[Pagan Agony Auntie] Still Moar on Honey Pots

If you have a burning question that you want my input on, feel free to drop me a line at corvaxgirl [at] gmail [dottie] com and I will keep you anonymous and dazzle you with my insight or not. Whatev. As always, you're the captain of your own ship and feel free to disagree with me as often and loudly as you like! 


Sorry, Reader, I know I'm super late getting back to you and I think you may have figured the answer out on your own but in case you want more input and/or anyone else wants to know, a Reader asks:


O hai, just wondering about the flexibility of the honey jar technique. I'm thinking of using it as a love-attracting element, rather than money-attracting or specific-person-sweetening element, with a change up in colors and herbs. Does this sound like a good or bad idea, given that you have way more experience and knowledge with this technique?


It's not a bad idea at all.  Honey jars are more of a slow and steady process so I can imagine that if you have a less specific target, it might be a longer process than just saying I want Person X to love me.  But depending on your own personal moral compass, not asking for a specific person to love you may have less moral ramifications.  Generally speaking, this is how I do my money honey jar work, I ask to make money from specific streams (writing, etc.) versus I want to be in X anthology.  Sometimes I will do the prayer/candle work over the honey jar before a specific event such as a craft show to assist me that way.  I would think the same would be true with your love-drawing honey jar, you could do your candle work before going some place that you might meet a suitable partner (club, bar, con, poetry reading, what have you).  


The real trick to honey jars is to remember that you are creating a spirit fetch essentially and if you forget to feed him or her regularly through prayer and candle work, there's no delicate way to put this, you're not only making it so  that it's going to be too weak to work for you, you're killing it like a houseplant/goldfish also.  If you are done with your honey jar, you need to ritually decommission it like I outlined here.


Think about what characteristics you want to draw to you and put them in your petition paper.  Be sure to roll the paper towards you.  You can't go wrong with adding dried roses to attract love, dried lavender to attract aspects of a long term partner and a bit of ginger powder to make things go faster/get a good attraction.  Pink or white candles would be good to use and you can make or buy a love oil or you could use rose oil.


Happy hunting!

Terrariums: Where My Crazy Is Currently Residing

Shiny!

So.  My adventures in building terrariums isn't maaaagic per se except for a few points:

a. I stained the benches that they reside on in the house with a door open and the fan going which was strictly forbodden by Jow but everyone else gets to make flying ointments and blow glass in their houses why can't I?  The cats and I enjoyed ourselves immensely for a good hour or two with that.

b. They will live in the Work Room where our magical practice will be taking place.

c. I am having an ongoing "discussion" with Jow about how these could honestly be nature spirit homes/altars.  He gets all blah blah blah you need to have corresponding herbs and other stuff which . . .is not necessarily true per se in my opinion.  1. Besides what the animal actually eats, in my experience at least there's not a huge herbal corresponding overlap. and 2. Sometimes, people need to not be lazy slags and do their own work imo.  I would see these altars as "blanks" with all the neat shiny components all set up inside them for *you* to do all that worship work.  Sometimes people need to do their own fucking spiritual work imo and not expect everything already set for them.  3. While New Jersey is not known for it's huge fairy tale mushrooms (which I sculpted) and its glittering trees, the fox seems perfectly happy to me.  Sometimes we need to use our imaginations some and allow for some artistic merit here.  4. He's never done Shaman work and freestyle breaks his delicate Hermetic brain, so . . . whatever.

Anyway.  Here are more pics of Mr. Fox's habitat as well as Madam Bird's habitat for you to enjoy.  Should you want one of your very own, email me with your little heart's desires and budget and we'll work it out.

I Long for Lazy Days of the Summertime: Must Be the Season of the Witch

I feel ya Becky.  All of Great Hestia's Xanax won't wash this
blood clean from my hand.

Things I should be doing:

1. Figuring out what to wear for Thanksgiving/hounding my mother to make sure there's enough wine to get through this hellish event.

2. Reminding myself how to brine the turkey.

3. Making more crafts to peddle.

4. Starting holiday shopping and crafting.

5. Cleaning my house which is a disgusting mess.

6. Starting Etsy exclusive occulty/pagantastic crafts to be sold and received before Yule.

7. Writing a smutty short story for an anthology with a rapidly approaching deadline.


Things I've actually done:


1. Got a better price on my soap related materials

2. Made my Xmas List of Demands

3. Made sure to fill out all my med related paperwork/obtain actual meds

4. Other Adult Paperwork Drudgery

5. Gotten dressed today (. . .yay?)

6. Made Thanksgiving shopping list

7. Will be baby sitting this evening for cash.

8. Realized with Jow that the thrift stores around here would require a v. intensive time investment and that we should realize who we are - middle class americans with aspirations of being French-Like (French-Lite?).  We did manage to get a lovely little offering dish and offering chalice in our thrifting adventures as well as a little flower sculpture like my grandma used to collect for the ancestors altar.  Oh!  And this awesome framed hanging sculpture of a door knob with a lock and a key.  Luckily for the rest though, there's no shortage of stores more than happy to cater to our aspirations.  We got all four of these for our elemental vessels and this candelabra for our offerings of light.  We're leaning towards this table for our altar which would mean we would need to use this chalk for any writing we need to do on it.

9. And of course I wander, even from just writing this but you have to understand, Jow and I deciding to work together magically has been a work in progress.  We found that our Model UN discussions go better over afternoon tea at a restaurant because then we can't flip tables or get into shouting matches and there's no sharp objects.  We have to laugh because generally speaking we get along nauseatingly well, we hardly ever fight but when it comes down to doing magic together I swear to the gods that it's like always two seconds away from someone getting stabbed in hand.  So you have to understand for us to even plot out what to buy /an outline of our rites together is like a peace treaty between two quarrelsome neighboring nations.  But we've been working hard and I just emailed him the last piece of the puzzle and if he approves it we have our whole outline done.  We've even agreed on our first bit of magic we'll be doing.   It's something that will be special to us but it's not, like, a revolutionary structure or anything (I don't think), it's just cobbling together stuff that we agree on.  We will be calling it bonne magie because it's french and made up and pretentious.

10. Spending a ridiculous time plotting my terrariums.  You have to understand that artistic terrariums are like tiny worlds onto themselves that you get to reign over as god/dess king/queen.  So if you're a complete psycho control freak like myself and are crispy fried to the point that you are hiding from literally everyone and everything and need a place to put your crazy, spending an unseemly amount of time on plotting the most minute detail of these little worlds is a good way to decompress.  If you would like to meander down my path of control freakiness, here is a good start.   Even better I can totes justify this because (a) it's going to be an integral part of building our Work room and (b) I've already gotten a commission request, just by blabbing about it on Facebook.  Justified.

Dream Ambassadors/Jow's Book Destash Jamboree

Tiny Sheep to Help You Sleep!

Firstly, thanks to all you Charmers who were kind enough to help us by buying some of Jow's precious books.  You all get 500 xp points towards your next incarnation!  We're shipping out the 30something we've sold so far today (. . .that's going to be fun trip to the post office) and have like 90 books to go!  So if you're sad about not having more books to clog your house up with and/or would like to get something for that hard to shop for occultist/gamer on your holiday list, there's still lots to chose from at the lowest prices on Amazon!

Speaking of impulse buying, I've finally had a moment to add some of my Dream Ambassadors to my Etsy shop.  I honestly sell these little guys as fast as I can make them at craft shows and I have two coming this weekend so if you want one, now's the time.

Dream Ambassadors are tiny sheep to help you sleep! As ambassadors from Lambieland, their job is to help people of all ages get a good night's sleep.

Each sheep is hand needle felted and hand sculpted so please allow slight differences in size, fleece coat, shape and facial features. Also allow for coloration differences as your monitor may show slightly different colors than the way your Dream Ambassador looks in person. Each Dream Ambassador is approximately 8 inches in diameter and 5 inches long. Felting is an intensive process and each Dream Ambassador takes several hours to complete.

If you would like your Dream Ambassador to be scented with lavender essential oil, please note that in your order instructions. Because of the small parts, Dream Ambassadors are not recommended for very small children to play with.

[Recipe Monday] Cauliflower Spinach Bake

 Hey Charmers! I could really use some guest bloggers for Recipe Mondays so email me at corvaxgirl [at] gmail [dottie] com with a favorite recipe of yours that you make, a strange sounding retro recipe that you have (and where it came from and if you like, thoughts on the book), a picture of the finished product (optional) and what name you would like it credited to and a link to your blog or shop if you like! 

Cauliflower Spinach Bake
1 head of cauliflower, chopped
1 bag of spinach, steamed
1/4 bag frozen peas
1 jar Alfredo sauce
3 strips of bacon, chopped
1 cup of breadcrumbs
Salt and pepper to taste

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.  Mix everything together and put the bacon on top and then the breadcrumbs.  Cook for 45 minutes to an hour.  Yum!

Think I'm Fancy

Hecate thinks She's fancy too.  (Sleep No More)

 All of this cleaning that we've been doing isn't just Squirrel prep though.  After two years of living here and a few incarnations, we decided we wanted to make Spare Oom into a Work/work room due to falling in love with the Witches' Hut from Sleep No More (I got to see it the second time I went!  Also it's going to be on GossipGirl this week!) and Jow having some kind of revelation that it's okay to basically make shit up for rituals that I'm not going to question v. deeply as it's in my best interest not to.

We got witchy stuff for a circle a while ago but . . .we only circled together once or twice and most of the stuff had fallen in disarray.  We decided to keep our respective athames, the chalice and the plate . . .and that's about it. So we need new circle stuff.  We like the idea of fancy French things so why not incorporate that into practice?  I read a trashy YA fiction book that had a system called bonne magie which basically morphed trad Wicca with French/New Orleans.  I'm chaotic/Hollow One enough to be like, godsdamnit, if I want my practice to look and feel like a Florence + the Machine video  and it works that's my business.  So we bought Village Witch because I loves Cassandra Latham- Jones with a love that's pure and true like for Chunky Chaat and allegedly the fiction book too (science.).  We need a new altar cloth, a working altar to use and directional items mostly likely.  And candelabras and tea cups.  For science.  We're going to purchase some Bee Propolis Resin for our rits and use champagne or St. Germain for our "ale" and madelines and brioche for our cakes.  We decided how we would do our god work and that we'd observe the Wheel as well as possibly new moons/full moons and some of the magic we want to accomplish.  We got French Cartomancy for divination.  Figuring out what to wear was a bit of a trial because we want it to have a glam Sleep No More/F+tM feel but we also didn't want a, Ooooooooh look at you!  Playing dressssssss up in your little room together! feel either.  We figured that out as well.  We'll see how it works!  Everyone else gets to make everything else up/glom together things that make sense to them, why can't we?  That's what we've taken away from going back to Mass.  You're welcome.

Our eventual goal is to put real wood flooring in there so we can draw things on it more effectively.  We're going to keep the bookcase in there but it will be magical books only and crafting supplies (it has to live somewhere) and we're going to keep the desk.  I have my focus board up, Jow needs to get his up.  We still need to get Sarah's print framed and hung up.  We're going to be eventually getting rid of the Ikea bookcases in  the dining room and upgrading to this book case (mmm, books AND booze!) and getting rid of the bar cart which means the Skull Head Island altar will likely be relocated and I'll have to figure out . . .something to do with Eris' altar as she's fussy and doesn't like to share and also resides at the top of a book case.  Perhaps they will each get a top shelf on the new book case to lord over everyone from.  We also want drying racks to hang herbs from in Spare Oom.  Mmmm, we get happy just thinking about how awesome it's going to look.  Especially since we suffer from terrible, terrible altar envy (I'm looking at you, Sarah, Ms. Dirty and Joe).  We decided to stop crying and whining and being slags and just do it.

To not being slags!  Cheers, darlings!

Housekeeping. Not a Euphemism.

You live in a condo.  Get a deposit box like everyone else.

Before we get too deep in, Massive Occult Book Destash including rare books (and RPG books).  Everything is priced to move and the lowest on Amazon.  Almost 100 books up for sale.


Okay.  So, being a suburban creature, my idea of the wheel of the year is sort of different than people with a closer connection to the land.

Samhain - Everyone's a sad panda.  It's going to get cold soon so stop fucking around and make sure your house is ready for winter.

Yule - Too.  Much.  Family.  No.  Money.

Imbolc - If there's any more winter I'm going to stab someone in the face.

Spring Equinox - Mud everywhere.  Time to get the house back in order again.  If I'm going to do a container garden, time to get moving.

Beltane - Yay!  Drink wine in a field somewhere!  Flirt with everyone.


Midsummer - Contemplate life transition.  In my grove for whatever reason, chicks tend to make their maiden-to-mother transition there, unplanned.  Happened to me, happened to a friend.  Just pop. 

Lammas - Amazons 'n sacrifice contemplation.

Fall Equinox - Mmmmm, cider and cider donuts and cardis.

So, even though I have what can be considered a vague grasp on the Wheel at best, the house has been a complete disaster from all the crafting and it's started to affect me.  Admittedly, I haven't been really magically cleansing since August due to a couple of different life events that produced negative energy and then I was so busy interviewing and securing more hours and working on my craft business as well as working on eating/exercise changes, so it's just been accumulating.  But while I sacrificed my mani that I spent an hour on the night before (sigh.), I scrubbed our house clean.  All the gross corners that you try to pretend don't exist.  The microwave.  The fridge.  Dusting altars.  Doing the gods dishes.  Scrubbing like crazy.  We got some new bedding for the winter so that needed to be put together and I got new clothes and socks and such so old stuff needed to be cleaned out to make room for the new.

With that in mind, I figured since getting Jow to destash his books was an uphill battle at best, I figured I would help.  I had some extra time off this week and I was in good spirits because I just got asked to read one of my anthology stories at KGB and Tristan Taormino would likely be running the event, all of which is a BFD.   So I told him to give me his books and I would list them on Amazon for him.  Oh Charmers.  I have no idea how Jow managed to hide like three huge rubbermaid tubs strategically throughout the condo.  I mean, it's impressive. It was organized and everything but I had no idea there was that much.  So I spent the day slogging through putting them all up on Amazon and putting together donate piles.  I also went through my stuff, mostly to donate as my tastes don't tend to appreciate in value.  By the time I finished I had two v. full rubbermaid tubs to donate and two full rubbermaid tubs to sell.  Lest you feel too sorry for him: (a) these are books he hasn't read or touched in well over a year and (b) he owns a Nook for gods' sake, the agreement was for him to destash to pay for the Nook.  But happily that will mean four rubbermaid tubs worth of books out of the condo and a big garbage bag full of clothes to donate.  I suppose it's better than an ex who would say that he recycled cardboard and empty bottles/cans and instead would strategically hide that throughout the house.

But energetically, our place was a pit.  So after church this morning ( . . .don't even ask) and a full diner breakfast of goodness, we cleaned out the bedroom and then started magically cleansing the house.  I realize in my article on the matter, I didn't really address what happens if you're a slag for too long and "regular" cleansing isn't sufficient to de-gunk your house.  Welp.  In addition to your usual Cleaning, I suggest adding offerings to the land spirits and a strong incense (mine had cedar tips, gum arabic, mugwort, hawthorne berries and frankincense) on top of the other stuff I've talked about in my article.  So you sort of start out going, hey buddy, time for you to get on gettin' on to closing time is an hour to you don't have to go home but you can't stay here to time to go.  Now.  If you find you still have problems, then you'd need to move onto Pallas Renatus's GTFO potion because you've got yourself a srs problem.    Luckily we didn't need to take it to that level, the very thorough cleaning and Cleaning seemed to do the trick.   It feels really nice to feel the flow of energy, well, flowing.

Cussin' for College: Your Moral Compass

You're Thirteen Now!  These Margaritas Are for You, Becky! 

So, thanks to that book Mastering Witchcraft that everyone else including Jow seems to have read at a formative age but me (I was reading Spiral Dance and um Bridget Jones' Diary and here we are), everyone's talking about morals and looooooove philters which is totes exciting for me because while I have not read the book and am incredibly unlikely to, I have opinions about morality!  I've even had articles published on the subject matter! Thanks, blogosphere!  I'm socially relevant again, snowflake queens!  So, there's a story I've been meaning to tell you all that had both my Platonic Euro Husband (PEH) and Husband-to-Be laughing and telling me that I'm like the liberal parent who lets their kids drink in the house because it's better than on the streets!  Remember a while back how I foolishly agreed to teach Hoodoo 101 to the kids in the Pagan club at my alma mater?  And how I, like, promised the president that there would be absolutely no discussion on curse work whatsoever?  

About that.  So I'm droning about the history of Hoodoo and the differences between Hoodoo and Voodou and how it came to our country and frankly even boring myself as the kids all were visibly twitching to have to listen to me and not text or be boning each other out while their roommates watch rolling on E pills or whatever they're doing now but we all brighten up when I get to the practical applications that I carefully redacted to be both appropriate to college kids' needs and not discussing The Dark Arts.  We chatter about fast luck and how to do well in an interview blah de blahblah.  They get interested and ask about source books.  Of course I recommend cat yronwode's seminal work, but there's not like a redacted version of it so I say vaguely that it's not all positive work so keep that in mind and keep it moving.  Much like my lazy fat house cats they went from only vaguely aware of their surroundings to HIGH ALERT!  BUG!  BUG!  IT'S A BUG!

Them: What do you mean?
The President: (suspious side eye)
Me: Um.
Them: No, we're totes awake now and ready and willing to push back our E pill orgy and pizza dorm room party for this.
Me: The President and I spoke on this issue and it's specifically against your club's charter for me to discuss this.
The President: (approving to me, apologetic to them)
Them: You have said the words we have longed to hear!  Forbidden knowledge!  It's why we came to college!  That and getting away from our smothering parents!  (closes the door and shuts the blinds like a real sekrit society does!)
Me: (oh Lordess, I'm boned) (looks to The President)
The President: (nods)

I had a real moral quandary that I thought I had shielded myself from - do I tell them or do I let them learn about it on the streets the internet where the information will be just that - information coming from a source they've never met and has no stake in their lives or even a face to them?  They are adults but they're still young and impressionable in American society and frankly have probably hereto forth never even read a book yet that even whispers about The Dark Arts, it's most likely been mostly beginner Llewellyn stuff.

I took a deep breath and I dove in:

Okay.  This is where your moral compass that we keep talking about becomes incredibly important.  Karma doesn't work the way that most Americans think of it; it's slow, it's accumulated over lifetimes and it represents both the good and the bad.  And while the Law of Three is a nice idea that's meant to keep you from getting involved in some seriously dumb shit, it doesn't work in a way that's observable, if it works at all.  I can't tell you what the right thing to do is going to be for you.  We don't have a manual or a list of rules to follow as Pagans like a lot of religions do.  As young adult Pagans it's critical that you start figuring out what you think is right and wrong now.  What are you willing to do magically and in life?  Where is your line in the sand that goes too far?  Whenever you work magic, you're thrusting your will over something.  Do you need consent for you to do magic for another person?  You need to decide that.  You need to decide if you want to get involved with exerting your will over other people specifically.  A mentor of mine once told me that some of the worst things she's done magically have been with good intentions and some of the best things she's done have been with bad intentions.  

You also need to understand that in Hoodoo curse work is called a mess for a reason.  Do not get yourself into a mess that you can't get yourself out of because I'm sure as hell not going to rush in to help you.  Don't ever rush into curse work.  If you're angry and not being sensible, it's not a good place to do curse work, you will likely do something you regret.  Always give it at least three days to see if you want to tie yourself up further with the person you're angry with because make no mistake about it, you will be tying yourself up closer with this person.  Sometimes it will be worth it.  Sometimes it won't be.  Sometimes your magic will work in a way you won't expect it to.  Oftentimes it will in fact.  Sometimes it will work better than you wanted it to.  Love spells are all fun and games until you need to get a restraining order on someone.  You need to think about if you want someone to be with you because they feel compelled to be.  You need to make sure to do omen/divination work before you get involved with cursing.  Bottle spells can work like this.  Love spells can work like that.  Make sure you are mindful about your personal concerns.  Make sure you are mindful about others' personal concerns that may behoove you to have.  When I once asked a Witch what to do if you don't have them, she calmly remarked, 'But why wouldn't you?'  If you're not willing to do what a curse work asks, you're likely not really ready to take that step.  And that's okay.  It's okay if you never work a curse in your life.  But make sure you know if someone's been working you.

And . . .that's where I stand on the whole morality issue.  It's personal.  That's part of what's both great and terrible about being part of a group of people who don't have a list of specific rules to govern us, some of us are on board with things like love philters and some of us are appalled by it.  Some of us say, well, it depends.  But you need to know where you stand, you need to know where your conscious is and only you can really dictate that for yourself as an Occultist/Pagan.  It's thrilling, scary and uncertain for us, like Death. 

you know I live in a world full of hope
not a world full of hype
I ain't no saint
I help myself to what I need
but I help other people too
y'know I sleep soundly - Ani Difranco

[Recipe Monday] Chicken Curry

Lucky for everyone I'm exhausted and dodging the last bit of crafting madness before tomorrow and I'm covered in wool fiber and smell like a wet sheep along with an assortment of essential oils.  Yes!  It's totally as awesome as it sounds.

So here is a recipe I've made because it's cheap and doesn't require much work.  Also, I've discovered that orzo is an awesome substitute for rice because it only takes 8 minutes to make, you can't fuck it up (unlike rice) and it's the same size and tastes close enough for me.  Jow is a princess and won't eat instant rice and rice is something I consistently fuck up so this has been our compromise.  Also rice takes way too long.  Way too long.  This can be described as "Indian-ish" at best.

Chicken Curry 
1 packet of chicken thighs (remove skin)
1 can of tomato paste
1 tablespoon fresh ginger (or powder, I don't care)
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1 medium onion, chopped
1 can of chickpeas, drained and rinsed
1 tablespoon curry
1 tablespoon chunky chaat
2 tablespoons butter or ghee
Splash of lemon juice
1 cup non fat greek yogurt
1/2 box orzo cooked according to box directions and drained
Salt and pepper to taste

Dump everything in the crockpot except the yogurt and the orzo.  Cook on low for 6 hours.  Fish out the bones if you like your guests or housemates.  Add the yogurt and stir.  Add the orzo and stir.  Fin!

Food That Sucks

I introduce to you my nemesis - Eggs

 I realize my last post was pretty serious and revealing.  I appreciate everyone who took the time to respond, thank you.  But with that, I'm ready for a lighter subject for now.

My sister is an awesome baker but she's still in-training as a cook.  I'm the opposite way, a much better cook than baker which is about par for the course in an Italian fam, it makes it so we can make a nice full dinner together.  She can alter baking recipes with panache which is impressive because it's much harder to alter a baking recipe than a cooking recipe due to the science aspect of it.  At my vampire Halloween dinner party (yes.) she was sorrowfully remarking that she didn't think she'd ever be a good cook because she fucks up pancakes.  A bunch of people (myself included) chimed in that pancakes are deceptively difficult to make and to do silver dollar sized until she got better at it.  It took me years to make full sized pancakes.  Meatballs were tricksy too.

But however experienced or inexperienced you may be as a cook, everyone has a few things that elude them no matter how hard they try.

Mine are:

* Lentils
* Frying anything like chicken pieces or chicken fried steak
* Eggs (I can soft boil with the best of them but hard boiling is not good, scrambling is okay, sunny side up is mostly a lost cause, omelets are a lost cause and I've never made a frittata or quiche I really wanted to eat)
* Baking anything that is more complicated than a box mix (exception: Madelines)

What are yours?

You Spend Half Your Life Trying to Turn the Other Half Around: More on Core Life Priorities

Note: This may be triggering for people with food issues.

I wanted to write a light hearted follow up to my Core Life Priorities entry about getting my shit together but given the season, like it or not, I'm in a pretty somber mood.  Jezebel just posted about where my struggle is.

I'm a geek girl and I live with an eating disorder.  It was easy for me to be thin until college and I was always a (thin) girlie girl geek who was a geek in her own right - fandoms, the ability to run WW RPG, top of the heap. 

Well, when I started freaking out in college about a lot of things, one of things I decided to take control of was my body.  So I stopped eating very much.  My hair started falling out, people told me that I didn't *really* have an eating disorder because I wasn't skeletal, even though I was dropping a lot of weight fast (one "friend" said most girls would envy me).  When I flatly told my mother that it was therapy or tossing myself out my dorm room window, I started therapy.

People forget the eating disorder because I never fit the stereotype in their heads.  But really I spent my twenties channeling it into Weight Watchers where I could obsess over what I ate (in a socially acceptable way) and figure out how to cheat the system and weigh myself like a million times a day.  All I learned from WW really was that it was better to do three shots of tequila (6 points) verses three beers (9 points).  Awesomesauce!

I really only have two modes - "on" (eating reasonably healthy food mostly but too much of it like The Hungry Caterpillar) and "off" (not eating, not taking my meds).  "Off" is a dangerous scary place . . .because what no one tells you about not eating is that it feels awesome.  It really does, you're high as a kite and nothing bothers you because you're not super lucid and you start getting lots of dumb thoughts like, Hey!  This is awesome!  Food is gross!  If I keep doing this I'll be thin and everything in my life will be magically perfect because I made my body perfect!   I make light of this somewhat when talking about this because it's what geek girls do best to talk about scary things and say, and then I remember that eating is a basic bodily function and failure to do that means you're failing at being human, like when you choke on your own spit. 

Despite knowing better, I apparently generally need to take a trip to "off" about once a month, once every other month.  I take a deep breath and I make myself eat something and take my pills.  Generally I can talk myself down by some point in the evening although I'm honest with Jow when I am having an "off" day and he suggests things I will be willing to ingest like a banana or a glass of juice and then my thoughts get more rational and I go back to normal life.

I've really worked hard to love myself just the way I am weight wise by investing time into learning how to dress my body, do my hair, do my nails, makeup and accessorize because before it felt like I was punishing myself for being fat by only dressing in sweats and a ponytail.

The whole food "thing" is kind of my white whale.  And it rules me more than anything else does in life.  Either I'm spending a lot of energy ignoring it or half assedly addressing it but either way it still runs me.  And I don't think that people understand that people with a food "thing" have a really hard time because you can't not eat.  It's sort of like saying, hey just be cool and get a recreational smack habit, what's the big deal?  Most people can't just casually shoot up H without getting an addiction.  But you can live without drugs, smoking, drinking and all that but you can't live without food.

Earlier this week, coincidentally, I decided I wanted to catch the fucking whale already.  For me that means that I am limiting my portions, drinking lots of water, eating more fruit and veggies and going to the gym a few times a week.  And it's been awful.  It feels like having a gnawing tiny beast inside you, constantly nibbling at your organs and complaining loudly and constantly about how everything you're doing is against your own best interest. 

For me, that's not even the worst part though.  I know I can do anything I set my mind to and accomplish any goal I want to accomplish and that's what scares the shit out of me, hands down every time.  Because if I start accomplishing this goal, that means success and that means massive meltdown for me.  I have a weird thing where it totally derails me when people tell me how good I look once I've lost weight.  It does all sorts of fucked up conflicted things to my head and then I start self sabotaging and it gets into a big terrible cycle of suck.  I'm trying to breathe through the fact that people will give me positive reinforcement for conforming more to society's standard and accept that it's going to shake up my ant farm like whoa.  But I feel like if I can do this thing, then I can do anything.  And if I can do anything, then I'm unstoppable.

Being unstoppable means getting in touch with my core life priorities.  It means pushing through this fucking Christmas season for my crafting business.  It means getting back in touch with my spirituality.  It means writing the damn book and getting it published.  It means taking care of myself.  It means loving myself.  It means I need to stop being afraid of success. I get closer and closer every year to who I want to be - starting my own business, not having to work for The Man, better relationships with my loved ones, a clearer understanding of my spirituality, stronger belief in my capability both as a Witch and as a functioning adult, living (and marrying) the man I love who also happens to be a functioning adult, owning my own hearth.  But there's still a few things that evade me (the food "thing" and writing a book most notably). So I'm starting here.  With my white whale.

Unstoppable.