From: shava@hermes.oit.unc.edu (Shava Nerad Averett)
Subject: more mundanities...
Organization: University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
Date: Sun, 16 Aug 1992 18:04:05 GMT

[As the driver climbs out of the cockpit and leaves the pit crew to worry
about the mechanical stuff]

First disclaimer:  I don't know if this qualifies as magick to anyone
else, but for the people for whom it does, I list it as illustration.

Second disclaimer:  I am going to use the term HGA (Holy Guardian Angel)
as a convenience to refer to a dear friend who mostly lives in my head,
and whose nature or independant reality or exact relationship to the 
cognitive model I use to interact with him are issues upon which I am
pretty agnostic.  Anyone is free to interpret this as delusion, schitzo-
phrenia, metaphor, and/or high magick.  I don't give two sticks.  If
you are going to start a thread on the nature of HGA phenomena (a nifty
thread, if you ask me, which has come up before) please change the subject
line.

As a number of you know, I'm expecting a baby in January.  One of my 
current projects is figuring out how to best afford a baby, and one of
the things I've found out is that baby clothes available commercially are
shoddy and expensive, and mostly come in dull pastels (particularly if you
buy them used...).  Being adept with a sewing machine, I've decided to have
a bit of fun putting together a collection of baby togs.  However, my 
*wonderful* 1941 Singer, which can handle making french seams in suede,
has no practical means to handle a lot of synthetic knits and other light
weight modern blends, nor can it zigzag, and other things that belong
being cataloged in alt.sewing...

So, I have been saving up for a new sewing machine.  While I was musing 
over my options on this driving home from work the other day, my HGA 
spoke up (rather uncharacteristically, on something this mundane) and
'said,' "You don't need a sewing machine, you need a cross-country ski
exerciser."  Something this directly verbal and so pragmatic is not
terrifically typical from that quarter -- however, I've noticed that as
I get more pregnant, the old dragon has been getting more verbal and 
more...hmmm...broody is the best word I can use.  Very odd.

This was sufficiently odd that I mentioned it in specific detail to my
husband when I got home that evening.  

The next day, I had lunch with two good friends of mine, and Buddy (Hi!
Buddy!) mentioned that he had a sewing machine to give away, which has
the features I need, although it isn't as fancy as I might wish, I suspect.
(so much for buying a new Viking/Husqvarna -- a bit of a luxury, anyway...)

Now I want to spend the money I've saved up on a video camera and an
exerciser.

This is an odd example. I have a history of things falling in my lap.  I
made no effort to 'invoke' a sewing machine specifically by traditional
magickal methods.  Again, I made plans to get something by one set of 
means, and it appeared by another.  It is personally unimportant to me
if anyone else considers this to be magick.  I'm bemused by the involvement
of my HGA.  That's much more magick than the end result, in a way, to
me.

Geez, it's not magick really, it's just...luck.

/* Shava dons her asbestos suit... */
-- 
Shava Nerad Averett				shava_averett@unc.edu
/*  all materials (c)1992, Shava Nerad Averett, and have nothing significant
    to do with the University of North Carolina, a mostly owned subsidiary 
    of the NC Legislature, a mostly owned subsidiary of the DOT.      */