The Rabbi, Pagan, Poet, Magus, Man in the — Incense Smoke . . .

‘Would you be offended if I referred to you as the ‘irascible Craig Schumacher’ . . . ?’

‘Offended? No.’

Perhaps it’s through my many years immersion in Japanese culture that I acquired the gift of ‘bento-bako’ mentality— that is, the ability to compartmentalise emotions and issues and separate them from other dialogues with the same individual — I can be cross at a person about one thing yet still have normal conversation with them on other topics with no emotional overlap.

Craig has been utterly horrid to me online on numerous occasions. So of course I sent him a Facebook Friend request, which he accepted.

True to form, I managed to upset him about something and the next thing I knew, he’d changed his profile pic to a not particularly attractive version of an incense photo I’d taken for Halloween ‘16— one that I had posted to a now defunct FB group and subsequently removed.

Through the back-and-forth that ensued I realised he wasn’t being deliberately provocative by posting the badly edited version, rather, it was all he had (a scanned version of a paper print-out)— and he wanted the original digital version, his ire stoked by my having taken it down.

Bento-bako modus operandi kicked in and with the congnizanse that for Craig — the man in the Incense Smoke, was him, hence why he wanted it — I accelerated my original intention to post the image in my new Facebook group this Halloween. I have to admit the resemblance was uncanny which led to a good ol’ banter as to whether he was infiltrating my space or I was a conjurin’ him.

Synchronicity came into play as it normally does and this time when I delved back into my photo library I was minded to do some simultaneous sorting. I dragged and dropped the whole set of images to a newly created file folder, only to find that there were 72 in total.

I suppose I could concoct an elaborate story of how I came to take the photos and what the driving force was. The truth, however, is that I was trying to develop some photography skills for a website and this was a test run. Though I used the space where ritual is normally held, there was no ritual happening at the time, save as to my pressing the button in quick succession — 72 times apparently.

So be it the 72 Names of the God; the 72 Points of the Circle; or the 72 Images of Incense Smoke, I will leave the interpretations to those who resonate with the Man up there.