly, Birdman, Brian Joseph Johns, Daz3D, Unreal Engine...
Tools: Daz3D, Corel Painter, Adobe Photoshop, Lightwave 3D, Blender, Stable Diffusion (Easy Diffusion distribution), InstantID, Sadtalker, Google Colaboratory, Microsoft Copilot (Windows 11), Hitfilm, PhotoPea (a great web based Photoshop stand-in if you're on a low budget or in a pinch), Borderline Obsession...


DeepSeek AI for suggestions on exercises to improve aspects of describing scene and settings with a more sensory focused grammar.


InstantID by: Wang, Qixun and Bai, Xu and Wang, Haofan and Qin, Zekui and Chen, Anthony. Research Paper Title: InstantID - Zero-shot Identity-Preserving Generation in Seconds.
Sadtalker by: Zhang, Wenxuan and Cun, Xiaodong and Wang, Xuan and Zhang, Yong and Shen, Xi and Guo, Yu and Shan, Ying and Wang, Fei.


Research Paper Title: SadTalker: Learning Realistic 3D Motion Coefficients for Stylized Audio-Driven Single Image Talking Face Animation.


Gratitude: Our Mentors, Senseis, Sifus, Sebomnims, lifetime inspirations, family, friends, the Nomads (ask Stanton about that one), the Music, the Movies, the Theatre, the Arts, ASMR, (both YouTube and Bilibili and the many other creators on those platforms), the Gaming and Developer communities and of course, the audience.


Martial Arts (in the words of real experts and at least one comedian): https://brucelee.com (home of the real Dragon and an entire family of inspirations), http://iwco.online International Wing Chun Organization (International presence of a very scalable intensity martial art, protected and developed by Shaolin Nun Ng Mui) and the alma mater of Jinn Hua's own specialized variation thereof, https://iogkf.com International Okinawan Goju-Ryu Karatedo Federation (even Hanshi had his teachers), https://itftkd.sport International Taekwondo Federation (Here there be Taegers), https://tangsoodoworld.com Tang Soo Do World (the path of Grandmaster Chuck Norris), https://www.aikido-international.org International Aikido Federation (how else would Navy Chef Steven Seagal liberate a Nimitz Class Aircraft Carrier from a team of hijackers?), https://www.stqitoronto.com Shaolin Temple Quanfa Institute (The City Of Toronto's own Shaolin Temple), https://www.enterthedojoshow.com Master Ken's Ameri-Te-Do presence (If we can't laugh at ourselves, then we can at least laugh the loudest at others, and other Zen)

Magic (performance, illusion and perhaps the real thing): Magic Week Archive (I'm currently growing this section so stay tuned)

Special thanks to Aitrepreneur, Mickmumpitz, Hugging Face and the YouTube educational content producers, including those catering to the AI content production pipeline and of course AlphaSignal.

Shi Heng Yi Shaolin Training For Self Mastery 
A reknowned Sifu under whose tutelage you can study the theory and practical applications of the Shaolin Arts for health, physical and mental wellbeing in every day life

Shi Heng Yi Shaolin Training For Self Mastery 
A reknowned Sifu under whose tutelage you can study the theory and practical applications of the Shaolin Arts for health, physical and mental wellbeing in every day life

Jesse Enkamp: Karate Nerd
Jesse, a reknowned Sensei who runs his own dojo, explores the world of Martial Arts, traveling to many exotic locations to meet practitioners of a variety of different arts

Sensei Rokas: Martial Arts Journey
A reknowned Sensei of Aikido who in seeking to understand the roots of Aikido and its applications, seeks to stress test its effectiveness in a number of real world situations while studying its history

Seamus O'Dowd
An extensive growing archive Katas, Techniques and Waza (mostly Shotokan)

Iaido: Train For Katana Mastery Like Samurai 
The original weapons focused curriculum under which Samurai became masters of their art

Tapp Brothers Exercise For Better Motion 
Extensive courses for calisthenics and body strength, stamina and flexibility

Special thanks to Canva for inspiring other creators and giving them the tools

Special thanks to Captain Crunch and his wonderful sister!

Special thanks to Bandcamp for giving indie music artists a home under one roof

Something to give you perspective: The very first teacher had no formal education, didn't graduate and was self taught, but only because they had no other choice. We do.

This content is entirely produced in Toronto, Ontario, Canada at 200 Sherbourne Street Suite 701 under the Shhhh! Digital Media banner.


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Friday, March 6, 2026

Updates, Sunday And The Truth

This post contains at least one link, that contain links, that might contain links to explicit content.  Reader discretion is advised.


Greetings and salutations again. Brian Joseph Johns here, and no I'm not possessed or being remotely controlled by anyone, and generally think very poorly of people who'd jump on board with something like that, especially to explain or write-off a post like this in order to keep people under the impression that I have a brown fetish which I don't and never have and I say that with all due respect. I am not anywhere in this post altering the context of my expression to its diametrical opposite or any other context that doesn't line up with what I expressed. You can't legislate or democratize a person's sense of attraction towards whomever they're attracted, except when protecting those of a young age (and their innocence).


No matter how anyone else feels about the way a person feels towards others, you can't make them feel otherwise or legislate how they should feel. You can put limits upon how they might express themselves where their expression seeks to rouse people towards violence, but you can't legislate or make a person feel any differently about anyone else. That is entirely up to them.


Sure, you could locally alter the context of expression to accommodate your lie, but the fact would remain that its a lie. But remember, that on that day, if you have a court date or any other legal or business pleading that relies heavily on the truth of context and expression being in sync, then your plea of innocence might be interpreted as a plea of guilt. Or how about when you're reporting your hours worked to your shift supervisor? Do you want the context of your shift work altered to reflect changes in the polarity of expression? Putting in forty hours would then mean owing forty hours. Prison wouldn't be prison on the inside. 


It would be prison on the outside, and freedom would be on the inside of the prison, from where society would then be run, as there are no elected officials, who serve their constituents from inside of prison, nor are there any public employees of infrastructure inside of a prison who aren't specifically linked to its functioning. You'd be committing everyone else in the world to prison, while giving the reigns of society over to those in prison, and that isn't to say that people paying their debt to society can't be reformed. That is to say however that in all likelihood, nobody in the world voted for, or decided that as part of their conscious considerations or motivations for reversing the polarity over trying to undermine the enjoyment of one or more person's day by reversing the qualities of the people to whom they're attracted.


I guess that's what forcing blue of that nature onto someone is all about, in terms of weaponizing colour symbolism and from what I understand, that weaponization of blue can also extend to a weaponizing a person's identity, by making others carry the weight of it, while taking their own identity (reputation and history as well) from them and giving it to someone else. I don't know about you, but I'm willing to risk my life to protect my ambitions for, and my regard for others, and my identity and being, and much the same, identity is part and parcel of the right to life, one of the Charter Rights in Canada as well as the foundation of the more recent Canadian Bill: the Human Rights Act, not to mention the foundation of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Right to life equals right to identity, and is implicitly connected. Now that we've got that out of the way, lets continue this post.


After some much needed sexual release earlier in the wee hours of the morning today with my T12  Veidoo Tablet, with the help of the kind of erotic (and legal) content I enjoy, though in all honesty, I really miss R18.com and the membership I had there, I should be able to find the energy to divide my time between the offline project I've been working on, and the start of the next written episode due here today in the early evening. I will also make a concerted effort to reduce the length of my run-on sentences, limiting them to at most, six subjects, ten adjectives, a few adverbs, some articles while making a concerted effort to reduce the number of present and past participles I use while writing, as they can often confuse the subject of a particularly long sentence like this one. So look forward to some the latest episode of Era.


That should at least give something for everyone looking forward to that very special day on Sunday! 

UFC 326 Holloway vs. Oliveira 2 - Competitive martial arts at its best. 

Oh! I almost forgot, its also the World Baseball Classic, with games happening in Japan, Puerto Rico and south of our Canadian border in Greenland (after Greenland's successful invasion of the United States last week).

Oh, and there was something to do with women. 

;-) just kidding


Happy International Women's Day (and most sincerely so to women of all cultures and religions the world over), which will be on Sunday March 8, 2026, though I'll be doing a Women's Week here at Shhhh! Digital Media, and doing my best to push content supporting that role out, though in all honesty, ever since I started this in May of 2012, it has more or less been that way every week in one way or another.


Just to give you a clue, the plot in the upcoming episode of Era of the Spellbound will be giving some information as to who the spellbound actually are that are referred to in the title. I'll give you a hint: its not the women. Just in case you were thinking that I was using my writing and that title as some kind of implication of having power over others, though I had never intended it to be that way. It might be fun to think about stuff like that, but really being attracted to someone is all about the one being admired, and not the one doing the admiring.


The best of me and the worst of me comes from me, though we currently live in a world where the scam is that there are groups of people who create the illusion that the best and worst of a person is coming from outside of them, as a means to take the best of them, by taking over the weight of the worst of them. Its a scam I touched upon in the most recent episode of Butterfly Dragon Reimagined. 


Such people operate under the idea that there are people who have no mind of their own, and that it arises as a result of the minds of others, many of whom believe themselves to be of superior in some way. What kind of person would I or anyone else be, if the only reason that they appreciated others was because they assumed that everything that other people did, arose from them? That's like assuming that a person is a mirror and that there is no substance to them outside of what exists in you. A person like that cannot truly love anyone but themselves and loving oneself isn't a bad thing, but being unable to love others because you don't recognize their individuality or their independent nature from you? That's a real crime of the conscience. But, you can't legislate the way that people feel, but you can legislate the way that they treat others, when trying to enforce their beliefs upon others either as one person, or as a collective of like minded people. The damage isn't done by the one person who believes such a thing, and says nothing or does nothing to further that idea. The damage is done when a group of people attempt to enforce that idea upon others socially, in such a way to rob them of the peace and dignity that comes with being a part of a community that respects their independence.


So, for instance, when I write something that has an positive impact to some degree, the credit for that is usually given to other people assumed to be remotely controlling me into writing. Most of the time, especially just after I've written and published something, there is seldom a time that anything good comes down the pipeline for me. 


Most of the time its harassment and abuse, while the same people who do so give the credit for my writing to someone else in another location, under the assumption and according to their belief system that I'm possessed or being remotely controlled by such a person. Just to give you a clue though, I was always the one that wore light colours, and he was always the one who wore dark colours. Now I'm not a Gnostic, but I bid you to consider that the pleroma, is not the true pleroma if you get my drift. When I appreciate the creative, intellectual and artisanship work of others, I appreciate them, and their inspiring effort, and make no effort of my own to rob them of that sense of their accomplishment and as often as I can, express that, though sometimes, ideologies can trap people by weighing them down with very, very, very heavy burden, that if they express gratitude towards others, transfers that weight to others, and that is used by collectives to isolate some people from the rest of the world.


I'm finding that as I endeavor to dismantle the cult doing this, that weight is getting diminished, especially as people understand the true nature of the real situations behind it. They were created purposefully to isolate me from others, so they could use me to fuel the lives of the people with whom they'd trapped me, basically trying to cut me off from the rest of society and this is a pocket society running from within society that should be criminally investigated. Even the impression of where I'm writing this from is obscured by this same cult, as I'm writing it from downtown in the largest Canadian city in the province of Ontario, at 200 Sherbourne Street Suite 701, M5A 3Z5. I'm a man, approximately six feet tall, about 175 lbs, slim and fit for my age. I have green (multi-colour) eyes.


I've rarely if ever asked for anything in creating and running this site despite it operating as a business, and writing all of the content, and putting together most of the artwork, music and some software offered up here. After fourteen years of working literally between fifty and seventy hours a week keeping this site going, all the while advocating for charity with most every story or novella published and paying for that where need be, to be abused and then to see all of the credit for my writing go to other people is simply wrong. It would be wrong if I was Irish (and I'm not), as much so as it would  be wrong whether I'm not. I'm not Irish, but does that mean that I can't celebrate St. Patrick's Day or listen to The Icicle Works or the Cranberries?


What post here wouldn't be complete without an honest protest?


So, there has never been a guitar player that writes anything on Shhhh! Digital Media, and there has never been anyone named Bobby that writes anything here, not to mention I've been the only writer and for the most part, handled most of the artwork as I stated and paid for everything with my own effort, time and money. I am not from Nova Scotia and I've never been there in my life but I'd bet it would be a great place to visit.


Well, I've got to get myself a coffee and a morning mint candy. I bid you a good day.

This content is entirely produced in Toronto, Ontario, Canada at 200 Sherbourne Street Suite 701 under the Shhhh! Digital Media banner.

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