'Tis the Season

'Tis the season, indeed, for a lot of things. It's a phrase I use a lot this time of year, mostly in jest, for many many things. Egg nog, rum, cookies, mayhem, gifts, cold air, sleeping in, parties, etc. Regardless of your (and my) opinion on what the "Season" is "really about", whether that season be Yule, or Christmas, or Hannukah, or Festivus, or whatever, you can justify nearly anything with one little phrase- "'tis the season!"

So, since it is the season, after all, it is time for me to once again do my annual self-evaluation and improvement plan. Actually, this is not a yearly thing for me- I'll take any opportunity to try and get a fresh start. Whether it is my Virgo sun combined with my Capricorn rising, or the blood of my ever-striving Puritan ancestors, or my never-ending quest for approval, or what have you, I always want a do-over. New Years is the obvious time for this, but I've been known to engage in this behavior at semester breaks, my birthday, the start of summer, Halloween (it is the Witches' New Year, after all) and basically whenever I feel in need of an over-haul.

This is not a new thing for me- I have in my possession a piece of yellow legal pad paper, which in pink ballpoint bears the heading "The New Improved Thora" and goes on to list in five minute increments a complete schedule for every day which includes things like "7:15- shower. no dawdling!!", and "4:35- eat healthy snack". 30 minutes is dedicated to practicing my clarinet (every day, of course), another 30 to "Play with baby sister- she needs interaction". Yes, folks, this is a list from when I was the ripe old age of ten. I was reconstructing my self-image with an eye toward a vision of disciplined successful happiness when I was still dotting my "i"s with little pink hearts.

I can hear those of you who know me laughing. Laugh away- I have made my peace with this. We all have our eccentricities, and mine is that I fantasize (and by fantasize, I mean make lists and schedules) of who I want to be. I am ok with this.

The thing is, they never last long. I am nothing if not overly ambitious, and I seem unable to leave things off a list or schedule, even knowing that if I make it too big, I will be overwhelmed and shortly give up. So, this year, though I will no doubt also make a schedule (I'm actually thinking posterboard this year, with different colored stars for when I've completed things- nothing like a little visual motivation!!), I want to list here some of my larger goals, and just see how I do. I think it's helpful to keep a record of the things that are important to you, so that you can keep them in the forefront of your mind. It's easy to get bogged down in day to day living, and forget that there are things you want to do. Not that there's anything wrong with day to day life, in fact the whole premise of my schedules and lists is that I want my day to day life to be a very specific way- but it's easy to get into a rut, and I don't want that.

So, without further ado, may I present to you Ladies and Gentlemen,

2010 Goals

1) Give. I want to give more. Of time, of money, of work. I used to give more when I had less, and I think that's a bad thing. When I was very poor, it was easy to give a little here and there, because I wasn't attached to the idea of having much. When you are worrying about whether or not you're going to eat that weekend, it not only makes you more sympathetic to those who are clearly not going to eat that weekend, it also makes things like saving enough to upgrade your computer or pay the heating bill irrelevant. Computer? That's what public libraries are for. Heat? Heat is for wimps. Put on a sweater.
Not that we're rich now, really, but we've gotten comfortable. And that makes it easy to become selfish. I like having the heat on. I also like buying organic produce, and coffees, and shiny things, and new books, and an ipod dock, and so on. Not that any of that is wrong, per se, but I think it's very important to give what you can (how to define "what you can" is always a struggle for me, and is the subject of a later post, I imagine), and I feel like I've gotten away from that.
I want to start visiting old folks homes- seniors are so often neglected, and I think that's sad. My church also feeds day laborers every week, and I should be more involved in that. I want to dedicate a certain portion of our budget toward giving to charity instead of haphazardly throwing money at charities when I get come-ons in the mail. I've found some good knitting/quilting for charity sites that I want to start doing stuff for them.

This leads us directly into...
2) Be more fiscally responsible. Enough said.

3) Write more. I want to finish at least one book this year, preferably more. (shameless plug- I need lots of positive reinforcement for this, so anyone who thinks I should write more, please remind me of this loudly and frequently. just saying...)

4) Take better care of myself. I need to eat better and more sustainably, and I need to get more exercise. This is an on-going battle, but I am going to fight the good fight again this year. Sigh.

5) Stay in better touch. I plan on writing one real letter every week to someone. Everyone loves snail mail, and I love making it, so I want to make it a regular thing. I'm usually good about staying in touch with with folks, but this past 18 mos or so, I've really slipped, and I want to get back on track. I'd love to make this a group thing- anybody up for meeting once a week over coffee to send someone a card?

Anyway, I'm sure I'll think of more, but those are the most important ones I can think of at the moment. I want to become a better version of myself, to be someone who can be loved and respected, and to be a good member of my community and to bring love and joy to others. My most heartfelt hope is to be a Good Person, and my re-inventions are all with that as the aim. Let's see how much of this next one sticks, shall we?

A Letter for My Husband Upon Our Anniversary

Eight years ago on this day, you asked me to go with you on our first date. Three years later, on this same date, we married. Every morning and every night, I wonder once more how I managed to get so lucky.

From the moment we first met, not a day has gone by when I have not thought of you. From the first time I told you that I loved you, I have told you every day. Every day it has been true. When I am away from you, I miss you. When I see or hear or learn something new, I want to share it with you. When I feel joy, I want you to feel it too. When I feel pain, I turn to you for comfort and support. When I first see you from across a room, my heart jumps, my stomach flips, and my mouth forms into an unbidden smile.

Every night when I go to sleep, I see your face in the streetlight, and I thank God for your presence in my life. In the night, when I wake, I reach for you- while you sleep, I dream of you. When you are gone, I miss you, and wait for your return.

I admire your brilliance, your wit, your cleverness, your style. Your smile charms me, your laugh warms me, your voice echoes past my mind and straight to my heart. The expression in your eyes when you really look at me makes me weak in my knees.

I appreciate all the things you do to make our life as good as it is- when you take out the trash, when you do the dishes, when you pet the cats, when you go to work every day. I know that I can trust you completely with everything- with all the things that matter, and all the things that don't. You care for me in a way that I can only endeavor to deserve.

We have been through so much together- surgeries, medical emergencies, moving, divorces, marriages, friends who came and friends who have gone, sick pets, bad apartments, difficult jobs. And we have shared so much together- pets, trips, friends, family gatherings, love, beauties, affections, moments of transcendent joy. I don't know who I would be without you, and I cannot imagine living my life without you.

If I am guilty of wearing my heart on my sleeve, it is only because I never want there to be any doubt in your mind as to the depth of the feeling I bear for you.

Happy Anniversary,
Love Always,
Me

time, tengers, and tektites

so, yeah, i haven't blogged in quite a long time. there's been too much going on, and i've had too much to say, and have been in that place of trying to decide what to say and what to keep silent, what to discuss, and what to let lie. anyway, some things of note, or at least superficial interest-

1) so we moved, and got into the new place, and eventually started putting up altars. i'm sure it will come as no surprise to people who have done this before, but it had been a while for me, and i was rather surprised and amused to discover that my altars have multiplied. dear oh dear have they ever multiplied. i'm sure it doesn't help that k and i are both initiating, and are supposed to be exploring different deities, but good grief.
in any case, with the help of the lovely iris and branwen (who mostly sat around shaking her head and snickering at the ocd in process) i got my altar to stella maris/mary up. i'm very pleased with it- we'd gotten a large new blue dresser and set it in front of the outside door in our bedroom, and i've covered it with all my marian paraphanalia, as well as lots of blue bits and my jewelry boxes (suken treasure? maybe!) and seashells and so forth, and it looks just lovely. i've even managed to mostly convince matilda to stay off of it.
my main altar is up as well, but something's not right about it. i'm not sure really what's wrong, but it's just not working the way it did in the old one. i haven't gotten around to hanging all my icons up yet, so maybe that's part of it. it doesn't look right to me yet because it's missing its visual component. i'm not sure.
we still have the ancestors altar to put up, and the house altar, and we've decided we need some sort of small fey altar, so those need sorted out. additionally, it's become clear to me that i not only need to put up, but already have too much stuff for a shamanic altar. and then when i was putting up my main altar i discovered that i have a small japanese altar in the makings. where the hell did this come from? and does it go with my little elephant collection? is what i really have a small asian altar? or are they separate? and who the hell manifested this little japanese altar? ameratasu? benzaiten? inari? i have no idea....

(update- all my icons are up now, thanks again to iris and rowan, and the main altar is whole once again. also, my shamanic altar is up and strong, and flows nicely into the main altar and the massive icon mosaic. i'll post pictures someday.)

2) mongolia-
i take it back. this needs its own blog post.

3) totem animals-
i find that all my totem animals are large, and are mostly predators. why is this? i'm not an aggressive person. even my totem birds are large. is this just a reflection of my physical size? i'm not small, i'll definitely admit that. do large people tend to have large totems? even my large totems which are not predators are ones you wouldn't much want to mess with (the boar and the camel). thoughts?

4)priestess symbol- i take this back too. i was going to talk about the required symbol of my priestesshood as a CAYA initiate, but that means talking about my title, and i don't think i'm ready to share that with the general public yet.

5) keys and doors-
keys and doors. doors and locks. gates and latchs. keys and doors. these have been coming up for me, mostly in dreams, but also just in general. i'm finding keys, items that look like keys, key stickers. they never present in my dreams as a barrier, per se; there's no sort of "trying but unable to get past" sort of feeling. it just seems that they are, somehow, significant. thoughts?

sorry guys, this was a dreadful post. i'll try to make the next one better, but i've been hanging on to this one so long that i just need to turn it loose.
pax,
t

Star Trek Tarot

Fool- Wesley Crusher
Magician- Scotty
High Priestess- Guinan
Empress- Beverly Crusher
Emperor- Jean Luc Picard
Heirophant- Sarek
Lovers- Spock/Uhura
Chariot- The Enterprise D
Strength- Worf
Hermit- Barclay
Wheel- DS9
Justice- Odo
Hanged Man- Data
Death- 7 of 9
Temperance- McCoy
Devil- Quark
Tower- Borg Cube
Star- Troi
Moon- Keiko
Sun- Colm Meaney
Judgment- Sisko
World- Q

King of Swords-Spock
Queen of Swords- Kira
Knight of Swords- Sulu
Princess of Swords- Ensign Ro

King of Wands- Kirk
Queen of Wands- Dax
Knight of Wands- Riker
Princess of Wands- Yar

King of Cups- Picard
Queen of Cups- Crusher
Knight of Cups- Data
Princess of Cups-Troi

King of Coins- Sisko
Queen of Coins- Janeway
Knight of Coins- Geordi
Page of Coins- Chekov


just for laughs. :D

Do you realize

that you have the most beautiful face?
Do you realize that we're floating in space?
Do you realize that happiness makes you cry?
Do you realize that everyone you know someday will die?

What a Beltane. Rain, roses, and raspberry (finally!).

As I write this, the lovely Amazons are no doubt either finishing their revelry or just arriving home. K is on his way back from being with his brothers. I am here in my bed, in my moon pajamas, with my cats.


Beltane is never a holiday I paid much attention to- the spring holidays in general don't do a whole lot for me usually, I'm more of a summer and fall person.

When I was a kid we celebrated it as my ex-step-father's birthday. ( I always found it interesting that my father, step-father, father-in-law, and the serious boyfriend of my mom's who was almost my step-father were all born within May-November of 1954- anyone wanna run that six months past Astrobarry?)

I'm no longer in touch with my ex-step-father. Tom is his name. I've seen him a couple of times in the past ten years, but only when picking up or dropping off my little sister. He looks much the same, and has as little to say to me as usual. He is a strange man, and one haunted by many demons. He has beautiful eyes.

He married my mother a month before my seventh birthday, and divorced her the summer before I was seventeen. When I was seven and eight, before my sister was born, he was wonderful. He bought me a bike and helped me ride it. He made me stilts. He got me a softball bat and glove and played softball with me. He took me on a church canoeing trip down the rapids, just me and him and the other church folks. He taught me how to watch saturday morning cartoons on the two channels our tv got.

When my sister was born he was enraptured, but really had no idea what to do with her. He didn't know how to show much love or affection, especially to a small child. Or then to a teenager. I don't really remember how it happened- it seems sudden in my memory, but I'm sure that it wasn't- but gradually he and I stopped interacting. After all, I was nearly a teenager, and not really his child. He and I began to fight, as all teenagers and parents do, and he "gave up" on me sometime around age 15 or so. I guess he felt that nothing he said or did was going to have any impact on what I did or did not do, so he decided to do nothing. (for the record, I didn't really get up to that much. I ran around and drank and smoked pot and so on, but considering some of the things that you can get up to when you're a teenager in the backwoods, I was really pretty tame. I liked to fight and to run away, but I never so much as got a tardy in school.)

He was a complex man. He was given to petty fits of anger and violence- he would rip my books or break my toys when he got angry. He never "beat" me, but he would throw me up against walls and knock me around a bit. In his defense, he never really hurt me, and I always gave as good as I got- he was a forester and firefighter, so he was a burly guy, but I've never been reluctant to hit back. He was capable of great acts of care as well though- when I was ten and got head lice, he spent every night for a week coming nits out of my waist-length and very thick hair. When my mother had cancer he drove her weekly for hours to St. Louis and Paducah for treatments.

After my mother and sister and I lived in Ireland when I was 15 their relationship was never the same. It had been having problems before, but I think he began to drink a lot more while we were gone, and never stopped. In the spring of my senior year sometime, when I was 16 and off fucking my boyfriend somewhere, he and my mother got in a fight and he was arrested for domestic violence after throwing her about 15 feet across the living room. I am eternally grateful that I was not there, because though I had my own issues with my mother, I would have tried to kill him for that, and I don't think I would have come out on the winning end.

I don't think he ever truly intended to hurt anyone. He is an alcoholic sufferer of manic-depression, among a host of other things. I suspect he was abused as a child, both emotionally and physically. He just didn't know how to control himself and release his anger. Obviously that's no excuse, but I no longer hate or blame him the way I did when I was a teenager.

From time to time I consider getting back in touch with him. I did live with the man for nearly ten years, and I think in his own way he did genuinely care for me. I don't know if I ever will or not. We'll see.

I don't remember if I sent him a wedding invitation.

Tom, wherever you are tonight, whoever you're with and whatever you're doing, I hope that your birthday is blessed. I hope you can find some measure of healing and love and growth in yourself and in the universe around you. I forgive you, and I hold you in love.

****

I am so very grateful for my tribe today. This has been a long hard spring for me, and I can't imagine how I would have done without my clan. All my life I have been searching for my family, for the people who would love me fully and humanly, for who I am and who I am not, because of who they are and because of who they are not, for people to love and cry and mourn and rejoice and grow with, with whom I could write the verbs and nouns and adjectives of life on the loose-leaf pages of the future.

They are here.

I am grateful for my sisters, who have all traveled roads as hard and diverse as mine, and who are the wiser for it. I am grateful for their beauty and joy and strength and conscience. I am grateful for the courage and love and humanity of each and every one of them.

I am grateful for my brothers, who have taught themselves and others what being a man in a tribe is. I am grateful for their compassion and support and humour and grace. I am grateful for the courage and love and humanity of each and every one of them as well.

I am so, so, grateful for my husband, whom I love without reservation, well beyond the walls of reason and into the twilight of the world. I thank god for him each morning and each night, and pray every day that I can live in such a way that I deserve to be with the wonderful human being that he is and continues to grow to be.

I hold you all in the deep quiet piece of my soul. When I look at you, I can see the children you were and the elders you will become. Time sits lightly upon us all, and the myriad of faces you wear fade into the pure light of the souls that I know.

Blessed be.

to be or not to be- "how" is the question...

so i'm thinking about making a separate facebook page for my pagan self. it's something i've been thinking about for a while, but have resisted doing. here's what i'm thinking-

pro-

1) it would be easier to keep the pieces of my life separate, and i am comfortable with compartmentalizing.

2) it would allow me to have space to talk about pagan stuff with other pagans without worrying about what my lds in-laws are going to think

3) in this next year, in which i suspect i will be acting more as thora than as nancy, it would allow me to have a space in which i am only nancy as well.

con-

1) it feels a little dishonest at this point. all my caya friends are already my facebook friends.

2) i don't want it to feel like i'm embarrassed of my pagan friends- i'm not. i just also don't like making people unnecessarily uncomfortable, and my pagan stuff has the potential to do that for a lot of people.

3) on some level, i feel like i should want to not live two lives. but on some level i don't care. i don't know...


maybe i'll go ahead and make one, and then just see how much i use it. i do have several blogs under different names, and two myspaces, and two emails. i suppose two facebooks is the logical next step.

thoughts?

tuesday afternoon

this morning was a win! last friday when i went to my tues/fri class, my good seat in the back by the outlets was stolen by this schmuck who sleeps through class every day, and so then after having to sit near the front, i got taken to task by a self-righteous guy sitting behind me about how much time i spend on the internet during class. like it's any of his business- at least i'm awake!
this morning though i managed to get up early enough to not only get my good seat near the plug and in the back, but to get the even better one that is in the back corner with a plug and next to the window. WIN!!

let's see, other things.... it's been a while since i've blogged. i've thought about it a few times, but most of what i have to say is fairly disjointed, i guess.

artemisia and i did our hive presentations on sunday- i think it went well. everyone seemed to have a good time (if nothing else, getting to get out and walk in the woods and the creek was a good thing for all of us i think). we had originally conceived of our presentation(s) as a sort of survey of three different kinds of meditation, and it was that. we did a centering meditation, a walking meditation, and a plant mediation, and i think they were all a real success, but as we realized the day before, when we were doing a quick run-down, what we really did was liturgy. we're both ritualists. lol. it was such a great opportunity to work with her though- i didn't feel like i knew her that well before we started working together, but it was a really great opportunity to get to spend some time together and just talk, and be people together. it was awesome.
it was really good to get out, too. i forget how much i like being in woods and creeks. i had to take my shoes off (i'm an earth sign and a farm kid- shoes become superfluous about this time of year), and it was just so great to be able to wade, and to get mucky, and to do it with my friends.

i'd also like to say how grateful i am for the guys of caya coven. most of my friends growing up were guys- i was always hanging out with the boys, and in berkeley that hasn't been as true. i have one really good guy friend at school, but something like 80% of seminary students these days are women (won't it be interesting to watch how the churches change in the next 20 yrs once all these women take the places of power?), so that has affected it. don't get me wrong, i am very grateful for my women friends in and out of caya- very grateful. it has been really good for me to learn how to have close relationships with my sisters, and i love them dearly.
but i love the guys. i always wanted older brothers, and i got one when i married kyle- ryan, who i adore. but he's back in slc, and courtland and jack and mawi are here. i've gotten to spend a bit more time with the guys recently, and it's reminded me just how much i've missed it. i'm so glad that caya has such wonderful men, and that i get to spend time with them.
i <3 my bros.

omg, the radio is playing "secret agent man". so awesome.

oh, we got a wii. which is awesome. we got a wii fit too, which is both awesome and not awesome. it tells me that i am overweight every time i step on it. which is true, and which is my own damn fault, and which i really really need to do something about. but it's hard. some days it's really motivating, which is no doubt the intent, and which is excellent. other days it's just kind of discouraging. and occasionally it really really upsets me. for those of you who don't know, i used to have an eating disorder. i don't talk about it a lot, because it was a long time ago, and it's just one of those things that doesn't come up often, you know? ("isn't the weather beautiful?" "yeah, it's great! hey, did you know i used to not eat?"). it really doesn't affect me a lot these days, (obviously, given i'm now overweight), but it does mean that i am a bit hypersensitive. it also makes it hard for me to lose weight healthily. it's way too easy for me to fall into bad patterns, which i have to be careful about, and it means that on the days when i'm down anyway, having the wii fit insult me is really not helpful.
but i'm really trying to be positive. i NEED to lose a few pounds, it would be GOOD for me, and the wii is a good way for me to do it. it's just a machine, it doesn't mean to be nasty. i just need to get over my hangups and behave like a reasonable adult.

i've been thinking about deity a lot recently. i'm still torn about the "use the caya deity dedication to formalize longstanding associations" vs. "use it to create new ties" issue. i'm swinging back and forth. as it stands, i'm really pretty sure about stella maris. tying for second place are abnoba, taranis, and bear mother. but then there's isis, and nyx, and danu, and grainne/aine, and lugh.... i dunno. i'm also trying to decide if i really need a god in my trio. i think i might. but it's complex....

i've recently gotten some really got books that are awesome that i want to blog about. and i need to talk more about deity and altars and moving and so on. but right now i need to go get ready for class.
afternoon movies on a hot day FTW.

t

the roller coaster that is my life

let's put the good stuff first.

we got an awesome apt! hooray! it is bigger, it has wood floors, it has a brand new kitchen with a DISHWASHER. it is in a nice neighborhood, with trees and flowers and good neighbors. we have a nice and accommodating landlord. we have three weeks in which to move in. it's even closer to things we want to be close to than we already are. they take cats. it's close to friends.
it's exactly what we were looking for.
we are very blessed.

i was going to talk about other stuff. bad stuff. but i think i'm not.
i don't want pity, or concern. some of the things i could tell i think would make you not love me the way i hope you do now.
some things are best kept to yourself.

i have a house. i have a husband. i have friends. i am very blessed.
there is nothing more.

Ranty Thora is Ranty

So, my life has been a roller coaster lately. This is not a great thing for me- I love stability with a near frantic devotion. Thus, I am feeling discombobulated. And I need to rant.

Let me preface this by saying that there are many wonderful things in my life, and I am very grateful for them. My husband, my cats, my family, my friends, my coven, my church, etc. I am grateful every day of my life for these things.

But right now, I need to blow off some steam.

Item 1- The Job Search

I feel like I need a job. This is a somewhat irrational feeling- K, thank God, makes enough to support us on one income. Grad school would have been much harder if he didn't. However, I have a deep-seated need to feel like I'm contributing. And, since we'll be moving and have to pay more rent, this is probably not a bad thing. So I've been looking for jobs on craigslist. And looking. And looking. And looking.
Apparently, I am either under or over qualified for nigh unto every job anyone chooses to post. Great. Yay, grad degree. But that's not what really gets me- what gets me is this-
CAN SOMEONE EXPLAIN TO ME HOW YOU'RE SUPPOSED TO GET A JOB TO GET EXPERIENCE IF EVERY JOB OUT THERE WANTS PRIOR EXPERIENCE???
It doesn't WORK!!! I can't have the experience to qualify for your shitty-ass desk job if all the other shitty-ass desk jobs out there require 2-5 years experience in shitty-ass desk jobs! It's a logical fallacy! I DON'T EVEN WANT YOUR STUPID SHITTY ASS DESK JOB. I JUST WANT SOME MONEY. SHOVE YOUR SHITTY ASS DESK JOB.
somebody will hire me...someday...won't they?

Item 2- The Housing Market in Berkeley

1475$ for a two bedroom apartment is considered more than reasonable if it's in a good location. Enough said.

Item 3- Laurie Cabot

So I'm reading Laurie Cabot's book The Power of the Witch. I liked it at first. She has a decent writing style, it was engaging, the material was interesting, it was fine. Then I got to the history section. Initially it was ok; she was making some speculations which I thought were probably a bit out there, but that's ok. I wish she had made it clear that they were speculations, but that's no big deal. A lot of authors (especially pagan authors) don't do that. It's a pet peeve, but certainly not something unique to her. She was also being a bit pejorative toward Christianity, but again, nothing new there. She had a few etymology problems in the Celtic sections, and a few historical inaccuracies, but nothing too huge.
Then I got to the section where she talks about early Judaism on pages 47, 48, and 49. Let me just say, WORDS CANNOT EXPRESS HOW COMPLETELY WRONG SHE IS. THIS WOMAN IS UP IN THE NIGHT, SHE IS MAKING IT UP AS SHE GOES ALONG, SHE IS TALKING OUT HER ASS. *ahem*.
In case the reader is not aware, I am completing a Masters degree in Biblical Languages. I have certificates in Religious Studies and in Theological Studies. THE LINGUISTIC AND THEOLOGICAL CLAIMS THIS WOMAN MAKES ARE NOT VALID.

Let me just lay one example out for you- on page 48, she claims that the letters for the name "Jehovah" (more correctly known as Yahweh) are " yod-he-vau-he". This much is true. She then goes on to say that "yod" means "I". This is not true. The letter yod is transliterated as "i" or "y", but that is simply the sound it makes. The word "ani" means "I" or "myself". She then says that the letters he-vau-he mean "life" and "woman". This is about half true, but it is misleading. The letters create a form of the verb for "life" (also found when God names himself to Moses as "I am"- this can be translated as "I am the living one" or "I will be what I will be"-Hebrew verbs have a vast range of meanings). But they do not spell "woman". The word for woman is "isha". The reason the first woman is given the name HVH (havah, in hebrew) is because it is a bad pun. It just means "living". In the greek version, they have to change the name of the first woman to "Zoe" to make the pun work- the Greek word for "life" is "Zoen". Then she goes on to say that the Latin letters are E-V-E, and this shows that the name of God is "I am woman. I am life" and that's what the word Jehovah means. And, for the sake of fun, let's just add the fact that since Hebrew was an oral language, and since the Israelites considered the name of God too sacred to write down, we don't actually KNOW what the name of God was.

So, she is using a mistranslation of an ancient word into an unrelated, millennium younger language to prove a point about what the original word meant, when in fact, we don't even really know for sure what the original word was.

I won't go into the other errors she commits. Suffice it to say that they are egregious. But the real problem for me is this- if you were reading her book, and didn't know this (as probably 99% of her readers don't), it would all seem to make perfect sense. And not only does it make me question the accuracy of all the other information in her book, but it makes me angry, because she's one of the people creating the misconceptions of Christianity that I have to battle against. All because she can't be bothered to check her sources or to make it clear that she's speculating rather than stating uncontested truths.

I haven't read the rest of the book yet. I will. I imagine when she gets into modern stuff, which I think is the bulk of the book, she is probably fine. But it will be hard for me to take her scholarship seriously.

Item 4- My School

In order to graduate, I have to pass an oral exam. In order to pass an oral exam, I have to form an oral exam committee. In order to form an oral exam committee, I have to get two professors (one from my school and one from another member school, both with tenure) to agree, and I then have to get them approved by the Area Coordinator and the Dean.
I have tried to do this. I have failed to do this, largely for reasons out of my control. People have been on sabbatical, people are not getting my emails, one member of my committee dropped out to have hip surgery. and so on. So it did not happen on time.
Because of this, I cannot graduate with my class. For some reason, this is really upsetting to me. I didn't think I was that attached to the idea of walking with my class, but apparently I am. It's been days since I found out, and I still can't type this without crying. I have to go file an extension to get my degree, and I'll be able to graduate this fall, but I haven't done it yet, because I don't want to be in the registrar's office snuffling into my paperwork.
Which brings us to...

Item 5- Myself.

I have dropped the ball colossally this past 9 mos. I'm not entirely sure why. The fall was very long and hard, and I don't think I ever really recovered from it. This spring has been rough. I've been managing to do my homework and go to my classes, but everything else has slipped through the cracks. My depression has played no small role in this- when getting up the motivation to get dressed takes an hour, running around campus hunting down signatures is a daunting obstacle. But that's no excuse. I've dealt with this before, I know what it's like, and I need to move the hell on with my life. I choose to stay off happy pills for several sound reasons, and usually it's not a problem, but I'm really annoyed with myself that I've been handling it so badly the past 6 mos or so.
I HATE talking about having depression, because it is so often used as a crutch for people who don't have their shit together, and I don't want to be one of those people, or seen as one of them, but I can't ignore the fact that it's messing with me right now.
I need to figure out a way to get myself back into the world of the living and the responsible. I've been really making an effort to see people, and that's been good. I need to get my diet back under control and start getting regular exercise. You'd be surprised what good nutrition and activity do for brain chemistry. But it's an uphill slog at this point, and I've got only myself to hold accountable for getting here in the first place.

ok. ranting done for the moment. Step one on being responsible again- getting enough sleep. Bedtime.
Night.

and the ten rolled over and one fell out....

so we had our first real new initiate meeting today. It was interesting. I really like our group of initiates- apparently we have a number of type A folks, so we got a lot of planning and scheduling knocked out, which I think is all for the best. The longer you wait to get things scheduled, the harder it is. If they're already scheduled, you can always change them later, but if they're not even on the calendar, it's just much harder to squeeze them in.

We lost our first initiate- one of our sisters has decided that it's really just not feasible for her to be an initiate right now because of the demands of her job and family. As much as I absolutely respect her decision, and think it was a wise one, it's still sad to lose her. I suppose better sooner than later, but I hadn't been expecting it.

We talked a bit about a lot of things. Lots of bureaucratic preliminary stuff. It was really nice to have it all laid out though. I always feel so much better when I know what's coming. One of the things we talked a little about was owning your own personal shit. It's a good thing. We talk about it lots at seminary too. Lots and lots of the formation my classmates who are going into the priesthood do is about figuring out what your shit is and then what you're going to do about it. Point of interest- in order to become a priest in the Episcopal church, you have to go through no less than three different psych exams. And you have to pass. It's not a "if you've ever had any mental problems ever, we will not pass you" sort of thing, it's more a "we want to make sure you're fairly stable and have a plan to stay that way", but I still think it's absolutely a good thing. Anyway, it hit home for me. I've been running up against an old problem of mine again recently, which is that when I finally get comfortable around a group of people, I have to start remembering to watch my mouth. I start to lose the line between confident and cocky, and I also start to take the funny/sarcastic too far. I'm very good at sticking my foot in my mouth, and the more relaxed I am, the more likely I am to really say something I'll regret. Stands to reason, I suppose, but it means I have to actively remember to behave nicely.

Another thing that we've been talking about is deity. "what exactly is a goddess", "how do you find a deity", etc. It's interesting. To me, that sort of thing is all about research. Find out as much as you can about something, and then decide if it's for you or not. I read about Paganism avidly, taking notes etc., for a good two years solid before I self-initiated, and then I read about it for another two before I even began to set up an altar. I really like to feel like I know what I'm doing before I do it. But I think that there is something valuable to the idea that a deity can pick you. It's not something I've really experienced. Certainly I have affinities for some deities over others, but that's not quite the same thing. So I'm trying to discern any patterns in my life that could be an indication. The problem, of course, is that it's hard to say if something is just a feature of my personality or tastes or if it's something from outside myself.

The one thing that's sort of cropped up is peacocks. I had never noticed it before (which really is starting to sound sort of dense), but apparently I have a thing for peacocks. When I was 16, I bought a peacock wallet, which I still use. Since then I have also acquired a peacock purse, t-shirt, dress, earrings, two blank books, tights, and nailpolish ("mystic peacock", in case you're wondering). Now, that may not sound like a whole lot, but you have to remember that until the past year or so, it's actually been fairly rare to come across peacock stuff. It's not incredibly common. I'm not sure what to think of this.

I did some research on peacock goddesses, and came up with a few. Hera, obviously, and Juno. Oshun. Also Isis, apparently, and Saraswati. I like them all, but none of them seem quite right. Saraswati has the most reasonance for me, both in her Indian form and in her Japanese form as Benzaiten, but still...

I dunno.

Thoughts?

some thoughts on deity

THUNDER!!!!!

ahem. sorry.

so, this is totally unrelated to the rest of this post, but someone the other day was saying that the mid-20s are a hard age. This surprised me- I've always thought that they were supposed to be a sort of ideal time for most people- you're out of college, but may not have kids yet; you're supposed to be playing and drinking and carrying on, and enjoying being young. It's like the extension of being a teenager, only with more money. Not that this is necessarily the case for me, but it's the impression I've always had. What do you all think? People who are older than I, what did you think they were supposed to be? Did that play out in reality?

So, deity. One of the things that we're supposed to do as initiates is pick/be picked by up to three deities, one of which must be a goddess. Naturally this is something that I am looking forward to, as it presents me with the opportunity to research obscure and arcane things. Equally naturally, I am already chock full of trivial facts about random deities from various cultures, times, and places. Shocking, I know. But I'm trying to come at it in a somewhat new direction. While it would certainly be convenient if someone appeared in one of my dreams at night and said "ahem.. ME", and though I'm certainly not ruling it out, I also think that there's a certain amount of discernment that goes into these sorts of things. It's my job to learn about who I feel an affinity for, and why, and then see if they reciprocate. Thus, I have a few criteria.

1) I don't want to dedicate to someone well known. First of all, everyone and their sister dedicates to Brigid or Freya or Athena or Odin or whoever. That's fine. I in no way question their relationship to deity. But I think it's only fair to try to consider some of the lesser known deities, both because they deserve the attention and because they fascinate me. Besides, the more common deities most people have some sort of relationship with anyway because they encompass so much. Brigid is pretty much the goddess of all Irish women, period, and since I am an Irish woman, she's already my goddess. Likewise with Odin- my relationship with him may be wary, but I have one-I'm Norse, I can't very well ignore him. So it seems superfluous to me to dedicate myself to them.

2) I really would like at least one god. Though Thor is already my patron, and though I imagine I'll end up with likely two goddesses, that male energy is important to me. I've always been a tom-boy (though really I hate that word- it implies an inability of being feminine, which is not the case. I simply am most comfortable in a sort of gender neutral situation), and I find that the balance between male and female energies is an important one for me to maintain both in my personal and spiritual life.

3) I would like them to be from pantheons which I have a pre-existing connection with, either genetic, past-life, or scholarly. Or any combination thereof. Not that I don't want to work with others, just that I feel like there is something to be said for ancestral and/or past life memory, and I think that's an important thing to take into account when choosing someone you're going to pledge to work with.

Additionally, I'd like to also dedicate (personally) to one-three saints. Most christians in the catholic tradition (note-I am not Catholic, I am catholic- yes, there is a difference, if you really want to know, I am happy to explain it to you) select at least one patron saint at their confirmation. However, having been raised in an evangelical tradition, I have never done so and would like to. I have name saints, of course. St. Anne, the mother of Mary, and Mary herself. Also John the Baptist, because my birthday is the feast of his beheading (and isn't that just delightfully gruesome?). I like them all- Anne is traditionally a teacher, Mary is, well, Mary, and John is just wonderfully and deeply strange. But I didn't pick them- they were what I ended up with.

So, I'm thinking that maybe for a few posts I'll go through and spend some time talking about the deities and/or saints that I'm considering. I'm happy to entertain feedback!

t

so yeah...

... I don't know what the hell I think I'm doing.

I'm supposed to graduate with a largely useless degree in an obscure field in less than three months. We're in the severest recession in my lifetime. The best job I can really hope to get around here is flipping burgers or sweeping floors, and even then I'm going to have to beat back other grad students to get it. I heard a report on the radio today from an animal shelter that had over 70 applications for one position scooping poop, about half of which were from people with masters degrees.

I was going to get a PhD. That would have insulated me for a while longer. I had spent three years working myself up to the point where I could look someone in the eye and say "I am hoping to get a doctorate". I have been rejected by 6 schools so far. Including my own.

I may not even graduate on time. I can't seem to get a committee to form for me. One of the same problems that is preventing me from continuing at the GTU (lack of New Testament faculty) also means that there are no professors free to sit on my committee. If I don't get examined, I can't graduate. Not, at this point, that it will really matter. Just to my ego.

My depression has been acting up lately. Not in the sort of traditional cry-all-the-time, can't-go-out-in-public sort of sense. Just in that my base level mood seems to have dropped from "mellow" to "apathetic". I can still be happy. I still enjoy seeing my friends. I still pet my kitties. I just really turn off between happy moments.

It's mostly when I'm alone. I spent over ten minutes sitting on the bed the other morning with one foot in a pair of tights trying to work up the motivation to put the other foot in. I wasn't sad. It just didn't seem worth the effort. In January, bathing once every three days was a real achievement. It just didn't seem like going through all the trouble of taking off my clothes, getting cold, running the water, washing my hair, getting out, drying off, and getting dressed again, was really worth it. Such a large expenditure of energy for such a small payoff. I'm better about this now that school has started- never underestimate the motivational power of potential embarrassment. I'm going to all my classes. I'm doing my homework. I go to the meetings I'm supposed to go to, I do the things I'm supposed to do. It's everything else that's falling through the cracks.

There are probably lots of reasons for this. Multiple rejections hurt my little ego. It's the end of winter, which is always hard. I have senioritis. I've never fully recovered from coming back from Israel. I've been sick. I feel a lot of low grade anxiety about not knowing what I'm going to do next. Lots of reasons.

It will pass eventually. It always does. It is the ebb and flow of my life, and part of who I am. I think that I will be able to get most of the things I need to do done without too many casualties. I usually can.

But I don't think I'm alone when I say that June can't come soon enough.

Sick Thora is Sick (and Rambly)

Yeah, I know. I haven't finished writing my last P-con post.

So sue me.

I'll get it up there eventually. I promise. Right now though, sick Thora is sick, and can't remember anything, much less try to describe anything coherently.

Which leads us to today's post- art!!

I have a love/hate relationship with art. I may have said this before, but there is enough snot in my head right now that I can't remember, AND I don't care, so if this sounds familiar, just bear with me.

Art. This is what fancy people do, hoity-toity types with their gauloises and their la-de-da beers, and their little berets and their talk about "impressionism" and "meaningful realism" and "meta-abstraction". And you know what? Andy Warhol. I hate Andy Warhol. Andy Warhol can go suck a big fat cock. Oh wait, he would probably like that. Andy Warhol can go...I don't know, my head's too clogged to think of anything good. Fuck Andy Warhol. (Let me apologize to my artist friends right now- rowan and branwen, i'm looking at you. it's the cough syrup talking, i swear, i mean none of this personally)
Oh, and let's include writers in this too. And theater people. All of them, all of the so-called arts. And the musicians. All these talented people who spend all their time playing around and cultivating "images" and "attitudes" and trying to out-soliliquize their neighbors in their attempt to convey the ultimate profundity of their own creative process. (heh, impressed that i can use words like profoundity when i'm gassed on cough syrup? me too.)
Fuck 'em all.

Jealous much? Yes. Totally.

I have the unfortunate gift of being able to pick up most skills pretty quickly and easily, which I know, sounds sooo hoorrrible. The world's tiniest violin and so on. But really it is unfortunate in that it has made me A) lazy and B) overly critical. Everyone knows that to become a good artist/writer/whatthefuckever you have to work hard, right? Apparently I don't know that. I should be able to just do it immediately, do not pass go, do not collect 200$. This means that when I suck at something, or at least am not as good at it as I would like to be, I get very discouraged, and never do it again.
This is why I don't paint. I painted for about a year in high school. I was ok. I haven't painted since. I would really like too. I really want to paint a tarot deck. But I want it to look good, not shitty. So I have to learn how to paint. I don't want to. Learning to paint means practicing, and practicing means looking regularly at evidence that shows that I can't already do something. This is bad for my poor, abused, cough syrup swilling ego. (seriously, how can anybody ever trip off cough syrup? two tablespoons triggers my gag reflex).
I have the same problem with writing. I'm a decent writer, I think. Probably better at writing than painting. But no one ever sees my writing, because I'm stuck in the connundrum of only wanting to hear good things about my writing, but not believing people when they tell me good things about it. I want my ego stroked, but I want to know it's being truthfully stroked, otherwise it's meaningless.

Coincidentally, this makes me think of when I took a class on the Enneagram. In the interest of full disclosure, I'm a 4. My teacher liked to describe us as "coy", because we want attention, but we try to get it by withdrawing, and I took offense to that. To me, "coy" is a very similar word to "manipulative". I reminded her that the underlying emotion for all 4s is shame, and so though we want attention, we don't feel we deserve it, so we withdraw. If you follow us, and try to find us out, then we know you're actually interested, and not just being social. It's a sort of testing process, I suppose, which does sound manipulative, but it's an unconscious one. More of a defense mechanism, really.
If you see my shame, and seek me out anyway, I know you're worth beginning to trust.

In any case, painting. I want to paint a tarot deck, and I want to do it justice. This apparently means that I need to grow the hell up and learn to paint. dammit.

uugh. time for more cough syrup.

Pantheacon Takes It All Off

PLEASE BE WARNED: SOME OF THE FOLLOWING CONTENT IS RATED AT LEAST "R". IF YOU ARE EASILY OFFENDED, PLEASE DO NOT READ THE FOLLOWING BLOG.
if you were there, you've already seen it. so no worries.

Act 3- "Plants, Faeries, and Pan, OH MY!!!" or "Fawning Over the Faun"

Sunday morning dawned bright and early. Well, rather, Sunday morning crawled its ass out of bed, took one look at the monumental amounts of rain pouring down, and said "fuck you all" before climbing back under the covers.

I responded in much the same way.

We had had options at 9am of programs that we would have liked to have gone to, but when the alarm went off, we decided that really we were just too tired to get up, shower, and struggle downstairs with any ability to stay awake through a session. So we slept in.
We managed to get downstairs by about a quarter past 10, and tried to get brekkie. I got optimistically in line for the coffee bar, but the line was too long, and I ended up bailing at a quarter till to go with Rowan and Pixie to see a program entitled "A Witch's Plant Familiar", by Christopher Penszak.
It was interesting. As with many things over the weekend, it was not entirely what I had expected, but it was still interesting. The program description had said that it would be a discussion of plants, how to use them, how to recognize your familiar, and then a guided meditation to meet your plant familiars. So, I had been imagining about half talk and half meditation or so.
In fact, he spent most of the time telling stories about his own plant familiars. He did talk in detail about the different kinds of plants (banes, balms, and tree teachers) which was informative. And he talked some about how to communicate with them and how to learn what they're useful for and so on. Which was all very good. But we didn't even start the meditation until we were 15 mins from the end, which, though it was a good meditation, I think affected my experience. It felt rushed.

Trance meditation is always an interesting thing for me. I love it in theory, but in practice it can be a bit difficult. For one thing, I have a deep seated need for control, which means it's very hard for me to let myself go into trance in the first place. Secondly, I am very suggestible, which means that I go into trance-like states very easily, and am then fighting myself. Lastly, I have a very hard time staying/seeing where and what the person leading says. My mind goes off on its own little lark.

He began our trance by counting us down 12-1, and then 13-1. I was fighting it, as I do, but I was right there when he said that we could see the world tree. He described it as "parting a veil in our minds", but for me it was much more like dropping out of the sky. (diana paxson later said how she thinks that for everyone in california the world tree is a redwood, but this is not true for me. mine looks a lot more like this, only even wider.) I could see the world tree, which was huge, probably shading a least a mile. Around it was rolling hills and fields, shrouded in drifting fog. The sun was rising in the background, but the atmosphere was thin so that I could see stars in the top of the sky.
At that point we were supposed to begin spiraling down through the earth, down and down, until we reached another veil, or door of some kind. He took what felt like a very long time about this. I was corkscrewing furiously (which I think had to do with my subconscious worry about time), and reached the perimeter much faster than I was "supposed" to, and had to wait. Then, however, I got stuck. I tried to go through the opening, but I couldn't. It was like watching a moth bump into glass, I'd bounce off. I finally managed to thrust myself through and popped out onto the other side on the path. He had us follow the path until we reached a crossroads with five different paths, including the one I was on. My crossroads had a lovely little fountain in the middle. Sandstone, two tiers, with some carvings of fish and flowers, I think.
I immediately felt called to the path in the middle of the three in front of me, and had actually started down it when he started describing what they were and how we were to make our decision, so I went back and waited by the fountain. However, I never had a choice at all. While I was waiting for him to describe the different paths (the banes on the path to the left, and the balms on the path to the right), the forest around the path in front of me advanced and surrounded me until I started walking.

I found myself walking down a wide avenue shaded by huge arching sycamores. I walked a ways, and at the end of the avenue was a much smaller tree in a shady sort of clearing, and probably not much taller than I am. It was an apple tree, though I'm not sure how I knew this, since it had neither blossom nor fruit, but it was an definitely an apple. This is pretty standard- I have an affinity for apple trees. Growing up around the trunk were a blackberry bush on the left and a wild thorny rose bush on the other. Again, no surprise. Those are both plants which I have an known affinity for. As I watched, however, on the circle of ground around the tree and bushes, a fern rose up and uncurled (this kind) on the left, some ivy crept in from the right, and at the base of the tree little violets and lily of the valley began to sprout and unfold.
At this point we were instructed to head back, so I did, turning and walking back to the fountain. The trees had receded a bit after they had surrounded me, so I found myself walking back through golden fields of wheat and poppies. We took the remaining path back out, spiraling up back to the world tree again, but again I was going much too fast. I didn't spiral slowly out of the ground, rather I was thrust out like a cork from a bottle, shooting out of the ground about 100 ft or so into the air to hover near the world tree, and then was slowly sucked out by the counting.

He managed to finish the whole thing in 15 mins, which I found very impressive, if perhaps not optimal. We gathered our stuff and left, and went to go have lunch in the bear cave. Rowan and Pixie and Stephanie and Scottie and I ( I think that was all of us) had all enjoyed it, but we also all agreed that it was very hard to concentrate with it being so cold in the room! I think the hotel staff were overcompensating for the crowds, because on saturday it was fine, but on both sunday and monday it was absolutely freezing in the ballrooms. Regardless, to my knowledge a good time was had by all.

The 1:30 session was a difficult one. There were at least five different things that I would have liked to have done, in particular one on past life regression, which I have always wanted to do. There were a couple of things working against it though- firstly, that the program expected it to be very crowded. I don't like crowds. Secondly, I had already been tranced once that day, and wasn't sure if I really wanted to do it twice. Thirdly, there was a session called "faerie fotos", where this woman would take your photo dressed as a faerie against a funky sort of woodland background, and do a calendar using some of the shots. Cheesy, I know, but it sounded like a lot of fun, and I ended up deciding that I was a lot more likely to get to do a past life regression sometime than I was to get to play dress up and have my picture taken. This rationale was a good one for me all weekend- "what are the odds that I'll get to do this somewhere else?". It helped me make a lot of decisions.
So, I ended up in a small dark and crowded room with a lot of women, including Pixie (of course!), Rebecca, and Kian. There was a very silly and thankfully short intro, and then there was a massive stampede as everyone tried to get to the very limited supply of wings, makeup and glitter. I actually ended up going up to our room to get ready, because it was just too crowded, and besides, communal makeup is icky unless it's someone you're ok sharing germs with. That's a very select group of people in my world.
A lot of us ended up topless. The woman in charge had these cycling video backgrounds set up that would move through things like celtic knotwork and tree branches and so forth that made it look very cool on bare skin, so there was much stripping down to basics. The pictures looked great as they were being taken- I should get mine in the email at some point soon. Pixie looked phenomenal, and Rebecca also looked great. I can't wait to see what they look like. But then the funniest thing happened. I was wearing a pair of wings, and this woman ahead of me in line asked if she could borrow them. I said sure, but since I already have them on, why don't you go right after me, and then I can just take them off and hand them to you, since it's crowded and hard to take things on and off in line. She said that was fine, and then I said, oh, by the way, I'll want to take one of the two of us, as I gestured to Kian, who was also in line ahead of me. She giggled, and said that would be really cute.
More people took pictures, and I didn't think anything further about it until she took her photo. She had found a different pair of wings, and after taking a photo, she called me over. I thought she wanted me to adjust her wings for her or something, since they were rather large, but instead she wrapped her arms around me and told the photographer we were ready. Apparently when I had said "the two of us", she had missed my gesture towards Kian, and had assumed I meant me and her. Whoops! I figured there was no way to back out gracefully, and just went with it. And that is the story of how I ended up in a couple of as-yet-unseen photos topless with another nearly nude woman's head between my breasts (she was short!). Ah, Pantheacon.
When we were done, she said she could hear my heartbeat, and that it was very nice. How cute is that?
So then I succeeded in taking at least one by myself, and one with K, which is what I had been aiming for all along. I really hope they turned out well. I'd love it if one of the great couple photos of us was as naked fairies at p-con. That would be awesome.

I seem to recall that I spent more of that afternoon in the vending room. I got a few more hair danglies, because they are AWESOME. I got a birthday present for my brother, and a few other things as well. K and I got a really cool drinking horn, which was awesome. I got a very nice and jingly hip scarf, and a super cool little ray gun charm for a necklace.

At some point we ate dinner in the bear cave. People were bustling around- several of the elderflowers were going to be in productions that evening, so they were composing themselves and getting ready to go. I was relieved to just be able to watch that evening.

Seven pm rolled around, and we were all set to go to the ceremony put on by the Ekklesia Antinou, a queer group in SF dedicated to Antinous. They were going to accept initiates and put on a celebration of the Lupercalia, and since I am interested in all things from the ancient greco-roman world, I thought it looked interesting. I was right. The head priest was a guy who is friends with Rabbit, I guess, and though there weren't too many members, they put on a decent show. In structure it was very nearly a christian service- there was a procession, there were prayers for the people and the world, passing of a shared cup of "wine", lots of chanting, etc. I was pleasantly surprised how much of the latin I understood. I really enjoyed the chanting the most, but that's pretty typical for me.
They also did something I thought was really cool, which was make oaths of support with other pagan communities. They had representatives from three different groups, Rabbit from CAYA, a woman whose name escapes me from a Heathen group, and Elisheva Nesher, the Shofet Ha'Am Ha'Aretz, if I recall correctly, from the primitive hebrew tribe. They all pledged their support and hospitality to the Ekklesia Antinou, and the Ekklesia likewise. I know this is something that Rabbit is really invested in, the cooperation and support of the pagan community at large, and I whole-heartedly agree. Together we are strong.
The service went a little long, but it was good, and I really enjoyed having been there. I wasn't really aware specifically of groups like that, and I like knowing a bit more about them.

Then it was 9, and the REAL fun began.

"Yes They Are: Meeting and Greeting the Queerest of the Gods", put on by the Circle of Dionysos, and involving our own Rabbit and Puck, along with several other folks from the OLT.
It. Was. Amazing.
It began with Dionysos. He was an MC, of sorts, and gave the standard warning about "if you are under 18 blah blah blah". The crowd was already really hyped- the energy in the room was incredible. Dionysos then told us that the front row was going to be the splash zone, and that if you were sitting there you might be "splashed, oiled, sparkled, spanked, or otherwise fondled", and the crowd went wild. He then pointed out the few remaining front row seats, and encouraged people to take them. A few people moved forward quickly, and it was at this point that I found myself climbing up and over the two rows of chairs in front of me to sit in an empty seat in the front row. I'd just like to say that I'm quite proud of myself for having managed that in a long flowy dress and heels without either tripping or flashing anyone. I honestly don't know what I was thinking- it was something along the lines of "empty-chair-must-get-there-first", but that sort of thing is so uncharacteristic of me that I can only say that P-con freed me of a great many of my inhibitions, and that when my earth sign inhibitions fall away, my fire nature takes over and I do and say a good number of things that can be shocking to someone who hasn't seen me like that before.
Once I got into the chair ( and by the way, I seem to have a recollection that I got a cheer for that maneuver, but I honestly am not sure. Performance amnesia again), I was a bit horrified. I had just marked myself out for any sort of audience participation anyone cared to think of, which can be a dangerous thing, and I began to think that I'd taken a cast chair. Whoops.
But the show began, and I figured whatever I had to do, it would be worth it.
Dionysos kicked off the audience participation by having a man drink a full glass of wine and then sing, which the guy did admirably well and quickly. This terrified me- I'm a lightweight, so chugging a glass of wine would put me under quickly. But I figured I better plan ahead, so I mentally braced myself ( the song would have been "touch myself" by the divinyls. seemed appropriate). Fortunately, I was spared, and out came Apollo the biker god, to talk about his love and loss. It was incredibly moving. He himself began to cry, and I think there were not many dry eyes in the audience. He was followed by Gwyddion, who was also quite good. At some point Kwan-Yin was in there, played by a man who looked quite lovely in his pink kimono. Athena also put in a commendable appearance. She was very cool.
Then there was Ereshkigal, who was absolutely terrifying. She was an extremely large and intimidating woman dress in shiny red and black pleather, and she carried a hook. She had a planted audience member whom she called out and ritually stripped, but planted or not, the woman was in sheer terror. I could see her shaking from where I was, and I have to say, if I were being stripped at hook-point by that Ereshkigal, I probably would have wet myself.
To keep with the terrifying theme, Ereshkigal was followed by Loki, dressed in a bondage outfit and wearing a ball gag. I have never like Loki, and I still don't, but after seeing that performance, I think I may be slightly closer to understanding him. He was possessed of such a madness, and such a frantic anger and energy, such a drive to shock and provoke, it was incredible. He became a sympathetic, if still horrifying, character.
Joi was next, aspecting Nephys, a Nile flood goddess personifying chaos and rebirth. She was amazing in blue-green body paint and a strap-on, which looked surprisingly natural. She was excellent, as was Johanna aspecting Sedna who followed. Sedna was angry and horrible, as she should be, and growled around telling us that we need to tell everyone in our lives who doesn't love us as they should to go fuck themselves.
Then there was Aphrodite. Aphrodite came out, carrying her laptop, which was set to the webcam, so it simply reflected whatever was looking at it back onto the screen, and proceeded to talk to the audience. She then took three volunteers from the audience, two women and a man, and brought them out into the middle.
Once she had them how she wanted them, she took nine volunteers from the audience (including myself and Rebecca, whoohoo!!), and divided us among the three original volunteers, and had us each take a rose and dust them all over with the rose petals while they took turns singing "I am so beautiful". It was beautiful. It was so clearly moving for the people, and so much fun for us. Good on Aphrodite for knowing exactly who needed it.
Lastly was Pan. Out of all of the gods and goddesses, I think Loki, Ereshkigal, and Pan were the most fully present in their humans, and perhaps Pan most of all. It was stunning.
Pan was aspected by our friend Marcus, and I can tell you that when I looked into his eyes, Marcus was waaay back there. I could still see flashes of him, but just occasionally. He worked the audience in the palm of his hand. When he was ...interacting... with the audience members, they would have done anything for him, right then and there. It was as though the room had completely melted away for them, and the only reality was the mad and beautiful sex god in front of them. It was profound.
As Pan finished, it became clear that the show had gone over, and in spite of the fact that they still had one more to go, would have to move. The show paraded upstairs to the Pagan Alliance suite, and we went with it, but it was too crowded, so I didn't see the last performance.

We all ended up in the Bear Cave, eventually. I have no idea how many people were crammed in there, but it was most, if not all, of caya. The vibe was really interesting. Most of us had gone to the Yes They Are show, and were still pretty keyed up, but a few others had gone to A Black Woman Speaks, which had our own Heaven, Iris, and a few others in it, and apparently was equally profound, though less happily exuberant. At some point after some drinking a flogger came out, and some of the party moved to the hallway. At first it was just about six of us, all women, and we sat and talked and told stories, which was very nice. It was a good sort of unwinding and bonding moment. Then a few more women showed up, and then Courtland and Marcus/Pan (Marcus was really kind of in and out the rest of the evening. I don't know if that was intentional, or if Pan just really didn't want to give over, but either way it was fascinating. He was radiating both physical heat and total charisma, and I think he could have had just about anything from just about anyone in caya at any point that night. It's a measure of Marcus' control that Pan didn't start an orgy, because I don't think there would have been much resistance.) Eventually I looked up and saw the rest of our guys, Jack, Kian, and Mawi standing around us with their arms folded. It was very sweet. I had a sudden sense of them as our guardians- the rest of us were all allowing ourselves to be vulnerable and entangled, and they were keeping an eye on us.
All of which led me to realize how deeply I am entwined with my coven at this point. I love them all an immense amount, every single one, and spending that kind of time with them was such a wonderful thing. That time and space with them was precious to me, and I wouldn't have had it any other way.

Eventually we went to bed, and as often happens to me when I am overtired and/or have been around a lot of people, I dreamt weird. I kept waking up and looking over at Kian and not being sure who I was seeing. I narrowed it down to Kian, Marcus, or Rabbit, but I was never quite sure who it was (sorry Rabbit, you'd think the goatee would have tipped me off...). Though in retrospect, perhaps it was Aphrodite or Pan, I'm not sure. Either way, I wasn't concerned enough to do anything about it. I didn't much mind who it was, it just seemed important on some level to know who it was I was spooning with, not to get away from them, but just for the sake of knowing. Lol.

Sleep overcame inevitably, though, as exhaustion is wont to do.

Coming Soon: Act Four: Pantheacon Goes Out With A Splash, or How it Wouldn't Stop Raining!

Behold Pantheacon in Splendour Rising

Act Two: "Tarot, Books, and the Delightful Madness that was the OLT"
or, "Thora's Adventures in the Underworld"

Saturday morning dawned bright and early with an unexpected event- my ability to not only hear the alarm, but to also remember that I needed to get up and shower. Astounding. The shower was awful, because apparently every single other person in the building was showering at the same time, but necessary, as I doubted (and was later proved right) that I would not have time at any other point in the day to squeeze one in.

Breakfast, on the other hand, fell by the wayside. Oh well.

The first event I went to on Saturday was a workshop on how to make your own tarot through collage. I was very excited. As anyone who knows me can tell you, I adore art projects of any kind, but especially ones that involve glue. Unfortunately, this workshop ended up not being a hands-on sort of thing, but it was still quite good. It was given by a woman named Michele Jackson, and she showed us examples of both her decks that she has made (she's made lots!!) and examples of cards made in workshops or by friends/acquaintances of hers. They were utterly astounding
She also went through and gave us a whole lot of very good practical information regarding such things as copyright laws (in case you ever want to publish your deck), places to find good free images, different types of tools to use, ways to work through mental blocks, and so on. There was a whole lot more than I would ever have thought of on my own, and I was really glad to have it all laid out for me in such a thorough way.
My friends Pixie and Maia were also in the workshop, and I would like to take this opportunity to announce the up-coming creation of the CAYA Coven Hella Sacred Tarot. Who wants in? I'm taking volunteers right now!

When the tarot workshop let out, I went in search of food. The coffee bar at the hotel had a reasonably short line, and was producing enticing coffee smells, so I got in line. I spent a good twenty minutes in line, and I have to say, I enjoyed every minute because of the truly amazing people watching opportunity. I have always loved to people watch- I think other humans are fascinating in their behavior, their dress, their speech, their affiliations. Standing in line at the coffee bar was some of the best unadulterated people-watching I had all weekend. Also, I kept seeing people I knew! Caya folks were everywhere! I think that on saturday we probably had at least 30 people either in Caya or affiliated with Caya wandering around. Now, granted, 30 out of 2,000 and some is not that big a proportion, in fact it's a pretty small proportion. But we were everywhere! It's really deligtful to be at a gathering like that, and to see your tribe so well represented.
I was also pleased to be in a crowd in which muttering to oneself went largely unnoticed, as I was frantically repeating my Sun monologue to myself under my breath. Now that it's over I can confess that I didn't actually start memorizing it till that day (sorry rabbit!!). Poetry is easy to memorize, and I have great faith in my verb-chart memorizing brain. Nonetheless, I figured even if someone did hear me, they'd either ignore it or try to join in, so I was probably fine either way.

When I finally got my fruit cup and coffee, I went to my next workshop, Book Publishing 101. Indigo came with me- she's a talented young writer, and wanted to know more. It was a good panel. Honestly I have to say that I didn't learn much, but that's no fault of the panel. My father has worked in publishing for most of my life, and has been at the head of a small press for 15 yrs, so I have a lot of firsthand knowledge of the issues and rules and processes of publishing, especially for a small press, which most of these were. It was nice to hear the authors talk, though; I'm more familiar with the press side of things than the author side of things. And it was good to hear the basics reiterated.

During this time, K and the other Caya menfolk were doing their ritual on male archetypes in their capacity as the Brotherhood of the Moon. Apparently it was a resounding success,with a wonderful time had by all. For the rest of the con I heard a continual buzz about how great the ritual was, and how impressed everyone was with the group, and how excited all the men were. I must say, knowing the men of the Brotherhood the way that I do, I am in no way surprised by all the accolades thrown their way, but am proud to bursting that everyone else got a chance to see how great our guys really are. Ten points and a gold star to the Brotherhood!

Lunch was a hurried affair- several folks had been keeping crock pots of soup going in the bear cave, and there were a ton of people in and out, eating and shoving and talking and laughing. It was great fun to be around, but also really busy.

I had planned on going to the Seeing for the Tribes with Elisheva Nesher at 1:30, but didn't make it. I think I was making another crock-pot full of soup for dinner, but I don't remember for sure. Instead I ended up down in the Vending Room with money to spend, hooray!

At this point I can't remember if I went with Rowan or not- it's all a blur. I made a point of casing the joint thoroughly. I had a very limited amount of money to spend, and I wanted to make sure I did it properly. I made notes of everything I wanted, complete with price and likelihood of seeing it elsewhere sometime soon. Yes, I am a virgo.
In the end I only bought a few things that day. I was still so overwhelmed. But one of the things I had really wanted was a crown. I had seen the elderflowers wearing theirs, and of course they were everywhere at the con, and I wanted one. I dug through all the cheap ones, and couldn't decide. I tried on all the cheap ones, and still couldn't decide. Against my better judgment, I began to look at the more expense ones. There were three that I fell in love with; the first was a silver headband with clear/silvery stones in it and little strings of pearls falling in small loops onto one's forehead. It was beautiful. The second one that I loved was a gold circlet- it had zodiac symbols along the band, dragons on each end, and two dragons holding up a crescent moon that was resting on a sunburst. It also had amber, garnet, and moonstone on it. Lastly, there was a headband of lion heads, also gold, that I adored. Needless to say, they were all too much.
I was good. I put them down, I walked away.
I bought some hair danglies, which are awesome. I got one with a little bronze cat, a longer one with black beads and a dragon, and two longer ones with silver crosses and green beads.
I went back and touched the crowns. I tried them on again. I walked away.
I bought another hair dangly. It has a little silver oak leaf on it.
I went back and touched the crowns and walked away.

At some point I ran into Kian, and we wandered around looking at various things. Then we saw the snakes. There were about three people wearing the most beautiful snakes. Mostly they were smallish (less than 5 ft), but there was one massive albino python who was one of the most gorgeous creatures I have ever seen. He was freshly shed, so he was all soft and sleek, and he curled up my arm when I stroked his head, so the woman let me hold him. He was huge, and quite heavy- I had to wrap him twice around my hips and let him drape over my shoulders just to hold him up. As his owner said, "if he wanted to, he could kill you. I couldn't do much about it. But he won't, because he likes you". He was magnificent. And he did like me. He crawled all the way up my arm and neck and tasted my shoulder, my chin, my mouth, my nose, my forehead, and my left eye. The woman said that now I'm snake-blessed. I don't really know what that means, but it sure sounds cool as hell.
Eventually I had to let him go. Or rather, eventually I had to forcibly remove him. He was heavy! I ended up buying a dragon armband from the woman's friend. It seemed appropriate, and since it had a gold dragon on it, I could wear it with my Sun costume.

At that point, Kian went back upstairs, and I decided to wander some more. I ended up passing the crowns again, and lo and behold, there was Lady Kahina wearing the crown I had been looking at! I was so pleased. It looked lovely on her, and I was so happy to see it on someone I knew and loved. If you can't have something yourself, it's always good to see it go to someone you like. So then I showed her the golden circlet I was still lusting over. Turns out that was the one that CC had initially picked out for her. So, clearly it was meant to be. ;) She gave me permission, and since you don't argue with Lady Kahina, I then bought my crown.
I love it. It is the best crown ever. I wore it every day.

I was starting to run out of time. Counter to sense, this was actually a good thing. It meant that running upstairs, sucking down some soup, and throwing on my costume in time to get downstairs for rehersal left me no time to worry much about how I was going to have to perform to a roomful of strangers in two hours.

Rehearsal happened in fits and starts, and then...
then...
it was time.
Time for the Oracles Living Tarot.

As far as I could tell, everything went without a hitch. I went third, which meant that I had very little time to stand and ponder when I would have to go, which was excellent. I get performance amnesia, so I really have no idea if I said things or not, or whether I said things right or not. I managed to get from one end of the walkway to the other without any major mishaps, and Rabbit said she could hear me, so I'll just take that and run with it.
Everyone else was magnificent. All the caya folks were great. There were so many monologues that I just loved. Everyone looked great, everyone was well-received, no one forgot their lines. There was a slight volume problem from where we were sitting, but I think it was ok in the audience.
I was happy with my costume change. I wore a short yellow dress, my bitchin mask, these awesome art deco yellow shoes that I have, and I sprayed gold glitter over every inch of my body. You should have seen the bathroom when I was done. I had to go out on the balcony and breathe to avoid suffocating on the aerosal fumes.
But it all went smashingly, which was just great.

Afterward we went up to a room to do oracles. I guess previously they would do this in the same ballroom, and let the audience be more interactive, but because some other act had booked the ballroom right after us, we had to migrate. I only got asked for one oracle, but I think I flubbed that one, so it's probably for the best that it was only one. I didn't really know what I was doing- I mean, I know what an oracle is, but I didn't know how these specific oracles had been done in the past, so I didn't know what the lady was expecting. But oh well. Whatever.

I had wanted to go to the Shamanic Djideridu thing, which sounded amazing, but by the time we finished the oracles and went upstairs, it was at least ten and way too late to go to something that had started at nine. So I just ended up hanging out in the bear cave with all the lovely people there. Some of our crowd went to rock out with their hauk out at the Hauk concert. Branwen and a few others, I don't remember who now. It did sound fun, but I was just drained. Hanging out with Rowan and Greywolf and Pixie and Puck and everyone else was just as fun. I think Artemisia and a few others went to check out the Green Fairy thing too, but absinthe is not my thing. I love the culture, but hate the taste, so I gave it a pass.

At some point I gave in and went to bed. All the time I spent hanging out in the Bear Cave just blends together in one wonderful melange of dear friends and loud laughter. Probably some of that has to do with the fatigue and probably some with the drinking, but it was all just massively delightful.

I would just like to acknowledge Rowan and Iris, the most incredibly sexy Tower and Devil cards on the history of the planet. Rowan, that corset and that chainmail whip, dear heaven. And lovely Iris, who said that I didn't have to choose between them.... mwahahhaaha.

Tomorrow: Act 3- "Plants, Faeries, and Pan, OH MY!!!"

All Hail Pantheacon!!!!

So, I went to Pantheacon.

IT WAS THE COOLEST THING EVER!!!!!!! SQUEEEEEE!!!!!!

*ahem*, that is to say, I really enjoyed myself.

Ladies and gentlemen, elves and fauns, witches and wizards, Aphrodite and Pan, may I present to you:

Pantheacon: Act One
"Arrival"

Because Kian and I had never been to P-con before, and because we are both introverts with a strong sense of crowd aversion, and because I took the absolutely nutty step of volunteering to be in the OLT at P-con without having ever seen it, we were a little apprehensive. What would it be like? (awesome) Would it be overwhelming? (yes) Would we be ok? (yes) What should we bring? (everything!)

We decided we would go with the "in for a penny, in for a pound" approach, and sign up to stay for the whole weekend. If we decided we hated it, or if it made our introvert instincts flare, we could always just leave. It's not like we would be that far away home. And if we liked it, but then hadn't signed up to stay the whole time, that would be disappointing. So in with both feet it was!

K took the day off of work on Friday (the 13th, hehe), and after my morning class, we loaded up the car, pet the kitties one last time, and drove up the freeway in the rain to pick up our friend Maia, who was riding down with us. Maia was almost beside herself with excitement, which was totally contagious, and by the time we got there, we were sooo ready.
Pulling into the parking lot we began to see pagan bumper stickers, pagans in hats, pagans in cloaks, people carrying drums, people wheeling carts with ritual wear in garmet bags, you name it, we saw it. We got parked, grabbed the essentials, and crammed into an elevator to go hunt down our room keys.
Having successfully obtained our room keys, the questions quickly arose. How do we get all our stuff inside? when do we eat? will we be able to make it to a 3:30 session? K was getting really hungry, and I wanted to wait till a cart freed up to bring in our luggage, but we both wanted to go to a 3:30 session and we both needed to get registered. These were conflicting desires. In the end K ate and went to a session, while I waited for a cart and brought stuff up. ( let the record show that I was not simply being a wimp- we had three cases of bottled water and lots of cans for soup-making that would have been both very heavy and extremely inconvenient to lug up by hand.)

Having brought stuff up with Jack of Bears, who was Caya Cart Master, I decided it was time to get registered. I went down, got in line, got my name tag (huzzah!) and got...a ribbon. It was at this point that I suddenly noticed ALL the ribbons. Ribbons for groups, ribbons for websites, ribbons for no apparent reason at all, witty ribbons, dry ribbons, ribbons with pictures, ribbons with quotes, ribbons EVERYWHERE. I was intrigued.
Returning upstairs to the Caya room, aka the Bear Cave (because it was also functioning as Jack and Iris' room, poor things), I got my first ribbons! They were 1) CAYA COVEN: HELLA SACRED, and 2) Major Tom is an Ascended Master (which is still my favorite). I also ran into Rowan, and we went down to peruse the vending room.

Holy hell, the vending room. I have never in my life seen so much stuff and so many people crammed into one room. So much AMAZING stuff. I was absolutely overwhelmed. I couldn't even begin to process it. Masks, crowns, jewelry, wands, carvings, drinking horns, hip scarves, pottery, henna, books, statues, and every other possible thing you could ever conceive of wanting. People were everywhere, in every state of dress or undress, from jeans and t-shirts and leather jackets, to long flowing dresses, to the incredible number of utilikilts (why don't THEY have a booth at p-con? they'd make a killing) to corsets, and so on. Eventually Rowan and I (and her kids, Indigo and Turtle) decided to go back up and see what everyone else was up to. There were rumors of dinner, and I needed to track down K.

After dinner, K and I went to our first event, "Silk and Honey: Erotic Tales from the African Diaspora", by Luisah Teish. It was interesting- it was not quite what I had imagined, but was still entertaining. In spite of the fact that it was advertised in the program as being 18+, it was probably only PG-13 rated, and was really tales about her life, rather than mythology or folk stories as I had expected. Still, she was a wonderful story teller, so in spite of it not being what I had expected, it was still a good time.
We didn't attend any of the events happening at 9pm, but at 11 we parted ways. K went to the Pomba Gira masked fete, and I went to the Grove of Artemis Amazon Ritual. It was, as I knew it would be, so so so awesome.

Though I am not a member of Caya's Amazon group, I know all of the women in it, and I do regularly go to the Grove of Artemis rituals, so I was excited to go a ritual full of people I knew. It was amazing. Because it was an Amazon ritual, we all (well, virtually all) began by taking our tops off. Now, admittedly, I am bi, so I was not averse to the idea of being topless in a room with a lot of other topless women in the first place. But attraction aside, it's such a great equalizer, and it is simply visually fascinating. Big breasts, small breasts, saggy breasts, tummies, abs, rolls, hips, the variety of the female figure was astounding. We cast the circle by holding hands and one by one turning to the woman on our left and saying "hand to hand, and heart to heart I cast this circle". Then there was singing and dancing, and drumming, and the Amazons performed a knife dance, which was awesome. At some point (and if I'm getting the details of this out of order, someone let me know- I was already tired, and a lot has happened since then), we danced around each other in a sort of double-helix pattern (two lines, going opposite ways and weaving in and out of each other) singing
"sister sister, what have they done to you,
sister sister where will you go?
sister sister, come to the temple,
sister sister artemis knows".
At first I was thinking that it seemed a bit morbid, but instead it had a very sort of caring, supportive vibe.
The main part of the ritual came with Lady Kahina holding up the giant labrys, and each woman came up to declare "I am an Amazon, and I love women! I am an Amazon because...." It was interesting, and got a variety of answers. I didn't get a chance to do it, because there was such a crowd, but just for the record, I AM AN AMAZON, AND I LOVE WOMEN. I AM AN AMAZON BECAUSE I AM NOT AFRAID OF FAILURE. *ahem*
In any case, the ritual was most excellent, with great energy, and I know that every woman there absolutely loved it.

When it was over, I went back upstairs, and K and I ended up hanging out in the bear cave for a while before turning in relatively early. We'd been warned about the exhaustion that can set in, and since we really wanted to last all weekend, we decided we'd better be prudent. sigh.

Coming soon- Act Two: "Tarot, Plant Familiars, and the Delightful Madness that was the OLT"

in which i receive some unexpected support, and wonder about the nature of blog.

So the other day I did a thing I rarely do. I posted a comment on someone else's blog. I will often post on blogs that belong to my personal friends, but I rarely comment on the more "public" blogs. There are usually too many comments, and I don't like sticking my neck out with my own opinion. I like to argue points, but I am sensitive about getting smacked down, and it seems with the anonymity of the interwebs, people are a lot more willing to really get into it with strangers, and that bothers me. I want a reasoned debate, not a hair-pulling session.

This blog, however, hit close to home. It was about the Anglican Church, and you can read it here, complete with comments.

So then I did something I do even more rarely, and that is out myself as a practicing christian. an episcopagan, if you will. ;) I really don't talk about this much, for a few reasons. First of all, I feel my faith is a very personal thing, and I don't like subjecting it to criticism. Second, most people feel the need to criticize it. Most christians think paganism is at best, flakey and useless, and at worst, utter blasphemey. Most pagans think christianity is at best archaic and patriarchal, and at worst, violent, exclusivist, and just plain wrong.

Of course both sides are right some of the time, and wrong some of the time. Certainly there have been horrible atrocities committed in the name of christianity, no question. However there have also been great works of mercy and compassion. Certainly also there are plenty of pagans who trivialize the faith by using it simply to stroke their ego and manipulate others, while there are also those who have a true connection to the divine and use it to bring light into the world.
Regardless, the most common reaction on both sides for someone with a foot in both camps is "gee, that's stupid".

As I don't like being called stupid, I don't talk about it much.

That said, I decided to go out on a limb and try to defend my anglican brethren while apologizing for the actions of a few. Initially, it ended poorly. I got the standard incredulous comment, and the standard "hur hur hur that's dumb" comment. Disappointedly, I drew the conclusion that things will never change. I will be a mostly closeted outcast in a group of mostly closeted outcasts if I get yelled at every time I stick my toe out the door. I resolved not to comment on the post again. It's not worth wasting your breath defending yourself to people who are not interested in listening.

Then the most delightful thing happened! Someone else defended me! I couldn't believe it! In fact, a couple of different people defended me! Amazing! Oh frabjous day! It sparked a small comments-page debate, which was relatively circuitous, but still interesting and mostly well-mannered. A good enough success, I think.

One of the people who supported me was a blogger named Yewtree, and so I went to her page to thank her, and discovered that she is a Unitarian Wiccan who blogs about her faith.
This, among a few other things, led me to question the nature of blog. Specifically my blog.

It seems like there are a lot of sort of soul-searching, faith-examining, mind-expanding blogs out there, talking about metaphysics and philosophy and deity and humanity and every other possible angle of religion and spirituality out there. What is my blog about? Me, mostly. My projects, my angst, my ego. Is this a problem? I don't know. Do I want my blog to be about something bigger than just me? Maybe, I'm not sure. Isn't blogging just the ultimate exercise is ego-stroking? If so, why should I bother blogging about anything other than myself?

Results inconclusive.
Check back later.

A February sun thaws what's left of Thursday's storm.

February has never been a month which I am fond of. It means unremitting school as far as the eye can see, cold, wet (though not here, apparently), early darkness, and so on. There are deadlines and due dates and grumpiness enough for all. It always has seemed to be a time when I vacillate between wallowing in self (guilt, hatred, pity, take your pick) and re-resolving to change for the better. Neither is a comfortable place to be.

This February is looking no different. The New Year's resolutions have fallen by the wayside, try as I might to pick them back up. I'm not beaten yet, but fighting two people's schedules and apathy when trying to eat better and exercise looks a lot like my own personal Everest. When I leave for school shortly after sunrise, and K gets home after dark, how are we supposed to fit in exercise? And when our separate schedules necessitates separate feeding times, how do we have healthy family dinner? so far it's an unanswered question.

And then there's Pantheacon. I'm very excited about it, but I've never been, so I'm also a little nervous. What will it be like? How many people will be there? Will it be overwhelming? I don't know.

I'm going to be in a production. Perhaps it was a bit mad to agree to be in a production without having seen it, but I am excited. I'll be playing/channeling the Sun in the OLT. It's been an interesting road so far. I wrote a monologue, which I liked, but which I was unsatisfied with as far as context. It just didn't/doesn't feel like it fits... So I wrote a new version, which I like better in context, but which is not as powerful as the first. So maybe I will write a third, and try to add the best parts of both together. We'll see.

Then my costume....sigh. I have a very literal brain. So, if I am the Sun card, I immediately try to look as much like the sun as possible. If I had been the Heirophant, I would have worn a pope hat, if I were the world, I would have carried a globe, this is just how my mind works. Having never seen the show, I also had no idea what the costumes look like. So, I made a costume, out of different color fabrics cut in rays, with a shiny "night" cloak, and a bitchin mask. I showed up at our dress rehearsal, put on my costume, and watched as everyone else came in. It was horrible. I looked like the kidnergartner who accidentally wandered into the high school hipsters ball. "MY SHINY COLORS, LET ME SHOW YOU THEM" meets "whatever, man. fuck authority." I was so embarrassed.

I'm going to scrap the whole thing, except for the mask. (Not literally, I'm sure I can use it for something else someday). I think I'm going to go mod instead. I have a little yellow dress I can wear, and yellow high heels. That and the mask should be good. I just wish I'd know before I A) spent money on fabric, and B) looked like an idiot. Oh well.

So it goes. Just a few more days, and the festivities begin!
Hope to see you there.
T