Weirdly Out of Options

It's interesting how something that is a serious problem and a massive inconvenience can also benefit my life.

For lack of anything better to do, I've been "forced" to meditate, ground and center every single night the last few nights before I go to bed. I know I should do this anyways. It's really helpful, I fall asleep faster, and sleep better when I do all three shortly before bed. As someone with serious sleeping problems (it's been called disordered before), anything that helps is a boon. Yet, for some reason, these three things are massively difficult to force myself into. And it is forcing. Sometimes violently forcing myself to do things.

It's partly a matter of focus. Getting myself to sit down and just do it can be almost an insurmountable task. There's an extent to which if you don't have ADD/ADHD, you don't get it. You don't get how massively painful it is to force oneself to do something that you can't seem to focus on. It isn't even a question of wanting. There are things I genuinely enjoy, but can hardly bring myself to do because the forcing, it hurts. Literally hurts. If my hyper focus decides that it won't chose a certain activity, then that activity is not on the list of things I can easily do.

It isn't about my mind not being able to calm down. It isn't even just fidgeting too much. It's getting up and doing the most random shit before I even realize "Oh yeah, I was going to ground and center." It's being halfway through getting out the eggs before I realize I was going to meditate, not cook. It's jittery, excitability, movement and racing thoughts, even when I'm so tired I can barely move.

Except right now I have nothing else to do.

No cooking, no logging onto my computer, no texting or calling, nothing. I can't even read or write after about 11 at the moment. Well, not without extreme visual difficulty.

There isn't anything else to get up and do so eventually, I'm able to force myself to meditate. Eventually, I ground and center. And then I meditate some more. Because I finally have the focus, the time, and the space for it. So, I do my offerings, and I take my time. I find ways to stay up and fuck up my sleep still, yet...

This way the meditations are done. I am grounded and centered. And despite the anxiety inducing disaster that has forced this weird time upon me, despite the literal anxiety attack consuming my evening, I am doing better because of it.

Maybe when things work out (and I get a new place to live), I can continue with my meditating. Maybe then it won't take as much forcing, because of this time when there isn't anything else. Sometimes, being out of options is the best option.

PBP: Fasting and Feasting

I can't fast in a traditional "eat no food" sort of sense. I can't go a day without food, even if it just sun up to sun down. I can't even skip meals. I'm not diabetic, but I do have issues with blood sugar, and when I don't eat I end up doing silly things like passing out and ending up with a nice lump on the back of my head.

I fast by cutting things out of my life, and not around food. I fast by not allowing myself to watch Netflix for a month. Or taking a weekend to unplug from everything, internet, phone, tv, the works. Usually I unplug at cons. These days it is a bit harder as there are things structurally in my life that make unplugging problematic for others and not just myself, but I'm still working that out. At some point, I'm going to attempt the exercise of a silent weekend. Preferably, while camping or otherwise away from my home where I hear everything in the streets nearby. Silent weekend. Unplug things that are not necessary  and turn them all off. Turn off the phone, the music, even the fan. Journal, write, read, but do not talk or otherwise make noise. Sit with the silence. This is an endeavor I hope to accomplish at some point.

But one of the points of fasting is appreciating the feast. The abundance. And other than the verbal expression of gratitude to the people in my life who contribute to said abundance, other than occasional mentions of it to the Gods, Spirits, and other such Beings in my life, I am terrible at appreciating abundance.

I didn't think of things in these sorts of terms. Partly because I shy away from dichotomies. Boundaries are flexible, blurry things in my mind and life, as are definitions. So, thinking of feast as opposed to fast (or famine) is a difficult endeavor for me. They aren't dichotomous in the sense of opposites, but in the sense of complements, of counterparts.

Except a ritual last week (and why this entry is going up late) made me rethink my paradigms around these subjects. I was a ritual guide for another, and their ritual was one of cutting away unhealthy things and appreciating the abundance of healthy things in their life. Part of the ritual was a literal feast of abundance. There was more than we could eat or even offer. The rest were leftovers, intentionally, to be eaten at another time.

Also, it was actually a good example of giving freely to the Gods as well, because this individual decided at various points to give more in offerings than planned. They basically decided at various points that they wished to offer more, and so they did. I'm always pleased when people decide that to offer more (especially when such offerings create no hardship,) the Gods appreciate an abundance as well. But, as usual, I digress.

I fast in part to appreciate the feast. Now, I am working on structuring a new ritual for my life, feasting to appreciate the times of famine. Be it a dinner with friends, or perhaps just an overabundance of good reading, there are plenty of times for a moment of thanks, a moment of appreciation and a moment for my Gods.

Fasting I use mostly as a form of cleansing, and especially as ritual preparation  Time that feasting takes it's own place in my life as something beyond the mundane.

E is for Expressing Emotion

Oh, I wrote my previous E and D posts. They just never made it up onto this blog. Either written in my journal or in "unfinished" posts, they were done enough for me but not enough for public. Except all three were done in a manner that I eventually decided wasn't meant for public, that the need was to write them at all. 

Also, in case this wasn't clear. I'm trans, FAAB, and will refer to my youth as a girl and my present existence that isn't binary.

I hate crying in public. Not to say I haven't ever shed tears in public, after all, how would I realize I hated it if I had no experience with it? I hate crying in public but I've certainly done my share of it. Hell, I spent my last semester of high school crying almost every day through class. Or before class. Or after. Yeah, lot of tears then. A lot of tears that summer too. Tears from stress, tears from pain, and especially tears of heartbreak.

I never used to cry in movies. I was one of three girls in my seventh grade class who didn't cry when we were taken to see a (truly bad) movie that involved some pretty gruesome and depressing deaths. I just found the movie tedious and badly done. I never cried at/in a movie until I was 18. And that movie I went to see alone. Opening night, I sat in the theater, surrounded by strangers, glad that no one I knew could look over in the dark and see the tears on my cheeks. Outside of the movies, I cried far too easily. I cried when people yelled. Not because of any particular emotional response actually, just a side-effect of the way I grew up. Despite being good at handling pain and fear, they still made me cry. And tears made me feel weak.

I don't cry much anymore.

Tears don't come to my eyes. They haven't in the last three plus years since I started testosterone. My emotions express themselves without tears falling from my eyes and it is a massive relief. Pain can lace my face, fear or hurt lining my eyes without a tear falling. Shaking, trembling, shouting, whispering, I can chose my preferred methods of expression. Excepting movies.

At first, I thought it was just that the Star Trek reboot movie happened to have incredibly powerful emotional associations (to events that some of my closest friends are still coping with PTSD over.) Until I realized that the tears sprang to my eyes and my throat closed up at more and more movies. Films done right induce massive swells of emotion. Music and lighting can evoke so much, even when I don't give a shit about the characters. Maybe it's the bombast, or the sudden silence startling you into the realization of how much something has gone wrong... but movies bring tears to my eyes all the damn time.

Each time my throat closes up, each time my eyes start leaking, it hurts. It doesn't hurt in the sense that I'm in emotional pain and this is some of that pain leaking out, it hurts in that I am out of control.

Every tear is an ordeal.

I cannot control it. I do not always understand it. I am stripped of control and the masks I have so carefully constructed. I am stripped of defense and the armor of pleasant amusement that I have cultivated as my default expression. I am at a loss as to why I'm crying. I'm not brought to tears from a powerful scene exactly. It isn't the gut wrenching, knife twisting, moments that tend to do it. I'm just as likely to cry at a overly bombastic ridiculous action sequence as a class Joss Whedon tear-your-heart-out-and-chop-because-he-lives-on-the-tears-of-his-fans moment.

Every tear is an ordeal.

It may be witnessed if I'm watching something in public. It may be a private ordeal, alone in my room before I fall asleep. I cannot let the moment rest. I can't let it just be. And maybe that's why it keeps happening. I cannot let it rest until I understand, and I have yet to understand it. Maybe I'm supposed to be learning a lesson and failing.

Every tear is an ordeal.

One that I don't understand. I don't know what I'm supposed to be learning. Maybe even just to be more open and expressive. Maybe to let things be. I don't know. And, maybe there is no point. It isn't that I'm insisting that this comes from Someone. That this is because of Something. That this ordeal must be caused by the Universe for some purpose. I can learn something without all of that.

Not every ordeal is set up for you, not every ordeal is expected. Not everything is a path set before you, sometimes you trip and fall on your face, and end up breaking three ribs. Those random accidents, those genuine coincidences? Those can be ordeal too. The difference is in how you look at them. So, I chose this path.

I chose to make each tear an ordeal.

The alternative is for it to mean nothing. I've been an existentialist for longer than I can remember. The fact is, in the long run, none of it matters. Which is why all of it matters to me. Every tear, every tremor of my body, every coursing stream of self-hatred I feel as another tear slides down my cheek is of meaning to me. I inscribe each tear into my body and mind. I ask why. I search for meaning, for cause.

And so far, I've failed this ordeal. And that is okay too.

C is for Courting

Late... due to Nemo. The storm, not the fish.

Sometimes Deities stay at a distance. Spirits stay out of your life, and the mundane remains the focus of your life. Sometimes the world comes crashing down around your ears as Someone decides to get involved. But there is an in between space. Sometimes, you get courted.

Courtship... in so many ways a prelude and yet it is often all consuming. Outside of the spiritual/religious realms, we as a society are taught to fixate on the early stages of relationships. Does I like them? Do they like me back? Were they flirting? Why do I always make a fool of myself in front of them? Is this a date? On and on, we are engrossed to exhaustion. NRE comes and suddenly logic flies out the window. It is no surprise that something so dominant in our societies has become a tool of the Gods.

Though don't be surprised either if they use courting techniques that aren't so common anymore. They have many more years of courtship rituals to draw upon, and They will use whatever They so chose.

A flower here. A whisper there. Spaced out, wondering if it's all in your heard or if that Someone is actually noticing you. Not being sure if you actually want Their notice, because in so many ways that can be terrifying. Is terrifying. Even the questioning "Is this what I want?" can shake a person to the core. This courtship can come out of nowhere. It isn't always your "type" of Deity who comes knocking and doing the equivalent of asking you out. (For some people, not equivalent, they are being asked out by said Deity.) The courtship is a choice. It's a dance. They step, you step, perhaps a slow waltz, perhaps it's capoeira.

It is a two way street. Yes, you can go out and court Them, but just like with people, They have every right to reject you. Maybe you'll get a reason, such as "you're not what I'm looking for," and that will probably suck a lot. Rejection is like that. And it is rejection, so don't forget to treat it as such, and respect how much it will probably suck for you to feel said rejection. But as I said, two way street, you are perfectly allowed to reject them. Except, rejection has consequences. This will probably not endear you to Them. Perhaps it will slide by, with little effect. On the other hand, rejecting Hermes right before a lot of travel could very well lead to canceled flights and mechanical errors. I'm not saying this is likely, but if Someone is going through the effort to court you, just be prepared for the potential reaction if They're suit is rejected. Though that isn't how a failed suit necessarily ends. Sometimes things just fall to the wayside, sliding out of your life unnoticed until they day you sit up and realize it's been gone for a while. That happens too.

I like being courted, by mortals or by Them. I like courting too. I appreciate the structure of reaching out, learning about one another, and most importantly, the easy ways to refuse. Yeah, rejection sucks, but at least through courtship there are viable routes of rejection. "I'm just not that into Y/you" is a completely legitimate response, and approaching things this way makes that response appropriate.  I'm a huge fan of consent, and this is one of the easiest ways for any and all parties to have an appropriate "out" early on. Not to mention it's a good deal politer on our side of things, instead of banging down the door begging for attention.

But for me, the biggest "Holy shit this makes sense" part of the courtship thing? I'm an oblivious person. In fact, I can (and have) sat friends down and explained every nuance of the body language of someone who was flirting with them. I broke it down and laid it out so they could both understand and reciprocate. Someone flirts with me? I'm totally clueless. Someone attempts to court me? I don't notice a damn thing, even when that Someone isn't at all subtle about it.

Thank you flashing neon signs of subtly.

C is for Clue x 4

From Wikipedia.

Sometimes, things are a subtle as a 2x4 to the head. I call such "subtleties" clue by fours. Or clue x 4. You get the idea...

I'm not always the most observant person. It has taken some former partners of mine literally straddling my lap and kissing me before I realized that they might be interested back. As I said, as subtle as a 2x4 to the head. But what does this have to do with paganism, witchcraft, or other such woo?

Many of us are a little bit dense when it comes to our practices. Sometimes it takes getting beat over the head with a clue x 4 more than once for us to wake up and listen. Or, in my case, the ceiling literally falling in, because that's how much subtly is in my life.

A while ago I had one of my worst depressive episodes, shit got real bad. And that was when I started to really pick back up my practice. My college had not been religion-friendly, and I hadn't changed my non-practicing habits immediately after. So, when the shit hit the fan (unemployed, depressed, single) I had the time to sit down and begin again. I picked up my tarot deck and sat down to see what it had to say.

In the first few weeks after picking it up? I learned every way possible for my Tarot de Marseille deck to tell me I was depressed. I ask about anything, and it's reply was "you're depressed." Not advice on something to do, not telling me it was going to get better or worse, just every way possible of smacking reality in my face. Apparently, since I was finally learning to read from more than just the little white book, my deck decided to make it very easy for me to understand what it was saying. Anytime those cards pop up? I know what they mean. I know the variations on the theme, upright, reversed, sideways, blocked, blocking, I know those cards. And though I finally got it on another subject, my deck chooses to continue with the smackings of my head. When I branched out into another deck, it shared the head-smacking qualities.

I warn people when I read for them that I will seem to state the obvious. That my readings will not be what they want to hear, and that even when I have absolutely no clue what the shit I am saying to them means, they will have no doubt as to the meaning of my words.

My divination methods seem to think I'm a thick-headed child. Who is they must speak to slowly, in small words, and quite possibly at the top of their lungs.

Except the Runes. I've finally begun reading with them, and it still a clue x4, but instead of a simple 2x4, it's an elaborately carved 2x4 with beautiful and detailed drawings smacking my head repeatedly.

Maybe some people can pick up on the little things. A song or two, something overheard from conversations, etc. My ADHD brain doesn't pick up on them in any permanent way. It floats right on by, and even if I notice it's quickly lost to the next passing squirrel.

It isn't that the little things don't matter. The conversation after a class at a completely unrelated event, the squall line across a lake, a moment spent cuddling with the dog... They matter, personally and spiritually, even religiously. But the meaning is that which I have inscribed. Those moments are moments of faith and appreciation. They aren't unexamined, things to ponder, messages I need to understand, or lessons to learn.

So, Universe... what are you smacking me upside the head with tonight?

Pagan Blog Project: B is for Bard

Bards. Oh Bards.

A small, heavily armed Bard from the
D&D 3.5 Player's Handbook.

Inevitably, my mind jumps to the (usually) least consequential member of an adventuring party in a game. Such as the spoony bard from Final Fantasy IV/II fame. My mind goes to the stereotypical useless class of bards in 3.5, except that the one time I did play a bard, she kicked so much ass that it got ridiculous. Bards, useless, lute-toting story tellers.

And all of those associations are full of shit. Yes, my associations are bullshit.

The Immortal Bard is Shakespeare, a playwright.* Stories are ridiculously important to me, as is music (even if my singing is painful beyond measure.) They speak to the kind of truth that isn't about facts, and that is something I hold dear. Allow me a digression (because I do love my digressions)...

Last May, I was in a discussion with a friend about my beliefs as a polytheist. Pretty sure this friend is an atheist, but not the proselytizing, anti-religious variety. Rather, she deeply and profoundly wanted to understand. And we spent a lot of time on the subject of mythologies. I said that myths could be true without having actually happened. That truth wasn't about factual instances, but something more. She truly had no idea what I was trying to say. No idea what I meant by separating truth from fact. I told her to read The Little Prince. A day and a half later she came to me and said she understood, though her precise words were thanking me for making her read that book.

Bards don't report facts. Facts are much like statistics, they can be twisted to mean just about anything. Bards are truth tellers. They speak to the truth of the matter, but they do so through the performance and written arts... the non-visual arts. The art of music, of dance, of theater, of poetry, of stories... and maybe too the visual arts but we don't call them Bards. Maybe we should. Because if you stand in the Musée d'Orsay in front Van Gogh's Starry Night Over the Rhone, I defy you not to see the truth in his work. Or more contemporarily, Bards are found in film. Casablanca is a fictional story, made during WWII in 1942, and it has became a classic. More importantly is the scene where the cast begins to sing the French national anthem, drowning out the nazis's own song. What most people don't realize is that extras and minors roles were filled with many refugees and exiles. The fictional film brings to light the truth that could not be otherwise felt deep in one's gut.

I have a deep and abiding love for art. Honestly, my deep and abiding love for art is especially true for those forms that are "traditionally" in the bardic arts. Written and spoken word, music and performance.  Yet, my associations are so dismissive. I'm not saying there isn't frippery and really really BAD shit in those fields (I hesitate to use art to describe anything Katy Perry has touched); however, even in the shit-tastic land of pop music charts we get gems like Cee Lo's "Fuck You." And if you have ever been dumped, no matter the circumstances, you most likely can relate to that one.

The specific word "Bard" has been on my mind for over a year. Since a professional divination reading (in regards to a ritual I did that year) turned up the word, it has been on my mind. But it came up in connection to another word, and that to me is a large part of why Bards differ from other artists.

Community.

Bards serve communities. They speak for a people, even if that people has yet to emerge. Shakespeare wrote for England, and though he did write for royalty, his main audience was the average worker. Today's high brow art form is literally yesterday's flipping the finger (or even fart jokes.) It spoke to a community of people.

I am lacking in community these days. I have been remiss in establishing a spiritual network, or any sort of local network for that matter. My social systems are scattered around the country. Texas, Missouri, California, Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, Washington, District of Columbia... Yeah, I'm not so locally based, and none of that community is spiritually based.

Which is something I've seen the need to change. And I'm beginning to. Slowly.

Except that word keeps ringing in my ears. Bard. Bard. Bard. Each time like a clear bell tone, cutting through the cacophony in my head. I am a writer. I am a story teller. I am occasionally even a poet. I've been a musician, and perhaps it is time to retrain that as well. That word ringing between my ears, and after over a year of marinating, I'm pretty sure it is something I need to become. At least, for now, as who knows what tomorrow shall bring. For now, though, it is an archetype to work with, to contextualize experience, and to give direction to my ever present learning.

None of this even begins to touch on the power that the bardic arts have. Words have power, and language is a spell, a magical system, even before we start down the path of us spooky types. Words the ingredients, grammar the structure, the rules to follow and break as we so choose. The power of practice and focused rehearsal, of the repetition of edits and hammering out that sentence or rhyme. But... I've rambled for long enough. The innate magics of Bards can be a subject for another time.


*Throughout this post I use and reference Shakespeare, and another dead white guy here and there. I actually am not a fan of how "big" such works are and how thoroughly canonized Shakespeare's plays have become, nor am I a huge fan of using yet another dead white dude; however, they are convient examples because of all that jazz, since most people are familiar with such works and general attitudes about it. Maybe one day I'll post a rant about the literary canon. My old professors would be so proud. (/sarcasm.)

Pagan Blog Project: B is for Boundaries

Maybe this post ought to belong more under L for Liminality, but boundaries will do. And if you wonder why this is a few days late, go look up Douglas Adams' opinion on deadlines.

I exist at midpoints and cross-sections, my life is a liminal space. Some of this is obvious, seeing as I'm not just trans (FAAB if you're wondering) but literally "in transition." My physical body hops back and forth across the line between what are considered traditionally male and female attributes. I'm not what most people would consider androgynous, but for those who really get to see my body there isn't a better word. Unless there was a word akin to ambivalent for androgynous, as I am not a blending, an absence, but rather a mix of strongly attributed signs of both male and female. But I digress. The point I make here, is that my life isn't actually filled with mixes of colors. It appears that way from a distance, like a Seurat painting, upon close inspection it is series of dots. I'm strangely unmixed, filled with boundaries instead of a smooth blend. So, unshockingly, boundaries have been on my mind a great deal lately.

Boundaries are something many (if not most) pagans/polytheists/etc. recognize as a thing power. Most magically inclined people I know have some kind of ward on their home specially based/focused on the threshold. 

Look at transitional times and spaces, we find some truly spiritually powerful concepts. Dusk and dawn, the times of twilight when we exist in neither day or night. Midnight is the division between the days themselves, and aniversaries, be they the New Year, or the marking an occasion like the day one was born, are celebrated thresholds in time. The tops of cliffs mark the border between earth and sky, and sometimes water, if they fall off into a lake, river, ocean, etc. The boundaries are sacred places where difference meets.

Except, many woo/spooky sorts of people have a really terrible sense of personal boundaries. We don't admit to how much we nonconsensually push our energy on others. Coming from multiple communities where every touch was asked, even a handshake or a welcoming hug to an old friend, the I abhor idea of sending personal energy to another person without prior consent. 

A concept I picked up at a BDSM class was the idea of ETDs, energetically transmitted diseases. The woo-folk in the class all got sudden looks of realization. Upon the instructor saying "you know how you hook up with someone, and end up with their baggage?" everyone else's faces in the room got the same look. Ever since then I've been drastically more careful about my own personal energetic boundaries. Particularly when hooking up with people, I'm very careful about making sure neither of us walks away with the other's shit to deal with.

Except many people who work with energy do NOT think about boundaries. So many people send healing energies at others without prior consent. Sure, healing energies have their time and place, but to me it's akin to penicillin. Sure, it revolutionized medicine and treated all sorts of things, but if you give it to me, I end up in the hospital. Not to mention the number of things it doesn't do anything about. Sending unwanted energy? Same thing. Other people having written about this subject more in depth and more eloquently. But the fact remains, many pagans/woo type folk are shit about consent.

I hold no excuses, and in my early years as a practitioner I was not so great about consent either. But partway through high school I realized my energy didn't "play well with others." There were a lot of reasons for that, but those didn't matter half so much as the realization that pushing unwanted energy onto others caused actual problems. My life was a shitstorm of mostly-failed attempts at coping, and no one deserved an ounce of what I was going through. Their lives were hard enough without someone else's shit dropping in on them. When I finally heard the concept of ETDs, things clicked into place. Years prior I had that knowledge but not the words. I stopped working with others in any spiritual or magical capacity for years until my life, and energy, were drastically more under control.

Clear defined boundaries are something we need to pay a lot more attention to. Yes, because they are healthy useful things that keep us all healthy and productive. Yes, because of consent. Yes, because even spirits and Gods sometimes need to be told a clear "No." But beyond all that, we need clear boundaries because boundaries are sacred. That clear line delineating between my energy and yours? Sacred. It is a holy thing to me. Respecting that boundary, and crossing it with permission are sacred acts to be celebrated. Respecting the power found in boundaries, and liminal spaces, requires respecting those boundaries.

It isn't about crossing lines or not crossing them, it's about being aware of permission, of consent.

PBP: A is for Ambivalent

Ambivalent is a delightful word, but not what many people assume. I like it's denotation. Definitionally:  simultaneous and contradictory attitudes or feelings (as attraction and repulsion). Thank you Merriam-Webster.

Simultaneous. Contradictory.
Concurrent. Opposing.

As a person I am filled with ambivalence. I am rarely apathetic, but often appear to others that way because I am filled with such a mix of strong emotions. Getting excited meant being told to "calm down" or "there's no need to be upset" even if all I was doing was expressing interest. So, unless there is a strong emotion without a similarly strong opposition, I tend not to express myself overly much. There are too few words for adore/abhor, for petrified/pleasing, for desire/disgust... There is this notion that when you mix strong emotions, it is black + white = the banal flat grey. Instead, ambivalence is akin to mixing colored light. Red + Green = Yellow. A whole new color emerges. Magenta (Blue + Red) + Green = White. We always think of white as an absence of color, despite many of us knowing that really it is all the colors, formed by compliments and contrasts.

My path is one of opposition.

I am a person filled with ambivalence, so it is not shocking that ambivalence fills my spiritual practice as well. Strong contradicting emotions are an underlying theme in much of what I do. I am ambivalent towards much of Judaism, especially to the many things that leave any ancestor work out of the question. I am ambivalent even towards something as basic as meditation. I dread and welcome my dreams as well.

Every bed I slept in with regularity (in the years prior to my current bed) was warded against dreams. Not just warded to keep me from dreaming, but from all dreams. I daydreamed elsewhere. I drew up wards strong enough that a former lover could not spend the night in my bed because she would wake up unrested if she didn't dream. I warded good dreams and bad dreams, portents, contacts, and the ramblings of my own mind. I had to refresh them regularly, for they took quite a beating from my sleeping mind.

I warded against dreams because most of my dreams were nightmares, many related to my history of trauma and abuse. The little relief I had from nightmares were not actually better, as instead it became an escape from reality that made it incredibly difficult to function the following day. Knowing that without wards I had a 95% chance of not being able to handle it, I created quite possibly the strongest wards I have ever consciously set my mind to make. Repeatedly. (Especially as I moved quite often in those years.) Rather than attempting something beyond my capacities, I delayed dealing. It was a marathon to deal with, and attempting would not only leave me tired, sore and no where near the finish line, I was incredibly likely to injure myself in the process.

Since moving to this apartment, no wards against dreams have been erected. This bed, with two and a half years under me, is not a fortress against dreams. I relish each dream I receive, because with the years of warding they are infrequent. I remember them poorly, and understand them even less. I relish each one, even while I dread the dreams that leave me broken.

For me, not even love of Those Who I Work With is unopposed by another contradicting emotion. Nor do I think it should be (at least, for my current relationships with Them.) My gnosis and belief is filled with skepticism. I mix lights to bring out the shape of things, to bring out their shadows.

I need a word for adore/abhor. For disgusted desire. We know these states, but so rarely do single words describe the ambivalence. So, I seek words that describe them, the simple word to capture the rainbow in white and the contrasting shadow.

Decided to do PBP2013 with the following attitude in mind: Posts will happen when the time coincides with something that makes sense for me to post publicly. Just figured I'd mention in case anyone is going through this blog as a whole/not just from the Pagan Blog Project.