Checked off my list . . .

Things done today, post breakfast sandwich:

* Lisa finished the graphic, Dossy is tinkering as I speak. Lisa made me a bad ass mix of stuff that went into the "Charmed, I'm Sure" jar and made sure she had actual Master of the Wood for the jar. I intentionally chose each herb for this blog.

* Opened all the windows in the house to get the energy circulating again because I've noticed that Jow gets grumpy/cranky when the house energy is off.

* I've noticed in Hoodoo everything is in Jesus' name. There's nothing wrong with that, but it's not for me. If I'm not doing work for a specific deity, what do I say? I do believe all the little-g gods are connected, like in the same way I believe all humans are connected in a vague quasi-Buddhist way, so after some conversation with Jow, I figured out that I feel okay with doing work in God Herself's name (a la T. Thorn Coyle). So now now I can do work that way.

* Put some Florida water on my magic broom as per Mama Starr's podcast suggestion, swept the house. Also put two lemon halves with salt on them on either side of the door, started a new money drawing spell with water, sugar and quarters and did a cleansing for Jow and vice versa using a Florida water blessed fan and sage, also per Mama Starr.

* Purged my closet, my purse, the bathroom and then had Jow purge his closet as well.

* Changed the salt in our Jhor bowl, cleaned the little skull in it.

* Watered our desert roses

* Lit up our altar and made water offerings.

* Saged the house


It feels much better in here now and I feel much better. My hands have been itching to purge the house for some time so now hopefully I can concentrate on writing! Just started watching Red and J. brought cider donuts, nom!

Stuff and Things and Junk

Back from Rhode Island safe and sound! Did not get taken by an Elder god. The weather was v. Bronte esque which really had me thinking that New England is (duh) the England of the U.S. in terms of brooding moors and whatnot. I am currently marinading on a short romantica story to submit for an anthology that is looking for broody gothity romance. A lot of red wine was drank on the trip. The oysters there are seriously the best I've ever had in my life, I'm currently in withdrawal from them. We got a plate of 12 oysters from 4 local oyster farms, 6 clams and a whole lobster tail for under $40. I felt incredibly posh about it.

Soaking yarn as we speak, getting ready to launch my non-magical based Etsy store. Am going to ask for a spinning wheel for the holidays I think. I really need my wrist/hands/elbows for my work and excessive drop spindling and typing on a laptop has not helped per se. My family is both nonplussed and intrigued by this request. I have my eye on this wheel. When I start working from home, we are going to turn our Spare Oom into an office and we have our eyes on an old school style secretary desk.

Last night, Jow and I bought new coats. For me this is particularly significant as it means I will be donating my sad little matchgirl coat that I bought on a super sale two years ago when my Wasband first left and drained our joint. I had just donated my coat at the time and didn't known I was getting left, so it was a scary and real possibility that I might not have a coat immediately for winter. My new coat is super cute and a little Mad Men like.

In further cutting my fetters, I did a huge hack and slash on my old domain (which was described as "badass" by Dossy because he's cool like that and doing all the heavy lifting on this). I took down the SalonCon site as the con is defunct anyway and it's time (for the curious, info can be found on it on my general website), changed hosts to DreamHost, am moving my general site to be its own domain, streamlining my old Goddess Dollies site into a one page site and am giving my blog here a facelift with the help of Lisa and Dossy.

Last Hallowe'en, we were moving into our condo, it's hard to believe it's only been a year ago. We were too exhausted to do anything as we were moving on the day of. This year I'm sitting on the couch, happily munching on a breakfast sandwich made by Jow, blogging and drinking pumpkin tea. We'll go visit my mom for a little while and hopefully have J. over to watch SyFi's version of little red riding hood (Red! The werewolf hunter!) and Glee's version of Rocky Horror.

This Samhain season finds me wanting to continue to cut old fetters and make room for the new. I want to purge my closet again, clean out my hall closets, give the house a really good cleaning, set up some more small magics, start my Etsy store up, I had been wearing the Ugg slippers I got Wasband a few xmases ago (because they are warm and soft and hardly worn), hopefully I'll get a pair of my own in pink for xmas
and I can toss them. I definately want to start going to the gym and doing yoga again. Samhain is feeling like a Witch's New Year to me this year, for sure. I have the urge to clean like a coked up squirrel who has watched too many episodes of Hoarders.

On our way to and from Rhode Island, Jow and I listened to Mama Starr's Traditional Conjure podcast which is . . .beyond awesome. I love it.

My article that was based on my blog post In Your Hands, Ophelia is now up on WitchVox.

Rabbit Hearts and Revelation

So, I've watched Florence + The Machine's Rabbit Heart (Raise It Up) about um five billion times this week.

Revelations:

* Why am I never invited to parties like this? RO, could we combine our Big Blogosphere Meetup Jamboree for this to be the day portion? Formal fae attire will be required, dancing and human sacrifice optional.

* I have wanted a chemise a la reine for quite some time because I have a secret Marie Antoinette fetish (really, that shouldn't be surprising), so I'm going to have one made for me on Etsy because I'm going to two fairy events this year I can wear it to and I hold out hope for our Jamboree.

* I don't want to call this video, like, a guaranteed ecstatic trance experience or anything mostly because I don't want to be bothered by whiners, but for me, five times in a row in and . . .I'm out like a trout.

* Despite this promising information, Jow is totally trance resistant, even though I came to this revelation at work under the influence of no drugs, alcohol or even a fun environment.

* I think it says a lot about us that I'm mediation resistant (Oh man! Rules! I have to fucking schedule this in! I'm supposed to just, like empty my brain even though I've taken a lot of time and energy to fill it with important information about who's banging who and who's mad at who both in real life and on telly, uck! I don't even think I want to be enlightened. Boring. I've banged my head against this for like a full year in the ADF dedicants program to find that hey! You know how you have a generalized anxiety disorder and you take meds for it? Remember all those terrible things that you've been through that you went to therapy for an extended time to work through to continue to function on a daily basis so you can go to work and be a working member of society? Remember how you don't really care about being enlightened or Getting to the Next Level? Hey, maybe you should leave that shit alone and not stir it all up again for a v. nebulous to you purpose as you can do magic just fine without an extended meditation practice) but pro-trance/ecstatic experience and Jow is exactly the opposite (what! I have to depend solely on my own experience? There's no empirical data to give me an exact blue print? It just happens? I have to do any number of things like dance, drink, drum, sweat lodge, use kava, go to a festival or listen to Florence + the Machine until I want to bang my head against the keyboard repeatedly? I said good day, Sir!).

* I do trance experiences before bed most nights before going to bed to go to my internal hearth. When I am super sick and cannot clean my actual house, I clean my internal hearth. When I don't have much money (which is always), I can make elaborate offerings to my gods on my beach and hang with them.

* I like trance because . . .sometimes I get performance anxiety pressure about random things, like I can't feel feelings on command, which was an issue about my wedding which was to be THE HAPPIEST DAY OF MY LIFE OR ELSE!!!11!!! If I am dying for a trance experience and want one on command, I can do one of two things:
a) Attend a sweat lodge because for me, it's going to happen there as . . .that's what it's designed to do.
b) Go to a goth club, drink three shots of tequila or goldschlagger and start dancing. I will feel the booze burning in my blood and if I dance until I get to the woozy is this a good idea or bad idea, who cares keep dancing, it will happen.

* Otherwise, it happens for me when it happens for me. I don't have to plan for it, it's usually when I push myself as far as I can go and then push myself just a little further. This tends to happen for me when: massively housefraus'ing, dancing, parties at my house, drinking just slightly past my comfort zone, cons, and festivals. I enjoy the happy surprise aspect of it.

* Look. I know I'm supposed to be, like, above the buzz but while while I do agree with Jason that if your goal is target driven, the less buzz, the better. However, if it's just celebratory, game on, in my opinion. My practice is distinctly Hollow One, my life tends more towards Cultist of X/mermaid/nymph. So, This was really difficult as I was leaving my maidenhood which was more conducive to such practices. As a mother (not literal), I figured out:
a) It's a party when I say it's a party, bitch. Meaning, anything can be with the right attitude
b) I channeled some of the energy into creating a hearth, fashion, cooking, a magical practice, writing and crafting
c) I throw a lot of parties
d) The booze at my house is always top shelf which is a big plus
e) I need to get my buzzy ya-yas out at least quarterly or I start to get antsy and then I start looking for trouble. This is easy enough to head off. Arisia con gets my kitchen witch yayas out *and* the after parties get my CoX bits out. The Fairy Festival is all about soaking in the glamour during the day and making poor drinking (and sometimes otherwise) decisions with friends in a field in a farm in the middle of nowhere with a big bonfire.

* When I am tranced out, I can generally see into the squishy insides of people and because I'm tranced out and my filter is zero, I NEED to make these observations OUT LOUD to the person. It's a dice roll as to how that's received. It's also why I'm not tranced out for like 90% of my life.

* But generally I try to keep my trance revelations introspective so as to not alienate everyone around me (well, for that reason at least). Rabbit Heart, both the lyrics and the video describe exactly how I feel inside right now.

This is a gift, it comes with a price
Who is the lamb and who is the knife?
Midas is king and he holds me so tight
And turns me to gold in the sunlight

I must become a lion hearted girl
Ready for a fight
Before I make the final sacrifice

We raise it up, this offering
We raise it up

I'm getting exactly what I wanted in my life and I'm becoming the person I've worked really hard to be my whole adult life, but it doesn't come for free all of these things. In the video, she's the guest of honor at this wild fairy party but, like so many of our myths, she's the one who's sacrificed at the end (v. prettily of course, which is what I too would demand, if you're going to out, go out like homegirl Ophelia) which I've sort of interpreted for my own life that yeah, I've got all the things I've wanted - home ownership, a hearth, good relationships, lots of loved ones, a blooming writing and crafting career, a blooming kitchen witch practice, love for my body, forgiveness for my past, comfort in my own skin. But it won't always be easy, I'll be plagued as I always am with self doubt, I'll have to work really hard, I'll have to make sure I can *keep* these things and I will have to fight like hell to be the person I want to be and have the life I want to life, I need to not get too bogged down by material things and be fierce with all my heart.

Before I too am floated out to sea.

Twitter

I don't tweet exclusively about magic on Twitter, and I am working on using Penelope Trunk's twitter tips, so as such, I don't tweet excessively.

If you would like to follow me, go here.

Guest Blogging

I debut my famous Samhain Stuffed Pumpkin recipe in my guest blog post over at Confessions of a Pagan Soccer Mom today!

I'm telling you it's not a trick/ pay attention, don't be thick/ or you're liable to be licked . . .

So, admittedly, it takes a while for the idea that someone could be crossed or jinxed to permeate my brain meat that's hazy with too much Teen Moms and the nine billion things I need to accomplish in a day. But Jow gives me more credit by reminding me that my magical vetting process has more in common with the Vatican than with the Neo-Pagan movement, so it's going to take a whole lot for me to think that it's on the table.

Hoodoo Crossroads writes an excellent post on how to identify if someone has been cursed, which is helpful. My friend "Danny" always had shitty luck, some of it has been frankly of his own making. Poor decisions and whatnot. So generally, my advice was to fix x issue or y issue. But even when he was working on it, things had a way of spectacularly falling apart with unforeseen outside issues. He's really been hitting rock bottom lately and I was out of ideas about what he could do to fix it. After a few conversations where I just sympathized with his situation and new information on how an already bad situation got worse due to outside influences, I finally asked.

Do you think . . .it's *possible* you're, like, jinxed or crossed or cursed?

Danny only vaguely believes in a very vague sort of paganish paradigm and is not someone I would categorize as religious or into magic. I've never asked anyone that, but I was out of ideas and the more I thought about it, the more I thought, maybe it was *possible*. After a thoughtful pause, Danny said, it's really funny you should say that. There's been a family rumour for years that my immediate family might be, something about a neighbor who may have been practicing something years ago.

It's not that I'm sure Danny is cursed. He's not someone to think he's constantly UNDER PSYCHIC ATTACK or even particularly believe in it. But my thought was, well, if he is, then this could really help him turn things around. If he's not, no harm no foul. I don't wander off into well magic/the gods is just an archetype so you can use any herb for anything blahblahblah whatever, but I was a psych minor so while I dutifully use the proper herbs for whatever and believe the gods are separate (as much as anything or anyone is separate) beings unto Themselves, I also dig Jungian psych, NPL, etc. I think if Danny even allows for the possibility that whatever spell work I suggest is possible then a lot of subconscious and let's get crazy, magical stuff could go down. However, I also believe that if he really wants to fix this, he needs to take that big step and do the working himself, at least to start. If he tries it and it doesn't work, then I would step in and see what I could do from my side. At the time I gave him this spell work, he said he would give it a go. He has not yet done the spell work yet, but says he plans to. It was interesting to try to plan a spell using ingredients that a non-magical working/not too heavy into cooking household would have.

Him: Yeah, so I don't have a lot of room around the perimeters of my room.
Me: That's okay. It's only a sprinkle of salt/sage.
Him: Oh. Yeah. I see that now.
Me: . . .There's a saying in witchcraft, "To Know, To Will, To Dare and To Keep Silent". If there's a cup and a half of salt/sage spread around your room in big clumpy piles, that's . . .not very silent. A lot of people would ask a lot of questions about that.


Curse Breaking/Luck Bringing Spell for Danny

1. Take a shower. While showering, use some salt like a scrub and scrub your body with it. Imagine your bad luck going down the drain with the water.

2. Open your bedroom window and wave all the crappy luck out of it with a broom.

3. Mix about a tablespoon each of sage and salt together and sprinkle it around the perimeters of your room. Once you have done that, recite the 37th Psalm. While reciting it, keep picturing your crappy luck leaving.

4. Think about what you need in your life to be happy. Also think about what you can do to get them (the second part is important in magic).

5. Without your pen leaving the paper, write down the things that you want in your life. Be specific.

6. Sprinkle cinnamon and allspice on the paper and fold the paper *towards* you while saying,
Father Coyote*, this dog's luck is nothing but crossed
Please bring me what I've asked for before all is lost.

7. Put the paper on the reflective surface with the candle on top. Light the candle. Repeat the prayer to Coyote. When extinguishing the candle, don't use your breath. Use a lid or a spoon or a dish. When relighting the candle say the prayer. Do this until the candle is completely used up.

8. Take the piece of paper and the melty wax that melted on top of it. Put it in a small ziplock bag and put it in your dice bag with your luckiest gaming dice. You carry your dice bag with you all the time anyway, so keep doing that. Do your best to not show anyone the ziplock bag. Dab the dice bag once a week with good booze and repeat the prayer to Coyote.

* Coyote is Danny's patron deity which is why I picked him for this working.

Lay her down in her gingerbread coffin/ she's so pretty/ laid out in white . . .

I rarely have large amounts of time home alone, so today while avoiding work, I reread my last 20 or so blog entries as it tends to give me clues as to where my head was, where my head is and where I am going and I realized that along with a three part blog posting that I need to get to, I never made my poppet of The Wife Who Was.

When making that post, I was v. full of piss and vinegar as I was trying to psych myself up into letting go of her. After last weekend, I realized I really am ready to let go of her, more over, it's time. This month, I would have been married for three years, would have been with Wasband for ten years which is a third of my life. It didn't work out that way. He left a month before our first wedding anniversary, leaving me an abandoned bride with a half frozen wedding cake on her balcony and no one to eat it with.

It honestly frightens me that in only two years, I've become such a different person that the life I shared with a person for nearly my entire adult life is a distant memory. It doesn't seem like it should work that way, that two years can erase eight. But it does. Fragments do remain of course, but for the most part, besides having to inopportunely see him unexpectedly at various pagan/alterna events, it's almost like it never happened. He's a shadowy figure of a past that often was not that happy.

I suppose what also really frightens me is that I thought that I was happy. And maybe I was, because I didn't really know any better yet. Nothing in my life had yet led me to believe that happiness wasn't found while living beyond one's means with a heaping helping of codependence and near constant antagonism.

In writing, you are constantly told to show through a character's actions how the character is feeling, not simply having the character tell. And . . .before I was telling and now I'm showing.

I thought making my little straw bride, the one who was left, the one who wasn't good enough would be a bra burning liberating experience. But after forming her from straw with red roving hair and a paper wedding dress with a tiny heart and putting bits of me to her so that she would be me, I was sad. No. Not really sad, more . . .melancholy.

I broke the link, chanting I don't belong to you anymore, piling basil on top of her for our transitioning away from that self and into who I am settling into, burning the whiskey he won't drink in a caldron sized funeral pyre.

But, I felt sorry for her. Sorry for my little straw bride that I once was. I'm sorry this didn't work. Even though it's better for us now. I'm sorry that you got hurt so badly when all you did was try to love someone, if not perfectly. I'm sorry that your voice wasn't heard when you were honest before the ring even slid on your finger about how you feel about marriage. I'm sorry that you didn't have the tools to realize how really and truly awful thing had gotten so that it was a surprise when he took everything and left without any warning or face to face discussion. I'm sorry that you thought even when things got as bad as they did, that that was love, not some mangled damaged version of it that neither of you were grown up enough when meeting to not fall into. I'm sorry you were so broken and didn't even realize it. I'm sorry you kept thinking things would get better even though by the end you had no reason to. I'm sorry you were so desperate to not lose what was familiar that you were willing to beg for him to stay on your hands and knees over the phone like a fucking dog even though he didn't even want to take your call. I'm sorry about how much he hurt you throughout the divorce process, that you had to act like a trained fucking dog on his command or he would take away things you needed. I'm sorry you let him have the level of power and control over you that you are still breaking away from even though now he is a shattered shell of an insect. I'm sorry you never had a chance. I'm sorry I had to burn you to be free of him. But it is necessary. It is needed. Mea culpa. Mea culpa. Mea culpa.

The truth is in the dirt on the ground/ not in your gilded cage with your rusted spoon/ when the ground splits open it will swallow you. . .

So as some of you know, my life has been shaken up like an ant farm in the last two years. It's been good (long term anyway, maybe not short term), but it's been scary as fuck. In the last two years, I've gotten divorced from someone I had been with for my whole adult life, I've moved closer to home, I got my first mortgage, I've become very active in writing which has always been a passion of mine, I've gotten paid for my writing (a big hurdle), I've stopped running my convention and will be running a Steampunk track at Arisia and now I seem to be shedding the last bit of skin I have left on me from my twenties, my job.

I'm terrified to say the least. Magically, it's sound. As Jason is fond of saying, you don't need magic to hold onto the status quo. I've done magic work and KEPT MY SOVEREIGNTY (I just really enjoy saying it like that, too much Venture Brothers, you can blame Jow for that). I asked for something v. specific in my honeypot spell I recalled today, I asked to be able to generate enough *paying* income to support my current lifestyle which is far from extravagant, including writing. I haven't dreamt of my dad in years and years but last night I was sitting down to lunch with him and in the dream my mom was doubtful about what I wanted to do but my dad seemed to think I should give it a go. Dad wasn't a business guru or anything, but usually Mom was the go team! in the fam so when Dad said you should do this somewhat crazy thing and Mom was doubtful, usually it worked out in real life.

This is an opportunity I've wanted for some time, the idea that I could make a living writing (which isn't as exciting! as it sounds, the main paid writing gig I have is writing about kayaks and tents, etc. but it pays well and I don't mind it) while having enough time off to launch Trevia (crafting AND Crafting), write some short stories, write some book outlines and write some more freelance. The mundane signs are there, I was literally the face of AOL for a day and received over 600,000 hits on my piece which was equally loved and hated (usually a pretty good sign) so while personally terrifying (*everyone* who has ever met me it felt like saw it which was v. vulnerable feeling) which will also give me future opportunities hopefully as well. But I would be working as a contractor which means that if this goes to shit and the company, while robust and in business for several years and growing, isn't bulletproof because nothing is in this economy. So if the company fails I'm totally boned in terms of unemployment. On the other hand, I am the equivalent of a Chanel bag in the nannying world and I could always go back to that if need be.

As of Dec. 15th unless something major changes, I will be jobless unless we make a placement which seems unlikely as we haven't since March. I am working on focusing my magic towards making enough money through writing/crafting and getting a severence. I will also focus magic on my book outlines. This feels like it's the right thing to do which of course makes me completely and utterly distrustful of it. Sometimes it seems like all my dreams are within my grasp (to work from home, to work reasonable hours so my fibro doesn't get worse, to write, etc) which makes me worry that I'm going to completely fuck it all up.

But oh how I am trying to not cling to what's safe but reach for what's going to be beyond status quo.

Crucible 2010

I am still con-hung over (and, okay, tequila hung over too) from Crucible this past weekend where I got to see Jason, Kenaz and of course Jow as I drove him there.

I got to sit on a v. nice panel where I was treated as a person with opinions verses chick with tits (. . . I've been on panels like that and oh hate). I invoked you in spirit there, Gordon, I dragged black swans into the discussion and Jason agreeably went along for the ride. Next year I am considering taking my Cursing is a Sometimes Food on the road, we'll see.

Over dinner, we decided our blogroll shouldn't be bogged down with becoming a cabal and trying to figure out ruuuuuuuuules and all that, no fuck that, we should be The Justice League. Since I floated the idea forward, I called dibs on Wonderwoman, with Jow claiming Batman and Jason claiming the Green Lantern.

I didn't get to catch Kenaz's lecture on Voodoo money magic as he was directly up against Jow's alchemy lecture which went very well and was v. academic with people taking notes and everything. I did get to see Jason's lecture on the 10 Principles which went v. well. Jason's an especially good public speaker and he's v. relatable and knowledgable, I hope to improve my own public speaking skillz.

On a personal note, there was a Schoeringer's Cat moment for me, followed by a black swan moment swiftly followed by some shoaling. As it is personal, I won't be publically sharing the details but it really worked and made my weekend go v. well.

I made candied apples and pumpkin pie shots and tended bar with my bff like a proper kitchen witch. Naturally, there was a lot of proclaiming about how I set things super hard and how I was sweating like a whore in church. So maybe a little more Coyote Ugly than Stepford wife as I was down to a cami top by late and our banter was a bit less than proper and of course, everyone wants to do tequila shots with the bartenders . . .Our traditional toast for your reference is, "To being fabulous!"

Of course, now, I'm exhausted having burned all my willpower points.