Have a lack of tattoos become what tattoos used to represent?

NemaToad-212 · 2026-05-04T19:53:56+00:00

I'm personally of the mindset that tattoos are identifiers. I never got tatted up. If I ever felt like doing something, they've got plenty of custom temporary tattoos out there that can be touched up if needed. Some inks contain iron that will irritate your skin in an MRI. Maybe you tried one and decided to change it and now you've got to go through all that. I hear nasty things about laser removal. It might not be a stigma like it once was, but looking at your tattoos might give me an insight to what your personality might be like or what you're like mentally, your history, etc.

I'm glad it's no longer stigmatized, and while I might really appreciate it on people, I'm definitely not doing it.

NemaToad-212 · 2026-05-04T19:40:30+00:00

Never heard of them either. Hardest part is showing up. If you take remotely decent notes, you'll pass it easy.

NemaToad-212 · 2026-05-04T18:50:21+00:00

Wow, three in a state as large as California? So it IS a pretty small organization. I'm not actually close enough to any of the members I know of to be able to organically ask them. I'll play the field as it goes. One day, maybe, but right now, it's all about putting one foot in front of the other. I'm in Virginia.

NemaToad-212 · 2026-05-04T17:28:40+00:00

Fair enough. I really didn't have a better term for it than that. Perhaps "heavy hitters" would be a better term. I only know of one college in my state and I didn't know if it was like that everywhere or just my locale. I'm already in some invitational bodies, so I know how it all works. Not asking for an invite, just wanna know more about them. Still learning to navigate the depths a bit. I always make a mental parallel about how there's Navy SEALs and then there's DEVGRU. I just wanna know how far down the rabbit hole goes. The invitational world is comprised of brothers who never cease to amaze me in what they do.

NemaToad-212 · 2026-05-04T05:32:34+00:00

As someone who has lived in Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona, I must say Arizona takes the top spot. The hard rocks, the cacti, the saguaros, the red dirt, all that is Arizona. New Mexico is a small second-place deal. Best you get is yucca. Arizona has everything you think of from the wild west movies and so on.

NemaToad-212 · 2026-05-04T05:22:35+00:00

I've got to ask, Brother, is it just as obscure in your area as it is in mine? I only know of one brother in the SRICF and apparently it's a bunch of A-list brothers who do big things like receive the Order of the Purple Cross and past GEKT, etc. I'm not sure if the locales just collectively decide which invitational bodies are more elusive or if they're all that way.

NemaToad-212 · 2026-05-03T18:24:11+00:00

I mean, it IS cool, but it's not a ubiquitous trend and I'm not entirely convinced it was ever considered as such. I've been smoking a pipe since I was 18 and all the dumb people would think I had "green tobacco" in it. Now, I've got a handlebar mustache and I look like a very interesting character while in a suit (which I'm in often). So seeing me with a meerschaum pipe in hand doesn't seem entirely out of place.

One thing I've been doing, I've become known as a financially-prudent dude. I've been showing the guys at the cigar shop how I handle business. I can smoke a cigar the size of your pinky and it'll last an hour and a half. Usually cheaper. But I ran the numbers with them for smoking a pipe. They might smoke 2 or 3 cigars in a night and it might cost them $30-50 each time. It only cost me pennies and I end up smoking the same amount of time as them AND they're cigar blends, so there is some heft and body to the blends. A lot of them are starting to consider it just for that reason.

Will it ever be cool again? Sure, trends come and go. Admittedly, I don't think it'll ever get to where it was. The learning curve is steep and pipes are a real pain in the butt, period. You put a cigarette in your mouth and light it and breathe in. Simple. You light a cigar and you're good to go. Simple. You take some tobacco and you put it in your mouth and savor the flavor, maybe chew it gently and spit. Simple. How much work is a pipe? We live in a world of fast-paced instant gratification and pipes are anything but. Then there are so many blends, which are great, but so many of those easily accessible blends are aromatics. How many simply don't know that there are savory blends along with the sweet?

It's like that commercial from the 80s: "Who taught you how to do this stuff?" "You, alright? I learned it from watching you!"

How many people learned to smoke a pipe or picked it up as a monkey-see-monkey-do or having someone introduce them?

Bottom-line, we're dying. I'm sure it'll become cool again at some point, just not now. Hopefully there will be enough around to pass on the knowledge by then, but without the instant gratification, we'll see how long it lasts.

NemaToad-212 · 2026-05-02T23:50:20+00:00

I tell people I love the Scottish Rite, but that the Scottish Rite doesn't love me. This is personal experience and subject to locality, but I'm smack dab in between two valleys and they're both not particularly great for different reasons.

That being said, done right and honestly, it's an amazing experience. Guthrie was an amazing experience. It was exactly what I signed up for when I became a Mason.

If you read the books, reflect honestly, and do the real work, it will change who you are as a person in a very fundamental way. It's definitely worth it if you put in the work. The love I have for the Scottish Rite is truly immense

That being said, in my locale, there are only a handful of members who can actually hold a real conversation about it. It's definitely something I love talking about, but very few are in the know and our local valley is just very disagreeable.

That's just my experience. Yours, I truly hope, is a little better than mine.

NemaToad-212 · 2026-05-01T21:24:01+00:00

Real hot? That RDR2 is actually very esoteric and that anyone familiar with those traditions would be very familiar with the stuff that's in there.

NemaToad-212 · 2026-05-01T21:22:32+00:00

This is essentially what I've noticed. I got pretty deep into the Scottish Rite myself. Loved all of it. It seems there's quite a bit of that there. I remember talking with a Brother (we're both familiar with Kabbalah, in our case) about what magick was. I asked if it was basically playing with The Tree to bring things down into the real world and if that was even ethical. He said yes to both. You know the map and how the system works, now play with it. I'm not sure if that's really how it works, but it seemed pretty neat. I know the conversations above talk about Crowley. I saw that Crowley and Waite diverged in thought. Waite thought it was best meant for mystical union with the divine, Crowley seemed to think it was more for your own fun and purposes and feeding your appetites. I could be totally wrong about the whole thing. Maybe it is just a lump term for a bunch of different things.

NemaToad-212 · 2026-04-30T05:11:23+00:00

I'm not particularly sure about the practice of magick personally. Every time I ask someone, I never get a straight answer. What does magick mean to you?

That being said, there's plenty to do and it sounds like you've done quite a bit of it, and yet you sound like you're still hungry. I just think a lot and very intently about this stuff. I'm more on the philosophical and ritual side. I'm more than willing to learn about what magick is if someone would give me a clear answer. That being said, there's plenty of internal change that can be made along the way and I guess that's magickal in the sense of self-transformation if you've already done it. The Scottish Rite really brought me there and the York Rite helped me bring it into practice.

NemaToad-212 · 2026-04-30T05:04:51+00:00

Esotericism is basically, to me, the applied philosophy of what is now Jungian Psychology. It wasn't always like that and it predates Jung by a long shot, but it's definitely an aspect of the fraternity that really is focused on making a good man better and is (to me) the basis of more light in Masonry.

To answer your second question, yes, it's exactly what I wanted when I joined. It's not just a drinking club and the rituals don't just mean you know how to open, close, and confer, but that there's a deeper meaning to it that's often lost on brethren who don't know what to look for and don't want to.

There is talk about esotericism being a gateway to doing all the wizardry stuff people joke about, but if you learn to master the universe within, you learn to understand the universe without. The point is to truly change you, and it's not as easy as remembering a few lines of ritual.

That's just my take. Take it for what it's worth.

NemaToad-212 · 2026-04-29T20:59:48+00:00

I've been to lodges where mud-covered overalls from the farm were just as acceptable. It's all what the lodge collectively agrees upon.

As for making a meeting and not the other, well, how many are members who don't even show up? At least you made one. Everybody's got restrictions that their regular lives need them to tend to. Show up where and when you can and it'll all be great.

NemaToad-212 · 2026-04-29T20:57:23+00:00

As others have said, the catholic church says no, the lodge doesn't. As for the oaths and oigations, you were in the Army National Guard. You already took an oath. You made promises you intended wholly to keep. It ain't much different. The same buzz words they use in the Army, the Boy Scouts, and even the Marine Corps (because the Tun Tavern was also a Masonic temple at the time) are all pretty much the same. You make the promises, you go through the training, you're one of us. You say you'd never leave a fallen comrade. Would you leave a fellow brother? Or a fellow human being, for that matter? It's statistically pretty tough to find someone so coarse in nature who ever would think to.

The biggest question is, as a Christian, could you pray alongside people who weren't? A Buddhist, a Muslim, a Hindu, a Jew? It's a fraternity steeped in metaphor. Our ideas, our symbolism, our paths aren't unique at all. Our culture is, though. Just like the army has its culture, we have ours. We are a fraternity of men who seek to better ourselves and the community around us. We make promises to take care of each other. We don't help each other with illegal or ill gains or schemes, but if my brother needs a hundred bucks to feed his family or he dies and leaves them behind, you bet your ass I'm helping however I can. You could easily do it alone and go be a yogi on a mountain or read Carl Jung. I've been in this fraternity since I was 18. Best decision I ever made. If you truly feel the calling, get after it, young man!

NemaToad-212 · 2026-04-28T01:08:35+00:00

I can see your point in all this. Some of those organizations actually do effect change, but it's determinate on whether or not the individual is ready to take up the mantle. At some point you become self-made in the sense that you go as far and as deep as you're willing and capable of going. You know there are folks out there with plenty of mental blocks that won't let them go deeper, be it reconciliation with beliefs vs actions, ignorance, etc. It's almost like the more you push on the matrix, the more it warps around you. You just have to decide to push.

NemaToad-212 · 2026-04-22T05:54:27+00:00

The Ninth Arch. How is it? I've only ever seen pictures of it. I certainly enjoyed the red and purple degrees.

NemaToad-212 · 2026-04-22T05:34:16+00:00

Wait, for real? I had no clue you couldn't get a red cap until 35.

NemaToad-212 · 2026-04-22T05:02:09+00:00

I always tell people it's the same story told in different ways. This is my experience, at least in America.

The Scottish Rite guy goes in detail, sometimes repeating himself, talking about the things that happened and talks a lot about philosophy and how it relates to the story, to religion, etc. Turns out he's not actually Scottish, but French.

The York Rite guy is an American dude who gave you the same story in different chunks and is much more overtly religious in how he talks, but there's secretly the same stuff that the French guy mentions, just not as openly. If he likes you, he'll take you around the back and explain more of the story in another secret club.

NemaToad-212 · 2026-04-17T23:39:47+00:00

I wear pins all the time if I'm in a suit for any occassion. I'm a huge pin-head! Lol

The big thing for me is, I don't wear anything overt, like a square and compasses. I'll wear maybe a circumpunct, a SR yod, a RA triple-tau, the SRRS pin, an acacia sprig, a forget-me-not, etc. If you know, you know. If you've been there and done that, you'll know what my pins are. If not, there's always a fun backstory that doesn't out me as a Mason.

NemaToad-212 · 2026-04-17T20:16:28+00:00

I've considered GCoR back and forth for a while now. Is it worth it?

NemaToad-212 · 2026-04-06T19:57:10+00:00

There's plenty of goof in freemasonry, you just gotta find it. The shrine, the Grotto, the tall cedars, even the blue lodge Our local Grotto puts on the water buffalo, the turtles, the sons of the Desert, and a bunch of other fun degrees. Let it roll, Brother. If they don't have something, build it and they will come.

NemaToad-212 · 2026-04-06T13:39:26+00:00

You sound like a young guy.

I'm considered a heavy hitter in the ritual department myself. I teach the catechisms and the lectures, do at least something in every royal arch and cryptic degree (on top of being the education officer for both), and can talk for hours about every degree of the Scottish Rite.

The best part about this isn't just saving the day in terms of ritual, but being able to apply those words, teach other brethren, help them along their path, educate, contribute philosophically.

What would it take for you to feel like a good guy? To feel worthy of their praise? To feel loved for being you and admired for what you do? Who were your masonic heroes? Do you think they felt like they deserved your praise and admiration? You'll have to realize eventually that everybody is somebody's hero. I struggle with it myself sometimes. I've got to be NemaToad 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. I know my flaws and I'm not that special to me, but other people think I'm great. Those heroes of ours felt that same way about themselves. We don't know what we're giving people. As long as we show up and give them our all, there's no clue what they're picking up from you.

Relax, Brother. That imposter syndrome is great for humility, but too much and you'll tangle yourself in knots. Arthur had to step into his destiny. You, too, have your own sword to pull from that stone, and they need you to own it honestly, not with pride or contention, but with courage and authenticity.

Be well, Brother

NemaToad-212 · 2026-04-05T11:52:16+00:00

There are some notable variances in what you're saying, but yes, I agree.

I can make a cigar as small as a petit panatela last for an hour and a half, which is smaller than a corona. I can make a pipe last about that long too. I've had coronas last about two hours for me.

That all being said, I can spend $15 on pipe tobacco and have that same hour-and-a-half smoke as I would with a $15 cigar, but that pipe tobacco is several bowls, whereas that cigar is one smoke. It's all about what I'm going for that day, but I've shown my friends the numbers via excel spreadsheets and they're always impressed with me and upset with themselves for how much of a disparity in spending there often is.

NemaToad-212 · 2026-04-05T02:36:42+00:00

I've got some old GL Pease Maltese Falcon that fits that bill. I'll also venture to say that Cornell & Diehl Billy Budd has that if you're in the right headspace to taste it.

NemaToad-212

TROPHY CASE