Saturday, August 23, 2014

Those Who Know, Don't Speak...

...if only those who don't know would also not speak, we'd be in business.

See, while having coffee this morning, I checked out my usual websites. Among which is Fetlife. There's the feed...there's my friend, X, saying he looks forward to seeing this new guy at some event. Why does the name of New Dude seem familiar?

OH SHIT. IT'S MR. LEFT-HAND-PATH FROM A FEW YEARS BACK.

Mr. LHP and I butted heads most vigorously during one of my sad little forays into the Houston pagan community. He kept insisting that he knew this and that and the other about traditional, oathbound Wicca. But, of course, was not an actual, vouchable initiate.

Needless to say, my protests that if you are not an actual part of an oathbound trad, you do not know the oathbound stuff you're claiming to know and are therefore wrong, fell on ears firmly plugged with fingers and unicorns and white light and shit.

Now he's likely to be hanging out with people who are my friends, but whose minds are sometimes just a leeeeetle too open. Explaining to them that this dude is a moron and should be ignored posthaste is unlikely to garner anything but "Well, he's not that bad...". Which he is.

Oh, come on, you say. He's not hurting anyone. The hell he's not. If you claim to know shit that you can't possibly know, then you are a liar. Or delusional. In the one case, you should be shunned. In the other, either ignored or have it suggested that even the Dragonriders of Pern could probably use some therapy.*

This is why I refuse to have anything further to do with "the community" - the kinky one or the pagan one. Too much drama. Too much bullshit. Too many people who feel, rightly or no, that their lives are sad, meaningless, and mundane - and think that being a Dominant/vampire/Grand High Poobah Clergy Pagan/animal-human hybrid will make everything better. Especially if we mix everything together!

Yes, ladies, gents, and others. The day has come. The ocelot has turned into the kind of Old Fart who says shit like, "Y'know, that's great and all, but I really think they're taking this just a little too far."


*I kid you not - there were people in Colorado who really, truly thought (or told everyone they did) that they were Dragonriders of Pern. This despite the fact that they were one of the most out-of-shape bunch of weenies it has ever been my misfortune to slap eyes on.

Monday, July 28, 2014

Civilized?

I was reading Deb's most recent post, and thinking about being civilized.

My boss has suddenly taken a dislike to me. I have ideas why. They're boring and are more about her being mad at her boss than anything else. The neighbors where the Baba Yega Trailer used to be are rapidly becoming a pain in the ass. The neighbor across the way's literally mangy dog* and his belligerent refusal to put her on a leash is becoming an even bigger pain in my ass. Never mind his refusal to put on a shirt while in public and the subsequent lowering of the aesthetics of the Trailer Park of the Damned.

What is my reaction to all this?

The desire to start taking people's heads off with a katana.

Now, I ask you - what on earth are They thinking, that They want some crazed, only half-civilized creature whose general reaction to others being mean, rude, and/or unreasonable is to re-start the Cult of the Severed Head in front of her trailer with the aid of Quickcrete and cinderblocks?

I somewhat doubt this is what is meant by Mysteries.


*I feel bad for the dog. I also do not need my dog getting it.


Sunday, June 8, 2014

Wherein The Ocelot Gets A Student.

As of last Monday, I am training again. One student. So far, nothing but pluses to this:

-All the moniez are belong to me. Also, cash.
-She can tack and untack without me standing there and monitoring everything. She does the tacking in about ten minutes. Correctly.
-It's her horse. Which means no huge financial investment on my part.

In other news, Jeebus Grandma-In-Law sent the Husband a link on Facebook to an "ex-Wiccan" who found Jeebus after the fundies she kept dating kept getting scooped back into the brainwashing - I mean, loving arms of their families. Yeah. And JG-I-L wonders why I don't want to spend massive amounts of time hanging out with her (never mind that if I had massive amounts of time, this place wouldn't look like two single, straight, male constructions workers live here) - could it be that I get tired of hearing about her religion, how mine is wrong, etc. so forth?

It's tempting to tell her I converted and then call her at all hours telling her what Jeebus is telling me:

"Jeebus just talked to me while I was on the can. Does it totally wig you out when he does that to you, or does it stop being so weird after a while?"

"Jeebus says corn is awesome and one of his Dad's best ideas and so you better get over that idea that you're allergic to it and get to noshin'."

"Jeebus says it's OK if I'm still Wiccan because 'Thou shalt have no Gods before me' just means his Dad just doesn't want to see it. It's like 'don't Ask, Don't Tell'."

Heh.

Saturday, May 17, 2014

What A Witch Really Wants.

While talking to my brilliant & kindly HPS today about the Summary Shitcanning from The Barn and whether I want to teach there at all assuming the one student they told me I could still have comes back from a sabbatical, she said, wisely, that as far as long-term goals, it sounded as though I still need to decide what I want.

I know what I don't want. I don't want any more crazy - not dumb & crazy, not brilliant but crazy, none of it. I don't want random dressings-down, insane horses I'm afraid to put my students on, or bizarre business plans.

In short, unless someone is ridiculously stable (LOL SEE WHAT I DID THERE), I don't want to work for anyone else again. I don't want to have a big barn with a lot of show-oriented riders and eventually have to hire someone else to do what I can't  (I never showed high level, and it's been twenty years since I jumped anything taller than two-six).

I don't want to have so many lessons that it starts to feel like an assembly line, or so that rescheduling is almost impossible, or so that my hypothetical horses never get a day off.

I don't want to have to depend on teaching for a living - it's too feast-or-famine for my Scottish financial comfort.

I want a small barn - five schooling horses and no more than ten boarders, some of whom may or may not take lessons. I want to cater to adults who don't care if they ever show. I want a few kids who basically become equine slave labor through their teens. I want boarders who are there to ride, not to try to throw the latest training sensation at everyone else or allow their ill-behaved spawn to run wild through the barnyard. Hell, I don't even care if they ride all that much, so long as someone cares for and interacts with their horse.

Of course, the next question is how the hell I make this happen. Time to consult the oracles.

Monday, May 12, 2014

Because The Salt Across Her Office Doorway Isn't Working.

One of my co-workers is the type of person whose basic personality conflicts with mine in the way that makes me want to whack her with my old Stanford-Binet scores while shouting, "STOP TALKING TO ME LIKE I AM STUPID". She also seems to have some weird desire to make herself look good by making me look less good. My immediate boss is aware of this and always comes to my defense when she hears Annoying Co-Worker doing this.

Today's conversation convinces me that administering Bewitched Baked Goods is going to be necessary:

AC-W: There's a lady on the phone etc so forth blah blah.
ME: (In my head: so why didn't you transfer her to me in the first place?) OK, well, if you told her how to XY the Z, I'm not sure what else I can tell her.
AC-W: Blah blah blah unwillingness to deal
ME: OK. What line is she on?
AC-W: Line 2.
ME: (nota bene: when you put someone on hold, the light for that line blinks) Huh. The line isn't blinking, though. (genuine confusion on my part)
AC-W: (smugly) Yes it is.
ME: No, no it isn't. I can see all 3 lines, none of which are blinking.
AC-W: (still with the smug) Well, it's blinking on mine.
ME: Well, it isn't on mine, so can you transfer her?

It would be bad, wrong, and a violation of Annoying Co-Worker's Free Will to put charmed baked goods in the break area, wouldn't it? I should just surround myself with white light and hold a rose quartz crystal and think loving thoughts at her. I should try to convey in "I messages" that she can talk to me as though I am an intelligent adult, and that my communication style differs from hers, so here's how we can work together more productively.

Or I can hex the hell out of some godsdamn bread and cackle every time she takes a bite.

Wednesday, April 23, 2014

Equisnot?

Or it could be that that dream was a warning to eat more fruit and take some echinacea, because yesterday I got sick. I am still sick. I paid $30 to learn this, but at least I got antibiotics out of it. I hate my nose.

I am going to hose everyone at work down with Lysol.

That is all for now.

Monday, April 21, 2014

Equinox.

Equinox; equal night. Maybe this is my personal equinox - the light and dark balanced.

Last night, after love, I anointed my own forehead and asked for guidance in dreams, for Sight. And I dreamed. But all I remembered when I woke was telling a bunch of people, "They say I'm dying. But I feel fine. Besides, shouldn't I look sick?" I wasn't scared, just sure that whoever had told me this was wrong.

Somehow, I doubt this has much to do with the Waking World and a lot more to do with the Unseen. I imagine I'll find out soon enough.

Monday, April 14, 2014

Open Letter To The Idiot Landlord.

Dear Idiot Landlord,

We told you that the tree where we park needed trimming so it didn't throw another branch through another of our windshields. You have yet to do so. You have been far too busy pulling out old trailers (so that you can rent still more substandard housing) and tending your garden.

Don't make me blight your crops, you rapacious, tax-evading bastard. While I would feel bad about hurting innocent plants, I would not feel bad about giving you a serious case of the pants-ruining shits.


No love,
the ocelot

Tuesday, April 8, 2014

I've Been Nominated!

The kind and debonair Veles at Adventures In Witchery has nominated me for a Liebster blog award. I have no idea what this is, but am flattered. Onward to the questions I'm supposed to answer!

1. What is your most favorite magical mistake?

Putting a ward on my dorm room in my sophomore year of college, but forgetting to ward the rest of the house...which meant that the Little Nasty just lurked by my door and scared shit out of two previously skeptical friends. Whoops.

2. What resource (book,etc) do you actively discourage people from reading?
 
Y'know, I don't. I'll tell someone if I think something is shite and why, but I don't even slap a certain author's tiresome tomes out of the hands of noobs (cough - silverravenwolf - cough). Even errata can teach us something.
 
3. A God you'd most like to shag? (We love blasphemy here at Adventures in Witchery)
 
Hm. Pan. And Aphrodite. Jointly and severally.
 
4. Favorite movie witch?
 
Ooo. Tough call. I can't pick just one, so I'll do a top three: Jessica Lange as Fiona on AHS: Coven, Britt Eckland as Willow in The Wicker Man, and Lachlan Morrison in The Wicker Tree.
 
5. Favorite actual witch?
 
Historically? It's a tie between Doreen Valiente and Biddy Early. Personally? All the ones I know and like, both online and in meatspace. Special shout-out to my coven, who, of course, are my favorite favorites.
 
Yes, I know, I am demolishing the meaning of "favorite". Shoo.
 
6. What first drew you to witchcraft?
 
The full moon in the woods on cold spring nights in upstate NY. A book called "The Active-Enzyme, Lemon-Freshened, Junior High School Witch." The idea, gleaned from reading about Native Americans, that everything has a soul. The idea, gleaned from the ancient Greeks, that there are many gods. And, being Irish, probably genetics - I don't think you can get the polytheism out of a Mick.
 
7. If you could go back in time to your newbie self, what mistakes would you correct?
 
I wouldn't almost ask out the Dean of Students' wife - no, wait, yes I would. Oh. That isn't what you meant, is it? Well, I'd have looked for BTW earlier, maybe. But all in all, everything I did and didn't do made me the witch I am now, so I can't say I'd "correct" anything.
 
8. Favorite tarot deck?
 
I like the Crowley deck, but I don't actually use them.
 
9. What drew you to your particular tradition?
 
The people and the feeling that I'd come home.
 
10. What magical or religious system outside of your own interests you?
 
Catholic nuns. I'm actually serious. I'd love to spend a month in a cloistered order under vows of silence. Also, the Mormons and the Amish.
 
11. Biggest pet peeve about online paganism?
 
Oh, please, like I only have one? The idea that just because you have an opinion, you should voice it - no matter how ill-informed you may be. The refusal to admit that if you're not part of an oathbound tradition, you really can't have all that much of an opinion about it. The refusal to admit that some things are provably, factually wrong.
 
Now let me think about who I can shout "TAG!" at and nominate.
 

Wednesday, April 2, 2014

Better Pissed Off Than Pissed On, Or Why Tao Jones Is Right.

Yesterday, I was looking at where else I might be able to afford to ride, and eventually leverage that into teaching again. I realized that I was feeling less crushed and despairing and more pissed off at my summary and rather shitty dismissal.

Then I thought, fuck this. You forgot. The Good Barn wasn't supposed to be forever - you lost sight of the end goal. You forgot, when you came home grieving and broken, that this was temporary, that all this has ever really been about is you eventually running your own show. Your own barn. Your lessons, run your way. You got comfy and you forgot. Re-break your horse, or pay someone else to do it - he'd actually pay for himself with two lessons a week. Don't go back to where you were, because it is gone for a reason.

And I looked at Tao's comment again, him saying he believes in me, and thought, how? He doesn't really know me. But maybe he does. Maybe Tao is a little smarter about me than I am, right now. Maybe he's right, and the thing to do is dust off my sandals and keep moving toward where I'm really supposed to be.

I have no idea how this will happen. I need at least two schooling horses and the room and time to teach. But I managed to pull my shit together posthaste and find us a place to live, two cars, and enough work that we survived rather well after The Hasband decided to call it quits. Surely I can pull this off. To quote Uncle Aleister, if I do my Will, no other shall say nay.

And who's going to look under my saddle to see if it's got sigils all over it, anyway?


Monday, March 31, 2014

And Now, "Sugar Hill".

I recommend this film because it is a Greek tragedy. Wesley Snipes is a drug dealer who keeps trying to get out of the business. He keeps getting dragged back in.

I got through my last lesson tonight without puking or crying or burning the whole damn place to the ground with the power of my grief. I kep trying to think that RO is right, vis-a-vis his whole "Congratulations On Your Recent Trauma!" post.(Linky.) I keep trying to tell myself that Good Barn was a mixed blessing, that maybe something better is coming and the Universe is just making room for it.

On the other hand, as Tao Jones so wisely said in his comment, "The glib response is to say, 't's all for a purpose' but I won't bullshit you with that stale Judeo Xtian surrender." Sometimes defeat is just that. It's not cleansing or making room. It's just failure. And that's what scares me - that it's time to sell the tack and the horse and just get back on the boat, and I'm just not accepting that.

So I grieve. I took my last look at the barn today. Supposedly I'm riding on Saturday, and I do fear that Barn Owner will try to make me pay for lessons I can't afford for this month, citing that I didn't give her notice despite the little notice I got from her. And if I don't suck it up, pay and take lessons, I may not be allowed to teach Special Student if she comes back in two months. Not that I have faith that they'll actually give her back to me at this point.


So many things swirling around in my head, so much struggle. I am so tired. So tired of this odd cycle of getting my heart broken every two years. I just want some peace and quiet. A routine, things I can count on. Stability and whatnot. 


And I have a bad feeling that the Universe does not have this in store for me any time soon.



Sunday, March 30, 2014

A Few Hours Later, "Apocalypse Now".

"Never get off the boat." - Apocalypse now

Maybe that's the problem. I keep trying to get off the boat. What would I do with my own barn, anyway? I can't train people to the Olympic level or even to the National Horse Show in New York, and who really wants to take lessons for years just to ride competently and have fun?

Put your head down. Stay on the boat. Go to work. Go home. Make food. Clean things. Sleep. Get up and do it again. Abandon the idea that there are Gods who care about your little life. Just put your head back down and get back on the damn boat. Outside the boat lay tigers, and even worse than being eaten by a tiger is failing to be eaten by the tiger.

All I want is to go home. Back on the boat, which is my mother's house, in the town I couldn't get away from fast enough in my late teens. I want to sit in her yard and refuse to ever move again until the coyotes come and either lick the tears from my face or eat my bones clean.

I am no longer a trainer, and I have no idea who or what I am now, so I don't much care which it would be. I just want some peace and damned quiet for a change. I am not a creator god, I am not a good witch who can't be kept down. I am just a tired woman who's been fighting too much for too long.


Pretty Fucking Far From OK.

From "Pulp Fiction":

Butch: You OK?

Marcellus Wallace: Naw, man. I'm pretty fuckin' far from OK.

The Good barn fired me today after my lessons. Apparently they have a new, full-time trainer to whom they're giving my lessons. My inflexibility in rescheduling lessons - never mind that my students have very few times in which they can reschedule and which the barn can allow a reschedule - is suddenly a problem. So I'm fired.

I can't afford to ride. I am no longer a trainer.

I now have a job which, while it pays well, does not pay well enough for me to afford A. a place with heating and/or B. lessons and/or C. for me and the Husband to save money to afford a place of our own and has far too much "we're all women so we have to be bitchy to each other" bullshit and a boss so mercurial that I have no faith that I won't be as summarily shitcanned some Monday morning.

I said goodbye to all the schooling horses this morning, and I didn't even know it. I am sure I will not be allowed to ride my friend's pony there anymore if I am not in the lessons I now cannot afford.

I am not a trainer. I will go to work, come home, cook dinner, and go to bed. The Husband keeps saying that everything will be OK. But from here, things are a pretty long fucking way from OK, and I see no way they ever will be again. Barn Owner's daughter kept saying that their new trainer can be full-time and flexible and acting as though I'd done something wrong and was being unreasonable by not being all chipper and saying "No, that's fine". She tried to tell me "this is what's best for the kids." I thought, just let me go, you've broken my fucking heart, I've been here for five years as a student and taught every lesson no-one else wanted for a year, and this is how you let me go? Isn't this really about this new trainer who's been here less than three months and the new Mercedes in your driveway?

Not that it matters. I'm not their trainer anymore. I'm no-one's trainer anymore. And if I'm not a good enough witch to keep the thing that makes me whole, is there really even anything else to ask, or that deserves an answer?


Tuesday, March 25, 2014

Stupid Strep.

The Sore Throat I was having yesterday did indeed ignore my attempts to ignore it, and so I have spent today on the couch, drinking herb tea that even NYU says will help and watching the end of "Big Love" and refraining from going and buying a copy of "The White Goddess" and drawing Maiden, Mother, and Crone analogies all over the place. And then mailing it to some poor beleaguered professorial type with a note that says, "HOPE YOU DIG MY THESIS HAVE SOME SRIRACHA POTATO CHIPS PEACE OUT."

Stay home, ocelot. You're sick.

Obviously, the only thing for a sick woman with no-one to whine at is read gardnerians and crack up at the following -

"Really, we’d rather spend our last 30 minutes doing something epic, like initiating anyone who walks slowly enough across our lawn."

See, I can picture this, because even if I have no talent for film, my brain thinks it needs to make stuff like this into little movies:

The door to the Trailer Of Doom creeeeeaks open, a pair of small hands shoots out and grabs a denizen of the Trailer Park Of The Damned and yanks them off their feet and inside the door. Muffled, rythmic thumping and loud chanting ensues for a few moments.

The back door opens. A pair of hands under the arms of a butt-nekkid, bewildered redneck lowers said redneck gently to the ground. Our Involuntary Initiate has beads around their neck and a black book in one hand. It's like an assembly line: person in, bewildered naked book-holding person out. Finally, one of the poor SOBs opens their book, and reads the following:

(camera zooms in)

(Big fancy letters) All this be Oathbound; keep thou secret our Rites and tell ye nought.

(page turns, camera zooms in again 'cause these letters are smaller)

(Plain text) That means, "Don't tell nobody."

Fin.