1. Go into the woods and find a tree that’s been growing for a bit, but not too long, but still for a while.

2. Rub a pencil on the bark of the tee.

3. Make yourself cry green tears and fill them with the bark.

1968 was the year I became a spiritual medium. I was a nine year old with time on my hands. Our parents fed us, clothed us and kept us on the straight and narrow, but orchestrating after school activities was not in their job description. Carefully choreographed play dates were nonexistent. In fact even the word “play date” was nonexistent. No one cared what we did between the hours of 3PM and 5PM as long as we did it quietly while not wearing our good school clothes.

Everyone knows that we live in times of violent disagreements and fraying of the social fabric. It is my view that this is substantially caused, and greatly aggravated, by our inability to treat each other decently and with respect no matter how much we might disagree.

It was autumn and night when I first saw it.

The dark spot darted from the refrigerator to the corner of the kitchen, where we kept a sexy basket of dirty dish towels. I approached the basket and nudged it with my foot, which caused the runner to bolt back to the refrigerator and me to screech.

Full disclosure, I am not the devil. I cannot damn you soul nor make Faustian bargains. Rather I am a simple warlock of humble means who is in need of a man’s soul for various occult purposes.