[Recipe Monday] Spaghetti Tacos

All the cool kids are doing it.

Maybe it's Monday, maybe it's not.  The point is that it's Solstice which means traditional celebration is needed.  Now it's not quite as much of a high holiday as Rex Manning Day but important nonetheless.

This year I have chosen to celebrate it in a manner that is cross culturally traditional for all cultures all over the world.  All cultures.  Which means guzzling white zinfandel, eating spaghetti tacos and watching iCarly with my bff and Jow as thirtysomethings are prone to do in their own company.  

It's not too late to join the awesome, here's the recipe we came up with:



Spaghetti Tacos
1/4 box linguini
1 large can of crushed tomatoes
1 package ground beef
1 package hard taco shells
1 packet taco seasoning
1 cup shredded mozzarella cheese

Brown the ground beef in a deep frying pan and add half the packet of taco seasoning. Drain the grease. Add the crushed tomatoes and the rest of the taco seasoning and simmer on low heat on the stove top. Bring water to a boil in another pot and add the linguini with a little salt and olive oil and cook for 8 minutes and then drain. Put the linguini into the hard shell taco and then the meat sauce and then the mozzarella. Nom!

Happy Longest Night everyone!  Keep it sexy!

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.

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

Outsiders: What Like It's Hard or Something?

In ADF Druidry, there's a whole section in the beginning of the rite on Outsiders which is actually one of the more hotly contested aspects of the ADF ritual between ADF groves, the contested aspects tend to focus on 1. Who are the Outsiders? 2. What should be done with the Outsiders? Some groves think certain gods and attributes should always be Outsiders and Outsiders should be banished. Well, as I've mentioned, my grove has more in common with tent revivalists than with High Episcopagans generally, we take somewhat of a different stance than that.

Our grove generally feels who the Outsiders are depends on the ritual. If you're doing a ritual to the Furies for example, the Olympians are likely to be Outsiders. Eris' Outsiders are going to be different than Hera's Outsiders. We also don't banish as that should (theoretically) be permanent and not for nothing, living in NJ, you need your crunchy shell of cynicism, wariness and snarkiness to get through the day. But. They're not the most helpful aspects to get through a ritual that was basically started by drunk college kids in the 60's who wanted to break Berkley College's administrative brains while invoking gods from cultures that were and are pretty far from America in someone's living room in New Jersey. So we basically ask those aspect and those Gods and ghosts and whatnot who wouldn't be comfortable for the rit to go sit on the porch until the ritual is over and watch the college kids and cars go by until everyone comes and collects their Outsiders after ritual. We also make offerings to the Outsiders as well (generally with a carefully worded, Please accept our offering, not the offerer. . . the Outsiders tend to like to linger with the offerer and will often try to persuade the offerer to go on a fun adventure with them instead of sitting through boring ritual). Sometimes, people attending the rit feel like Outsiders themselves which can be for any reason from it's a pantheon they're not comfortable with, the rit itself isn't where their headspace is at or what is politely referred to as "the weather in your head" (which often is a euphemism for having High Drama with someone(s) in the grove or just life shit that you're going through that has nothing to do with anyone there but puts you in a sour mood) and I can tell you from experience, when the Outsider invocation is made and you feel like an Outsider, it's hard not to follower the offerer outside (I think at the Pagan picnic with the other grove invoking and it being so different than how we do things that when they did the Outsider offering I saw everyone from my grove visibly twitch not to follow but . . .manners).

Where I'm going with all of this is that I think it's very possible to feel like an Outsider even here on our beloved blogosphere. I've spoken in the past about being fretful about not fitting the "kitchen witch" mold closely enough and how sometimes that's hard for me. This year, while I love you all, it's been hard with the never ending High Magic Grimoire Club that has taken root in much of the blogosphere. I dutifully read and I'm happy that it works for y'all but it doesn't do a whole lot for me. As it doesn't do a whole lot for me, it's taken me out of the conversation for the better part of a year. Which is nobody's fault! I'm not casting blame or anything, it's just not where I fit. I mean, I even live with one so I harass him with a never ending stream of questions hoping that something will click at some point which inevitably essentially disintegrates into an exasperated "because that's the way it is, that's why!". We finally got to a place where I got it when he explained that you can't just date High Magic, you have to at least go steady or get engaged and get into a super srs arrangement straight from the gate. Man, I cannot commit to anyone or anything like that, I want to have an awkward first date where I can ask some questions and see you do something charming and cool and then make my decision from there. You can do that with Hoodoo, Wicca, ADF Druidry and even layperson Hinduism.

So I've been marinating a lot about where I fit. I've been thinking a lot about Gordon's post on little magics everywhere which is my jam along with radical practicality. For some reason for a long time I've hesitated to call myself a Chaos mage. Maybe because the first time around, it was this super cool 90's phenomenon that felt super alterna and punky and everyone doing it was way cooler than I was. To me it was like the first Matrix when that was impressive at the time or like Hackers or whatever else that was going on that had only a vague basis in reality but everyone was really excited about it anyway. The two girls I know locally who id as chaos mages are kind of like a modern 2011 version of that which is why I've also hesitated about the label which is super stupid because they're also close friends who I've done magic (awesomely) with and they are super down to earth and awesome with real problems. I guess I felt like I didn't fit the mold there either exactly? So besides the obv revelation that no one perfectly fits any mold, I had another revelation when talking to Jow:

Me: I don't know! I just do stuff! And people seem to relate to it even though I don't feel like I have an orderly manner in doing it and I feel like a toned down version of Penelope Trunk with my apparent pathological need to spew out all my fucked upness and flaws to the internet.

Jow (patiently): But you've been published, you have thousands of people reading your Witchvox articles and sending you emails--

Me: What? Like it's hard or something? Ohmigod! I've got it! I'm the Elle Woods of the occult world!

Jow: Hee! Actually, yes. People underestimated her a lot but she got into Harvard law school and graduated at the top of her class and she has a big heart and she sort of marches to the beat of her own drummer. Even though people at Harvard thought her clothes was crazy, she didn't care, she wore what she wanted anyway. She didn't change herself to fit in.

Me (dreamily): I love her clothes.

But it's funny, I was really thinking about it, much like Elle didn't fit in with stereotypical Harvard students, she still carved a place for herself and did it her way. I'm always going to be a fashion dork which tends to not be the norm with Pagans in my age group locally, I'm going to see and interact with the gods through clothes and music because that's what makes sense for me. I'm never going to want to do much high magic, I'm always going to want to do little magic everywhere and I'm just . . .going to be me and not worry about being whatever enough. I think that's where I struggle in writing my book, I feel like I'm not mommy enough for a kitchen witch book but not alterna enough to take more of a super srs approach. So whatever. I'm just going to write the way I write and do things the way I do things and stop worrying so much.

Bend and snap, bitches.

Scenes From a Pagan Household

For a lot of reasons, we needed to declutter and clean our house and then cleanse our house. For a lot the same reasons, we plan on doing Scylla's Charm Against the Evil Eye. Generally I do the cleansing aspect with the house as I've previously outlined. Yesterday however I was def feeling fibro-ish from overdoing it at Crucible and the impending fall weather. I also needed to write my lecture on Hoodoo which I would be presenting to my alma mater's Pagan group, which the more I tried to figure out how to explain Hoodoo while both acknowledging it was not a "white light" path per se but only explaining some positive workings was giving me a headache as well as inspiring cold fear remembering The Pagan Picnic . Those things together made it so I was feeling pretty drained and not up to doing magic. Jow had decided to try his hand at doing it on his own, though previously we were going to do it together though that just led to another Model UN squabble.

Him (after finishing it): Well, what do you think?

Me: Well, at first I didn't feel anything but then when you started going room to room with the candle I did.

Him: Awesome. Wow. It feels so much different than when you do it.

Me: Yep.

Him: Almost too strong . . .

Me: Well. You kind of didn't sweep anything outside.

Him: I burned the bothersome things! With fire.

Me: Right. So . . .now there's like . . .the equivalent of a house full of dead bugs. They're not doing anything but they're lying all over the place dead.

Him: Burnt dead bugs.

Me: I'll sweep tomorrow.

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. . .

Scene From a Pagan Household

Jow (said slowly so as to not cause sudden movements from Deb): I kind of want the new Picatrix.

Deb (crossly): No. You don't play with the Pictatrix you have now.

(Jow looks sad) (Deb glares anyway because there are nine MILLION magic books in their house threatening to overtake their rabbit burrow/condo at any minute)

Deb (tries to be reasonable): Why do you need the new Picatrix when you don't play with your old Picatrix?

Jow: The new one is going to be way better because - (blahblahblah, something)

Deb: Does it come in eBook format?

Jow (crestfallen): Not yet. But it might I guess . . .But the book is only $65.

Deb (who has grown accustomed to ridiculously priced books desired by Jow knows that this is not bad especially compared to the first one): Fine. If you sell your old Picatrix.

Jow: Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo.

Deb: Fine. I don't really care what you sell but books have to go. I mean it. You manage to manifest stacks of free books in the mail like a junkie and it's getting out of control. Space in this house is finite. Get a storage space if you're that attached but some have got to go before you get a new Pictatrix. And not, like, 'I'll sell them some day and they've lived in a rubbermaid for two years!' But gone gone.

Jow: Deal!

The end times are coming. He's actually sorting. If they all actually leave the house then you know to get into your bunkers.

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.

I'm Not Clergy and You Can't Make Me

So, it's been super fun living with me lately as I am constantly on a verge of massive self discovery and/or a nervous breakdown. I'm either going to really build my pagan empire (which is a different story!) or make everyone else stab me to death nineteen times trying.

I'm not good with uncertainty and everything has been fraught with it since my company closed. Sometimes I can't sleep well for no real reason beside a hormone dip maybe or just general flailing.

I am trying to:
* Write my book
* Start lecturing again
* Get a stable source of income
* Work unstablely
* Have a put together life with a nice house, nice car and look like I wasn't mauled by tigers when leaving the house
* Go to the gym
* Start my crafting business

It's been difficult. Kelly Cutrone in her awesome book If You Have to Cry, Go Outside talks about how in your twenties, Durga's tiger is riding you. In your thirties, it is your job to ride that fucking tiger. And oh lordess am I trying. But the tiger is tricksy and clever and sometimes wins.

So, this leads us to today where Jow has the enviable job of attempting to talk me down from hyperventilating in a scrunched up ball about what a fucking disaster I am and what a mess my life is and I'm not a good writer and I'm not a good anything and all those hysterics that make artistes such a fucking joy to live with. He eventually gets simmered down with the promise of list writing to start my pagan empire and somehow that got us talking about the lack of laypeople in paganism and how everyone wants to be a grand high pagan priestess all Six Sigma crazylike.

I mean, as always, Gordon articulates it much better on how we all need to kind of calm the hell down and we all don't need to be the top of the heap in cultural practices not indigenous to our own but let's talk about my feelings on the matter.

See, I too wanted to be a special pony-princess-priestess at one time. Hell! Let's really get real here, I called myself a shaman for like half my twenties! But we're like suuuuuuper fixated on titles in the first world. Titles, as my panicky hamster brain reminds me, tell us who we are and what we do and what we can expect from life. I obviously like titles in much of my life, especially titles that assert prestige. I am too snotty to call myself a mere baby sitter, I'm a nanny thank you. Admin? Um, no. Executive Assistant. So *obviously* for like the first 3/4 of my Pagan life I wanted my six sigma priestess merit badge and I would be respected and revered at 25 as is the natural course of things.

Yeah. Well. Around 28ish when I started transitioning from maiden to mother, a thought became crystal clear: You don't know a goddamn thing about anything. Naturally, this was terrifying to a know-it-all like myself. But then I thought about my spiritual mentors - N. who refuses to be a teacher to anyone but wound up in clergy despite her best efforts to dodge that dodgeball hurling at her and S. who despite founding said circle has always been adamant about our circle being non hierarchical and that she is v. much *not* in charge.

When I started to wake up to the reality of what clergy really means: death rites, marriages you know aren't going to work that you need to perform anyway, being political and keeping your mouth shut, lots of unpaid labor, being forced to mediate "she's on my side of the chair" fights, I started thinking heeeeeeeeeeeeey back away slowly, you need that aggro like you need a hole in your damn head, you have enough problems.

And I do. I wonder why in paganism especially it seems that we all need to be experts, priest/esses and basically the person who knows the most. I wonder what that says about us as a people? I mean, surely we can't all be awesome people-people with seemingly never ending amounts of patience and kindness. It's not like it pays anything or even carries much prestige at the end of the day outside of the pagan/occult community. But yet . . .most of us seem to want it like a wanting thing and I wonder why that is. It took me like ten out of fourteen years of my Pagan practice to stop that. Because . . .you know what? I don't want to be held up as an infallible expert, I don't need that pressure in my life. I don't need to be the realest of the real, the family trad-ist of the family trad, the most authentic misappropriator . . .I don't. I know some stuff about some stuff. A bit of hoodoo, a bit of voodoo, a bit of shamanism, a bit of dianic wicca, a bit of ADF druidry but nothing that impressive in terms of degrees and accomplishments. And . . .that's okay. For better or worse, we're mostly a culture of dabblers as Pagans. That doesn't mean you should mash everything together whether it fits or not, but the minute that someone expects me to put on a mask and tries to make me pretend to be perfect at what I do and that my life is a Stepford bed of perfection, that's when I'm out. I don't want to be clergy and I don't want to be an expert.

Maybe this is a little kumbaya but frankly I just want to write and talk about my experiences and how I do things and teach people how to do them and get ideas circulating and make sure we all (myself included) have our critical thinking brains on at all times, *especially* when it involves ourselves. I want to be able to teach without the expectation that it means my life is perfect and I'm unaware of my flaws, I'd rather be relatable. I'd rather you say, well if this chick can do it, surely there's hope for me. It's Rachel Ray and Penelope Trunk's charm. I'd rather learn together and I'd rather someone say hey this thing you said didn't work for me and me saying okay let's try to figure out something that will. It's scary on the back side of the panel with all the expectant looks that surely you must know the answer because you are on the answer side of the panel but I'm going back out to the answer side of the panel, hot mess and all because I feel like it's where I should be and this time I'm ready for it and have the blueprint for what I can share with the world.

So, as they say, here goes everything!

On Doors, Magic, Success and Failure

Of course that I have now smugly tweeted about going to the the Motherfucking Post Office Like an Adult, I need to do what I can to sabotage that effort for myself.

So, let's talk about doors. This particular door started opening when I started having conversation with Gordon because I don't think we're really happy in our platonic inter-continental marriage unless we're blowing each other's minds. I wanted to show him my kitchen witch book outline and as I was summoning the courage to do so, the old computer died. Like dropped dead, no hope. I thought I had backed it up but no, I had instead three versions of the outline forcing me to make a whole new one using the old ones and then adding in stuff as I saw fit. After all that work, I hastily forced myself to push "send". Gordon was completely awesome about it as per usual and had a lot of great advice about that and my crafting business which my fear of success has me currently too afraid to fully absorb so I owe him an email.

Prior to this, every Tarot card reading I've done for the last few months have basically warned me that if I get successful, I have to be careful to not let it be my undoing a la Lady MacBeth which is always lurking around my subconscious.

Additionally, I got my first request on how to deal with a magical situation from a stranger.

On Monday, Jow and I went to New Hope which is a alterna friendly/pagan friendly town and it's always had a special place in my heart. As my friend Sarah once said, It was named right. New. Hope. We went to a winery and drank all sorts of wine with cute boys playing Fiona Apple on the stereo and then to a local store where I bought a new drop spindle and they invited me to their "Spin in"s. Then it was onto the town itself where we had one of the best meals we've ever eaten, period at Havana's with bacon wrapped dates, thick heavy yummy risotto, chicken roti and plaintains mole with Dead Guy ale. We were feeling pretty good about things and food drunk when we stumbled into Mystikal Tymes, the first witch shop I've ever been too. I could tell as soon as we got in that the woman (who I didn't recognize) working there wanted to see my eyes so I took off my sunglasses. We bustled about getting sage, charcoal and candles and then got to the counter and asked for John the Conqueror and lodestones. The woman showed me how the stones worked (I had never seen them in person) and then sort of eyed me and finally said, I don't know why I'm being told to tell you this but if anyone is giving you a problem, do the following thing. It works. (silent understood: this is not strictly "positive" magic). I was floored because it was the beginning of tourist season (though we were alone in the shop) and getting that kind of information is typically a strictly after hours sort of business generally. I replied, thanking her and saying carefully that I appreciated the information and I *always* thought *very* carefully before using this sort of magic. She nodded, satisfied.

We got into the car and I was sort of reeling when I shuffled my iPod for some radiomancy and Fiona Apple's "The Child is Gone" came on:
Honey help me out of this mess
I'm a stranger to myself
But don't reach for me, I'm too far away
I don't wanna talk ''cause there's nothing left to say
So my
Darling, give me your absence tonight
Take all of your sympathy and leave it outside
'cause there's no kind of loving that can make this all right
I'm trying to find a place I belong
And I suddenly feel like a different person
From the roots of my soul come a gentle coercion
And I ran my hand over a strange inversion
As the darkness turns into the dawn
The child is gone
The child is gone


At that point, I felt . . .look, my general ability to sense magic is roughly on par with a sack of potatoes so any kind of "sixth sense" stuff going on without intent is sort of startling but I felt a door inside me open which was really freaky. I feel like I'm being pushed (if by pushed we mean given a good hard shove) towards something dealing with my magic stuff and my writing and it's an even harder shove than when I did SalonCon which is pretty terrifying honestly. I feel like I'm going to be coming into my own and that's difficult to digest because frankly I went from seeking my magickal DESTINY!!!11111!!! to just sort of well . . .ignoring it. I say sort of because I became v. comfortable with who I am and what I can do and I wasn't looking to do more than that anymore. I've also toned a lot of aspects of myself down a lot post divorce because I didn't really care for how broken those aspects left me - ambition, drive, the spotlight, they're all v. cruel mistresses that can come at a big price. I lost my marriage (oh for a ton of other reasons too believe you me, but it was a factor, wasband didn't exactly care for "holding my purse" so to speak), I lost a lot of money and I was never comfortable with occasionally being recognized on the street. And now I see that door opening back up, this time with even more possibilities and more wisdom and . . .I'm frozen like a deer in a headlight. I am way more afraid of success at this point than failure. Failure is easy, you get knocked down and you get up again. Success comes with murky problems that are difficult to navigate.

So I stand here, poised. We'll see what happens.

On the Magic of Self Care

So, roles within our family are always changing and evolving. Motherhood has done something awesome to my sister in that she now can think calmly and rationally no matter how pissed off she is at someone, a skill I lack in the utmost of capacity. So now our conversations about estranged family that is making all the badness with my uncle in ICU go worse go something like this:

Me: (screams a bunch of psycho rabid dog stuff about our estranged family)
She: (calmly agrees with what I said but rightly points out x, y and z as to why we need to get along with them)
Me: (begrudging agreement because she is now the saner sister)
She: Now go grind some meat* and feed Jow dinner. Also, jinx family member Z.
Me: . . .really?
She: Yeah I'm co-signing. Go make a doll and call him Fredo and do what you need to do.

When everything is falling apart hardcore, it's the little things that are pleasing. Just planning all the jinx-y inconveniences I would do to Fredo (syph! get caught in all his lies! Never drive a nice car!) made me feel better, better enough that if Fredo has any bad low level luck, well, maybe it's my fault in a low level Malocchia sort of way but not in a super intentional sort of way.

Self care, real self care (not just in the form of a pizza or whatever other comfort food you can jam down your throat) during a time of crisis is hard to come by, especially when you come from a family of do'ers who like to burn themselves out. But it's important, even vital to the process.

When contemplating self care, I also contemplate how maybe this time/energy should be put into magic. But the more I thought about it, past trying to do my japa practice, send reiki and make some heart felt petitions/novenas to Our Lady of Guadalupe, it just hasn't felt right. I'm a mess, I'm not thinking clearly and the world as I know it may be changing in drastic, permanent and sad ways. Sometimes, past prayer. . .in my opinion, magic just isn't the answer. A shocking view among us here on our corner of the blogosphere, I know. If I were a "proper" magic user (whatever that is right?), I wouldn't be daunted! Nay! I would gather my magical tools and beat god/dess/es in a show of SHEER FORCE OF WILL! I will win this, universe!

Except . . .I can barely manage to shower (fibro during times like this? Also not awesome), how exactly am I going to show the universe who's the bitch in this relationship? And here's another phrase that is supremely unpopular among magic users (including Jow on most days), I can't.

Yep. That's right.

I can't.

I mean for me, firstly, honestly, because I don't believe I can best the universe in a pissing match for it is much bigger than me but *mostly* because I don't have the will. And magic is all about will. Dorking out, in White Wolf roleplaying games, Willpower plays a role in your character sheet. If you're playing Vampire**, willpower is so important that if you lose all your willpower, you will immediately go into a vampire frenzy and will be unable to see logic or reason and kill everything in your path. And in WW's Mage, willpower can affect your ability to cast a spell. At the risk of sounding like someone who believes that D&D is truefax, I think it's true in real life spell casting.

In WW, you can regain your willpower points which helps you be more effective through various methods. I will share here some of mine:

- Sleep. Sleep works like whoa. Sleep makes you a lot more sane, calm and rational.

- Cooking. Even if it's baking bread in the bread machine, making something from scratch start to finish gives me a sense of accomplishment. I find also making a full meal with fresh ingredients and eating healthy foods help too.

- Bitching. Not to the point where it becomes word vomit but to the point where you can release it as best as possible.

- Exercise. It gives you a place to put your aggression.

- Mind Rotting TV. I always feel better after an episode of Intervention or 16 and Pregnant. My problems seem downright manageable afterward.

- Focus on things you can control. I personally focused on teeth whitening and self tanning as well as my spring looks.


Sometimes I feel like I could be doing something super awesome right now with my time but the truth is, it's hard enough to get through the day. And that's okay. Regaining willpower through self care is a necessary and dare I say sacred act and right now that trumps just about everything but what I am using to deal with my fam's medical crisis. It would be nice to be having a grand time of it right now, it's spring, sort of, I have ideas and plans for things I'd like to do and wouldn't it be fun to be dressed nice and go someplace awesome and do something spontaneous? It sure would be! But it's not where I am. And owning where you are makes it possible for you to get to the next place, which will hopefully be better. Where ever that is.


* When I went through my divorce, using my meat grinder attachment on my MixMaster was one of the few things that kept me remotely sane. It was weirdly therapeutic, I don't know, I guess the Sweeney Todd aspect of it or whatever. If you have a MixMaster but no meat grinding attachment, buy one right now. I mean it. It will change your life.

** I want that 20th Anniversary Ed of Vampire: the Masquerade so bad I can taste it and I don't care who knows!

Valentine's Day Recipe Monday: Commentary and Molten Bittersweet-Chocolate Cake

Okay, let's get started with my two biggest pet peeves:

1. Valentine's Day is a "Hallmark Holiday".
2. It's Valentine's Day! The only way to show love is to be taken hostage by commercialism.

Okay, first off, Valentine's Day is far from a Hallmark Holiday because last I checked, Hallmark wasn't in business selling ye olde cardes in the 15th century. That's right, kids, Chaucer is credited for choosing St. Valentine as the patron of marriag, which translated eventually into being the patron of love. So to be completely honest, I get really sick of people being dismissive of Valentine's Day as a "Hallmark Holiday" because really, it's a celebration of acknowledging the egregor of love and to me, you're a pretty fucking embittered person if you don't like the idea of that. And it's not just for lovahs in my opinion, I have fond memories of my girl friends and I dressing in black years ago because, fuck boys, and exchanging flowers and chocolates as well as last year going to see the movie Valentine's Day and she got me this stuffed bee with a heart headband that had this maniacal "cute" laugh which made us laugh all day.

I also get annoyed by feeling like we are held hostage that the only things that will make women happy are five dozen roses, three dozen chocolates, a stuffed animal that's bigger than my cats, a "journey" blood diamond, and a super expensive dinner where we're charged twice as much as usual for a "special" menu where you're herded like cattle. Um, that stuff for most of us sucks (and if it doesn't for you, you have a right to like whatever you like, so rock out).

Valentine's day to me is about exchanging tokens - something that is meaningful to you and your partner(s) or is a cute practical little something or whatever. We go to our favorite restaurant which has their regular menu *and* a special menu so you could get something veg, a lobster or a burger. "Deb's Special Day" has been translated into me drinking as much wine as I like, eating as much cheese, red meat and chocolate as I like and then getting to watch something I like. So far, Jow has given me a bone resin crow skull necklace that I have been coveting, a small bouquet and a nice card. For this girl, that's romance.

Still feeling unhappy about Valentine's Day? Check out Jow's suggestions.

Today's recipe comes from the current Feb 2011 issue of Martha Stewart, so you know it's good because Miss Martha doesn't mess around with her holiday issues.

Molten Bittersweet-Chocolate Cake

Active Time: 20 minutes
Total Time: 1 Hour 20 Minutes
Makes: 6

Sink a fork into these warm cakes to find a puddinglike filling.

1 stick plus 3 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into small pieces, plus more for ramekins
1/2 cup all purpose flour, plus more for ramekins
5 1/2 bittersweet chocolate (70 percent cacao), chopped (1 1/4 cups)
5 large eggs, room temperature
3/4 cup sugar
Pinch of salt

1. Butter and flour six 6-ounce (2 inch deep) ramekins.

2. Melt butter and chocolate in a double boiler or a heatproof bowl set over a pan of simmering water. Meanwhile, whisk together eggs and sugar until pale and thick, about 4 minutes. Sift flour and salt into another bowl.

3, Fold egg mixture into chocolate mixture. Immediately fold in flour mixture. Divide batter evenly among ramekins, filling each three-quarters full. Transfer to a rimmed baking sheet. Refrigerate for at least 1 hour.

4. Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Bake until just set, 14 to 16 minutes. Let cool for three minutes. Turn cakes out onto plates.

The Secret, Serial Killer Boards and You

So, as usual, Gordon and I are thinking about the same thoughts across the pond, though perhaps coming to different conclusions (don't worry, I bought the Cupcake wine today so I'll be safe during the latest snowocalypse). Today he's pondering The Limits of Visualisation: Why You Still Need Magic. A lot has been made of The Secret's many flaws and issues. As Kathy Griffin said when her assistants made focus boards and then attributed her recent uprising in success to said boards, "I'm so sure it was the two of you and your Secret boards that did this, not, like, my many years of constant work." So besides taking away that you should never get into a sweat lodge with these people, as Gordon said, visualization is not enough.

So don't do that. Instead, as Gordon advises in a previous post, create a success map.

Or as I call it, a serial killer board. I watch *a lot* of crime procedurals and inevitably, a serial killer has a board that looks like the picture I have in this entry. At first, Jow desperately tried to get me to stop calling it that. But he eventually succumbed to my irrefutable logic. A serial killer, at least a tv fictional serial killer, has a Miss Martha level of organization and attention to detail. A tv serial killer takes a long time to catch (usually a whole season at least) by a crack team of one of the best groups of CSI agents/detectives/forensic anthropologists that can usually solve a case in about 35 minutes but s/he manages to stumps them for 25 episodes and generally can even up the ante by becoming personal and killing something that this said team loves and *still* not get caught for 25 episodes because of their drive to succeed and attention to detail. This fictional serial killer has an implementable long term plan. Is that or is that not the point of a focus board/success map?

Now, I am definitely not telling you to become real life serial killers. Real life serial killers aren't anywhere near as fun or cool as the fictional ones because of the whole morality/hurting people/having massive psychological issues/winding up with a needle in your arm and the long sleep issues. But a fictional serial killer is written by a team of writers, very carefully so as (if written correctly and no one is asleep on the job/phoning it in/being super half assed about it) there are no plot holes for the show.

And that is actually the point, Charmers. There should be no plot holes in your magic. There should be measurable goals, magical work and mundane work to make sure that your magic is doing what it's supposed to be doing. If it's not, you need to re-evaluate what you were doing and who you were working with and if your goals were reasonable and achievable magically and mundanely.

A focus board is not going to do this for you.

But what it *will* do is keep your eye on the prize and in my opinion, that's the real purpose in having one. You might be easily distracted like myself and get sidetracked from all the important shit you're actually supposed to be doing and instead watching back to back episodes of Bridezillas in your pajamas and/or drinking French Greyhounds and getting sucked into Facebook for nine million hours or maybe you're reading too many self improvement books and can no longer sleep like a grown human adult. It's easy to get completely and utterly off track.

That's why you need a serial killer board.

How to Be as Organized as a Television Serial Killer and Keep Your Eye on the Prize

1. First, think about what you're trying to accomplish in your life. For me I started by thinking of words because my brain sees words before pictures. My words are: Aspire, Create, Live, Serenity, Serve and Want.

2. Now find pictures that you feel are good representations of what you're trying to accomplish. Mine are:

Aspire: Joan Holloway (Mad Men)(she is curvaceous like whoa and Queen of the Secretaries), black and white picture of the Eiffel Tower (to remember to find my inner french chick) and Erzulie's symbol (to remember to drop it like it's hot)

Create: Typewriter (i is a riter noaw), a spinning wheel (I spin yarn as part of my income) and Mnemosyne (she's the mother of the Muses).

Live: Rolling pin and cookies (making things from scratch), a bedroom from anthrologie (keep my house in a way that I like) and a champagne cork (enjoy the good things in life)

Serenity: Crow Yoga position (yoga helps me feel centered), candles (make me feel calm) and roses (remember to find beauty)

Serve: Parvati and Shiva (remember to be a divine housewife and be present romantically) and Leigh from Secretary (draw your own conclusions, Charmers)

Want: Bank vault (to have money saved), a Saab convertible (I really want my next car to be a convertible and I could afford a used Saab and they're supposed to not be horrific to work on or horrifically expensive to repair and they're safe), passport (to keep traveling)

3. Get a smallish cork board and push pins. Pick a font if you want to print words, I find Fiolex Girls conveys the fictional serial killer intensity I'm trying to go for. I also used good quality heavy paper for my pictures and scrapbooking scissors to cut out my pictures so they had pretty edges.

4. Arrange. This is an awesome meditative stage where you get to play god of your own life and arrange all the pictures in a way that makes sense to you. I grouped my pictures according to each word.

5. The finishing touch. All serial killer boards have yarn connecting pictures and articles together. To be completely frank, I have no idea why that is. It looks cool? But magically speaking, it's useful as weaving the yarn through the push pins and connecting them together can be a magical act if you use your intent. You should also think carefully about which pin to connect to which pin. For me, It was even more magical because I got to use the (pink) yarn that I had spun myself for this.

6. Place in a position you will often see. If you're constantly glancing at it for a quick second at a time, I think then putting the pieces together internally is more of a subconscious versus conscious act. Mine is in my office, just out of direct eyesight which helps too. Plus when I get bored working, I tend to look around a lot so that adds to the occasionally seeing it but seeing it often aspect.

Model UN and Solstice

Me: Filthy Reclaimist accustomed to improv and compromise in a rit, more of a group practitioner than private practitioner, roots in less book oriented spirituality such as Dianic Wicca, Shamanism, Hoodoo and Kitchen Witchery.

Jow: Ceremonial Magician, accustomed to working alone in a structured setting, roots in things that require a lot of reading like Hermeticism and other ceremonial traditions, raised as an only child (his older sisters were grown).

Now do a ritual together!

The planning always ends with me simultaneously wanting to strangle Jow and bang my own head against a desk until I stop moving. The *easy* and *obvious* answer is to stop working together but that seems like a cop out to me, since we live together and both do magic. And while yes, as per the blogosphere, the Solstice/Full Moon/Eclipse has many convoluted meanings and ramifications to it, I was excited to do magic on a day where these things haven't happened simultaneously in over four hundred years. Also, I am currently unemployed and can stay up til 3:30a so I wanted to take that while I could get it.

Picture it! We're in our living room, we've just devoured tasty tacos and are feeling pretty good. We cleaned ALL THINGS (at least all closets, pantries and fridge) and things are looking good.

Then we start talking litergy.

Me: I'd like to raise energy together to focus together on our work.

Him: Okay.

Me: Keen! Okay, maybe a song or a chant?

Him: Sounds good.

Me: (Suggests like NINTY BILLION songs and chants coming from various pagan traditions as well as modern songs and potentially playing music and just rocking out)

Him: (Rejects everything)

Me: (Asks him to suggest something)

Him: (suggests something unpronounceable)

Me: (Explains the point of raising energy as I was taught was to get focused, in an egregor, etc which means everyone needs to pronounce it and the meaning of the words are important but . . .pronunciation is more important)

Him: (Rejects further ideas)

Me: (Gets aggravated)

Him: (FINALLY suggests to use the chant from the movie The Craft)

Me: AFTER AN HOUR OF RESEARCH AND SUGGESTION, THIS IS WHAT YOU WANT TO USE? SOMETHING FROM A MOVIE!

Him: Yes.

Me: But you said -- Rrrrrrrrrrrgh.

Him: You like the chant though.

Me (sulkily): Yes.

Him: So let's use it.

Me: Fiiiiiiiiiiiiiine.

Forget even getting into the conversation about purification. Eventually, he said, I just need things to be explained as to why you would want to use them. I said, um, telling me that would have been muy helpful. Him: Oh . . .right.


We then discussed if working together magically was going to be possible. Mind you, neither of us were used to being up super late anymore so we were both feeling cranky. After a cup of tea, we had decided to try to do work in Cornish witchcraft we were both enamoured of from a video.

Why this will (probably) work:

1. We already bought stuff for a Wiccan altar and would like to use it.

2. Jow expressed interest in learning trad witchcraft.

3. I expressed interest in learning more formalized witchcraft.

4. We like the British lady from the video, she uses a neat . . . like boomarang on a string to draw her space.

5. I would like to learn more formalized practice and have more of a personal at home practice with rituals.

6. Jow wants to learn more about "Gen Ed" paganism and how to work in a group with others.

7. We would only need to buy a couple books.


But, this is for the future. Despite crankiness and difficulty, we managed to put together a lovely, simple ritual that resonated with both of us. We started by ringing a bell and then smudging with sage. Jow invoked to Ganesha as gatekeeper, I invoked the moon. We did our chant (which did work wonderfully for us, sulkiness aside, he hit the nail right on the head there) and had two of our fanciest glasses and a bottle of St. Germaine (which is currently the fanciest and most coveted booze we own right now) and we each took turns invoking our personal god/desses and making our petitions. It flowed really well and naturally and it had a quiet kind of power to it. We had two candles lit and our little rosemary christmas tree in the center of our table with our grapevine star. We both were v. eloquent if I do say so myself and poured libations. We then went outside to admire the eclipse and the moon (so crystal clear and gorgeous) and to offer our libations.

We weren't going to do a divination as to how our spellwork went and that turned out to be a correct instinct. Because at ADF GoG when we do so, it's "So gods! How'd you like the party?" And they're either like, it was awesome! Good things are coming!/Let me warn you about some things . . .Or occasionally, outcome unclear. (Generally when the invited guests were unsure as to how to behave at the party. Like, being invited into a cultural party where you don't have any idea of what's going on and you're like, the food was weird but okay? I couldn't understand the people? But it was nice of them to invite me?) Once in a v. great while, something that borders on, Boooo! Did not like!

Our cards both came out v. "Good things could happen from this! Or bad! I don't know!" Which I think was more of the result of us asking for a whole lot of things and not yet having done any real work towards it. It was asking a lot to get a solid yay or nay this early in, it felt v. much like the wheel was still spinning.

But all in all, the rit was v. solid and felt like it went well. I'm glad we did it!

On Samhain, Drawing Down and The Morrigan, Namely Nemain

Maybe it's just gone out of fashion, but no one seems to talk about Drawing Down anymore. Is it too touchy-feely? Too difficult to validate? Not a srs magikal practice? I think it's actually a strange middle place - it's something that requires a lot of time and energy and attention and will kick your ass, which makes it difficult for your average kitchen witch to do, as s/he has enough to deal with in working, keeping house and keeping the children from getting too Lord of the Flies-ish. I think there's a certain sheen of Reclaimist that makes a lot of srs practitioners turn their noses up and/or they've got better things to do like meditate towards enlightenment instead of basically wandering around god-drunk, which is frowned up.

Luckily for you, (I have no problem looking completely batshit crazy to you, darling readers AND I'm in some weird holding pattern between frantic kitchen witch (I have no children and don't work for a big corporation or anything) and srs practitioner (we all know how I feel about meditation).

An ADF druidic ritual is celebatory, at least the way GoG does it. There's a basic frame work that all ADF rituals need to follow, but there's a lot of room to turn it on its head. My grove is one of the largest in the country and our rituals tend to be . . .different than most ADF rits. We're sort of the backwater snake handlers of the group. We're called Grove of the Other Gods for a reason, after all.

So we've now laid the ground work: this is a celebratory ritual where we are honoring our kindred and a guest of honor (in this case, The Morrigan) and no targeted magic is done. I like a good beer buzz early in the morning as Sheryl would say and have enough time and energy to prepare for a drawing down while also having no shame or filter to keep me from sharing my experiences with you. It's the perfect storm really.

I demurred about the likeliness of drawing down to Jow, but I think in the back of my head I knew that as soon as I got close to the other two chicks (which was strange for GoG, we don't gender police by any stretch, but that's who was interested in the other two aspects) at the rit, it was going to be on.

Jow wrote up his experience with GoG Samhain as a congregant.

Before getting there, I was more . . .lightly shadowed. Usually I'd be a completely anxious mess beforehand for a variety of reasons, but when I would start to get nervous, she had a calm answer (Oh! My pumpkin is v. roasted! It may fall apart! *fret* She: You're worried that your food looks like food?). She understood the need to look just so and was fine with things like makeup (woade correspondence), bra (armour correspondence), etc. but everything needed to be useful, everything needed to have a purpose. And I was at first confused about her OCD like need for cleanliness (clothes constantly lint brushed, washing my hands as much as Lady MacBeth, etc.) because I was like, ummm warrior Goddess? Blood, gore, etc? And then I remembered Her main job - washing the blood out of the clothes of people who were about to die in battle. Right then.

The cats were really confusing and slightly disgusting to Her as they seemed to serve no purpose- they don't catch mice, they live inside and all they seemed to do was shed and vomit. She was somewhat mollified when She was told that they were both gifts at one point and while she was confused that someone would be given something that was a lot of work and served no purpose to show appreciation, a gift was a gift after all.

Once we got there, K., who was invoking Macha came shortly after. I had intentionally put the aspects of The Morrigan as v. separate entities in my head, and the slidy thing that some deities that aren't quite separate from each other was a v. intellectual vague concept in my head. Until we slowly and unconsciously sliding energy between each other. K. and I are friendly, but not close friends, so it was a v. strange experience. Stranger still that I felt literally sick without P. who would be invoking Badb. I like P., she's cool people too, but I am no where anywhere *near* being close enough to her to feel sick without her. But I was. In my head was a constant fret of, When will P. get here, when will P. get here?

I knew K. and I were getting really slidy when I tried to walk through the door with her at the same time and nearly busted ass in the process. She did my makeup in the picture above while we waited for P. I've always wanted really hardcore gothity eyes but whenever I would try to do it myself for a club night, I would fuck it up. Luckily, K. is an artist so she had a v. good hand.

Finally P. got there and K. and I slowly started to synch up with her too. We were literally laughing and braiding each other's hair which seemed to creep everyone else out. In fact, most people gave us a wide berth and would not make eye contact with us.

All our SOs made grumbling noises about what pains in the ass we were that day, and commiserated together which they seemed to enjoy.

We sat down for the ritual, and poor K. got stuck on the other side of the room (after rit, she beelined for P. and I because she was getting nauseous without us). P. sat next to me and had her iPod in her ear, full of awesome Celtic music. Like school girls, we listened together through the other ritual invocations, one headphone in each of our ears, as we swayed in time to the music as we watched the ritual.

Jow said when I invoked, it was somehow less scary then when I was sitting quietly. When I was sitting quietly, apparently I had a v. feral air about me, my eyes were constantly darting all over, taking in the room. When I was invoking, I read what I had written and focused on that.

I had never been to a GoG Samhain like that. Even on the not sad years, it seems impossible to not slide into the river of sadness, at least for a moment. It's the first Samhain where . . .we didn't slide. Not for a moment. After the ritual, when we read the Book of (our) Dead, there were tears which was natural. Our senior druid was what we call "DiC'ing" (Druid in Charging) which means she acts as the priestess of the rit and keeps it going and steers it. She said when there were points where it could have gone to sad, we all collectively would say, No! That happened, goddamnit! Which has become my unofficial motto, btw. All of the invocations came from a place of power and it was amazing and beautiful and gorgeous and there was not one dud among them. When we could have gotten sad, we reached down and pulled up our power and drew from that. It was punk rock and amazing.

As for, P., K. and me, our invocations slide together just so and it was perfect, in my v. biased opinion.

In our rituals, we try to keep the pathway of communication two way. We speak by giving the ritual and then we ask for the gods to speak back by giving us an omen. Did They like it? Is there anything they need to tell us for the upcoming future? We used The Celtic Book of the Dead: A Guide for Your Voyage to the Celtic Otherworld deck and apparently, there are some really really nasty cards in there. We got one of the most positive possible readings from it. Judging by the cards, it meant one (or more of the following)

a) Hey! Good job! We dug it!
b) Hey little boys and girls, don't be afraid of us, we can give you nice things. Come inside, we have cookies . . .
c) Liked this rit? Perhaps you would like to join grove in honoring another one of our fam, Mananon next week!

Even though we aren't really super close, after rit, P., K. and I started speaking in unison and laughing at things that were only funny to us. We went outside and opened the bottle of Warrior's Port with a Bean Sidhe cry between the three of us and started slugging straight from the bottle, laughing and doing that thing that only a group of three sisters/best friends can do - when you're teasing the hell out of each other, two ganging up on one and then flipping the table and ganging up on the other. Mostly bawdy stuff, mostly sister teasing. A little friendly sisterly pushing and shoving. Again, no one wanted to get close to us and one gentleman who we're all friendly with, flinched when we noticed him and called him to stand by us. He would not make eye contact. Jow tried to feed me. My reaction: Ew! Food! Gross! P&K: Ew! A boy! Gross! He scurried back inside as quickly as possible.

P's gf, T. was the only one who wanted to put up with us and found much of what we said hilarious (K: More yelling! Me/Nemain: No! Norma, the woman who lives here will be v. cross with us! It's already been thirteen years since we've been invited back! T. (amused): Norma, who lives here? Me/Nemain: It's true, she does.)

Norma lured us back to the group in the backyard by showing the lamb she got for The Morrigan which was put in the fire as a burnt offering.

Usually, Norma is trying to lure me out for the midnight pumpkin parade (we . . .do what we do, it's a college town) but this year, P. and I were not allowed out, K. was only going to be allowed out without us. K. didn't want to be too far from us, so she stayed. We made sure to tell that loudly and indigently to anyone who would listen that we were not allowed out to play because they kept thinking we'd start *fights*. A few people stayed behind to mind us and we had a super fun time throwing cream puffs into cleavage.

After that, it was sorrowfully decided that we needed to eat. Food tasted awful, I really wanted a bloody piece of meat but there wasn't any to be had at grove, but pork was good enough. We complained that there was only one bottle of wine to be had between the three of us for SOME reason.

And we all slowly slid back, K. whispering in my ear you're on your own now as she squeezed my arm.

I felt bereft after, like I was missing 2/3 of myself, edgy and unhappy. It was difficult, making the transition, losing not just Nemain, but Macha and Badb too. I took some pictures and washed the make up off my face and got into comfy clothes. I went to sleep.

The next day I felt more myself again, we went to Skylark for brunch and I thanked Nemain by cleaning my house thoroughly. I was myself again, though perhaps missing two (small) pieces of me I haven't seen.

God drunk is awesome, the hangover is awful, but still, once in a while, it's empowering to remember what it's like to fly so close to the sun.

Recipe Mondays: 30 Minute Puja Dinner

Predictably, Monday has rolled around and my exact thought is: Monday . . .fuuuuuuuuuuck . . .recipes . . .fuuuuuuuuuuck. My brain is barely working from Samhain, I'm tired, it's cold. So guess what you're eating? What I'm eating tonight. The first thing to note is that if you want to make Indian food using stuff you can easily get at a grocery store and quickly without much recipe research, you're basically making Olive Garden for the gods. If your gods love you, this will not be a problem. It's double not a problem if you work with Shiva (who generally hangs out in grave yards so He's a little more chillaxed about this stuff) and Parvati (who, if you have a relationship with Her, will be too kind and polite to say anything about your shitty cooking. She has two sons, She knows how to put on Her Mom face and say, awww! You sure did try!). I've noticed that They prefer my shitty Indian cooking over my good Italian cooking because I think at least it's more familiar to them.

Work on making this recipe together with your significant other and then offer it to Shiva and Parvati. Jow is an excellent sous chef and is v. good about taking my lead in the kitchen. I'm a v. shitty sous chef, I don't chop well and I don't take instruction in the kitchen well, but I'm good at coming up with recipes and leading the cooking. As a result, we work v. well together there and our food is ready quickly.

If you want to do a super quick puja (again, I recommend this only if you're doing other stuff with Them too as this is really ghettotastic):

* Tell Ganesha he is a benevolent elephant and he's awesome
* Light a tealight and thank Agni for the fire
* Ring a bell
* Put a tiny ramekin sized bit of food for Them on your altar
* Talk up the food like a waitress (I've said for a while that that's what I want my magical title to be, Divine Waitress)
* Tell Them how awesome both of Them are
* Ask for Them to help you have a good relationship with your significant other (and again, that's only if you work with Them and trust Them in this compacity. I do, They've been good to Jow and I)
* Ring bell again
* Eat dinner


Chicken Lentil Curry: Lazy American Style

Ingredients

1 can or box of lentil soup
2 chicken thighs, cut into pieces. Leave the skin on or take it off, it's your business
2 small onions, chopped
2 teaspoons ghee or butter
2 tablespoons curry (or to taste)
1 tablespoon garam masala
1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
1/4 teaspoon cumin
1/4 teaspoon tumeric
1 pouch instant rice (take it out of the pouch to put into the soup)

Put butter into the pot and melt it on medium heat. Put the onions and chicken in and brown. Add in the the rest of the ingredients. Let cook for approximately 20 minutes.

Fin!

Checked off my list . . .

Things done today, post breakfast sandwich:

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

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

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

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

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

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

* Watered our desert roses

* Lit up our altar and made water offerings.

* Saged the house


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

Stuff and Things and Junk

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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