New Year, New You: An Experiment in Magical Radical Transformation

Yeah. . .She's not this classy.  Trust me.

My muse and I have an on-going disagreement of sorts.  Well.  I do.  She is indifferent as usual to my thoughts and feelings.  She clomps into my bedroom, heels in hand, cosmo and cheese fries on her breath.

She (poking me hard):  Hey.  Get up.

Me: What?  It's bedtime and we're not talking friends --

She: Whatever.  I have an idea.

Me: Your ideas are disorderly and often inconvenient.  I'm going back to bed.

She: No, you're not.  I'm going to keep poking you in your brain pan until you listen.  Are you listening now?  Are you listening now?  Are you listening now?  Are you listening now?  Are you listening now?  Are you listening --

Me: JESUS CHRIST, I HATE YOU!

She: So it goes like this.

So, you're supposed to be, like, magicians, occultists, witches in the woods and the kitchen and on the soccer field, right?  Workers of wonder.  Dream weavers.  People who get shit done.  Isn't this the year to make your own luck?  You're feeling especially awful with the nights that never end and run over by the holidaze and you can't drink joie forever before needing a meeting.  So now's the fucking time.  Don't wait until that stupid glitter ball drops and you're already making drunk and/or sentimental mistakes, start now.  Start now when it's hardest.  Start now when you feel so weighed down with emotions better left to glittery and not so glittery vampires and when you feel like you could sleep forever.  Now is the time you need to wake up.  Get up, get up!  Don't miss this moment.  Create magics great and small, mundane and mystical.  Find everything you've been looking for, mysteries revealed in every form of divination and song and when you fuck it up, when you are too tired to try, bring each other up from bloodied knees to get back up smiling.  You are all made of stars and you have stardust in your veins.  Do something about it.

Here is what you'll do.  You'll write prompts.  You'll explore.  You'll fall down.  Sometimes you'll lay there awhile, finding things under rocks that you never wanted to know.  They'll pull you back, using yarn, glue, cajoling and stern words.  You'll keep sewing yourself into who you'll want to be and you'll tell them, sometimes too much, because that's your way and what's needed.  You'll find how far you can really fly when you've made wings to carry you and be breathless from your accomplishments.  Besides your words, you'll give something made from your hands.  

Here is what they'll do.  Form a community of tealight hearths and stories high bonfires.  They'll whisper their stories, spirials of success and failure.  You'll learn from each other, make each other laugh, piss each other off.  You'll get things done together and alone.  You'll be afraid together, so knees up.    

Here's how it will work:

There's a prize.  Of course there's a prize.  I will do a random drawing and whoever wins can chose  one item from my shop and I will ship it anywhere in the world for free.  The Drawing will take place on Valentine's Day.  

I will put everyone's name in a hat and have Jow chose a name from the hat.  If you are a fiber freak (yarn, Dream Ambassadors, felted soap), I will even hand dye that item in the color of your choice.

You get one entry when:

* You add the "New Year, New You" button to your blog

* You blog about the "New Year, New You" experiment to spread the word about it

* You blog in response to any of my "New Year, New You" prompts (one entry each time you do so!)

* You blog about your own "New Year, New You" experiment (one entry each time you do so!).  You are captain of your own ship, if you're ass deep in your own experiments in making yourself stronger, faster, braver and more magical, that certainly counts.

You must leave me a comment with the appropriate link so that I know you have done these things.

[The Onion] Are Our Teens Turning to Shamanism?

To wrap up our fun with shamanism month.


Do Glass Pipes, Incense Prove Teens Are Practicing Shamanism?

Popping Pills and Practice

Since writing my latest article for WitchVox (btw, I tried to write back to you, Carol but it bounced! Hopefully you'll see this instead?), I've actually been getting the same question a lot which makes me think it's on a lot of people's minds:

Do you think that taking medication affects your magical practice?

For the TL;DR crowd, my short answer would be: no. For those of you interested in a discussion, I will share my thoughts with you here. Firstly, I'd like to say that I really dislike it when people are made to feel like they need to engage in secrecy and shame. If that happens, something has really gone wrong in my opinion and the fact that apparently a lot of Pagans/Magical Practitioners feel that they can't talk about taking prescription medication and need to hide that from the community makes me really sad. Taking care of your health and taking advantage of modern medicine shouldn't be something you have to feel shame about in spiritual circles in my opinion.

So let's start kicking down some walls and lay it all out there. I have depression, anxiety, anemia and fibromyalgia. I currently take the following medications to make it so that I am a productive member of society: Prozac, Xanax, Remeron, Savella, Celebrex, Vitamin D, Multi-Vitamin and Birth Control. In the past, I have: gone to therapy and tried Kava and St. John's Wort to help. The therapy helped immensely, the Kava and St. John's Wort significantly less so. In addition to my medication I use yoga, stress management techniques, japa/self guided meditation, massage, journaling and talking to loved ones to manage my conditions. I see my doctor regularly. She is v. tight fisted with all the "fun" meds and I don't think I could get a Vicodin out of her if it meant she could retire on a island of her own. But at the same time, she treats my conditions very aggressively.

Even with good coping mechanisms, good medication and a good support structure, I still have days where I'm anxious and can't sleep and occasionally have days where I am depressed for no reason, sometimes my fibromyalgia causes me so much fatigue and pain still that I can't get out of bed. Despite these aspects, I still feel the normal human range of emotions and generally only feel sad or stressed when I'm "supposed to". I've worked since I was fourteen, I pay my taxes, I write, I ran a con, I go out and have fun doing all the things early thirty-somethings like to do, I have loving relationships and I own a car and a condo. My medication makes it so that instead of being too depressed to be motivated or paralyzed with inexplicable fear and anxiousness or too bedridden with pain and fatigue on the regular, I can lead a fairly "normal" life.

Which is why at this point I get confused about why shame needs to be implemented for taking advantage of first world medical care in order to lead functional lives. Are there people who abuse prescriptions? Um, yeah. They're addicts like the people who are alcoholics and have other drug abuse problems. Is that the majority of people who take meds? No. There's this idea that bugs the shit out of me that there are all these people who take medication they don't really need and this medication *magically* takes away all of their problems and they don't need to deal with them. Last I knew, you needed to take like a fistful of Xanax or are shooting H to get that effect. Which . . .see: addict.

Medication (and therapy) helps get you to the point where you're not in a full blown chemical freakout so you can effectively solve your problems and live your life. If you can do that for yourself without meds, rock out, you have an awesome immune system and brain chemistry. If you can do that solely with homeopathic methods, rock out. If you feel taking meds makes *you* a lesser person somehow then that's your business. But I start to get *real* touchy when you try to lay your trip on me. I get *even more* touchy when you start to try to tell me what to do with my body because I have a real problem with that. Control over my body goes way beyond whether or not I decide to have an abortion, it's also about having agency over the decisions I make regarding my health care.

And this bullshit that some people in our community put on others about how taking prescription medication is selling out, supporting corporate evil and bringing our community down and how you don't "believe" in the pharmaceutical industry so neither should anyone else and positive energy/crystals/herbs/alternative therapies would work for everyone regardless of their brain chemistry and body systems and personal desires is just that- bullshit.

With all that out of the way, let's get to the nuts and bolts of the question asked. While I haven't been completely unmedicated in roughly ten years, there are times where I have a little time in between prescriptions due to various reasons (mostly due to the length of time it takes for my prescriptions to arrive to me via mail) where I am in a quasi-unmedicated state and/or if my fibro-flare is that impressive that it punches past my meds that I feel able to give my own take on whether or not my medications have affected my magical practice.

When I was unmedicated/quasi-unmedicated, it was significantly easier for me to be in touch intuitively. What that means to me is that Tarot reading was easier to "pull", getting random psychic impulses and having an easier time seeing what's going on with what I call The Tapestry. The Tapestry refers to everything that's happened in the past, everything that's happening right now, everything that will happen and everything that never happened. To me it looks like a huge tapestry constantly weaving and unweaving itself in bits and pieces. Typically I could see about like one billionth of the whole tapestry, it was mostly my little corner of the world.

However. And this is a big however, my magic has significantly improved since medicating. My spells are much more effectively, I have the focus to have a personal practice and my rituals are more effective and meaningful.

So while yes, my general fuzzy random psychic ability was better unmedicated, having the ability to cast better and have a better personal practice *to me* (and YMMV) far outweighed my unmedicated abilities. While yes, my unmedicated abilities were more "traditional" psychic aspects, the ability to get the perfect condo through my targeted magic work far outweighed the benefit of being able to say, "Gordon! I think something is going to happen to you on Wedne- Thursd- No, definitely Wednesday. No idea what though. Cheers!" So for me, being more functional in my daily life and being more effective in my targeted magical practice far outweighed being unmedicated.

Discuss among yourselves.

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!

I am who I am who I am who I am/ Requesting some enlightenment/ Could I have been anyone other than me?

Gather around, my children of the corn, it's time for a personal statement of purpose. I'm not talking a magical one, though my PEH summed up my magical one quite nicely as radical practicality. We're talking about me.

Some magicians/occultists/your cat who does magic/whatever would prefer to see magic more as science, factual by results and comforting through the written word. But here's the thing, nothing is unbiased. Not science, certainly. After all science once believed the sun circled the earth, men were smarter than women due to brain weight and that people of color were empirically less intelligent than white people.

Not you, not me, not anyone is unbiased. When you step into your magical circle, into the forest, into the kitchen, you don't magically shed your biases. Neither does anyone else. Susan doesn't stop being mad at you for boning her husband, Alan doesn't stop thinking that you're a cheapskate because you always bring dessert and never a main dish for feast, etc., etc, etc.

Where I am going with this is that a big part of who I am as a person is a feminist (in case the Dianic Wicca part didn't tip you off). I got my college degree in Women's Studies. I've worked for and been paid by the National Organization for Women. I'm part of the Amethyst Circle of Sisters (my Dianic group). And when I do magic and when I write about magic, this doesn't turn off.

I am the first to say I come from a place of privilege - I'm a white middle class American citizen and I do constantly examine my place of privilege. But that also means I'm constantly contemplating others' privileges and the places I come from that aren't privileged when I am treated as lesser for my less privileged aspects. And I can't shut that off. Jow and I have had many discussions about privledge, to the point that he can recognize when Not Cool Shit is Going Down. And it can be a drag. We were minding our own business watching Warehouse 13 when he said, "Oh man, it's totally happen on my show! Noooooooooooooo! There are these three women of color who have magical capabilities and are bad ass in their own right but here it is, random white dude coming in to supervise and he's not even magical! Why is he in charge? Oh man! I can't shut this off! I can't stop seeing it! Grrrrrrrr!"

And for some of us who have spent a lot of time examining our own privledge and all the ways big and small various people get treated as lesser, that's exactly what it is. I can't shut it off. Not just because we're talking about magic and here in our safe little corner of the blogosphere people have disagreements and hissy fits but we all respect each other as equals, not because it makes you uncomfortable, not because you don't want to talk about it here, not because some of my experiences of being treated like crap by my so called magical brothers and sisters make you feel awkward. Never. I can't shut it off until everything's right when it comes to race/gender/sexuality/class/ableism and um that's not going to happen any time in my life time in all likelihood, sadly.

And you don't have to like it or agree and you don't have to read me if it bothers you, you can't all like me or love me as charming as I am. But it's not going away in any of my writing. And some of my bias *is* when it comes to the larger occult community and higher magic, because of how I've been treated there. Maybe the "battle" about how people treat each other magically and who is respected more than who due to their lineage and teachings is over for you and that's cool. But it's not over for me, I still fight it every day. I still get treated like I do Barbie magic every day of my damn life (among other things) and I won't pretend the battle is over to make you feel comfortable. Because you know what? It's not over for me and that's my experience which is as valid as yours. This blog is about my magical experience and my views on privilege is part of it.

Don't get me wrong. I got upgraded to Business Class for the first time and dear goddess, it's awwwwwwwwwwwwwwwesome! There's, like, as much booze as you can pour down your throat in a three hour flight, more leg room, as much tv as you want to watch, bejeweled to play, food, real actual good food that's not chock full of fat and served on plates. Who the hell would willingly want to give it up? There are some feminists who would argue that one must in order to be a good global citizen. I don't think it's possible though, honestly. What I *do* think is possible is to be honest with yourself about your privilege, to examine it and to realize that just because you may see Ted as Ted, not Ted the gay black dude, that doesn't mean that Ted feels the same way. Ted may see you as Arnold the white dude who is my friend but gets out of traffic violations much easier and has a larger dating pool and has not been disowned by his family for being who he is.

It's the instinct of many to want to downplay others' negative experiences from being treated as lesser, whether on the street or in the work place or in the magical community because man, you're not like that. But it's much harder to consider that just because *you* aren't like that doesn't mean that Ted doesn't get treated like shit in big and small ways in a lot of other places. And to my mind, the best way to deal with your privilege isn't to fall on your knees and apologize for others' douchebag reactions even if you have a lot of privilege personally. The right thing to do isn't to tell Ted that he's being too sensitive either and people aren't like that anymore. The best thing, the most right thing you can do from your place of privledge is simple. You say, Wow, Ted. That really sucks. I'm sorry you had to go through that. And hug him if that's your thing.

Fin.

Blog Housekeeping Notes

Jow suggested I make a list of featured posts like my PEH, Gordon has on his page. So I picked the seven entries I felt described myself and my practice the best, feel free to peruse them on my blog page. Gordon has coined a title for my kind of kitchen witch magical practice: Radical Practicality. Isn't he awesome? My motto is from Rasputina's Thimble Island, I may not have had much booklearnin'/ But I've got charms to win the race. . .

I added a more visible subscribing button to my page in case you were having trouble adding this page to the feed.

If my entries are moving you and/or you feel I'm hopelessly uneducated, ignorant and disgracing the occult community at large, please donate to my Educate a Dilettante Fund. I am half way to my goal of being able to take cat yronwode's class, so the money would be staying in the community.

I will be launching a three part blog post series once I recover from bridesmaid burnout. To work you up into a complete state of excited frenzy, it will be:

Fake it Til You Make It: Recipes for Rituals On-the-Go (Part One)

Wheel of the Year Turn, Turn, Turn: Seasonally Appropriate Recipes for Those
Practicing Indo-European Paganism (And Still Yummy for Those Who Don't) (Part Two)

Ritual Kitchen Witching and You! (Part Three)

On Blood and Sacrifice

As we know, I can't be bothered to read a lot of heavily theory based books because I get bored and tap out. So don't expect a well referenced article here, just my personal experience.

Starting out as a Dianic Wiccan, the blood of choice to focus on was of course menstrual. While myself and the younger prissier witches among us turned our noses up at the idea of doing rituals involving menstrual blood, we were regaled nonetheless about the ye olde 70's by the older witches and their menstrual blood rituals.

As I aged some, I was less prissy about it and invested in a diva cup which I use on the regular, to the dismay of the triumverte. The cup was handy in also being able to neatly pour menstrual blood into my watering can into my garden. When I had my little container garden (I do have plans to resume that next year), I did feel a closer connection to the land. It made me feel like I was doing something sacred, something important by tending to my tiny pots (complete with tiny garden gnome) in my bare feet on my balcony. Watering them with my blood strengthened that bond too I suppose. It didn't feel all rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrgh POWERFUL!!!!!!!1111!!! It felt nice. I don't know how else to describe it. Nice. Peaceful. I suppose theoretically, I could have used my garden to bind everyone who stepped foot in my house to me in some kind of crazy Sicilian Marinara Vaulderie Ritae, but that wasn't really my intent. I liked feeling like something that came from me could grow something else, it made me feel linked to the land strongly and it felt, I dunno, v. circle of life somehow.

Of course, let's be real here. We all went through a phase where we wanted to be taken supersrsly in the magical community and to prove how badass we were. What's more bad ass to someone likely under the age of 25? Blood magic. Menstrual blood is a good starting place if you're a lady-type, but really it's not like you have to work for it, it just happens. No, there needs to be stabbity and teeth gnashing, and I don't know, whatever other tough poses you undergo when you get your finger pricked at the doctor's office. Because! It's not like it's all that easy for many of us to get serious needles. Lancets, sure. Needles, not so much. And if you're cutting yourself with a knife, well, that's a problem in most cases that many people seek help for. So, you know, once you realize that finger pricking is likely to be the extent of your practice and that your super manly six year old cousin Andy can handle it with a Hello Kitty bandaid and a lollipop, you need to stop and ask yourself what you're hoping to get out of it.

At the time when I first started investigating, the general view of the more . . .god, is White Lighter a nice term? I mean it nicely, I don't know why people get all bitchy to them, they make all of us in the occult community look at least relatable to non-Pagan/Occultist/Whatever kind of special snowflake you are, most of us at least started there. When Mothra is feeling benevolent, she calls me a Wiccan instead of a godless atheist so I pretty much take it and like it. Anyway! WL'ers tended to see using blood magic as an atom bomb. Which. . . .I suppose if you're sacrificing maidens in your backyard, it would be.

If animals are killed in ritual, it's kinder and more gentle than the American meat industry and the animal is eaten and its parts are used, so I have no qualm there. I have not as yet participated in any kind of animal sacrifice rite, but I would like to fish and hunt my way up the food chain. I figure it's the least I can do with a quasi-Shamanic background. It's all well and good to eat meat that comes wrapped all nice and neat, it's another to do the work. I want to make sure I can handle the process, if I can't I should be a vegetarian in my opinion. Luckily, my gf grew up on a farm so we have plans eventually in that general direction.

But what about the finger prick of blood? Well, ADF at one point STRONGLY discouraged it. My grove being the backwater snake handlers of the tradition of course rushed to make pamphlets discussing how we are strongly discouraged (but not forbidden) to do blood sacrifice or juggle porcupines (the genesis there is a little fuzzy). Now it seems we're forbidden to do it in ritual setting at least.

So when to use it? Okay, so it's not the toughest expression of sacrifice, and there are other expressions of sacrifice (hard work, things made from your hands, wine, etc.) but it is still an expression of sacrifice. You still have to take that little tack like needle and jam it into your finger. It still hurts. It's still a tiny piece of your life force, something that is uniquely you. It's still one of the preferred personal concerns in hoodoo. If you can manage to contain yourself from using it for everythang and keep it as a sometimes food (like cursing), that keeps it as a special kind of sacrifice. For me, I only use it when I really, really want something. I got my wasband housing many many many moons ago, and I got myself the perfect rabbit burrow condo using it. I can count on one handish the amount of times I've used it, I only use it when I am v. serious about something or making a v. serious offering to the land or a deity.

Some deities do like it, but if you make that an every day food for them, be prepared to go through a lot of needles and be prepared for them to not like the idea of you breaking up with them and taking away your delicious delicious life essence. Some deities really don't like it at all, so do your homework before starting a teeny dollhouse sized CSI blood spatter for your gods.

Discuss amongst yourselves.

Etiquette Lesson: I'm addicted to you/ Don't you know that you're toxic?

Before we get started, it's vital to note that this lesson is not about victim blaming. It is never okay to engage in behavior when it is non consensual such as striking a person, demeaning a person, or sexually assaulting a person. If anyone is abusing you using items listed on this checklist, please call 1-888-7HELPLINE and get help.


This is something that's been rolling around in my head for a long while. I've noticed that when wounded and likely broken up (this applies to friendship and relationships), people have a tendency to call the other person in the situation toxic. In our post-pop-psychology world, people like to grandly say that they're keeping toxic people out of their lives.

To me, this only devolves one way:

"You're toxic!"
"No, you're toxic!"
"No, YOU'RE toxic!"
"No, YOU'RE toxic!"
"You shut up!"
"No, you shut up!"

So what exactly do we learn from this situation besides moral superiority? Not a whole lot if you ask me.

I think it's much harder to look at the real issue at hand, that neither party is toxic per se, but that you both managed to put yourselves in a toxic situation. Yes, this is much less satisfying than simply declaring the other persona non grata, but it's a lot closer to the truth of the matter. The other person didn't come into your life all oozing superfund while you were a hapless victim lying on the train tracks with nothing to do but feebly cry out while this person cackled evilly and goozed all over you. Whatever toxic cycle you found yourself in didn't happen in a vacuum. It's harder and much more important to look at how you found yourself in this situation. Usually it takes years to get into a really toxic cycle, so it can take a lot of soul searching, journaling, and possibly therapy to figure out how you got there and what you did to contribute to the situation.

Towards the end of my marriage, Kate Nash describes my relationship v. aptly in her song, Foundations. When it finally imploded, he didn't leave me in a particularly kind way and it was really messy. He did a lot of really uncool shit at the end of our relationship and it would have been easy for me to start screaming about what a victim I was, how I had nothing to do with what happened, how toxic he is and how defenseless I am, etc. But you know what? It wouldn't have been true. I wasn't standing on the sidelines of our relationship, not contributing anything good or bad. Where would I be if I acted like a blameless victim? What would I have learned from the relationship? How could I improve as a person?

Steps I Took to Get Past a Toxic Relationship

1. Took time to be shellshocked because it was a *SURPRISE!* (to me) divorce.

2. Took time to be really fucking sad and devastated. I even did rubber band therapy.

3. Took time to be really angry.

4. Took time to do as much shit talking as I needed to do to those close to me.

5. Started to be really functional again. This took mmmmm four? five? months before I started to really genuinely be myself again and started really functioning past doing the bare minimum to survive.

6. I started before step 5. but especially after step 5. to really take a good, long hard look at what I did to contribute to the disintegration of my marriage, because it didn't happen in a vacuum and it wasn't something that Wasband (he WAS my husband) was solely responsible for. I thought about what things I could have done better in that relationship, what I could improve on, how to be a better person, etc.

I really think giving myself time to get through all of that and take a really honest personal inventory of myself and reflect on how I could improve as a person has made it so that nearly two years later, I came out the other side landing (mostly) neatly on my feet, dare I even say better for it?

Now my partners and I fight with each other easily 85% less now than when I was with Wasband. When we do it's generally pretty calm which has made a huge difference in my life/fibro management. When I was with Wasband I was yelling and screaming often several times a week about various things to various people. Now I think in my relationships we've raised voices maybe . . .six times? in the last two years. Again, this isn't just a situation where I cut him out and maaaaagic! I made a conscious decision that I didn't want to live like that anymore. Wasband and I also both liked to wind each other up which didn't help matters in attempting to resolve things calmly, now I try really hard not to get into that cycle with anyone.

At the end of my marriage I was stress eating constantly, dependent in so many ways, unable to care for the ginormous apartment we lived in, eating out (and eating too much) all the time, fighting with Wasband all the time, in debt up to my nose, and completely stressed out, hardly ever writing or crafting.

Now I own a condo I can clean myself easily, focused on my relationships, independent, debt is 30% paid off on track to be paid off completely in 2013, I write all the time, I go to the gym, I'm not very stressed except when there's reason to be (*coughcoughsummerofninemillionweddings*), I'm self supporting, I cook at home, I don't stress eat nearly as much, I'm in charge of my health care, etc.

The problem I see a lot of people having is they get to step 5 and then it's just all OMFG! The other person was so TOXIC! I'm so glad I'm away from that person! Think about it this way: you are giving that person far too much control and power. If that person really had that much power that you cut her out of your life and voila! everything's perfect again without you having to do anything but cut that person out, well that person much be a pretty formidable opponent. *So* formidable that they must be like Godzilla stomping through various innocent bystanders' Toyko.

Is that *really* what happened? Really? You had no control, no power, no voice at all in that situation? Or maybe, just maybe, you did some shitty things too or at the very least went along to get along? It's okay to not have done things perfectly. It's okay to have made mistakes. If you can acknowledge that you did, this gives you *more* power because you can fix a mistake a lot easier than a random Godzilla lurking about ready to cause problems at your ramen stand at any given moment. Were you too selfish? Did you sometimes like to wind the person up? Did you yell a lot? Did you rather be right than happy? Awesome! That's all shit you can work on.

It's totally okay to:

Call the *situation* toxic! When you say this to yourself or others also add, And I know I contributed to it too. Try it, it's liberating! Taking responsibility for your actions is probably the most liberating awesome thing you can do in life because then you own them and they're yours to fix and learn from.

*Still* be angry, sad, and whatever at times. Being over it doesn't mean you're over it 100% of the time all the time. That's called denial or sometimes depending on the situation, compartmentalization. You can ask Don Draper how well that's working out for him.

Have some choice words about your ex. Hey, you don't have to approve of what happened on her side, you don't have to wish her well, you don't have to not call her some kind of terrible mean pet name. The caveat there though is that you need to be careful not to fall into the Mean Girl trap, I could hear people getting bored with me. But I couldn't stop. It just kept coming up like word vomit. When it starts to feel like word vomit, you need to stop because it's starting to eat you from the inside out, yo. And you do not want to give that other person that kind of power over you.


Charm to Stop Word Vomit

Put a rubberband on your wrist. When you feel the word vomit threatening to spew, snap it sharply and say this charm:

When I snap this rubber band,
I will not word vomit just as planned.

Panic, Meditation, and the Dilettante

Many parties on my blogosphere talk about how meditation is the cornerstone of their practice. And I really respect that, but it's not the cornerstone of mine. And at first I felt like a complete dilettante about that. What? Sit quietly for an hour? What kind of girl do you think I am? I don't *do* that!

It's not that I haven't tried. I have, meditation was part of my ADF druid dedicant program. The issue, the real issue, that took me years to get to the heart of is that I can't do traditional meditation because of my panic disorder.

I've done what I'm supposed to do, I've sat on the couch, I take meds (delicious, delicious meds! O how I love thee!), I've found god(dess)(es), I've come to terms with the things that caused that in me. But here's the thing, it doesn't go away. Some people think that's what therapy/meds is supposed to. Congratulations! You're healed of years of abuse, bad relationships, bad decisions, and living with a debilitating condition! Go! Be free! Live a normal life!

It would be kick ass if it *did* work that way, but it doesn't. I get better at living with it, at managing it, so much so that people who've only known me as an adult (especially past the age of 25) forget how damaged I am, which is flattering. But it's still there. And real, true, emptying my mind meditation triggers a panic attack in me every time. I don't know all the hows and the whys, but I do know some, just like I know some of why going to the movies at a theater does the same and drinking caffeine. At the end of the day, this isn't something you can always logic your way out of. Your body is reacting in a real, visceral, primal way and it doesn't care if you say, "Oh no body! We're not *really* in danger! It's fine, really." Because often, your body's response is, "OMFG!!!!!!!!!!! ARRRRRRRRRRRRGHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!! OMFG!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ARGHHHHHHHHHHHHH!" until it's done.

Some magic users have gone so far as to say they didn't think you could be an effective magic user without meditation. I've asked what should I do due to my body's chemical reaction (also? Fibro? Not the greatest for long term meditation) and no one had any kind of answer for me. This was devastating to me. I wanted to be a real live girl and no blue fairy had any sort of answer for me as to how to get past this.

So for a while I gave up. That's right, I gave the fuck up. It was exhausting enough trying to lead a "normal" life, if I couldn't ever do this, well it's unlikely I'll ever run a marathon either or be president.

I don't have the answers for everyone, I can only speak for myself. But I don't think really many people have talked about what to do if you have a disability(ies) that prevent you from having a full, rich meditiational life. So, let me tell you what I've found for myself.

How to be Magically Delicious Without Emptying Your Mind Meditation


Why can't you meditate? If you don't know why, really know why, you're not going to be able to figure out the actual heart of your magical practice so do some serious soul searching to figure out why. Even if your reason is "I don't want to", go deeper than than and think about why you don't want to.

Redefine meditation for yourself. My japa practice has been something I've done every night without fail since late December. It gives me the benefits that meditation is supposed to give people - relaxing, focusing, clearing my mind, etc. My brain/body can handle a full 108 every night and it's really helped my personal practice. Guided meditation such as the IPM and visiting my own internal hearth can really be helpful for me. When I am not strong enough to clean my actual hearth, cleaning my internal hearth really helps keep me sane, I can also visit with my god/desses there. Other things that help me: cooking, cleaning, baking bread. Don't discount those practices, they can really help you develop your magical practice if you treat them as meditational practice.

What is it you're trying to accomplish with magic? I have to be blunt, I'm not looking to talk to angels. I'm not looking to call in any kind of super serious spirit that needs to be confiiiiiiiiiined by my dark aaaaaaaaaaaaaaarts! I like having an occasional meditation chat with my god/desses, I like trying to build a better me on my path - to be faster, stronger, sexxxier. For me that really equates to: having a magical practice to call my own, having enough money to pay my bills and occasionally travel and buy a ridiculous purse, get in better shape, writing, and crafting. All of this can be accomplished with low magic. So if I personally don't need or really even want anything that can be accomplished with higher magic, why do I keep torturing myself? It's ridiculous. I personally have yet to go into any situation that could not be solved with mundane means or low magic. It could happen, but . . .it hasn't. So why am I preparing for some kind of magical apocalypse if I don't need to? For me, it has been far more beneficial for me to stop torturing myself about things I wasn't trying to accomplish in my practice anyway and get better honing my practice to accomplish the things I *am* trying to accomplish, none of which require a huge meditational practice.

If what you are trying to accomplish does require it, it's going to be a difficult path so make sure it's worth it to you. You may want to start looking up Rinpoches who have experience with disability and meditations.

You still need a cornerstone in your practice. If meditation isn't your cornerstone, what is? Really stop and think about it. My cornerstone is my hearth. My magic happens in the kitchen, in the dining room, in the bedroom (if you know what I'm sayin!), using household tools. It's my chantry, my sanctuary, my safe space, my temple. So I need to focus on making sure my hearth is in order, which is where the majority of my magical practice lies with offerings being a second and spellwork being a third.

Cooking Dinner Does Not Make You a Kitchen Witch (subtitled: Making Friends Where Ever I Go)

Perhaps I am a miscreation,
No one knows the truth,
There is no future here.
You never know who's still awake,
You never know who understands and

Are you out there, can you hear this,
I was out here listening all the time,
And though the static walls surround me
You were out there, and you found me,
I was out here listening all the time. [Dar Williams]


DISCLAIMER: If I follow your blog, if I've made nice comments to you, etc., etc. I obviously don't mean you in this entry.

I'm having a shitful day today, so why not alienate some readers!

I sort of spent my twenties fighting against who I really was in oh so many ways. I didn't want to be a kitchen witch. I thought that was the least impressive, most Holly Hobby branch of magic there is.

Jow and I were talking about why I fought this yesterday, he said it doesn't make me lesser. But I said, it does. I've just grown not to care and to honor who I am. It makes me LESS formally educated, LESS full of hermetic/goetic/golden dawn occulty goodness, LESS theory based magic, LESS plugged in to having 24/7 chitchats with my gods, LESS inclined to have some kind of formal magic fancy dance, etc., etc.

Now, I've never felt in this fabulous blogosphere that any of *you* have ever made me feel this way, but you have to picture me from ten years ago: I'm constantly listening to NIN! I wear boots with sparkly laces to my corporate gig! I'm thrashing around on top of tables pumped full of piss and goldschlagger! I'm trying to break glass ceilings! I'm smoking cigars with the boys! I'm demanding my place at the occult table at occult events! I'm getting tats! I'm going through Shamanic trials! I'm fucking punk rock and . . . you want me to bake a cake? Really? Really? So I fought against it for while which is why I wasn't terribly successful in my own personal magic for quite some time. Somewhere around 27? 28? I started really embracing it. Once I bought my own home, my own hearth, I *really* started embracing it. I had the tools all along, it turns out, I just needed to know how to use them.

When I first joined the blogosphere, I wanted to bff a variety of people in the magical world. But let me be honest, most of all I wanted to befriend fellow kitchen witches. Sisters/brothers unite! Let's get some spit, blood, hair, dirt, and basil and get this party started!

But I didn't find too many. The fabulous Mrs. B of course. A little later I demanded an introduction to my PEH, who while not a kitchen witch per se, at least does magic similarly, Lavannah who has land that I covet.

I googled. I tried tracking down people. I tried a lot of different key words. And honestly, I found a lot of people who claimed to be kitchen witches, but in scanning their blogs all I generally found were recipes and chatter about their kids. Now, there's nothing wrong with any of that. But that doesn't make it a magic based blog because you need, like, magic in your blog at least some of the time to qualify.

What Doesn't Make You a Kitchen Witch Per Se

A recipe isn't magical in and of itself. Just dumping a bunch of recipes on your blog doesn't make you a kitchen witch anymore than it makes Wolfgang Puck a kitchen witch. If you said I use honey in my Chocolate Lavender Mousse to sweeten my mother-in-law towards me because she's a complete bitch on wheels to me by that point in the meal or I put menstrual blood in my spaghetti sauce so my husband still thinks I'm dropping it like it's hot even when I'm tired and in sweats, rock! Those are magical acts. Bring on the recipes!

Having children. While yes, it is a v. specific way to mark your transition into motherhood (sometimes), kids don't really make you a practicing magic type person any more than it makes SuperNanny Mary Poppins. It's okay to talk about other things in your magic based blog besides just a never ending compendium of your magical practice, but if you're not talking magic at all then . . . it's not really a magic blog then, is it? Things that would: Using magic to help soothe a baby/get a baby to sleep (I will only slightly guiltily confess to having done this before), protection magic, detailing tiny rituals you do with your kids.

Being a Homemaker. I do very much think that unpaid labor in the home needs to be appreciated and ideally compensated (please see here for more clearly articulated thoughts on the matter, it's applicable for both mono/poly people), but it's a job. And just like going to work in an office is not a magical act in and of itself, neither is taking care of your home. If you were talking about cleaning/organizing in a magical blog and discussing how to be more green (because we need to take care of Mother Earth of course and she's a goddess in and of herself), discussing what oils you use to scent your house and why, what you do to keep the house spiritually/magically clean, rock on.

What Qualifies You as a Kitchen Witch/Hearth Wo/man/Someone Who Does Hedge-Like Magic

If the Personal is Political, then the Every Day is Magical. Look, you don't have to cast +5 magic every time you make hotdogs for dinner on a Tuesday night. But what can you be doing in your every day life in your hearth to make it more magical? Smudging with sage every few days to clear out the energies? Spray bottling your bed with a water based mist you made that has come to me oil in it? Choosing your cooking herbs based on magical purposes? Go crazy.

Deb's Example Rit for Making the Every Day Magical
I had been hemming and hawing about starting my current novel because (a) I've never finished writing one and (b) it's a little silly in a genre that's already a little silly. But it came to me in a dream and it feels right. So I started by not just slapdashing it together, I took my time. I did research on names, other books in the genre, brainstormed and I made a mood board for it. When I knew it was time to start writing, I wanted it started right. I wanted my surroundings perfect, like giving birth (which is what I do with writing). We've been getting pretty awesome about keeping the house tidy. We made sure everything was clean, went to brunch (appropriate for the kind of novel it is) and then I put on mood music and wrote, drink in hand. When I finished the beginning, I sealed it with eating a really posh chocolate (salted dark chocolate with balsamic and caramel) from the best chocolatier in NJ which was also appropriate for my novel's genre. It wasn't about me putting together a mojo bag in this case, it was about choosing my actions carefully and doing everything with intent. There would have been nothing wrong with making a mojo bag, but it was more important to write in a magically charged environment for me to get this show on the road.

Get a Base Education in the Lower Arts. Yeah, yeah, you like to put on your robes and call on all the archangels and whatever. Cool. But sometimes for whatever reason, you'll need to know how to do things quick and dirty, so learn how. Learn what salt and kitchen herbs can do for you, learn about mojo hands and honey pots and spirit bottles. I recommend of course the incomparable M. yonwode's Hoodoo Herb and Root Magic as your Idiot's Guide. Test yourself if you're super structured magically, pretend a friend needs a fertility charm tonight and you need to get to her just using stuff around your house. What do you do?

Get a Base Education in House Wifery. Some men back in the day got married because they had no clue how to take care of themselves. While that's not so common in this day and age, you still need a base education in house wifery to be a successful hearth wo/man. Thanks to most of the first world being a conveience culture, you may have been getting by on relying on take out, a dry cleaner, and a cleaning service. That's all well and good, but you're missing pieces you need to be a successful hearth wo/man. If you are missing any of these things, that's okay, don't feel bad about it. But a lot of people cry, Oh I'm no good at it! Or, I don't know how! Ignorantia juris non excusat. Ignorance of the law excuses no one, so get to work. It won't be perfect from the gate, but nothing is. Ask someone better versed for help, if you know someone. Worst case you burn a few casseroles and shred a few shirts, it's no big deal. Even if you won't use it for a while or you think ever (though you'd be surprised), these are all good life skills to have that will translate over into your magical life. Think of them as Hearth Meditations.

Can you:
* Do your own laundry?
* Have your house clean enough to have your mother or mother-in-law or Miss Martha over without them making a face?
* Cook a dinner for yourself and others?
* Meal plan?
* Budget and financially plan?
* Be able to make a casserole quickly for an emergency?
* Host/ess a party?
* Know how to bake something from scratch?
* Know how to do your own grocery shopping that's more than just "box food"?
* Know how to do basic clothing repair?
* Know what to bring as a hostess gift?
* Know how to conduct yourself socially at various social obligations?
* Know how to give yourself self care?
* Know v. basic first aid?
* Know how to care for small children for a day?


Hearth Wo/man's Tool Kit
* First aid kit
* Disposable tupperwares
* A bottle of wine in a festive bag, ready for a party
* Generic gift for a male and female recipient just in case
* Funeral clothes, hung up, pressed, ready to go
* Small bits of flannel for mojo bags
* Empty, clean, and lidded bottles and jars for spirit bottles, honey pots, etc.
* Cooking herbs including: bay leaves, cinnamon, basil, dill, allspice, sage, lavender, etc.
* White candles (can be used for anything)
* Pins for inscribing candles
* Olive or Grapeseed Oil (for making dressing oils)
* Fragrance warmer (for making dressing oils)
* Sewing kit
* Sterile disposable lancets for any blood offerings needed
* Tealights for deity offerings on the fly
* Grave yard dirt
* Calendar
* Notepad
* Hand Sterilizer


I will be expanding on some of this in future entries. If you have any specific questions, shoot!

You shut your mouth/ how can you say/ I go about things the wrong way?

Jow says that my many years of Catholicism come out especially when I do magic. Because when in doubt, I Cast Science at it. He says my vetting process as to whether or not something is magical is similar to the Vatican when attempting to prove a miracle. I am also told that this is not as fun at magical gatherings as *I* perhaps think.

It's not that I don't believe that superwonky shit can happen magically, it's that I don't believe it just because someone's telling me it happened.

How to Make Me (and Other Right Brained People) at Least Contemplate Your Story as True:

* Cross Examination. This is the segment especially disliked by Jow as it either sucks the fun out of the story he's telling me or something about how it embarrasses him at an occult party. Look, I watch a lot of Judge Judy and she does typically have a way of ferreting out details of the story from people. But if you can answer sensible questions like, "Really? Okay, when's the last time he ate?" "Which drugs was she rolling on that night?" "Has he tried looking for a job using boring items such as internet job searching and going to job fairs?" in a reasonable manner, then I'm more inclined to consider your magical act as possible.

* Multiple Factors. Your story is way more believable to me if you include "real world" possibilities in it. Such as: "I started to think maybe the house was haunted after having an exterminator, plumber, and contractor by. Also I found an article where it said that there were twelve murders in the house in 1812." or "I made a kick ass money hand that really helped the money keep coming in, along with some temp work and quilting."

* Admit Mistakes. This is surprisingly difficult for some of our occultist brethren, but I'm a lot more inclined to believe your story about how the sky opened up and started raining frogs in your living room if it's also prefaced with, "So, um, it seemed that I made an error in translating the text. I thought it called for six dead frogs but really it was four live bats. . . "

* Put it into Context. For instance, everyone rolls their eyes about the gamer who uses his or her gaming system as magical practice. OMG UR DOIN IT RONG! YOU MAKE THE REST OF US LOOK BAD! A few people have drunkenly confessed to me that Mage: The Ascension makes more sense to them magically than anything nonfiction they've read. Well, duh. Uncle Phil Brucato helped write it. He also wrote about real world magic for a Pagan magazine. White Wolf also worked much harder than other gaming publishers (I'm looking at you, Wizards of the Coast) to promote gender and race equality and when they wrote magical systems that came from indigenous people, they generally tried to get their facts straight. Were the actual facts always reported correctly? Were the systems of magic always related accurately? Um, no. But people, we argue with each other about things that are presented as *non* fiction and the questionable fact checking there (see: Silver Raven Wolf, Edain McCoy, DJ Conway, Alstair Crowley, etc., etc). So if The Spirit Ways works for you and you can put it into context, then rock out. But context means that some of the concepts resonate with you and you've been able to incorporate them into your magical work, not thinking you're an ascended master, brah.


How Does This Translate into Your Meat Life, Deb?

Firstly, my friends are surprisingly laissez-faire about my foray into the Dark Arts. Most only vaguely believe magic is possible, but they seem to think it's therapeutic for me so whatever. I have only just completed my first full trick involving the Dark Arts (. . . I suppose insisting on using a Harry Potter reference to talk about doing ill intended magic doesn't help my case about this being srs work) yesterday so it is far too soon to tell if it worked or not, but I can say with absolute surety at the very least I feel better about the situation so it's done that much for me already. The rest remains to be seen. But I can't see myself taking all the "credit" for whatever happens with the situation I did my trick about, there's a lot of other factors involved too. Maybe it is just internal therapy. Who knows? But I feel like I could answer reasonable questions about it if it does (in my estimation) work, and if it doesn't or backlashes, I know I could admit those mistakes too. The more you know!

Secondly, I am indeed one of those people, bringing the rest of us down. Let me be honest, nothing I've ever learned in magic has stuck to me entirely. I choose to not be Catholic anymore, saying psalms as part of my magical practice in hoodoo squicks me. I'm a white girl in the suburbs with some shamanic training. I can't be bothered to cast a circle every freaking time I want to accomplish something magically. The whole adf ritual is a great public ritual, but privately? No thank you. I've been too shy to go to a Hindu temple and too far out in the 'burbs to get much formal Yoruba training. And those are just the parts that stuck, that's not even counting the much larger sandbox of things that haven't been able to stick at *all* that I am now constantly pestering others and reading about just to better educate myself.

While, yes, I ran a teeny tiny con that had many people thinking that I wore corsets and striped stockings and drank tea out of a matching tea set on the regular (which, gentle readers, is shamefully not so. Even while running it, I was more likely to be found wearing yoga pants and a tshirt drinking bagged tea out of a chipped mug) and I appreciated the gothic aesthetic primarily for dress up purposes and then reluctantly secondarily for the music, as an older goth, it's not something you would immediately peg about me. I also don't really believe (most days) that the world is just an exercise in nihilism.

I will confess, in magical practice at least, I identify most with being a Hollow One, more than any real life tradition. But why? I mean, firstly because the world takes a rather dim view on people trying to actually play out the Euthantos paradigm in an exciting but impractical Boondock Saints sort of manner and frankly I haven't even killed a deer as yet, let alone a person. But joking aside, I do believe in Romance as an archetype. The way I feel about death, the after life, and rebirth is shaky and uncertain at best, though certainly hopeful about it. My view is more agnostic than dogmatic about all that. I tend to do magic simply, using whatever I have around the house most of the time (which is why Gordon's grocery posts make me so happy). I try not to cobble together stuff in a non sensible sort of way (Yemaya and Kali Ma walk into a bar . . .), but I will change something if it doesn't make sense to me. Though I try to learn as much as I can about it first. And if no one is around to help me figure out what to and there's no information I can easily find . . .I make it up. Because, if it works, then it works. And if it doesn't, well that's my problem now isn't it?

Well Played, Universe. Well Played.

So, yesterday I decided to summon up the the nerve to contemplate what my perfect day would look like and then promptly wandered off to go chase moths for a while and then promptly fell asleep.

Today my boss started making noises about "summer hours". Now, I started to quietly freak the fuck out about this and started promptly thinking about what I could do to make the money up, assuming she decided to give me my half day, Friday off. I considered doing massive praying and ritualing to bring my company more business.

Ooooooooooor. Or. I could consider that perhaps a weekly day off could give me a chance to really dry run my "ideal day" weekly. I could do more shopping at the farmer's market, saving money. I could see about changing things like car insurance, my consolidated credit, hell even getting rid of cable like Gordon suggested. I could try to really make money independently. I could even buy a beach pass and that could be my primary source of entertainment and oceanside communing.

So, I've decided right now to do nothing. I prayed of course. I asked my gods to have my best interests at heart and I would be open to either more time to pursue my dreams or more business at work so I have more hours.

Either way. Let's spin the wheel. Bottle's on the ground, are you ready now?/ When it comes to me, I'm gonna be ready/ It's my turn in a minute/ gonna put my message in it/ I am ready now!/ Already on the ground!/ spin it 'round again . . .

For my Scrapbook!

OMG! I'm so excited! I just got my first hater for this blog! As Katt Williams says, that's how I know I'm doing this shit right! Whooooooooooooooo!

In the occult lj community, s/he said:
(Anonymous)
2010-04-26 02:07 pm (local) (from 76.239.29.10) (link)
It sounds unpleasantly frivolous, but maybe that's the point.

And then *I* said:
Indeed! Thank you for your comment, brave annoymous poster!



YOUR DISAPPROVAL TASTES DELICIOUS I WANT TO BATHE IN IT!

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.

You say dilettante like it's a bad thing.

16 April 2009 @ 02:11 pm

"And they say to me, 'Ani, what is with all this looooooooooooove shit? What happened to your politics!' And I say, 'Um, well. Don't you ever get . . .distracted?"

I've noticed on some of the magically oriented blogs I read that there's this burning feverish desire to prove that you are not a dilettante. Nay, good sir! I have spent every second of my life that I was not forced into labor studying the Dark Arts! I have been here studying with This Name Dropped Person, I have jet setted to This Important Place to learn secrets that you, tiny girl, will never learn because you did not buckle down to study like we serious practitioners have and you have the audacity to claim that you're not an expert in anything! When we engage in our super secret dick waving rituals, you step out for a drink and a smoke.

Well. While you were busy studying in the dirt of a foreign land, I was working my way through college, like my mother had and my grandfather had before. I had to go to work where I was starting revolutions, wearing my shit kickin boots and knee length skirts, my cube a political statement of goddesses and feminists listening to Alix Olsen on my stereo. I was writing things that you would consider inconsequential so I could get paid to pay my rent. I was starting a convention, a really fucking girly convention, trying to give everyone equal parts at the table and to book people I believed in and to show that goddamnit modern life has a place for art, truth, love, and beauty. I was getting interviewed by the New York Times and MTV about a genre that's about a made up past that never happened. I was getting married. Getting divorced. Getting diagnosed. Getting fucked. Getting broken. Getting another martini. Getting into a corset to go dance in the dark.

And I apologize for none of this. I may not have the best magical formal education. I may not have read all of the fancy arcane expensive hard to buy, harder to find, even harder to even hear of, books that you have read. I may not have met a lot of Important People to impart Important People Secret Knowledge onto me. I may not have formally studied with a tradition with all of my time, energy, and money until it broke me or I broke it so I could claim with all rights and arrogance afforded to me for this that *I* think this about *this* and *you* should listen to me because I have spent *years* doing this, years earning my disenfranchisement and disillusionment.

But I do have something.

I have a voice.

I have a voice and I am not afraid to use it.

I have a voice to say that I don't know everything about everything. That I have only loosely studied a few traditions. I have a voice that doesn't need your approval to make magic for me because I have long since learned to make magic myself. I have breath and blood and spit and menstrual blood and that's all I've ever needed.

I will speak and I will write about the things I do know. And when I don't know, I will tell you so. It's not the books or the teachers or simply clocking in enough time that makes magic. Your soul being on fire is what makes magic. And I'm not sorry that what I have to give myself, to give you, isn't fancy or formal but it's real.

And I can promise you when you tell me something that is so secret that you can barely form the words that it will be written on my bones and never leave my lips. Always.