The magic of screaming obscenities

The ritual generally starts out in frustration already. Some piece of equipment whether mechanical or technological decides it's gonna be wonky and it has gotten on your last nerve. So you tinker with it's usual fixes and still no go and of course you are running out of time and bellow out a " GOds dammit, son of a half breeded bitch WORK! ( ok, well, maybe it's just me)

Actually, It's not just me. I have witnessed this ritual many times as my car was being worked on by a former boyfriend. I have heard this ritual ensue in my house with my Dad while he was working on just about anything and even out of my husband's usually mild tongued mouth. (yes, I am the one with the potty mouth over here. We should have a swear jar, but I fear we couldn't afford it even, on the penny level) I call it a ritual because that's what it is. It has a setting and set up. It has a raising of energy and a release. The energy is directed released and the ritual is closed with either a satisfaction of results or the consultation of an esoteric expert. So I figure, if it walks like a ritual and quacks like a ritual, it must be a ritual.

So what is it that makes this whole thing work? I sort of have a theory on that. While you are working on said broken equipment, a certain amount of energy is built. In ritual settings, most of us call this raising the cone of power. We are focused on a desire ( to get this ^*(^@@@~!!~ thing to work), and we also generally have a few explicative threats handy. It's sort of shaking your fists at the Gods in anger. The only thing left to do at that point is to release the energy once the required skill task is performed. The explicatives vary from practitioner to practitioner, but they seem to use the same one because it's the one that works for them. I think this whole thing is just like any other piece of magic: desire identified, energy raised, task performed, and energy is directed and released. Check. . .  check. .  . and check.

For me, this ritual has over time gained a very potent tool: a magic hammer. This hammer has actually done violence to technology. I once had a phone that gave me nothing but grief.  I swore up and down that one day I would take a hammer to it and bash it into a million pieces. One dark day the screen on this phone ceased to function. I had to get a new phone. I removed the battery from that phone and took it outside with hammer in hand and kept my oath. I smashed it into little tiny pieces! My neighbors thought I had lost my mind while I was screaming obscenities and beating it with the hammer. It felt good to release all that frustration that I had built up with the POS phone! To this day, it is the oath I use upon all of my technology that misbehaves. I have been even known to pull out that magic hammer and place it in plain sight.

There is another aspect of this ritual that must be discussed. The bloodletting! Ask any mechanic and repair man. Nothing is really fixed if you do not swear AND shed blood. My former boyfriend refers to this as the offering to the carburetor gods. Whether it is a scape, puncture or cut, blood must be shed. If there is no accidental blood shed you create it with a pin and a few drops on the the broken part! I actually have created a tool for the ceremonial shedding of blood and keep it on my altar.

Ok, so maybe this isn't the most child friendly of rituals . . . but it is most certainly a real world application of magic. ( just send the kiddies to their rooms or swear them to silence)