Free Chaos Magic by John Luxton Page B

any sign of inappropriate interest – to my untrained eye there seemed to be no takers for such a passenger profile. I got off the bus – just me, and then watched as my ride trundled off and was then just part of the weekday traffic – all going someplace - but without me. Fuck-a-dog! I said out loud to no one in particular, turned up my collar and began to tramp back towards the river, considering my navigational options as I did so. Don’t be such a sorry spoon, I told myself – let’s extract something positive from adversity .
    A path led down to the southern bank of the Thames, and I took it, quickening my pace with each stride in anticipation of some hidden outcome that may wait just around the next bend in the river.
    After I was confident that no one was following I relaxed and began to enjoy my surroundings as I took the longer but more scenic route to my original destination of Mortlake; every-so-often there was a break in the tree-lined embankment affording me views onto and across the river. The tide was up but not high enough yet to spill over on to the towpath. But it was only a matter of time before a tidal overflow would hamper my progress. This was because today was the day of Wesak – the first full moon of the month of May. The fluvial flow would achieve slack tide in an hour or two and it would be notable because the lunar apogee would produce a ‘spring tide’. Not a term that refers to the season but to any high tide, although, of course in this particular case – it was spring too. I sat on a bench and poured myself some tea. I ate my sandwich. Nobody came by and said, Darren-boy, please wait . So I drank my potion. Nothing happened.
    Wesak is a time of great importance in the Buddhist world. Apparently, according to the theosophist Alice Bailey, the ageless spirit of the Lord Gautama and the Maitreya join together to preside over a ceremony that takes place in a lost valley somewhere in the Himalayas. Spiritual enlightenment awaits those chelas and disciples invited to the event, where the participants enact a magical ritual of transformation that modifies the reflected solar light of the full moon in order to both heal our planet and effect an evolutionary change in the consciousness of the inhabitants – that’s us.
    All well and good you may say. But as I sat there watching the waters of the Thames rising ever higher it occurred to me that if anyone was to systematically disrupt this occasion, on which the trans-dimensional energies were being balanced and released, then the consequences would be grave.
    The thought that I may have stumbled upon the Modus Operandi of the Brotherhood of the Serpent filled me with fear and excitement. However there was another encroaching realization that too was gaining traction in my mind: it was Lorna Z. I was lovesick. We had never met but I knew she was somewhere out there. I had over the last few weeks developed the habit of saying her name over and over to myself. And so despite the knowledge that we were entering a time of heavy reckoning when all alignments and faiths were to be stress tested by the approaching vernal currents, all I could manage to do was to sit there on my bench watching the waters rise and saying her name. Lorna Z, Lorna Z, Lorna Z.
    I was powerless to move and after a while water began to encroach onto the path. I looked out over the widening expanse and saw that the slick surface was clothed with pale mist that seemed to hang there, gradually becoming miasmic. I could see pulsations of orgone energy flickering across the sky and through the atmosphere; the breeze in the trees behind me fell silent. Into my field of vision I saw a black fin, gliding through the water out in midstream. It began to inscribe an elliptical arc towards me and my bench. By now water was sloshing around my feet and I had to climb up onto the back part of the bench. Holy fuck! I remember thinking - off my face, marooned in the floodtide, in the grip