The Rumors of my Demise....

...are only slightly exaggerated, considering the stomach bug I've been afflicted with as of 4:40 am. Got up. Fed the orphaned kittens (four, who I alternately call "the furry drunks" and "the velociraptors"). Felt fine. Went to get in the shower. Intestinal unpleasantess ensued and convinced me to stay home lest I barf in my car on the way to work. Sorry, Co-Worker.

So it's been a year, during which I've heard that blogging is dead, the Husband was elevated, I've managed to mostly stick to a tiny daily practice, I've enjoyed meetings with the Coven, I've gained shit tons of weight due to my sedentary office job, I've taken up kayaking with the Husband (kayaks bought off Craigslist from a 70-something ex-cop survivalist tiny house owning dude who I briefly considered asking if he'd ever considered a nature religion given his love for same), run off to the local botanica to prevent a friend from going to prison (pro tip: when you have a language barrier around herbs, just tell the proprietess, "Look, let me make this easy - I'm trying to stop a friend from going to prison, and I don't have any experience with this, so what would you do?", then pay for your candle cheerfully, say thank you, and then go home and light up), and thanked Santissima Muerte from keeping our house from burning down when the dryer ran for eight hours after we fell asleep and asked her to bring the people whose dogs caused the orphaned kittens to justice (they're on an electric fence, and tend to maim and kill other animals when this "fence" fails).

We also apparently cursed the slumlord; his wife left her purse in the car and it got stolen. Along with his gun, all their credit cards, and everyone's rent money...all cash, except for ours. And then a tree fell through their house. Or it could just be karma. Or us bringing their general misdeediness to the attention of Them Who Are In Charge Of Such Things. It's not like we sat down and hexed fuck out of them, you know?

Anyhow, readers (all four of you who haven't already wandered off), that's a brief summary of Why You Haven't Heard From Me. It's been busy around here. I'm trying desperately to carve out more time for my witchery, my horse, my pets, my husband, and myself. A new job would help, and if anyone's got a hell of a job-finding spell, that'd be awesome. My fallback workings haven't done jackshit, so I'm open to suggestions.

Yes. I am "spell-begging". I am a member of a lineaged trad, a witch for at least 25 years, and saying that what I've been doing isn't working. Why? Because when you can't get a recipe to work, you ask around. Also, the definition of insanity is to keep doing the same thing and expecting different results. Who knows? Why not use a spell from some witch in Russia (apparently someone there reads this, or used to)? I mean -

WARNING: HERESY ALERT

- isn't that part of the fun?

YES. FUN. I SAID FUN.

That's part of why, despite my deep love for and reverance for Our Gods, I cannot stay 100% serious at any time. This is fun, or it should be, at least somewhat. It makes me happy, damnit. It brings me joy. It's why I get silly giggles in circle sometimes - I'm just so damn happy to be with my covenmates and visiting with Them. I burn candles and mix herbs and chant to change my world - when I'm not working too many hours at a terrible job and stressing over the Trailer of Doom and road-raging at people on cell phones doing 50mph on 45 in the middle of rush hour. I am an educated, modern woman who believes her commute is better on the full moon and that tossing salt over her left shoulder in the office helps things suck a little less.

It's funny. It's fun. It's goofy and weird and illogical and it works.

It's why, when we go kayaking and the water line is really low and the Husband hopes he finds a turtle shell and we find one, but it's still occupied by a large but very dead turtle, I think, well, you DID say "a shell", you didn't say anything about the condition. It's why, when Friend We Stopped From Going To Prison seemed inclined to then be a general pain in our asses, my next question was, what's the best way to move him along, not how can we explain that it's time for him to improve his life goals in a loving and non-judgmental manner that affirms his agency and personhood? 

I also still don't know if I want to be Fiona Goode or Misty Day when I grow up. But that's another story.

Cast your herbs onto the fire and laugh with Them often, my dears. May you have many reasons for joy and laughter until I update again.

Bheannaigh Oíche Shamhna.

It is raining AGAIN, thus killing our plans to go to Renfaire for Samhain. We're just not hardcore enough to enjoy being sodden & muddy. Been there. Done that. Was miserable.

It is so wet, here at the Trailer Park of the Dammned, that one of the stray cats was sitting under the neighbors' trailer, insisting I come get him. I did not. "Go between the puddles," I told him, and with a disgusted look and a few big leaps, he did. I praised his bravery and went back down the ramp to get him some kibble, watching for slippery leaves as I went.

What’s that? It looks like a ribbon or - OH HELL SNAKE SNAKE IT'S A SNAKE.

Well, more like "snake", because the poor critter is very small and quite deceased. Either the cats got tired of the Great Frog Genocide of 2015 and have turned to snakes, or it drowned. It is brownish and may be a baby copperhead, hence my cautious use of twigs to pick it up.

What? You didn't think I was just going to leave it there, did you? Heh.

The Ocelot's Final Word On Gardnerian Practice.

Don't tell me my trad doesn't have moments of wild communion with our Gods.

We were keeping the full moon, tonight, and so graced with the Presence of the divine that Husband is now dead asleep in the bedroom.

Cats under the altar. Rednecks outside with fireworks. Frankincense and myrrh competing with the smell of dog. But here, in this most humble of temples, this most profane of holy places, we knew our Gods. Ecstatically, totally, joyfully. We got some major gnosis.

There's a reason for orthopraxy, babies. A set form means They can come through like water; when you don't have to think about how, you get the full killer heaven rush of why.

And now, time for bed.

When A Witch Can't Garden....

Husband is off at band practice, so I am left to my own vices (a slidy-typing error so awesome I must let it stand).

When a witch tries to make a tool and is dissatisfied with the result, and cannot do any gardening due to her allergic reaction to the stupid biting ants which always seem to find her hands, what does she do?

There's laundry. The kitchen. How boring. Now, turning a cheese plate into a tool? HELLS YEAH.

So off said witch goes, Dremel in hand, and makes said tool again. Huzzah! What did our Gard ancestors do without the Dremel? Or the convenience of wood stain? Or latex gloves?

Not that I remembered to wear them. Oops.

Time to go see if the stain is dry. Is there anything better than making your own tools? There's just something so satisfying about the finished product.

A Witch and Her Garden.

The garden has been neglected for weeks. I admire the rose, the hibiscus with blooms as big as my outstretched hand, the Oregano That Ate The World, the little balloon flowers. But I haven't weeded or pruned or tended in far too long.

Husband didn't work today, due  to the ridiculous storms this morning, so the chores aren't all on me today. I do need to get a few dinner things. I do need to find out where the hell all my work-appropriate t-shirts have gone.

But.

I need to go outside, stick my hands on soil, get dirty. Remind myself that this job and the lousy commute and living in the Trailer Park of the Dammned won't last forever.

Outside, witch.

Please Shut Up About BTW.

If you're not a member of a family, you probably don't really know Jack about it.

You could find out a decent amount about my family from my Facebook page, if you're that bored/stalkerish/aspire to become a misanthropic old bastard like yours truly. Where we're from. Who's related to who. What some of us do/are interested in/will eventually be arrested for.

You won't find out the old feuds, the secrets we're ashamed of, the ones drummed out or adopted in or why any of that happened. Because we don't share that shit with outsiders. We don't spread the private family business everywhere.

This doesn't mean my family is better than yours - necessarily. Maybe mine is. Maybe you've got white supremacists and rapists and child molesters and people who send their gay children to deprogrammers in yours. I think that shit is bad, and therefore will consider mine better than yours.

Maybe you think so too, and through time and the magic of non-biological family, become part of mine.

Or maybe you don't. Fine. But don't start spouting crap about "Irish upstate NY families" that has no resemblance to our reality and expect us to stay quiet. And don't then be a chickenshit who says, "who says we're even talking about YOU, you Irish upstate NY families always think we're talking about you and we could be talking about all Irish families blah blah bullshit".

What I find weird, all metaphor aside, is the amount of time people spend talking about traditions that they say aren't for them. Asatru, Thelema, Buddhism, Hinduism, Blue Star, Black Forest, Reclaiming, and a host of other trads/faiths are not for me. Notice I don't spend much time talking about them or responding to their adherents' blogs?

If you can't shut up about BTW (which is a specific thing bearing very little resemblance to a lot of things/people calling themselves and what they do "Wicca"), at least ask yourself why you're spending so much time criticizing us instead of dancing to the drum whose rhythm moves your soul.

Strange Things Afoot At The Trailer Park Of The Dammed.

Driven by Deb's most recent post, Husband's car problems, and the deluge afflicting Texas, I was intent on cleansing the Trailer of Doom tonight.

Was the whole place going to be clean, tidy, and ready for the banish/bless double whammy? No. No, it was not. But given everything going to Heck in a hand basket, I thought doing something was far better than doing nothing. I mean, this is a place where no longer having a kitten under the bathroom sink is a major improvement. We have odd standards here.

Five minutes before we started, I found the very first pentacle I've ever owned. On Husband's desk. Where it has never been before. I am very certain it has never been there before because I have not seen it in years and, frankly, thought it was lost.

Freakishness. The Desk does not appear things. It disappears things.

What to do? Wear it? Put it on the bike? In the car? In the house? What to do?

Why, whip out the pendulum and hold it over the choices above and see where it's supposed to be.

It is now tied to the horseshoe over the door. I suspect we have somehow agreed to MOAR WITCHCRAFT. I suspect Protective Guilt Trip Of the Gods. I suspect "Well, I didn't see that coming".

We'll see.

AHS - Coven Gives Me Ideas.

The primary one is that every witch needs a Spaulding. I should put an ad on Craigslist.

Brief Update.

New job is less-than-wonderful, but thanks to St. Expedire for making Annoying Co-Worker leave within a few months. I'll take what I can get, I suppose.

Vile Neighbors, on the other hand, are an ongoing issue that the landlord swears he'll deal with, but I sincerely doubt it, Even if he does, if he throws them out, there's nothing to say they won't come back and destroy things. These people are such trash that they're a landfill. In desperation this morning, I bought a St. Jude candle and lit it and said the little prayer on the back. The landlord did at least then text The Husband and say that he's told them any further issues will get them evicted. We'll see, but thanks to St. Jude for what I have to say was definitely swift action.

Now to find black mustard seed so that I can GTFO powder their miserable asses just to be on the safe side.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

 

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?

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.