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