A homily for the New Moon on May 16, 2026. Written, as always, without authority.
Dearly Beloved,
Blessed New Moon, dear ones. I greet you in the name of Aphrodite and in the name of the Divine on this, the New Moon of Taurus.
Back in 1996 when I was in my probation year in the A.’.A.’., I was lucky enough to get to spend a good part of most days with my teacher getting personal instruction and guidance. I was homeless and he was on disability, so we both had the time for such things, and he was very dutiful. I was less so in those days, but my enthusiasm seemed to make up for it with him. He had no legs beneath the knees and usually used a wheelchair to get around, although he did have prosthetic legs he used sometimes. Every day we would wander downtown together, weaving his knots. He had taken an oath to help Santa Cruz long before I came along, and the way he did this was by going around connecting people and places with strands of energy, weaving the people and places together, and creating knots and networks so that we could all make a good home together. We would make our way from near the beach down to the corner of Pacific Avenue and Mission and back, sometimes making several circuits, pulling energy in from the ocean and going from landmark to landmark and person to person that Tony knew along the way (and he knew everyone) and end at the clock tower. He would touch each landmark, each street sign, and each building along the way, just slapping them with his hand or touching them lightly and linking them to the strand of energy he was carrying through town, and he would stop and talk to locals, homeless folks, and even cops, weaving his knots to each of them and weaving each to the other. My main “knack” (magickal talent) is the sight (which he knew and shared), so I could “see” what he was doing most of the time, but at the beginning I had no context for it.
For the first three months or so I just followed along and did what I was told. Despite being a Thelemite and having a healthy disrespect for most of those who would claim authority over me, I was raised to defer to legitimate authority and right then Tony was the most legitimate authority in my life. After a while of this, though, I asked for an explanation. He said “I’m a playground attendant. Just trying to make sure everyone plays nice.”
That’s when I started noticing little details. Tony always clucked over babies, and when we ran into someone with an infant, he would stop and chat and always say some variant of the same thing: “Welcome to the Playground, little one. I hope you have fun.” He would also usually say goodbye to people by saying “See you around the Playground”.
This puzzled me. At that time I was something of a Gnostic. My life was, quite frankly, pretty horrible until I got to Santa Cruz. The notion that I was trapped in a false reality by an arrogant and occluded Demiurge made a lot of sense to me at the time. Oh, I knew “Liber AL vel Legis”, the primary holy text of Thelema, makes it quite clear that “existence is pure joy”, and I agreed in a sort of top-level way at the time. I had already had 2 big mystical experiences by that age and, while one was terrifying, the other had been truly ecstatic in every sense of the word. It definitely took me out of my stasis and then led me on a great adventure across the country to find a new home and my teacher. So I agreed that existence was pure joy up on the level of the Divine, but I pretty much believed that life down here where we live sucks. And frankly, sometimes I still fall into that sort of thinking despite myself. I am more motivated by duty than joy and sometimes I have really hard days. I’m working on that, but it’s an ongoing struggle.
So I was surprised as hell to realize that my teacher was consistently referring to this world as “The Playground”, especially considering how much of his training regimen was based on that of a Buddhist monk. When my two magickal brothers and I got to a certain point, Tony even had us following various precepts. When I got off the streets, I was only allowed to pursue “Right Livelihood”, which for someone in my situation meant working in kitchens, because I was coming up off the streets and “it is always ethical to feed people” (Tony’s words). Then my first wife and I were forced to move to her home in Oklahoma or become homeless again because we suddenly lost our place to live in Santa Cruz. The only job I could find was working at a market research company, which I didn’t consider “right livelihood”, but it was the only work available and I needed to pay the bills. I could have done better prosperity magick but I barely knew how at that point (I was only a neophyte). Tony flew out to visit me and brought me several ritual tools as gifts, and he expressed profound disappointment with me for taking what he saw as unethical work. This led to the first of our big fights, which mostly took place over a series of letters after he left, and we never really came back from that.
But he was a complex man. Far more nuanced than I really appreciated while he was alive. He believed that existence is pure joy and that we have a responsibility to keep it that way. We all have to work together to keep the Playground clean, safe, and lots of fun for everyone. He saw our job as fundamentally relational—we were to go about connecting places, objects, and people, strengthen those connections where they already existed, and protect the whole system when any of it was endangered. That was his magick, at its heart. Oh, he could debate “Liber 65” with the best of them and cast any practical spell as necessary, but first and foremost he was a playground attendant. He saw this world as not just joy, but as play, and he worked to help it happen.
Now, I am the first to admit that sometimes the world plays rough. I am not here to deny suffering. Some mystics do that, I know. Some of those mystics are even Thelemites and some of those Thelemites are even my siblings in the order. I don’t want to antagonize any of them or, indeed, gainsay them. From the right vantage point, existence is pure joy. This is not an article of faith for me but a perception based on my own lived experiences of magick, mysticism, and living the spiritual life. But suffering is real and suffering is meaningful, too. To deny that is to deny the lived reality of billions and any spiritual system that cannot stomach and digest suffering is not meant for the sort of people we actually are and the sort of world we actually live in. Tony never said that suffering wasn’t real, and despite his Buddhist leanings he did not blame all suffering on our own attachment. Instead he said something remarkable…that suffering is play.
This is as heretical now as it was then. Reality is Serious Business. Life is Serious Business. Suffering is the rule down here, not the exception. And “success” is no remedy for suffering. Look at our wealthy rulers, the billionaires and politicians…do they look happy? For those of you with the sight who can see their auras, do they look like they are enjoying their existence? Do they look like they are playing? No. They are miserable and scared.
But what if reality is not really serious business at all? What if it’s a game?
As many of you know, I am big gamer. I’m autistic and it’s my main special interest. And my favorite games are very, very difficult (I am currently on my sixth playthrough of “Lies Of P”) and have very high skill ceilings. In these games you die again and again and again. You can lose hours of progress to a moment of carelessness or clumsiness. Enemies gang up on you and attack in unfair ways from multiple positions. As you progress, new mechanics are introduced to continue increasing the difficulty in new ways as your character gets stronger and more skillful. The tagline from one of my favorite games, “Dark Souls”, was literally “Prepare To Die”.
And I love it. Can’t get enough. I will play 200 hours on a character and then start a new save file just to start over from the beginning and climb the mountain all over again. And what I love the most is a wall. A really hard boss fight that I have to throw myself at over and over again before I finally master the fight and win. Very few experiences are as satisfying and pleasurable to me than beating my head against a wall like that for days, maybe even weeks, trying to beat the boss again and again, and then, finally, winning. Sometimes I even get too frustrated and set the game aside for a time, but I always come back and eventually win.
This kind of game teaches you something that I learned originally when I was a kid and went into my first hospital…that you can live with unfairness, frustration, and pain. You can get through suffering. You can feel scared and helpless and come out the other side. You can be a starving teenager with nothing to do and nowhere to be for years and then have it all turn out to be a meaningful story of growth and initiation rather than just another cheap “kid stuck in the system ends up on the streets” tragedy.
I didn’t agree with Tony about the Playground for most of my life. We spent the last years of his life at odds. We barely spoke unless he came to the Sacred Grove, and when he did we would usually fight or exchange baroque barbs while ostensibly chatting nicely together with a third party. I was unfair to him. I have various excuses that are almost good enough to be reasons, but it all comes down to me resenting some of his actions and needing to get out of his very long shadow. I know that I have some readers who knew me in those days and who knew my teacher and I want to say here that while he could be manipulative in the extreme, Tony was never malicious. He was one of the best people I’ve ever met. He always wanted what was best for me and best for the world (especially Santa Cruz, the town he loved so much). He was the one who taught me to seek and serve the Good. He was the one who helped me take what my grandfather did to me in my childhood and turn it into something useful, although he disapproved of magickal warfare itself. He was a good man and I have seldom met his like. I am truly grateful for him and to him. My life would have been so much less without him and without the A.’.A.’. (even if I do sometimes get frustrated and talk shit).
So now I have a more nuanced point of view. Tony thought in terms of the Playground, but I am a gamer and not half the mage he was so I think in terms of the Game (which takes place on the Playground, of course). Suffering is real…and it is part of the Game. The goal of the Game can be to quit the Game or to beat the Game if you choose, but for me the goal of the Game is to have fun. In my case I am playing on the “hardcore” difficulty by being transgender, neurodivergent, and chronically ill, but I am still having a lot of fun. I get to be a mage and a priestess. I know a lot of really cool mages from all over the world. I have gotten to spend most of my time with the love of my life for the last 20 years. I am working on building a legacy I can be proud of. And even though I will be 49 in July and I know the world is getting more and more dangerous for people like me, I feel like my life is just beginning. I feel hopeful and excited and a little scared, just like I feel right before a good, juicy boss fight.
The landscape is frightening. Visibility is poor. The path is difficult. My allies are few. The enemies are powerful, numerous, and they have all the advantages. The landscape itself has become hostile and I know that I have a long way to go before the credits roll.
Just how I like it.
Blessed New Moon, dear ones. May all of the gods bless you in the weeks until we speak again.
See you around the Playground.
In love,
Soror Alice
Art: Hieronymus Bosch, “The Garden of Earthly Delights”, (1490-1510)
Alice Adora Spurlock, also known as Soror Alice, Xenē, and Despoina, is a professional witch and ceremonial magician with 30 years of experience. She is available for hire to help you accomplish your goals. Learn more here. Book a session now (Tarot reading included!).