Why Do We Do This?

Well Jason, as usual we're secretly in sync with each other!  In your lastest entry on Magic and Mind and Psychology you discuss the need to not just be magically delicious but to have your shit together too.  I just sent an entry to my editor for Week 13 of the New Year, New You: An Experiment in Radical, Magical Transformation on this topic as well.  I also discussed that it's okay to have mostly mundane goals there too.  Spooooooooooooooooooky.

But it also made me contemplate why do I do magic and how do I feel about psychology and magic?  Because, as Jason said, there are easier ways to get power, prestige, money, love, etc.

Hmmm. 

From a spellwork perspective, if you are more into "low" magic over "high" magic, you may not truck much with spirits.  You may ask God/dess/es or totems or ancestors for help but you may not get into the world of angels and demons and other various spirits.  You may just say, God.  (Scandalous!)  You may . . .and this is where things get touchy . . .not have any significant meditational practice at all.  (le gasp!) You may only be minorly concerned with enlightenment or magical powers and personal growth may be something you look at from a mundane perspective primarily.

I just described myself, honestly.  But not just me, lots of kitchen witches, hearth witches and hoodoo practitioners as well.  Possibly Wiccans (almost none of my sisters have a real steady meditation/power gathering format that they use outside of circle to the best of my knowledge) and ADF Druids (. . .we're totes supposed to meditate but I have a rudimentary practice at best and I still have my card but no actual dedicants' book despite the fact that I did cycle two of the dedicants program *and* contributed data to the program but oooooh Jow joins and you just send him a book no questions asked.  I'm looking at you, Kirk.  Ahem.  Anyway it stands to reason that there are many other ADF members who attend their groves faithfully as I do and suck at meditating.  Especially since ADF is primarily celebratory, at least in my grove). 

I find if you're not trying to get super into the spirit world, your spells fall under the following categories:  love, money, protection, hexing and health.  Ta-da!  Not everyone is really fantastic at communicating with the spirit world and that's okay too.  It is one aspect of a strong magical practice, but it's not the only one.  Faith can take you a long way along with offerings (especially when you don't have your hand out).  Maybe you have a steady magical practice to get ahead and keep things running smoothly and that's all you need.  Frankly, it's all I need.  And if I never get enlightened or get infinite cosmic powers, I'm really okay with that as well.  It's not really part of my bracket of goals.  I don't need a never ending amount of people attracted to me, I don't need to be rich, I don't need a lot of things.  I've learned from my divorce, mo' money mo' problems.

I do magic to (consensually) keep my relationship good, to keep bringing in money with a day job, that I can handle minor problems like a car problem, to keep things smooth in my family, to help me keep making money as a writer and a crafter, to protect my home and occasionally when I'm irritated enough, to smack someone's ass down.  And . . .that's it. That's all I need. 

Because my magic tends to be more faith based, how it works is less important to me than having it work.  Maybe it's somewhat psychologically based, maybe it's not.  Listen, I get why it's important.  I have fibromyalgia.  The way we're treated varies a lot based on whether that person thinks it's "all in your head" (psychological) or it's actual neurological damage (hard science!).  But at the end of the day, no one knows for sure yet if fibro is psychological or science based or both and no one knows about magic.  But . . .I still have fibro and magic still works.  If you ever want to be validated because someone is scoffing at you, offer v. sincerely to do work on their behalf.  Because I've found that backs that train up real fast.  Everyone in my life who has scoffed has also refused to let me do magic on their behalf.  Obviously, some part of them believes that I have the power to change their lives in some way.  Last I checked, that's what magic is.

Do It All Again: The Post-Crucible Party

Jow and I skipped Crucible itself and while I too could listen to Jason talk all day and would have liked to have seen RO's lecture and meet Lavanah, and I always learn something new about voodoo from Kenaz, let me be real, it's all about the after party.

I've been friends with the party host (B.) since I was too young to drink and he was just old enough to and he was dating my best friend at the time so needless to say, we've been partying together for about oh almost half our lives along with my best friend A. who while is not maaaaaaaaaaagic per se, she'll put up with it especially if there's good booze and fun to be had. But it's not a Pagan/Occult party unless you have High Drama with at least a quarter of the room which of course I did. So before the party I started text A. about suddenly not knowing what to wear upon hearing the guest list and tried to get things for the party and breakfast at Target but got all socially anxious to the point that I just abandoned my basket in the middle of the hosiery section. I texted her the vital information that (a) I didn't have any boots and couldn't find any (b) I don't know how slutty to dress for this and (c) I had lost my will to live.

People who don't know me or don't me well assume I of course love parties and people and being gregarious because I've worked v. hard both magically and mundanely to present myself that way. The truth of the matter is I'm terribly shy, often grumpy and only really like it when I throw the party or event because then I can hide in the kitchen as much as I like, I can always have an excuse to escape and I can throw everyone out when I'm done with them. A. promptly replied with: (a) Wear your Uggs (b) I'm giving you permission to dress as slutty as you want tonight and (c) get dressed, I don't care. I sighed knowing that I wouldn't be able to whine my way into a night of iCarly and jug wine and didn't put up a fuss. Luckily, A. knowing that I was two seconds away from becoming a non compliant limp toddler, texted H., B.'s gf who was going to be in the suite earlier than expected and we were invited to hang out and pre-game. A. came over and approved my outfit and ordered me to put on my makeup and do my hair and stop whining. Jow asked what "battle perfume" I'd be wearing and A. didn't really know what he meant so I explained that I have both actually magically formulated perfume from places like BPAL and "regular" perfume that I wear to suit my mood and/or how I want to portray myself. She nodded and said she only owned Juicy Couture perfume 'cause that's all she needs. Being Jersey girls, that is a fair statement. We got into the car and I had a moment of complete deja vu especially since we were heading towards Princeton, past my old place and it was the way we'd always take to get to Philly to go goth clubbing and because the hotel was in the development of my old company meaning I could navigate there and back heavily intoxicated no problem.

We got up to the suite and H. and B. were kind enough to let me be bossy and arrange the food and the bar to my liking so I could help bartend. A., Jow and I decided it was then time to induct H. into the Secret Society of Awesome & Alize and then I tasted all of B.'s meads so I could arrange them in order of dryness. Jow and I shared a shot of tequila because it was where we met years ago - I was giving a lecture and he had a crush on me though I didn't know it because he wouldn't speak directly to me (but I like you/ I like you so much/ I talk to everyone but you) and then a few years later we started flirting and I was on a panel of his and it always felt like he was talking only to me. He decided that year to impress me even though he has the liver of a twelve year old girl and everyone told him that going shot for shot with me was a terrible idea because I was The Tequila Queen at the time but he did it anyway and eventually we started dating and then got engaged and now we're to be married.

It was a smaller party this year which meant less physical distraction from High Drama but also meant that my friends had me drinking heroic amounts of pumpkin liquor/vodka and shots of tequila with many cig breaks to provide Other Distraction. I was also promised to be allowed to lie down next to the koi pond with the huge koi with the bottle of pumpkin liquor and serenade the koi with as much Katy Perry as I wanted until we got tossed out if it got too bad. I ran into Jason and RO downstairs during one of those breaks. We deposited Jow so he could geek out there and went to gossip, flirt and drink more pumpkin liquor (which I informed them that they should be doing as well and they laughed and joined us at the party shortly after). We filmed our youtube hello, I made my rounds with A. for a few hours but after a double shot of tequila egged on by B. (who is a terrible influence) at 4a and the room started getting slightly spinning and I had had enough of High Drama, random boys looking down my top (though I didn't mind with a lovely young girl, which reminds me of another Crucible party where I was feeling curmudgeonly as usual but apparently that's attractive to occult girls and so several cute girls spent the party petting my hair) and dick waving that will inevitably happen when you put booze and occultists in a room for enough hours and we headed out where we got to witness several rounds of Young Indian Wedding Guest High Drama which we kind of wanted to get involved with but Jow said no and we made our way home, stopping for the traditional ohmigod o'clock you are too drunk to actually handle sitting in a diner like a civilized person and instead need to go to a 7-11 for a cheeseburger big bite and hope that you can handle money exchanged for goods and services. Then home to take off all your jewelry and shoes but forget about your make up and insist on singing Katy Pery at the top of one's lungs until you are distracted into other pursuits and then sleep fitfully with a bowl next to your bed just in case and then have the mother of all hangovers the next day because no matter how much you may insist intellectually to your body that you can still party like you did when you were 23, your body will have no problem explaining in vicious detail that it has a dissenting opinion and to shut the hell up, thank you.

Still. There's a pounding my head/ Glitter all over the room/ Pink flamingos in the pool/ I smell like a minibar/ Pictures of last night/ Ended up online/ I'm screwed/ Oh well/ It's a black top blur/ But I'm pretty sure it ruled/ This Friday night/ Do it all again/ This Friday night/ Do it all again. . .

On Showing Up for Yourself

Thorn writes awesome blog posts on the regular, but her latest one struck especially close to home for me: Self Respect: Come to Your Success. You should read it immediately because it's frankly life changing and also the rest of this entry won't make sense without it.

This part really struck me:
When are we not showing up? When are we avoiding our success? We aren’t late to meet friends for dinner, so why do we put off working on our novel? We aren’t late to our jobs, so why do we not get out of bed when it’s time to meditate?

I suck at showing up for myself. I really do. I'm more motivated than the average bear- if there is a strict deadline, other people involved, or it's money related, I have my shit together like 95% of the time. But when it's something non deadline related (my hearth witch book) or something that strictly benefits me (a regular magical practice, going to the gym), I suck super hard.

I'm not sure why that is or why I do this to myself. I am honestly and truly so close to becoming the person I want to be and when I get to the part that I'm just about to tip over the edge, I freak.

It's true! You can ask Jow, Jason, Gordon or anyone who knows me in real life. Freaking sounds so . . .cavalier. What I really mean is I have an actual full on panic attack which renders me useless. I will often self sabotage in exciting ways like messing with my schedule which always gets me crazified or taking my pills late or skipping breakfast or a host of other not helpful behaviors which I work really hard at not indulging.

But there's something about showing up for myself that has been problematic for a long time. I think fear is a big part of it for me. What happens if I accomplish everything I've been trying to accomplish and it changes me? What happens if it's not what I've always thought it would be? Like it or not, I've been hurdling towards this for quite some time and I've been fairly successful in my efforts so far but I'm also struck with mind killing fear.

In Dollhouse, the dolls always ask, "Was I my best?" And we use that as short hand in our house because in like everything else, that is my perfectionist, apple polishing modus operandi. I want to be my best at everything right up until it's about being my best for myself.

I saw this really amazing play recently with J. called Sleeping Beauty Wakes which is about what would happen if Sleeping Beauty has been sleeping hundreds of years and then taken to a sleep clinic and there's this really awesome song that Beauty sings that's called "Good for Me" which really describes my struggle with myself, Whatever I like you take away/ you drag me back from where I go/ you never listen to what I say/ whatever I want the answer is always no/ for my own good/ you lock me up in a padded room/ so safe I never feel a thing/ you tie me down in a silken tomb/ a perfect little princess puppet on a string/ for my own good/ I have a will that will not be denied/ I will be the one who decides what's good for me/ you're gonna see just what I'm made of/ I'll find the thing you're most afraid of/ Because I would rather die than live this way . . .

I need to ride the tiger and not let the tiger ride me anymore and I need to wake the fuck up. I think today after I do my magical household cleaning (which I have been a total slag about), I'm going to make some vows in front of my gods about showing up for myself, which terrifies me as I was taught through ADF/GoG that the gods do not fuck around about vows so you better mean them.

I need to.

[Posted by Request of Jason Miller]

Hey kids! A lot of you read my fellow blogger, Jason Miller. His blog crashed due to a Blogger glitch and he has requested that I post the following for him:

Dear Readers of Strategic Sorcery,
As most of you know, Strategic Sorcery mysteriously disappeared on the evening of Wednesday, January 19th. The blog was not locked or cancelled by blogger intentionally, nor does it appear to be a deliberate hack. It is a glitch that is effecting about 50 other blogs.
Strategic Sorcery will now be hosted at my own website. The new address is http://www.inominandum.com/blog/
Please take a moment and update your links and follow me at the new site.
A big thanks go out to the owner of this blog for helping me get the message out. Thank you readers who have written in concerned about the situation. I am awed and gladdened by your support.
Thank you,
Jason Miller (Inominandum)

Thanks to Jason Miller/Self Improvement May Lead to Sleeplessness

Firstly, I want to thank Jason for writing Sorcerer's Secrets, because it is thanks to him I'm sleeping again. Now that sounds like some kind of backhanded bitchy compliment, but it's not. It's v. v. sincere. His book lays out theory and tech in an orderly manner that makes me feel like I can accomplish what he suggests to do, that even a half ass dilettante like myself is capable of not just complicated workings, but using his ideas and funneling them into Deb-Speak and making them my own and making a frightening towering cake of a working covered in pink glittering sparkles and layers upon layers of magical fondant. So I can read a chapter, feel good about my place in the world and my capability and just. go. to. sleep. Herbal compendiums are good for this too.

Of course, up until like three days ago, I wasn't doing this. I was reading life improvement books before bed. They are really, really good and really well written and really useful and will help me build my hello kitty themed empire. But it just makes me all crazy-like and unable to sleep when reading them before bed. I finished Rules of the Game and Entre-Vous. I tried 4HWW but that just made me angry versus feeling inadequate. I’m reading Linchpin currently and will be reading Crush It after. But it makes it so I have trouble sleeping because I worry I will never live my life properly and/or better.

It’s moments like those when you are staring at the ceiling thinking about how hard you’re failing in life because you haven’t done anything particularly awesome as yet and haven’t written a book outline yet even though you were supposed to asap during your unemployment, haven't written a damn thing really yet though you've hardcore re-org'ed your house and yes I'm projecting all over you and you'll just have to deal here, and often have doubts and difficulties even saying hello to strangers let alone cold reading them and then charming them and still have doubts about your wardrobe and your body because this time of year every commercial on television wants to remind you what a naughty terrible unforgivable slag you’ve been so you need to start their diet/exercise program/liposuction immediately and your house isn’t full of charming objects from antique shops and is more cluttered than artfully disheveled and maybe you’re not sure you even have what it takes to be an artist or linchpin or special ponyprincessfirefighterfarmer and maybe you’re just going to be a cog forever.

A cog who never will open a conversation and then hook and seed it, a cog who hasn’t listened to NPR in over a month but who has never missed an episode of Toddlers and Tiaras, a cog who sometimes just likes to be told what to do at work and collect a paycheck and go about her business, a cog who will need to go to the gym eventually even though its tedious and not enjoyable because there’s no Metro to dash to in heels and she’s not v. good in them anyway, a cog who blathers about her life to all comers on the internet and gossips incessantly, a cog who has yet to put together her spinning wheel or start churning out artisan crafts, a cog whose desk is still in the CRV in pieces so she hasn’t written a damn thing yet since starting her month sabbatical, a cog who may still be terminally shy around strangers at Arisia this year, despite running a whole track for it.

All of these doubts plague me before bed, making it so even my elephant tranq level of evening pills I take to smooth out doubts and fibromyalgia that used to, when I had a day job, made it so I drifted effortlessly to sleep every night but now they barely make a dent so that I’m starting to dread going to bed again like I used to pre-medication because I know what will happen, me and all my doubts staring at the ceiling, thinking about all the things I haven’t done.

And when it hits its peak, when you feel completely awful and powerless and useless, take a breath and remember all the people in your life who love you. Right now. As is. Craziness and all. Even if you’re a cog who never starts a conversation with a stranger or gets the hang of buying two good sweaters instead of ten that you’ll toss in a year and you never become an artiste and just collect a pay check and you never lose any weight and keep watching crappy tv, you are still loved and worthy of love. Right now, as is, and never *ever* let anyone tell you otherwise.

Honey Badger as Your Emergency Totem: A Kiss With a Fist is Better Than None

So, my friend DonCoyote suggested that all of his circle of friends take up the Honey Badger as their new totems (he's sort of shamany by way of White Wolf). My first thought was, a badger? WTF is a badger going to do? Chew on things? In my head, badgers were in the same vague category as a beaver. Oh no no no no, bear as a small child I once knew would say. Watch the video. For real. I'll wait.



Honey badgers are straight up frightening. Their bravery shoots way past stupidity and right into terrifying. ARE YOU TRYING TO START SOMETHING WITH ME, LION? HUH? HUH? I WILL END YOU! SNAKE, JUST BECAUSE YOU'RE VENOMOUS DOESN'T MEAN SHIT, BRO! I'MA BITE YOUR HEAD OFF, PASS OUT FOR A LITTLE WHILE AND THEN WAKE UP FRESH AS A DAISY TO FINISH EATING YOUR CORPSE!

Naturally, I entertained the idea of soliciting the honey badger into my coterie o' spirits after learning this . . .for like a second. And then I thought about what a person who follows honey badger would act like. More cunning than Lady MacBeth, braver than Beatrice and crazier than Ophelia. In other words, Georgina Sparks (played by the awesome Michelle Trachtenberg) from GossipGirl who makes Blair Waldorf look like an innocent babe in the woods. Now, don't get me wrong. I loves me some Georgie. . .on the telly. I would never want to emulate her because while her crazy is awesome, it's also terrifying and hella chaotic.

Now. Our friend Jason Miller has managed to permeate the permanent fog in my brain usually taken up by reality television and gossip to drill into it the mantra for every magic user worth her salt, "Emergency magic is bad magic." This has managed to stick with me along with other important mantras such as, Guests of guests do not bring guests! and Time is not money, time is your life!

And he's right. When you're desperate, you're not thinking clearly, you're not planning properly and your casting is likely going to be somewhat chaotic. If you are often in need of money, you need to be constantly working on your income streams and doing magic to ensure everything keeps working right. If you're often love lorn, make sure you're trying different methods of dating, grooming and keeping up a steady stream of magic.

But. I also know that sometimes we all have the problem outlined in a song from Repo: The Genetic Opera, and none of us are free from this horror/ for many years ago, we all fell in debt . . .where our backs are up against a wall and either we hadn't been doing everything we could be possibly doing to prevent it or whatever we were doing simply wasn't enough. And we're in trouble.

This is where I would suggest using the Honey Badger as a *very* desperate *very* last ditch attempt to get your shit together. With the *very* strong caveat that he may change up your internal landscape permanently, he may change your life permanently and there's a chance you may pick up some mental illness along the way. Of course, there's also the chance that he may help you to become faster, braver, stronger and more cunning and bring abundance (honey badgers don't generally starve, even on the Savannah). Those are some hardcore dice to be rolling however, my friend so think *very* carefully before rolling them. If you do though - blog or it never happened!

Thanks for all the fish!

Being thankful is something I'm often thinking about. It started in college actually, when my friend Dylan and I were mopey gothity kids and the world was of course too much to bear as it often is when you're twenty. Somehow, in our correspondence, we decided we would list three things we were glad about in each email. At first there was much flailing and posturing, but we started to mean it. When I told my friend April (who was also a proper gothity child of the late 90's) she sarcastically said, What are you? Playing the Glad Game? And I said, yes.

Somehow, we went from Dylan and I playing the Glad Game to our whole circle of friends playing through email. Sometimes we'd play a lot and sometimes we'd add notes about bad things going on. When something bad was going on, people would reach out to each other, even if they were a friend of a friend of a friend. We were tied together by the Glad Game. There would be dormant periods of course, sometimes for a long time, even a year or two. But we started playing again on Facebook, though we were in a dormant phase again until like a minute ago when I restarted it. Usually I find when we are most stressed and least glad, we need it most. So I send inspiring little messages to my Pollyannas like, "Hey Pollyannas, give us a shout out! Something must be making your miserable asses happy!"

Jason's post about thankfulness of course made me think too. Before my divorce, in a lot of ways I was a very different person. I thought more, more, more would make me happy - I thought more shoes, more expensive purses, more jewelry, more thin, more achievements, more living space would all make me happy. And . . .it didn't. It just got me more debt. I wasn't happy, I was stressed and exhausted and miserable with trying to keep up the facade of being the girl with the most cake. When my divorce happened and my financial situation dramatically changed, I learned to be thankful for much simpler things. And here's the thing, I was genuinely thankful for those things. Really and truly. And I became so much happier and more appreciative for what I had.

When I feel stressed, I give thanks to my gods for all that I have, all my first world things. My list includes:
* Being a homeowner and for my Goldilocks space that's just right, more over a roof over my head
* Heat
* A car that works
* Enough writing opportunities for a career
* All my clothes
* Enough food in my mouth
* My phone and my laptop and tv (and dvr honestly) and internet access
* My couch, dining room table and bed
* My loved ones

Sometimes, it's hard to be grateful for getting what you asked for. I asked for money, ideally in the form of a severance (it's still up in the air, long story) and I got called back to my day job for a couple days. While I'm sick and it's a major headfuck and making me a complete and utter neurotic mess because I'm trying to adjust to my new life, it's money. And I need to be thankful for it. So I am.

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.

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.

On Black Swans.

When I first started out in the blogosphere, it took me a little while to get introduced to Gordon, but one night Jow was laughing while reading a magic blog so I was immediately interested. I then started reading Gordon and launched a one women campaign of desperate devotion. Eventually, Gordon was unable to resist my assault on his blog and my dogged fan girling and gave in. It soon became apparent that we likely shared a wine addled brain and had similar views on magic and weeknight drinking. Both of our partners have been indulgent about our marriage of the minds and I have come to refer to him as my PEH (Platonic European Husband).

I love all of my other blogosphere buds, and they're always really good at making me think about various things (especially RO, Jason, and Kenaz) in different ways, but Gordon has always managed to articulate the habitrail that makes up my brainmeat into succinct, concise English. More over, he makes it into a plan.

Sometimes our little corner in the blogosphere gets into a hivemind. In late April, we all got crazy about LifeHacking and who wrote books that were good about it and who wrote books that weren't and what did it really mean to have the perfect day. I was new, I needed shit to blog about anyway, so I jumped in as desperately wanted to smoke with cigarettes with the cool kids.

Then things started to get weird. Or wyrd for those of you with a spelling fetish. My boss started talking about cutting my hours and somewhere in there, Jason was talking about not forcing things to happen a certain way as in, yeah, I could be focusing all my mojo into getting more business for my boss's company or I could say something along the lines of, oh hey, I'll bust my ass, I'll write, I'll craft, I'll hustle/whore any kind of project that's in my realm, I'm trusting You (collective You, my gods who are kind about my dilettantism and how I couldn't contain my Pokeman tendencies in my baby Pagan days) to not let terrible things happen to me.

I love my day job. Not because it's particularly awesome, but it's mindless, it pays v. well, it has kickass hours, a really kind boss and a window. I would honestly stay here until my bosslady retired or dropped dead. Security is indeed the whore in me as Heather Nova sings. But it's a tiny company, just me and the bosslady and we're affiliated with the pharma industry and . . .everyone's merging and downsizing and tanking so it's been pretty barren.

I love Jason's explanation of doing magic, with the three levels and all of that and I see it working super amazing awesome. On an intellectual level, I would think, yes, this is the way magic should be done. Jow does awesomely with it, people get awesome results and who doesn't do magic to get results? But in reality land, my brain is a mess of tubes and wheels and many Hyperbole and a Half moments where I can never manage to think about the three levels when it's go time.

In early summer, bosslady and I started talking about cutting my hours and I felt That Moment. And . . .I didn't have all the pretty words that Gordon has or a way to articulate it right because I didn't even realize I was doing it. But I had a Shrödinger’s Cat moment and I started shoaling like whoa. I didn't know I was doing it because I didn't have the words, though I had the actions.

So I started thinking, okay, if my hours get cut, I can collect a little bit of unemployment, we can cut off our delicious delicious tv for a while and use the farmer's markets to eat more produce and it will be okay. My boss never cut my hours, but I immediately started working on other projects in a slow steady manner. I managed to land a respectable freelance writer gig that pays decently well for writing and allows me to work as much or as little on it as I can manage.

When shit started getting real around the office as we say in Jersey, my boss let me know that unless something major changes, we're going to be out of business by the end of the year. Gordon in his infinite kindness when this all started to go down, said, you should write this. Make your blog into a book, make it happen. And a few weeks later, it went from shoaling to a black swan moment. All the while, I had been doing magic - japa, candle devotions, mojo bags and hands, a honey pot. I had been trying to write a kitchen witch book for years, but it never came together right. One day after work, I went home and wrote enough notes to see that it could be a book.

Since then, things have been happening fast. I calculated my potential unemployment with a little freelance writing and realized I could easily take a couple months off, perhaps three. During that time, I can write my outline and really get down to brass tacks in making magical supplies for Trevia. I can write a few fiction outlines (though, to be honest, while I had always thought I'd be a fiction writer, most of the gigs I'm getting are nonfiction, so perhaps not or perhaps not as a staple). After the three months, I would be able to do enough content writing with a bit of freelancing to make approximately what I am making now.

All of these things that I've wanted - to make my own hours, to work from home, to be able to have many small streams of income shoal together into one actual income seem to be coming together. If this were to happen and my book was to be accepted, I would be able to really hustle and promote it, unfettered.

And it's sped up even faster this week. Jow and I put together a really solid plan for Trevia on Monday while sitting at a posh bar in the middle of the day. And during this week, I used another one of Gordon's tricks, A Secret Spell Booster Enchant in Real Time. I'm scared to say it because the ink is not yet dry on the paper, but if one of the things I am working on gets final finalized, my freelance writing is going to be boosted into a whole new arena, allowing me to write lifestyle pieces in addition to content writing. I've also submitted four pagan pieces this week which would be really good on my resume for the book potentially.

I'm not going to lie, I'm exhausted and vomity feeling about all this. If my company does go under (and that seems likely) by year end, the potential to have the professional life I really have always wanted is right there in front of me. And I have been hustling hard for it. But right now, that's all it is, is potential. I could suck working from home, I could suck writing/crafting for a career, I could wind up having to work retail again. It's all just spinning right now and I don't know where the arrow will stop.

But dear goddess, how I am trying. And every bit of will I have in me right now is working to make my own luck and to be more than a barely published sickly secretary who can't work a regular 9-5. Every black swan moment since this started, there has been a constant devotional in the back of my head. Please just let me succeed as a career writer and crafter. Please let everything I've worked for and tried at and failed at and succeeded at be leading up to this.

Little altars everywhere

I've been meaning to post this for a while, but I got distracted by something shiny and Jenna being preggo on Degrassi. Previously, we had tiny altars everywhere taking up just about every conceivable surface of our house. Jow pushed for consolidation but I resisted for a while because I didn't know how it would work out and I fear change. But the promise of easy accessibility to our magical components won over my lizard brain. Also, we didn't consolidate everything everything.


First, let's start with some failure. Like many things, our wealth altar started with really good intentions and being all excited from Jason Miller's lecture on wealth. But we soon came to realize:


a) As neither of us are Catholic anymore and also lazy, we sucked at starting a new relationship with St. Expedite.
b) We also aren't terribly good with Chinese deities.
c) Perhaps the wealth altar facing a wall and often forgotten because of its shitty placement in the house is not the best.


Behold! Our failure!



So we decided to keep using the money box which had been working well and is on our new altar, continue using the money hand Jason had made for me (I named her Ali 'cause she is part alligator hand), remember to water our prosperity plants (desert roses) and utilize additional spellwork (honeypot, mojo hands, etc) and um . . . comment dit-on hit up the deities we already have relationships with for money as needed.


We have at the tippy top of one of our bookcases a place we call Skull Head Island, for reasons that should be readily apparent. Death from Sandman lives there, Creepy Doll recently took up residence and the two clay sugar skulls we won at GoG Samhains live there as well.


My altar to Yemaya remains a full altar as she is one of my main two patrons (Crow has His own too, but I didn't take a pic for some reason). Ali lives downstairs from Yemaya on the saucer holding the table together/pied-à-terre.


On my vanity table, I have a small v. pink altar space for my charm/Charm bracelet which also houses one of my personal demons (she's a Gluttony demon) that I work with.


My altar to the Goddess remains separate because Her statue is huge!


The window sill in Spare Oom is where the nature spirits/house fae hang out.


I have a little bedside altar which has super important religious texts as you can see, and a mini shrine to the Holy Family, teeny Crow and Goddess statue (I have a Yemaya one on my window sill).


I also have a little part of my kitchen counter space dedicated to kitchen witch work with the cauldron I co-opted from Jow and my housewives tarot deck. In this pic, I was burning my candle for my honeypot.


And finally, the new and improved central altar! It's actually a baker's rack and working out super well. The top shelf houses our Hindu deities we work with, middle shelf is the Greek deities we work with, third shelf is our working space, bottom rack is our ancestor altar and then the two baskets hold magical components.

Just as Long as We're Together: Amazon Rites NJ Style

"Women go there to dance. They get all ready in the mirror with their friends. They're like, 'I just need to go. I just need to dance. I'm serious, tonight -- no guys. Screw guys. I just need to -- I've had a rough week, and I just need to dance it out. I just want to stand in a circle around our pocketbooks and shoes and just -- I just want to dance. Dance!'" - Dane Cook

"Girls love 80s parties. I could tell them that Osama bin Laden was holding a party, and they’d refuse to attend. But if I told them Osama bin Laden was holding an 80s party, they’d be like, '. . .well, what time?’” - Nick Swardson

"They always come home the same way. They stumble in with their high heels in their hands. *Whoo-whoo!* *Whoo-whoo*! 'Where were you?' 'I was with my girlfriends.' 'I know that. It's 3:30 in the morning.'" - Jo Koy

When I was a younger amazon, we used to go to this restaurant/club in New Brunswick called Gaebel's all the time. They would push back all the tables later at night and there would be a dj spinning vinyl. I was all full of piss and vinegar and tequila those nights, wearing a mini, belly top, and stompy boots. My hair would be up in pigtails and I would be smeared in sweat and glitter, and whenever Hypnotize came on, the whole entire room would go *ballistic* and it was just such an awesome feeling of being young and badass.

Gaebel's closed about four years ago. Hypnotize came on the radio on Friday when I was coming home from a very long all day meeting in Princeton. I was wearing corporate clothes with a silk scarf and was pretty sure I would never again dance to Hypnotize and more sure my life was over.

As a younger Amazon, I used to dress with more intent. Clothes, makeup, jewelry, all of that helped me present the image I wanted to present for whatever I was doing. It was my warpaint, my sword, my shield, my poison cup. Somewhere, during the divorce last year, I lost this piece of myself.

I wouldn't credit Wasband with having that much power that it was solely the soul crushing process of being divorced that did this to me. I knew right before 30, I was transitioning. As a Dianic, I do believe in the maid/mother/crone three, as much as supersrs occultists wrinkle their noses at it. Here's the thing - being a sexual virgin doesn't make you a maid, having kids doesn't make you a mother, your period stopping doesn't make you a crone. Not in and of itself at least. Being free and in charge of yourself makes you a maid, giving birth to *something* and being changed by it, be it yourself, a creative project, your hearth, or your career makes you a mother, and the wisdom you gain from all your life experiences and seeing the end of your own life and out the other side makes you a crone. There are other things too and I could and probably should elaborate further on all of this and my own life experiences involving these things in a later entry.

But I knew I was coming to the end of my maidenhood. At first, it was pretty awesome. My 30th birthday, surrounded by friends in dresses and ties, all of us singing, eating caviar and pizza and drinking champagne until we all were more than just a little tipsy. Buckling down on my writing. Getting my
finances under control. Getting rid of 100 contractor bags full of old fetters. Getting a hearth of my own. Getting my clitoral hood pierced, posed in Sheila-Na-Gig position, uttering a primal amazon scream and one of my amazon sisters getting me ice cream after for going through the ordeal.

And then . . .I sort of faltered. All of the clothes I would wear as soon as I could wiggle out of work are now neatly stored under my bed, only to be taken out for special occasions - conventions and the rare club night. I was becoming a mother, a hearth woman in my own right but what did it mean? Who am I? It may sound trivial to some of you, but I believe in what Catherynne M. Valente said in her Fairyland story, "'We must dress well, or the future will not take us seriously', Goodbye had said." How I dress reflects a big part of who I am. And in that respect, I have been floundering for over a year. What do I want to wear to work? Or out to dinner? That's much more of my life now than late nights.

I had lost the joy and the magical purpose I had with dressing with intent. Recently, I had just gotten it back. New clothes, new makeup, new hair. It all goes a long way. Jow was supposed to go out with myself and my "mind sisters"* as he calls them but he bailed. Long story short, we fucked up the date for where we were supposed to go and went to the Breakfast Club instead.

But! Before that, I dressed with intent. Black and grey kilt, knee socks with little buttons, a ruffled keyhole top. Make up on, hair did. Then I decided to use some Come to Me oil, Bad Ass oil, and BPAL's CENTZON TOTOCHTIN on various bits of me. I then used Miss Spice's trick of using an eyeshadow brush and hand sanitizer to draw appropriate sigils on me for the evening. Purely for . . .research of course. Not for any selfish tail fluffing** purposes, of course.

It had been a long while since I had been at a club, I forgot the smell - sticky with bleach and beer. I had also forgotten that the Breakfast Club is Amazon territory with a *ridiculous* female to male ratio. I quickly dove into the experience of amazoning it up with my mind sisters.

Step 1: Arrive a little early so that the music is not crazy loud to be able to talk shit about Baby Amazon Rites which include: The Tragedy of Wearing Really High Heels, Two Drink Lesbian Dancing to Attract Male Attention for Later, Dancing on High Surfaces to be Better Seen by Males, Drinking a Literal Fishbowl of a Candy Colored Melage of Booze Too Many to Better Make Poor Decisions Later, and Take a Million Pictures to Document this for Facebook or My Experience Never Happened. As an older Amazon partaking in Older Amazon Rites (though not yet partaking in Elder Amazon Rites), key phrases to employ include: OMG, I thought going to a club was supposed to be about slinking in the dark and escaping not seeking out the faux paparazzi, Why is she crying, it's only 11:30, Those shoes are ridiculous, If I see anymore Two Drink Lesbian Dancing, I'm going to throw up in my own mouth.

Step 2: Critique the dj. It's your right! You've got ten years of club experience under your belt, Older Amazon! And if he's particularly heinous, even better! Key comments: His mashups suck, there should *never* be any dead air time, He only plays half a song before moving on which is ridonkulous, and He has the rhythm of an epileptic monkey.

Step 3: Drink! You know how to not vomit in the parking lot on your new shoes, Older Amazon! You can stick to beer or shots or a signature drink. Feel free to make one questionable judgement call in the form of $2 Jaegar shots.

Step 4: Dance! You're not here to impress anyone, you're here to be with each other! And this DJ while often questionable, knows his audience which is you! He's going to play all the songs *you* like so you don't riot! And that fucking includes HYPNOTIZE! Get crazy! Bust out your moves! Howl along to Gloria, Material Girl, and other riot girl songs with the other Amazons so that the club is filled with your voices! Trance out to it! Get into the magic that is song, as that guy Jason talked about. Get totes into that Amazon egregor and when Welcome to the Jungle comes on, your whole Amazon cabal will let out a primal scream like you have never heard! It's awesome!

Step 5: Uh-oh. You know the baby amazons are going to be trouble. They won't be able to contain themselves from offending Older Amazons by spilling their drinks on you and nearly falling on top of you from their higher perches. Suggest getting into a fist fight with the ones particularly bothersome to you personally to your cabal to prove your cabal's dominance. This is super awesome! Because (a) you get to feel BadAss and (b) you're Older Amazons! That means you have sense! Your cabal will say no!

Step 6: Well, Older Amazon, you're not a Baby Amazon anymore. That means by 12:30a, you are covered in a sheen of sweat and gently swaying and mouthing the words at this point. Disadvantage: Man, getting older suxxors. Advantage: You know who you're waking up with in the morning, unlike the Baby Amazons.

Step 7: In the car ride home, you can regale each other with your shared Baby Amazon Legendary Stories of all the stupid shit you somehow managed to not only live through but look hot and be bad assed! Laugh it up! It's your Goddess given right!

Step 8: Time for traditional feasting. Your old diner now sucks ass and is closed at midnight during the weekend which can bring you back to Step 7 for a quick round of The Scene is Never What it Used to Be, but you can find a crappy lesser diner to eat at. And! You get the perk of bitching about how bad it is! Eat: burgers, cokes, fries, gravy, and taylor ham on a hard roll.

Step 9: Home by 2:30a, asleep by 3:30a. Feel smug that you still have it.

Step 10: Sunday? Be a useless slag, Older Amazon! Take some tylenol, drink lots of water, eat some salty food and fuck around on the internet or tv all day. Because likely, that's about all you can manage. If you're like me and already auto-immune depressed (I have fibromyalgia) or have some other kind of nebulous stinky cat syndrome/getting older issue, good job killer! You just earned yourself a fibro day! Now you're double entitled to not cook dinner and get chinese.

* Because of those Hills-esque intense moments we have when we all stare at each other for a minute and *ping* each other and have a complete conversation without saying a word. We used to do that when we played Mage and had a mind network up, but I'm told it's scarier in real life. When we would game, we would point to each other and say *ping* and say out loud what we're beaming into each other's minds verses in real life when no words are actually said. ;p

** To fluff one's tail like a peacock due to external stranger validation given based on your appearance.

And Still Moar on Shielding

02 March 2010 @ 02:07 pm

So I was talking more to Jow about this because he's a closet masochist and he made me realize I *do* shield, just not in the same way a lot of other people I know do.

What I do:

* Wear the evil eye bracelet my mom brought back for me when I'm not sure of a situation (Pew! Pew! Pew!)

* Wear my charm bracelet to be charming in sticky situations

* Have an active relationship with my gods ("You smell like Crow and Yemaya and the Cremation Grounds crew, it gives people pause because they know who you roll with.")

* F.'s body warding trick with hand sanitizer and an eyeshadow brush to draw sigils on myself

* Oils when needed - for courage or to get people to stay away

* Warded the house and redo my doors and windows semi regularly

* Medicine bags in my bra for protection

So . . .I do do stuff I realize, just not a lot of "Level 2" stuff as Jason Miller discusses, more "Level 1" and "Level 3".

Ali

08 April 2009 @ 01:48 pm

I got a money hand from Jason Miller which seems to be helping. I read about it in his journal, and inexplicably i had this picture of a beautiful mehendi like picture of a hand that would be so beautiful by Yemaya's altar.

I suspect she put that image in my head. Having one would definitely
help so I thought, why not?

A few weeks later, Jow's like, you know it's an alligator hand clutching a pouch with things in it, right? And I'm like, omfg no! I never would have gotten it if I had known that!
But I think She was thinking oh, it's going to be so beautiful! And how that translated into my head was what I thought would be beautiful.

So we sort of compromised. I read Jason's letter that went with it, and did the spell work for it. We were worried about the cats getting it, so I got a small mason jar, Jow cut a hole out on the top, and I wrapped her in purple silk. Jason said the pouch is a living, working thing so I named her Ali and then it was a lot easier for me to handle the whole pouch full o' random bits and alligator hand. She lives on the bottom little saucer of Yemaya's altar, like they both want, which seemed to be working out.

It's easier to think of her personified as Ali who lives in a posh little downstairs apartment under Yemaya's place. We'll see if she likes it and if she works for me!