O I know I talked a big game that if Eric didn't fix what he broke then in November I'd be able to look him square in the eye during If I Loved You - but that was hurt and disappointment and sorrow speaking.  Not truth.  Truth is I still love him,  more than I've ever loved anyone.  Truth is that he deeply hurt me and disappointed me.  Truth is that I don't trust him not to intentionally hurt me.  Truth is that ever aince HIS decision for HIM to go live on the band's insta at the end of August, I don't believe he gives a damn about me or cares about me in the least, let alone him having anything remotely approaching love toward me....

But that doesn't change my love for him.  And it doesn't make me want him any less.  And it doesn't assuage the ache in me of his absence.  And it doesn't make me forget all of the dreams and precogs with him,  the ones I've been having all my life since before I could talk.
It just means he hurt me deeply, he disappointed me by his lack of moral principles, he shattered any faith I had that the love and desire is mutual,  and he has taught me to expect hurt from him....

But I still feel the absence of him like someone came along lopped off my right arm at the shoulder told me to go on with my life as if nothing was wrong....

And right now,  I have an absolutely terrible weather migraine started just outside Mauston on the drive back from Minneapolis - the kind that can set me to dry heaving from the pain just trying to sit up.... I don't know how I finished that drive in this state without smearing us all over the highway,  thankfully there is like no traffic at 4am on a Sat/Sun. It's a bad migraine.... So I don't have it in me to stiff upper lip stoic through it and fake that the hollownesa isn't consuming everything behind the surface.

I hurt.  I hurt terribly.  And nothing but waiting it out will improve the migraine.  And since I can't have Eric himself to curl into until the pain is done,  more than anything else I want to snuggle into his songs,  because music is the only thing helps me through the bad migraines.  (motion and light sensitive,  but never sound sensitive - so music helps pull me through when all that exists is the pain from the migraine....) More than anything else right now,  I want to listen to Badlands and Morning Comes and Enjoy My Song and so many others I've heard from him, some I don't even have.  It's all I want....to be able to listen to his voice and his songs and find comfort and love and the promise that beyond this pain there is light again.  That's what I want.....  Yet I know that if I put it on,  it wouldn't give me comfort right now,  just the heartache over the hurt he intentionally caused me and my current belief he doesn't care at all about that or about anything to do with me....

I can't find any comfort in his songs to help me through my current pain because he's not a source of comfort to me with the way things are....  The only thing I want,  and I can't have it even if I were to play the damn songs....

*sigh*

I'm going to open the window to the rain and put on George Winston's album Autumn. That's always soothing.  And piano music I've adored since I was a child (and I know he has too, so the weakest part of my subconscious can lie to me behind my closed eyes pretend it could be Eric playing George Winston's songs) is the best comfort I can find to help get me through this pain of this bad migraine. It's not what I WANT to curl up into,  but it's best I got and I do love George Winston's music.  Always have.  It'll bring me more joy and comfort until the migraine pain passes than anything else would right now.

But honest, my birthday is on Weds and if you could give me one birthday wish,  it would be to find a way to restore my faith in his love and the future I never used to doubt til he started dating the Scorpion chick and I realized that I might not be what he wanted,  that maybe he hadn't been seeking for me the way I've spent all my life waiting looking for him....  That's all I want for my birthday,  to know he never meant to hurt me and that the love and desire is mutual and that the future and happiness he'd choose requires having me right there in the center of his life. Don't think it's in the cards,  and after this migraine passes, I'll face that truth clear eyed accepting what is....  But stoic loyalty to truth won't stop the wanting.....  No amount of making me come to terms accepting the reality of his actions/choices will stop my wanting.... It'll just help get me through the wanting of what I can't have...

Still.  That's what I want.  I don't expect to get anything of the sort,  but it's still all I want.... And I hurt too much to pretend anything else..  

I'm gonna go curl up in the fetal position and listen to George Winston while I endure until this migraine passes....  Hopefully I can still make symphony at 2pm.... Mais on verra..... For now curling up and holding as still as possible forcing myself to relax think about nothing and listening to George Winston music and the rain.

I love Juliana McCarthy,  she's my absolute favorite astrologer. She's also a wonderfully gentle beautiful loving old soul.

Also,  her new moon in Libra reading aligns perfectly with my own inner shift I felt start yesterday morning...

I was tired and slept for a bit right after the Packers game (we lost and sustained some pretty serious injuries to the roster 😢 ),  and I had the most vivid realistic and sweet dream.  Not just once but three times - because I'd wake up from it to be sure I'd remember it,  and then it'd start over again when I went back to sleep.

It was one of the dreams that starts in the middle,  like waking up peeking into another place on the timeline.  And,  the dream gave absolutely no indication how we got there,  just started there...

So it was bedtime and the girls wanted a story told not read.  (I've said since I was about 10 years old or so that if I lived long enough to have kids,  I'd have a dark haired gray-eyed boy,  fraternal twin girls - one with changing sea colored eyes and hair like mine and the other with hair somewhere between strawberry blond and flaming red and blue eyes,  and another boy with light blond hair and blue-grey eyes.  Luca,  Amelia Louise (Emmy for short), Aurora Rae (Rory for short),  and Aaron.  Genetically that's only possible with a guy who has blond hair and blue/gray eyes carries the recessive for redhead gene and green eyes.  I know. Not impossible, but very niche and rather defying normal mundane laws of probability, lol. I could end up never having kids or having completely different kids with different names....  But I've seen these 4 repeatedly in my visions/mutable precogs and had dreams with them in them my whole life and enough times to know they're the only children I've ever seen as possible future path for me...and also our home is somewhere like a cabin, a lot of beautiful wood and windows and soft cozy textiles, with a big garden and surrounded by woods and somewhere with real snowy winters...not in the typical country but definitely not in a city either... and I swear some of them,  we have sheep and chickens as well as the garden and kids and dogs and cats....the sheep and chickens confused me the first time,  lol.)  Anyway,  it was bedtime and the girls wanted their favorite story, since their dad was there to tell it, the real one of how their dad almost lost me and then won me back.

And in the dream,  I didn't actually get to HEAR the story,  it was just them asking for it and Eric and me teasing disagreeing on if he actually would have lost me if he hadn't done whatever it was he did - and him insisting he'd felt like he was going to and I was stubborn enough he would have if he hadn't done what he did.  And also him telling the girls, "you'd have been both born Irish,  if you were born at all,  if I hadn't succeeded."

And I never got to hear the story itself, always woke up during him telling how it started,  how everything got fucked up....  in the dream I knew it having lived it, but without my current self peeking in having access to the memory...  The dream was always that same bit of talking and teasing before the girls favorite bedtime story of their dad telling them how he nearly lost me and won me back, with my interjections but his telling them.

No idea the in between or how we got from here to there.  Just a glimpse into being there....  And it was beautiful and sweet and so full of love and light - and it made me so incredibly happy.  Happier than anything else.  And I woke up cherishing it warmed up by it all cozy in spirit like after sitting by a warm fire and wanting it to be a true dream more than I'd ever wanted anything else ever and then that turned to crying and shivering chilled to the bone at the thought it might somehow not come to be a true dream....  And that happened three times before I decided to get up because I couldn't take waking up again to a set of fututes in which it might never be true....

Usually my repeating dreams are true glimpses, true vision dreams.  And this was such a small dream glimpse but so powerfully full of hope and light and warmth.  I'm hoping it was a true one. Not just a subconscious wish that never manifests, but one of my true dreams.  Or at least a promise that there's a way through to reach it still....even if I have no idea how to get there,  I'd like to believe there's a promise there that we still will get there if that's what we choose. Even if present me has no idea how the story goes or what he does to get us from the broken here to the happy there....

That's what I hope.  Because it made me happier than anything else ever has or could....

You have no idea just how desperately I hope this was a true dream.....

Things that were unnecessarily stressing me this week and giving me anxiety but actually aren't an issue at all:
~Checking the mail for tickets to the Oct.  5 APT show for Book of Will (I was smart enough when I ordered them to decide to put them at will call - not smart enough to double check delivery method til last night)
~One of my credit cards because my monthly donation to SPLC on autopay didn't go through so they texted me to let me know and ask if I needed to update a replacement number for it  (it went through the next day,  the credit card company had an internal issue.  Gonna double check the card to get gas today and call if it's acting up.  It had a hold on it last month when a gas station in IN tried to put a $151 charge on it.... They claimed it was only a hold because they get stolen cards there,  fraud protection flagged it auto put a hold on my card and texted me,  I told the manager of that gas station at 3m that my card was flagged due to that charge after getting gas there on my way to Dublin OH,  she removed the charge and apologized but I spent a hella long time on the phone trying to get the card working again - if it isn't,  they'll need to send me a new one with a different  number.)
~my end of month bills not on autopay, thought I was late on them (went to pay them, was early and instead paid the ones due end of October so currently a month ahead again,  not late because I lost track of days passing)
~making sure I don't run out of heartworm and tick/flea medicine for the dog since she has one dose left of her Heartgard and Nexgard (stopped at vet on way back from our long walk at Tiedemann's Pond (my red tailed hawk came to say hi AND we were within 5ft of a gorgeous blue heron for like 20mins) and turns out the heartworm annual vaccine ProHeart will be cheaper,  as is Similcra (their monthly flea/tick) pill, their rebates all renew to the SAME Visa card instead of wasting plastic trying to remember to use the rebate visas for some $20 purchase, AND the rimadyl she was prescribed for her back/hip pain back in June and is the go to arthritis/inflammation drug gor pets is a $60 rebate per dose onto that account.  So that's like $115 in rebates in a year to defray the proper medical/vet fees on owning a dog,  lol. Damn straight I scheduled a vet visit for Nov. 1 for the heartworm vaccine when I'll get one free dose of the Similcra and HOPEFULLY we'll then get a hard frost by Dec. 1 so I don't need to worry about buying her flea/tick preventative til Spring thaw in March/April!)

On all these things,  I gave myself anxiety thinking I was running out of time or would get distracted then pay for ir latsr when I'd been smart enough not to be.... It's like the time I freaked out thinking I'd missed my last property tax installment on my condo so HAD to go in person immediately when I got back from Michigan so as not to be late,  only to gind when I showed up with the check that it was due last day of July,  not last day of June,  and I was so early that they hadn't even sent out the notices which is why I never got mine and the site wasn't live for paying online.  😂

I'm always either ahead or behind.... I have a very hard time with measuring the passage of time (unless there is music playing to measure it for me.)  I get a bit lost in flow and forget to check in how much time had passed....  And also,  for me,  ti. E isn't linear,  it's spherical 4 dimensions of time to it.  And sometimes I get lost ahead of the present don't realize hiw fast the present is catching up to me....

So  if I don't do something right away when I think of it,  I get distracted and no amount of alarms or calendar reminders will help me not procrastinate til I'm well and truly late,  lol. I was always like that with homework assignments too.  So being ahead and recognizing will call is better than mail for a show in 2.5 weeks is better for me.  Trust me.

Gotta run.  Half a pot of coffee to finish and I WANT to finish last 30pgs of a book that O'd intended to read instead of a 2hr walk with the pupper.... but shouldn't let me read it as I need to drop the dog off then pick grandma up at 12:45 for late lunch and running errands.  So frustrating though - so fucking tantalizingly close to the end.....

also,  found these in a free little library right by the pond!!!!!

Score!!!  Those are expensive!! I'll have to compare the 9th edition versus the 7th edition I already have (that's how long ago I was in college,  lol)  for what texts are included in each.

Been winning at the little library selections recently! (I'm a sucker for a little library,  been known to pull the car over just to peek in them to see what they have....)  in another one near me, found a never before read hard copy of the original edition Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows while walking the dog on Tuesday. After I ceased being aghast someone put it in a little library,  I hugged it to my chest and skipped home with it the rest of the walk with the dog knowing exactly the 14 year old whose book collection needed it!  i gifted it to Miss Mikaela joking she'd read them forward from her library,  but acquire the hardcovers backwards. She was so ecstatically happy! I also gave her a unicorn pencil case I'd bought her (I bought me a matching one)  and she promptly transferred all her pens/pencils/art supplies loose in her purse into it,  lol. I'm a proponent of just because gifts and happy surprises - life is better when you give/receive delights unexpectedly not as a have to.  I greatly prefer just because happy surprises over Hallmark holiday "need to get you something" ought tos.  Always have.

More later!

"When the Master governs, the people are hardly aware that he exists. Next best is a leader who is loved. Next, one who is feared. The worst is one who is despised. If you don't trust people, you make them untrustworthy. The Master doesn't talk, he acts. When his work is done, the people say, "Amazing: we did it, all by ourselves!""~Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching

I didn't post as I'd promised I would - Mikaela and her mom stayed and hung out withe and Miss Audrey Pupburn til 9:30. In part because Mikaela misses me,  in part because Sarah has quotes to get done for customers,  and in part because Chris (her dad) is in a bad phase right now as well as a close friend of hers having family/depression/suicide issues and for them I am a source of calm and strength and light.  But mostly because Mikaela missed me a lot and our recent attempts to hang out keep being thwarted by one or both of us getting migraines.  She was more than happy after her homework was done and I helped her with some beginner French (her high school only offers it online) to sit on the couch at work with me and the dog snuggled up between us,  drinking tea and reading books (she's reading the Harry Potter series for the first time right now,  and I just started today one of M's favorite YA series, The Looking Glass Wars, that she insisted I buy the first one at HPB Clearance. It's not particularly great imho,  but super quick read under 400pgs, and it's $1 and 3.5hrs of my time makes her happy. I'll probably pick up the rest now because I'm a completionist.)  And then we ordered Pizza Hut for dinner, had an impromptu Pizza party.

Anyway.  Short version of my reasoning for taking me out of leading the fight choosing a rewards life on the sidelines.  I have spent about 2,300 years of lifetimes setting up the chance to even HOPE to win and recruiting and training and inspiring souls who could be healers and lightworkers and chose to take up this mantle as a part of their soul's path. Ever since I got outvoted as only 1 other of the ancient souls who didn't choose ascension in the last one  sided with me that the ant colony expansionist colonialism of enforced rules of the Imperial Roman model was a pernicious disease that would lead souls away from their duty of stewardship and empathy for all creation until it potentially destroyed mankind and the entire planet.  I was outvoted by the other ancients and I lost my battles in the incarnated lives I spent trying to stop or temper the worst effects of what was wrong at the root and basic premise of it.  I lost,  I lost badly,  and I died for it as did other souls who followed me.  My lives in Europe and the Byzantine,  I spent either fighting or changing its nature from within and my other lives I came over to this side of the Atlantic and in my backpack to my backpack (Australia/New Zealand) to work within the tribes to save what I could, to prepare them for the most important fight for humanity's soul, and to imbue as much protections and seeds of hope in the land itself as possible.  Why did you think the Americas, especially in the north and west and down in South America, has so many places where you can go and find peace and connect up to the Universe? It isn't by chance and it isn't because of the remaining natural spaces.  I spent lifetimes crwating them and removing the dark nephilim and evil spirits. I've failed the south of the US - I sacrificed it as I never really liked it so I never ptotected it ptoprrly.  but ehst it became wasn't my doing,  it was what the children of Rome did and the atrocities and evil blood magic spilt across the South of the US and all the suffering they put there.  It'll take me lifetimes to cleanse it and realign those blood curses they brought here, if I choose to bother healing it.  I should, at some point,  before it grows worse.  Instead I just contained it within its own borders.

I did what I could where I could to setup the board and nudge things down better paths and kick the confrontation down the line til there'd be a chance of changing course from the worst I'd seen. In Greece, in Italy,  in France,  in England/Ireland, in Russia,  but the bulk of it in unrecorded lives in the Americas.  For 2300 years. And I sought allies amongst the gods/goddesses/debas/elentals/fairfolk who serve the light of creation and individuated from the Unity of All-Spirit but didn't choose incarnations for their path.  I found a lot of allies amongst them,  their sense of time being even stranger than mine.  ..

Last life, I knew I could stall it no more.  So I chose a life path of loneliness and fame and to burn like a shooting star across the psyche of the world to be certain everyone who needed to saw me and found me and knew.   This life, for my life path,  I chose a reward life (I've got plenty accrued)  where I could do my little bit to make the lives of others better for my touch upon them AND any soul seeking me could find me AND i'd get to live my entire life surrounded by the love of those who can love me just as I am.  No pedestals or worship,  just to love me as I am, me qua me.  I was told what I asked was nearly impossible and offered I could be allowed back to France early.  I was stubborn about what I wanted and said I'd wait til it could be done.

About 14.5 or so years ago,  the course of humanity was that greed and materialistic expansion  had concentrated power in the wrong souls and most of the rest were oblivious or caught up in the lies and seductions of ego-driven materialism so humanity was going to destroy all life on this planet.  All future paths were truncated.  The only way to stop it was to get rid of humanity as the means of the individuated soul's lessons about the Creation as a failed experiment.  The ancient souls voted unanimously that it was failed and better to end it before it destroyed everything. And when I say unanimously, that means me as well.  We all voted humanity was a failed experiment despite all our best efforts.

Six months after that vote, I was wrestling with my conscience on a point of fairness. MOST of the souls incarnated right now are young souls,  under 3 lives ypung.  (most even under 10 lives.) These young souls were no part in the collective decisions that humanity made that brought us here and MANY of them never agreed to the Roman cancerous ant colony paradigm.  It was unfair to punish them for what they had no part in.  I raised this issue and 7 others of the ancient souls agreed with me it was unfair,  but they saw no way to make it fair because the young souls didn't know what they didn't know just followed blindly the experiential life they were reveling in and the corrupted lost ego-driven souls outnumbered the old souls to be able to teach them better.

So I proposed one last effort,  in the name of fairness,  to redeem humanity as the incarnating vehicle of spirit.  I proposed that we lay out all the information,  bring everything into the light, unmask it and force everyone to face all the hard truths and decide which side they stood on.  And the fate of mankind was to rest on that decision BUT for this decision,  the ONLY votes to be counted were those who hadn't created the mess - only souls younger than 3 lives had the power to choose between shifting the paradigm or self-annihilation. EVERY soul would be tested and have to choose and if they chose ego-driven old paradigm,  then after their current life they would be held in stasis between lives for however long it takes for tge new paradigm to establish then slowly one at at a time reborn back into the cycles to heal but never again outnumber the healed/healers. Everyone was to be tested in the unmasking, and every soul can fight in the present,  but ONLY the choices of those within their first 3 lives would choose the future path.  We ancients would abdicate our earned right to guide humanity through the time of unmasking and the time of deciding and the time of the young souls taking the reins, because it had to be the choice of the innocent ones given full knowledge to have a say in their own fate.

That was my solution.  I spent centuries working on it,  with a lot of help,  to try to work out how to be fair.  I was able to convince 2 other of the ancient souls (1 of them having sided with me 2300 years ago) this plan was the only fair solution. 2 is outvoted,  3 is enough of a holdout to override the rest on ending the experiment.  And without that option,  my solution was chosen as the young souls making the wrong choice brings us back to ending humanity as failed. (there aren't all that many of us you know.)

So my crazy chaotic good free will loving solution was allowed to move forward and the unmasking began and what I call "the stepping stone path" through was created.  It's tricky,  nearly impossible, and may well fail - but it is a path through instead of simply ending the failed experiment. All the craziness,  everything coming into the light,  all the posdible fate lines being drawn into this bottleneck,  all the impossible to see future paths,  all of the ego testing.... All of it is leading up to the rivet point of wgen the final vote tally of the under 3 lives souls is taken.  And it's entirely my fault, all this time of chaos bringing things to the light. And it's why balance of ma'at for me to do that REQUIRES I can't tip the scales any further than what I've set in motion bern working on for so long.  It REQUIRES that I pass my tests (same as any/every soul of all ages)  while enjoying my reward life on the sidelines of history and fixing in me my own lessons where I need work.  It requires of me that I NOT try to step forward to lead the good fight but that I let others do it.  It requires I trust in what I've done and I trust i. The innate goodnesd of souls still so close to the well of creation and complete unity.

It's a big fucking gamble.  And a big leap of faith....  But I did my best yo set it up not to fail against all the odds against me. And I believe it was enough.   And if I win this gamble,  then the souls making wrong-headed ego-driven greed choices believing in the imperialistic paradigm get put on a timeout til the next paradigm is created (there are 2 paths,  and I don't KNOW which wins. That's too hazy in tbe future pethapses for me to do more than see what that fork will be.  If we get there.  If we can get humanity across the difficult time of the unmasking, deciding,  and fighting for survival.....  But if the young souls choose in full knowledge as I hope and believe they will,  then one by one as the ego-driven souls die,  they'll get dealt out of the incarnations until this crisis is past.

If the young souls don't choose as I believe they will, then we go back to ending humanity as a failed experiment and hope my little insistence on fairness/justice doesn't mean complete extinction of all life entirely on this planet....  My dad this life,  also an ancient soul but one of laws and believes greed the fault not the basic issue of Imperialism as a model for mankind, thinks I did wrongly.  And he's pretty constantly trying to get me to stop being one of the three holdouts from ending the human experience.... I disagree with his solutions,  they rely on conforming to what is best for the whole (he calls it orgacentricity instead of egocentricity and thinks humans need to view themselves as an organism - he doesn't understand why I say that just metastisizes the root of what's wrong in Imperialism by grafting utilitarianism onto it.) It's a bit of a relief to me right now they're in Montana,  right before they left he was giving me a VERY hard time about how this too late stage to save.....  But it had to be left this long,  so the consequences could be part of the choosing and there could be no other way......

Anyway.  That's why my ethical lines are unwavering and I know precisely where my moral lines are and what I stand for BUT I have to sit this one out on the sidelines as far as active work goes and limit myself to my small individual life.

O,  you're wondering why the fuck I said this fight is for me to be on the right side but not leading it or directing the course of history. That ain't like me at all.  I can explain better how/why it got to this point - but the crux of it is that I came up with a solution about 7 years back that shifted balances of power because I didn't believe scrapping humanity as a failed form of soul evolution was fair to the young souls under three lives old.  To make it work,  I placed my faith in the yound souls and shifted the normal paradigms.  (anyone who calls Greta Thunberg an old soul doesn't get it.... People inappropriately use "old soul" to mean "one who cares about the whole of creation rather than the material ego driven society they are born into" as opposed to the actual duration of time the soul has been individuated and separated from the All-Spirit. And it's true most old souls ARE like that because they've gone full circle through the ego lusts on both sides of the dichotomies - but so are the young souls who haven't yet accrued any major karmic baggage of ego lust to untangle. That's how I skewed the balance to MAYBE find a way out of mankind created extinction of 95% of life on this planet.  By having faith in the free will choices of the very young under 3 lives old souls.  Greta is on her 3rd life (1st in Austria in WWII, second in the US across the flower child movement died of a drug overdose in the 70s) and thus is perfect for the fight.  I know,  I recruited her last life when she was starstruck meeting me for who I was last life,  before I explained to her how old my battles and let her choose if she wanted that grafted onto her souls path.)

I'll explain better tonight.  But there are REASONS, big cosmic balance of ma'at reasons,  for me to have to sit this out on the sidelines and trust in what I set in motion in the past and my faith in the innate goodness of souls three lives and younger separation from the well of creation.  Technically, I took all us old souls out to the sidelines til the time of testing ends.  And it almost is done.  Middle aged souls are facing ego tests and if they fail will be dealt out of incarnations after this life til the healing is far enough along they can't fuck up the work of the ancient souls,  young souls, and middle-aged souls who passed their ego tests as we heal and shift the paradigm.  But I have to stay out of it other than standing on my strong ethical lines,  since I'm the one who suggested this paradigm shift,  til after everything is brought into the light laid bare so the young souls could make their choice in full knowledge of what it is.

But,  that's also why I get to have this as a reward life and can have anything I want/ask for from the Universe.  Literally anything at all is mine for the asking in this life - which is why I hate asking and only desire what is freely offered to me and freely given.  The more I want something,  the more I insist I'll only have it if it's given to me by a choice of free will.

I'll explain better tonight....  I'm still full from breakfast (2 eggs over-easy over a cheesy veggie hash that had crispy purple potatoes on the bottom,  then some maple jack cheese,  then mushrooms,  carrots,  radishes,  peppers,  rainbow chard, caramelized onion,  garlic,  herbes de provence,  and some more maple jack cheese) so I wanna curl up with a book and digest,  but instead I'm gonna finish my coffee and change, take the dog on a walk,  charge my phone (at 13% battery atm) while I shower,  get ready to go,  spend the afternoon at work/in the garden til the munchkin gets dropped off after school (hard to believe she's already in high school,  seems just yesterday she was the six year old obsessed with Delta Rae in the car every day - now she's 14 and won't hardly listen to them since seeing how painful the country music was for me before their Madison show with Q106 Christmas concert for Toys for Tots and her getting so angry over the level of pain they caused me by being a part of anything to do with country radio artists.  She doesn't even know about the girls and them blocking me and the things they said (especially Liz) before blocking me dealing with country music them being defensive about it when told it caused me pain.  Mikaela doesn't know because if she did,  she'd never forgive them.  Ever.  She's quite protective of me and she holds a grudge like woah....)

But I'll explain the whole story after Mikaela and her mom go home tonight and it's just me and my pupper at work into the wee hours.  Promise! I'll splain what's going down and why and what I did and why I sidelined me to a non-central reward life during such a massive fight.  Because the best move I could make in the fight WAS me shifting the paradigm and rewriting the rules and putting myself on the sidelines.  Trust me,  it was.  Plus,  there's a lot to be thankful for in a reward life on the sidelines of the history books.  Especially if you choose to share in the magic of it with me this life!

P. P. P. S.  In a completely different vein,  I have literally no idea why anyone puts up with me and my terrible dad jokes!  😂😂😂😂

Like,  there are people out there who actually CHOOSE to have me in their life,  not forced into it by circumstances of birth.  And they even give me their phone numbers and put up with ridiculous shit like this out of the blue - and they don't change their number no matter how many bad puns and memes I deem not wholesome enough for everyone on my friends list on facebook.  😂

I always seem to find exactly the right words for my most profound truths in the weirdest most "never going to find this again" verbosity.....  Never fails....  Long emails/letters, throw away lines in texts, things I hide in my billions of words blogged...  Needle in a haystack places.

And where did I fully articulate exactly I'm doing with this life of mine and all my gifts?!  In a comments thread in a facebook post of a meme I shared where I contributed next to nothing but my enthusiastic support of  the post itself as an encapsulation of my own wants.

😂

I mean,  I know I learned at a young age this life from a Sherlock Holmes story to always hide the most important things in plain sight where nobody would look.... But this is ridiculous even for me!

I'm gonna go back to my self-appointed afternoon tasks of cleaning,  drinking tea,  eating apples,  and listening to Billy Joel's entire catalogue now.

P. S.  My dog is the most beautiful wonderful Pisces pup anyone could ever dream of having.  She's the first animal that has ever been solely my own,  bonded primarily to me not my family, and I got her when she was 12 weeks old and sge's spent at least 75% of her every moment of her life with me.  She's almost 12.

I've been saying since she was a puppy that she's going to live to the age of 21 then die happily in her sleep surrounded by everyone she loves best...and I damn well hope I'm right. But I already know that whenever it happens it's going to gut me whenever it happens and my heart is going yo absolutely shatter into a million pieces when she moves on - and I just hope like hell it doesn't happen til I'm in a place in my life I've got a love strong enough to make a net that holds those pieces together til they start to readhere heal and helps me through so I don't lose myself in the hollows of this loss.... Cuz I genuinely don't think I can get me through it on my own.... Even with another dog to love.

P. P. S I also love and adore my asshole of a needy Taurus cat who steals my seat and eats my plants just to spite me by hurting what I love when he feels unloved by me.

I love him and I'll miss him and grieve over him.  But the loss of my Taurus cat won't shatter my heart the way losing my Pisces pup will.  It just won't...

Well it's not that I don't WANT to be reminded of the reasons I love him and I'm drawn to him nor that those reasons are suddenly any different than they were before.  It's not even true that the bond's completely quiet any longer, when he focuses on it and focuses on reaching me he's strong enough that he can -- especially if he catches me while I'm sleeping. He learned how back when I'd suppressed the bond with my own energy and was exhausting myself trying (before Shauna stayed with me needed all my energy and focus just to hold her together with 24/7 care to heal her up enough to give her a plan rather than falling apart in self-destructive choicds - and when I stopped trying to block it,  Eric realized the bond was his as well as mine and he had the power to reach me if he just kept trying. )

Ain't nothing I want more than Eric, and that's the damn truth of it. *shrugs* Always been that. Always will be that way.  But wanting isn't the same as having, and wishing for something doesn't make it true....

And this isn't something I can just let go of. It's because this is a matter of principles, of ethics, that I find myself immovable to letting it go this time.

Intentional cruelty is the greatest wrong a person can do -- to intentionally do something to cause hurt to another living being. It doesn't matter how you rationalize it or how anyone else rationalizes it, it's ALWAYS wrong.  Accidental cruelty happens and is easily mended with me provided you seek to make right the hurt and wrong you did once you realize. But intentional cruelty? to do something knowing when you do it that it will hurt somebody and to do it anyway? That's always going to be wrong....And there will be no making things right by me til you acknowledge it and try to make it right and make the conscious choice not to do it again.

I also can't abide any lies -- to me lies are the greatest cruelty of all. Stories are fine when everyone knows they're a fiction, but a lie where you intend someone to believe it rather than giving them the truth is a great cruelty. Always. Every time.  They're all a form of gaslighting, they all destroy trust between the parties and they're all designed to undercut somebody's touch with reality.... And even if it's a lie "intended as a kindness" or a "white lie" it still ALWAYS hurts when you learn the truth -- and it hurts even worse for the sting of the lie on top of how the hard truth hurts.... You will get lies from me where I don't give you the whole truth or I give you a truth you misinterpret or I tell you something I believe true but isn't -- but you'll never get an outright lie from me. It's one of my more fée characteristics.....

And then, on top of the being cruel after knowing an act to be cruel issue of this.... His choices and his actions. they've made it clear to me that MY hurting in particular is meaningless to him. Him intentionally hurting ME means nothing. Beyond just the basic principle, it's what that says about his callousness towards my emotional well-being.  I can't invest any more of my love and energy and time into somebody who doesn't actually care about me.... And that's what he taught me with his choices over the last month.

That's what all needs repairing.

Nothing is truly irreparable, but this would require a lot of intentional setting things right from him. Not trying to hide it, pretend it didn't happen and it's not a problem. But direct intentional fixing of what's been broken.... And I don't see him doing that. What he wants is a reset as if none of the mess of his sister's making and her continuously getting defensive over her mistakes instead of cleaning it up and then him doubling down on it for her sake ever happened.  But it did happen.  And this is an issue of ethics. It can't just be swept under the rug and reset as if it never happened. Especially without ever doing a damn thing to try to at least right the wrong done.

If I were to give it a reset without the wrong being set right, I'd be condoning the wrong. I'd be as guilty of saying it was acceptable as any of them. And I'm not a moral relativist, never have been. Intentional cruelty in all its forms (including ostracism and bullying) is wrong because you are willfully hurting another -- it denies empathy, denies compassion, denies the sovereignty of another living being, denies the light in each of us is all the same so you can't hurt any part of the creation without causing greater damage to your own soul.....

And I don't have it in me to condone intentional cruelty. Not from anyone. It's not in my nature. Not even for the love I have for him and my own desires for Eric. Love isn't blind to faults or mistakes -- everyone has the first and everyone is guilty of the second. Love can help you to grow and try to be better than you have been. But first you have to be mature enough and compassionate enough to actually acknowledge and make right after you've done a wrong, not just try to pretend it never happened -- that only multiplies the wrongs you do.

Any mistake and any fight can be fixed -- but only if both parties feel bad about what they did amiss and genuinely desire to fix what went wrong. Fixing things doesn't happen by wishing it was never broken or by pretending it's not breaking. Fixing people and their relationships is the same way. You have to start by the admission you broke it and want to fix it -- and that can't happen if anyone involved refuses to admit they did wrong, refuses to admit what they've broken.

I don't like feeling his worry and sorrow -- it echoes in minor keys all ajangle inside my inner quiet whenever it's eating at him. But I can't fix what was broken all by myself. All I can do is be honest about how it broke and why and who is involved. But I can't take a step toward fixing any of it all by myself -- and far as anyone else has shown there's no desire to even look at or admit that any wrong was ever done. And you'll never fix anything you broke by refusing to even acknowledge you broke it. You just won't.... It's never worked that way in all of history and it never will. And that's just how it is.

mood

This poem struck a chord with me when I read it.

But you don't build a love like that on lies and trying to hide the truths you don't want known. (that's shame, not guilt. Guilt is a genuine inner remorse over a wrong you've done whereas shame is the desire that others not know you did wrong.)

And you don't get to keep a woman of this type by following the lead of another person, doing things you know to be wrong.

And she's not the sort to rationalize away intentional cruelty, not the sort to condone it, not the sort to go along with it, not the sort to let it slide without calling it out.


And if you're the sort of man with a sense of ethics so weak that you genuinely don't see the ethical principle here OR you'll follow someone else's lead even though it's to rationalize acts of cruelty and ostracism -- well then you're not the sort of man who could ever give such a woman the love of her lifetime.  And you'll not be able to provide any such thing for her until you learn or remember what's right and what's wrong and set your course by what's right.... So long as you're a tool of peer pressure and empty sycophancy rather than a follower of what is objectively good and true, you'll never be enough of a man to give that kind of woman the sort of love she deserves.


Is what is....  It shouldn't have played this way,  but it did. It's where we're at right now.  And if that's how he is, the sort of weak-willed man he chooses to let himself be, then I'm better off knowing it now. And I'm better off continuing to work to keep the truth of his choices at the front of my mind no matter what he says or does to try to remind me the reasons that I love him and that they still exist.  I can't let myself lose sight of who he has chosen to be, by listening to the rationalizing of others but also by his own choices and actions, and what that speaks of his character just because he tempts me with the reasons he should appeal to me. Thirst traps and reminders of what he's spent so long seeking and the good in him and all the reasons that I still love him and all.

It's my fault. He wasn't ready. And I got impatient. And I asked for this reward life of mine that anyone seeking me be able to find me. Knowing he'd be seeking me, knowing he has been in every life, whether he found me or not.  But he wasn't ready, hadn't fully learned his lessons... he wasn't ready to be tested or rewarded.  It's my fault it's all fallen apart so, it was the reward I asked was given even though he wasn't yet ready to reap the benefits of it -- you can't blame someone for failing at a lesson they've not yet properly learned. You can want all you want that they had known better and hadn't failed, but you can't blame them.  Still though, you can't entrust them with anything more til they do learn it....

I've had a lovely (albeit busy) time while not writing here. Lots of people and music and musicians who I adore -- and a wedding and a lot of drinking at an Oktoberfest as well!  My parents leave for Denver for a few days tomorrow before heading on to their cabin in Montana. They're taking their dog Sophie with them, so I'll have to stop by the house for the mail and to water the plants next week, but I won't be living in two places at once house sitting til they're back. And I have no plans whatsoever (other than working  and getting gardening things done and watching Packers football games and hanging out with my dog and cat and tidying up around my flat and reading and writing) I actually have nothing in my calendar til heading to Minneapolis on the 27th for Hawktail concert, Penny & Sparrow on the 28th, then back to Madison for symphony on the 29th.  Then APT tickets to A Doll's House on Oct. 2, Macbeth on Oct. 4, and Book of Will on Oct. 5.  Then I don't think anything else in the calendar til seeing the banjo boys again on Oct. 13 in Skokie.

But for the next week and a half, no claims on my time but my own!!! And I'm very much looking forward to it!!!!

As for the last post.... I still don't want Eric to be hurting. But honestly, right now there is nothing I could do to alleviate that. Not given his choices. I'm so terribly disappointed in him for being such a follower and going along with the ostracism and bullying til he normalized it and rationalized it that I genuinely don't see things as fixable any longer..... The one thing I've never been able to abide is intentional cruelty, from anyone, and to be guilty of it because another rationalized it to you and you believed them followed their lead? Then either you yourself desire to be cruel or you lack a moral center and ethical core....

 You see, as I said before, it wasn't the content qua content, it was the principle of the matter, the ethical issues of blocking fans on the official band account and then posting content exclusively on the band's instagram -- it makes EVERYONE who then posts any of the content on the band's instagram guilty of relational bullying by ostracism. By saying, "Everyone come hang out , we love you -- except YOU. You may buy our music and support us and come to shows and gain us new fans and you may have been doing all of this for eight years now BUT because you were honest about the country music choice WE made causing YOU physical pain due to your neurological condition of synesthesia, WE don't want YOU to sit with us and hang out with us. This is for our REAL fans -- not YOU and your honesty the girls didn't want to hear."

That's been the issue since last October. Since someone with access to the band's official account decided to block me. And THEN, when other members of the band found out, rather than doing the right thing and saying, "We're so sorry, this is clearly a mistake and you should never have been blocked for this -- let me just unblock you" (it's easy, you just go to the profile settings --> Privacy --> Blocked Accounts and you'll find a list of all the profiles that the account had blocked and you click on the account and then just click the unblock button. It's about as easy as possible to have fixed.) Now if you don't think it was wrong, if you think the block should stand, you still ADDRESS the fact it happened and own up to it and explain your reasons for doing it and standing by it while owning up to the hurt it caused.  Instead, NOBODY ever responded to it, they just ignored it as if ignoring the truth makes the truth go away AND recently Brittany and Eric decided together to start putting things EXCLUSIVELY on Instagram DESPITE me stating quite publicly as well as to Eric (both publicly and privately) that I was blocked on the official band account and EVERY time any band member posted on the delta rae official instagram account it was a form of relational bullying same as inviting everyone to do something but telling someone, 'not you. Everyone else, but not you." It's mean girls bullshit.And it's absolutely the WORST way you could EVER have handled such a situation. it's not just bad pr behavior, it's shit ethics and being a cruel human being who shows lack of empathy, complete indifference to the hurt you have caused another living being.

I rolled my eyes at Liz and Britt doing it, but it didn't surprise me as they both have the petty vindictive bullying streak in them to begin with if you refuse to follow their lead. They're both more than a little catty. They have their good qualities, but it didn't surprise me they chose to engage in that form of bullying.

but Eric doing it, even with Britt and at her obvious instigation? Well that made me disappointed in him. But tonight, he decided to do it all on his own, to go live and play some songs ON THE BAND INSTAGRAM ACCOUNT same as he used to do on his own account. It was an absolute smack in the face of cruelty, intentional cruelty, from him. And disappointment is too mild a word for the volumes that choice of his tonight spoke of his character..... (Yes of course I know. Don't be an idiot. I have friends who follow them still on insta as well as facebook and the diehard groupies obsessively post about how wonderful the post was every damn time that anyone sneezes on the band insta. Of course I can watch it on someone else's account if I so desire -- I told you the content qua content is NOT the issue, the relational bullying and ostracism and intentional cruelty is the problem.)

 

 For me, this choice and behavior of Eric's (and solely of Eric's) makes him guilty solely on his own of being just as bad as the girls and whoever blocked me on the band's instagram. He is guilty of being a bully, and intentionally so, and he is guilty of being intentionally cruel and not giving a damn about the hurt he causes. For me, his actions and choices now leave me with no desire to give him another chance. before tonight, I had a faint desire to have it worked out somehow and have him explain to me how/why he didn't respond but it's not what I thought. But now? Knowing that he KNOWS precisely how I view this behavior and why?! I have no desire to make things right after what he did tonight....  After the November shows I already have tickets to, I have no desire to ever attend a Delta Rae show ever again after the way the girls AND Eric have behaved and treated me. I don't even desire to listen to their music -- I can't enjoy music no matter how good it is if the person(s) who made it prove that they are shitty people. that is what first the girls and now Eric have shown me over having blocked me for having been honest that the country music causes me physical pain and then having done NOTHING to acknowledge the pain they caused but instead to continuously and intentionally inflict further cruelty and pain upon the initial hurt by gaslightng as if they never did anything wrong. Despite the deep abiding wrongs they have spent nearly a year inflicting.

And no music, nothing they can do as artists will do anything whatsoever to improve things even the slightest bit. Not so long as the ethical wrong stands unaddressed and they continue to try and ignore it and pretend they never were guilty of that wrong.

And at this point, my opinion of Eric is so low that if it were in my power, I'd sever our karmic ties (and not just put the bond between us aslumber as it is now) so he'd never be able to find me again in any of his future lives. Ever.  Wrong is wrong is wrong.  And THIS tonight was his choice and actions and his alone. He destroyed the love that was and would have been by choosing to try to hide his sisters MAJOR fuckup for her rather than acknowledge it and make it right.

That's on him. And only him.

*shrugs*

"It is better to do nothing than to do what is wrong. For whatever you do, you do to yourself."~The Dhammapada

In this case, doing nothing was an act of doing wrong since it was built upon a bad act already done and the lie that there was no wrong previously done that needed to be addressed and fixed.

His every choice not to deal with this but instead to continue down the path his sister created and double down on her cruelty and to perpetuate it is making this situation more more entrenched against him ever getting me to give him another chance,  more and more final. And the initial fuckup that was never cleaned up is the fault of his sister and her flaws - but it's him being the driving force diggimg his own grave now......

You don't heal hurts you've done or trauma you're guilty of inflicting by ignoring the pain or denying it or trying to pretend it didn't happen or victim blaming (as so many of their fans have done in response to my honesty about the previous honesty having caused them to block me) -- you heal hurts by listening to the person you hurt tell you of their hurt, by giving them space to be honest and acknowledging the truth they speak, then by doing what is within your powers to make amends and start setting right the wrongs you are guilty of.

Even a 3 year old is taught to say sorry, same as thank you. You'd think as an adult, you'd have the courage to do the right thing that your own nephew would advise you is the only right thing to do after having said/done something to hurt somebody. It makes Liz, Britt, and Eric not just bullies, but cowards. Complete and utter cowards.....

There are no options for me and my heart and my soul other than divesting myself of any emotional response to ANYTHING from the band, from Eric, and from the girls without them doing the right thing.  It is why i refuse to respond in any fashion to anything any of them post or share, no matter how happy it ought by rights to make me in the content qua content or how much it should have reminded me of all the reasons I love Eric. Quite simply, none of it can reach beyond the disappointment and dissociation from giving them any emotional leverage or power to further hurt me in this situation that the girls created, continue to perpetuate, and now Eric has made himself a party to being the bully for them.  Eric has once again failed his soul's path testing to see if he can manage NOT to intentionally inflict pain and harm to me. At least this time it was merely standing by the girls bullying behavior, not turning me over to his lord to be sold to the English so they could burn me at the stake. It's not like I didn't warn him any of the times he's failed to protect me or failed to not be the source of hurt to me -- he was warned and has been told of it all along. His failure at his testing is on him. And honestly, if he continues down this path he's chosen to be party to, I have no desire to give him any further chances. not in this life nor in any other.

I do not mean to hurt Eric, like I said right now I can't feel anything at all toward him or anyone in the band -- it's all still numbed in hollow indifference. But I don't like when people hurt, and I'd not wish hurt on anyone. Not even people I actively disliked.... And I don't dislike any of them -- I won't lie to myself about them, about the good or the bad in their natures. I don't for anyone. My affection and love is earned by honesty, never by the flattering lies..... not for anyone. Ever.

I don't wish him to be hurt. Unfortunately it's a byproduct of his choices that compounded the damage and harm that the girls did and never did anything to repair. What they did wasn't his fault. And honestly, what he did would have in no way been in the wrong or caused me hurt IF either the girls hadn't done what they did or if someone in the band had dealt with cleaning up the mess and doing right what Britt broke. The only reason it was a source of hurt and did wrong and broke things between him and me is because of his sister's actions and the refusal of ANYONE in the band to acknowledge what she had done or do anything to make right what she did wrong. Her pride and the others following her lead is what poisoned everything and is the sole and only source of everything that he currently suffers and will suffer as a result.

I'll never lie about that. Not to me, not to anyone else. I will forever be the child calling out that the emperor wears no clothing. That is a part of my nature -- to see things clearly at their truth not the mask you want people to believe. It's who I am. Who I've always been.

Yes, I am too honest and too blunt in my honesty. I know I am. But if asked, I'm more than willing to keep my honesty to private conversations not public unless there's an ethics issue that needs to be called out and righted. All you have to do is ask or tell me, "Calling out this truth for what it is will shame me in front of people" and then I will tell you straight out, "The action itself should make you ashamed if people knowing you did it would shame you.  But as long as you'll listen, I'll tell you in private."

But I will never lie for you, to you, or to myself. A lie is an act of extreme cruelty as well as a negation of the Creation itself and no trust between anyone can ever be built if there are lies between you. And without trust, anything you try to build between you is superficial and meaningless...... And what the fuck use do I have for the superficial meaningless fake?!

I do not wish Eric ill and I do not wish him to be hurting. The fact he is does bother me. But it's nothing I can fix, nothing I can change.

I do not believe he cares, whatsoever, about me or about my hurt. He proved that in his choices and actions -- by intentionally and deliberately doing something he KNEW to be hurtful and bullying via ostracism WHILE I was warning him reminding him that to do so would be to act in deliberate bullying cruelty due to the situation his sister had created in the official name of the band. Those are the simple facts of what he did, what he chose.  It doesn't MATTER if his intentions were to celebrate and share joy -- the MOMENT that ANYONE chose to ostracize ANYONE from joining the band's official account, a situation of exclusion was created.   Eric didn't CREATE the system of exclusion -- but he took part in perpetuating it (he STILL takes part in perpetuating it) and enforcing it. he is no different than any person who says "this is just how it is" about Apartheid or "you can't sit with us" middle school harassment of the awkward or any form of "separate but equal" system mankind has ever created. He didn't create it, but he supported and perpetuated the exclusionary behaviors. it's the most southern he's ever been -- I'm sure his southern ancestors would be proud of him and his sister for keeping the tradition of "you're not allowed to join us" othering of forced exclusion.

Wrong is wrong is wrong is wrong.

Just because the act of creating the system was MORE evil (and that is on whoever decided it was a good idea to block fans for their honesty) doesn't mean that those who are PERPETUATING and actively promoting/taking part in the system of exclusion aren't evil.  Evil is evil, wrong is wrong. And the philosophy behind what the band is now guilty of because of what Brittany did and nobody sought to make right is the IDENTICAL rationalizing and philosophy behind every system of exclusion mankind ever created.  Eric following her lead and not speaking out or trying to end the evil, his complicity in it, makes him guilty of it same as anyone bullying because the lead mean girl said "that's the one to pick on" is guilty of evil. It doesn't have to be your idea or your creation for you to do evil in perpetuating. Yes Britt is more guilty for having created the system of exclusion (as is anyone who blocks another for honesty to shut them up or to exclude them because they don't want people to hear what they have to say) BUT Eric and EVERY member of the band is guilty of FOLLOWING her system of exclusion and perpetuating it EVERY time they post ANYTHING under the name of an official account that includes ostracism in its design. Those who have done so without knowing of the problem are guilty but ignorant. Those who KNOW about it and CHOOSE not to right it or fight it and make things fair and inclusive are guilt of KNOWINGLY doing wrong. And any wrong KNOWINGLY done is a greater sin, a greater bad act, than those done in ignorance of the harm you are doing.

The greatest evils in this world come from people who follow. The true horror of the great inequities of mankind is in the banality of evil, the everyday unexamined acts of wrong that you come to normalize and rationalize and accept without ever examining if it is right or if it is wrong. If you haven't read it, read Hannah Arendt's Eichmann in Jerusalem. In fact, you should read as much Arendt as you can find -- she was a brilliant thinker and philosopher and political analyst. I'm due for a re-read of Eichmann in Jerusalem, tbh.

Here's part of what Arendt has to say on the subject, in a letter to a friend of hers, "I changed my mind and do no longer speak of “radical evil.” … It is indeed my opinion now that evil is never “radical,” that it is only extreme, and that it possesses neither depth nor any demonic dimension. It can overgrow and lay waste the whole world precisely because it spreads like a fungus on the surface. It is “thought-defying,” as I said, because thought tries to reach some depth, to go to the roots, and the moment it concerns itself with evil, it is frustrated because there is nothing. That is its “banality.” Only the good has depth that can be radical."

As I said, for me Eric's actions, no matter his excuses rationalizing the wrong he did by his excitement and intention of acting in gratitude and desire to share joy, of partaking in a system of exclusion of ostracism that he KNEW existed and was unfair and wrong and still chose to promote the system of excluding people based on the bullying ostracism that had been created. There were plenty of other ways and places he could have chosen to go live -- he CHOSE to do it live on instagram KNOWING there were issues of fans who were also kickstarter backers having been blocked (and still blocked) on the band's official instagram account AND having the reminder of it being an issue publicly and privately told to him and everyone in the band on their public accounts on other social media accounts.  That makes him guilty of WILLFULLY and KNOWINGLY being an instrument of bullying, exclusion, and ostracism and CHOOSING to perpetuate the system of relational bullying. It's no different than bringing treats for everyone in the classroom except whoever his sister told him not to because "I don't like that person."  It's as wrong to do as an adult as it is when you're a child -- because the ethical principles, the issues of right and wrong are the same.

I'm a firm believer in the importance of learning from mistakes -- so I'll not say it's beyond fixing. But first you have to face the hard truths and learn your lessons and where you fucked up and figure out how to be better.... You can choose to try to make right the wrongs you have done in bullying someone or taking part in the system of bullying. It starts by acknowledging the truth of what happened and the hurt it caused -- and then trying to make things right from a place of openness and truth rather than hiding and lies/rationalizations.  Or you cannot try to make it better. But it's never for the victim of bullying to apologize or to seek to make right -- it's for those who are guilty of having taken part in the bullying to  acknowledge, apologize, and make right.

Everyone makes mistakes. Everyone fucks up -- sometimes terribly even though they had no idea the consequences at the time. Everyone makes mistakes, and almost anything can be fixed. But it starts with a true DESIRE to fix it. And that can only happen by holding space and acknowledging the damage done, how/why it happened, AND taking responsibility in your part(s) in creating the toxic hurtful situation. Everyone makes mistakes, but the measure of a soul's character is their ability to acknowledge it, attempt to make amends for it, and what they learn from it for moving forward. It's not the mistake that bothers me so, grievous as it is, it's the lack of personal growth and accountability since the fuck ups occurred. And it's the lack of transparency, the desire to HIDE the bad deeds because you're ashamed of them rather than fess up to them so you can heal them, and making right the wrong which has caused this to escalate and snowball into what it is now.

There is nothing he can do to reach me or break through this state of indifference toward him and the band without him setting right the ethics issue at the root of this. The ethics issue he is guilty of taking part in.

If that doesn't matter to him, then that is what it is. And I'm telling you straight out that ANY continuing to ignore this or pretend it's not an issue or refusal to acknowledge the acts of intentional cruelty this situation created IS a statement of not caring about 1) having done wrong 2) having caused hurt or been a bully to another. That is the ONLY reading of ANYONE continuing to do nothing about it. "Silence is complicity." At this point, everyone in the band, in whose name the exclusion and ostracism is committed with EVERY post on instagram, is at fault of those 2 things.

*shrugs* That's just simple common decency and maturity of ethics. Of right and wrong. I cannot view any of them who perpetuate the system of exclusion that the girls created or are guilty of promoting it by telling people they'll be doing exclusive content on that official band account as anything but bullies who are okay with being part of a system of exclusion and ostracism and intentional relational bullying. And there is nothing you can create as an artist (or collective of artists) that can move me or be admired by me if you show yourself to be a trash human who treats others with cruelty instead of compassion.

I genuinely must conclude from his choices and his actions (and inactions) that Eric does not love me and does not care about me.  If you don't CARE about doing an action that hurts another, than you don't care about that person. Period. Whatever he feels about not being able to reach me on the bond and my refusal to have any reaction beyond indifference to anything he or the band does as a result of this, the truth is that those feelings are NOT love. They may be need, they may be loss, they may be HIS suffering over my absence --  but they sure as Hell aren't love. Love is a state of wanting good for another soul, to watch them thrive, to give them your own love and good and feel their love in return -- it is a desire to protect them and to feel like absolute shit when you've hurt than -- that nothing will fix until you've made good for the hurt you did. He may miss the warmth of my love flowing into him -- but he doesn't CARE about causing me hurt and that means that towards me he doesn't possess love for ME, only his own self-love upset over what he has lost. And those aren't the same thing.... And I refuse to pour my love into someone who doesn't even love me enough to care whether or not they cause me hurt and who will do NOTHING to try to make it right when they have. That's not love, that's not a give and take, that's not a flow. That's just taking the love of another....

No, Eric's actions and inactions opened my eyes and have forced me to accept, in every cell of my body and every fibre of my soul that he doesn't love ME qua me, he simply misses my love when it's absent from him. He doesn't love me, he loves being loved.

If he can learn and grow and SHOW ME that he cares about being a source of joy not hurt and cares about what I'm going through then I may someday learn to believe that he could love me. But it would take work, and genuine desire in him -- and until continued proof of his love of me qua me outweighed how much he loved being loved, I will continue to assume in my subconscious that he simply doesn't care about me or what upsets me.

So I don't wish him to hurt, and I hope the hurting passes for him soon if he's not going to do any of the things he'd need to do to make it better..... But as someone who will give til I'm empty, I'm standing by these boundaries that there's a grievous ethical wrong at play in anything done in the name of the band's official instagram account AND that I simply do not believe that there's any love in Eric for ME qua me -- he only loves feeling the presence of my love given to him. And I have no intention of reawakening that bond between us so long as he only desires to take love but never to give it. And the only way to give love is to care about the other person and what they're going through.... and his choices and actions and inactions of late tell me he doesn't care about me or what I go through or any hurts done to me or anything he does that knowingly will cause me harm.

I didn't ask for the bond to sleep again as punishment for him.  I did it to protect myself.  To protect me from the bond of a one-sided love where he expected to always receive my love but never to even care whether I was hurting....  It wasn't done to hurt him,  it was done to protect me from any further hurt from him and his indifference and acts of intentional cruelty.....  It was cause and effect.  And an act of self protection.....

And it doesn't matter what he or the band does to try to appeal to me. There is no healing or making it right by trying to ignore the ethical issues at play. I don't bend on ethical issues. Ever. Chaotic good Libra and a Gryffindor. I don't back down over issues of bullying, exclusion/ostracism, and ethics of right versus wrong.

P.S. Hit publish on this, then saw a lightning bolt hit a tree across the street, the whole tree illuminated. Then sudden downpour and pounding rain started.... But ended after just a few minutes as suddenly as it started.

The Unbearable Lightness of Being

Emma Langford - The Unbearable Lightness of Being


I have listened to this song a dozen times already this morning,  and I put it on repeat in the car when I left home  (grandma texted me all in caps at 8:15am, freaking out while I was in the shower to reschedule errands to tomorrow as she remembered some things with her will she was anxious to get done before seeing her accountant.  So I was luckily able to switch tomorrow's oil change and tire rotation to today. And I'm currenrly sitting at the mechanics waiting room getting that taken care of. With classic rock playing out loud,  but Emma in my head.)

Anyway,  I wasn't certain what I wanted to listen to this morning while getting ready,  but then I read Emma's beautiful heartfelt facebook post for World Suicide Prevention Day.  And I felt such a rush and wave  of love for her and her existence and honesty that I knew I wanted to listen to Quiet Giant more than anything else.... (she's one of my Irish singer-songwriter darlings, knows me from past lives and recognized it called it out first time we met.) Didn't finish the album,  got stuck on the 6th track on repeat.  But that happens betimes.  I'll finish it later I'm sure!

But what's not to love?  Intelligent funny beautiful songwriting with piano, strings, guitar, and flawless vocals!  And this is a love song waltz!!! (I do love me a good waltz!!  And to me,  every waltz but a country waltz is a good waltz!!  Then again,  I can count the number of country artists I can stand listening to on one hand,  lol. The fact 99% of country vocalists twanging offkey causes me physical pain does NOT endear the genre to me.  Whatsoever... Bro country is just mysoginistic racist trumpy and female country vocalists are pitchy af...  (with the exceptions of Alison Krauss and Rhiannon Giddens and a limited number of Patsy Kline songs) female country vocalists are generally the pitchiest of the pitchy.  Nails on chalkboard TERRIBLE when they twang... Mentioning or playing or sharing country music of any sort is the quickest way for me to have an immediate visceral ick reaction then write you off and send me running....Always. always always.  Even a waltz beat won't help if it's country style vocals....)

AND this song is  a love song waltz with piano,  violin,  and guitar that was written and inspired by the Milan Kundera book of the same name!  😍 (love the book too!  Should reread it.  Should look for any Kundera I haven't read or don't own.  Haven't read/reread anything by him in several years,  but he's a favorite contemporary author!  Kundera,  Coelho, and Rushdie are 3 of my favorite living (not scifi-fantasy)  authors!)

Should surprise nobody this song spoke to me is on repeat this morning.....

It's so beautiful though!  Made me tear up with joy at its beauty as I sipped my coffee this morning. Before I put it on repeat,  lol.

O yes. The thing that shook me the other night. has nothing to do with anything in the last two posts.

So was at Macbeth up at American Players Theater, and one of my favorite core actors of the company who has been with them since I was a child but isn't in any of the plays this season was also in attendance in the audience, very front row with his wife. He was unwell and his wife extra solicitous, especially about the rain. It was unusual and I could tell he was unwell. And out of concern and as the gloaming (when the veil is thinnest and takes the least energy to play with) was settling in I tugged at the veil and pulled it taut to flip it and peer into his fate line.

Now I don't typically do this. I don't like to peek or ask for more. The precogs are more than enough glimpsing into the future. Me pushing and prodding can blur the lines between the fate lines of will be and the contingent futures of may be. Also, there are lots of things that one is better off not knowing... I prefer to allow the precogs that  affect me closely to come to me as required by my gifts and fates and not prod for more.  I can see more, but I dislike the asking. And also, when i feed my gifts, they grow. And they're already overwhelming powerful enough. Sometimes, the ability to see future fates, it doesn't turn off you see when I feed power into it.... The other night was one of them.

I wanted to know about his future fate, to know if he was ill unto his final illness (he's not) and if I'll see him on the APT stage again in another season (I will) so I pulled the veil between life and death a little bit tighter and peeked through to see whose lights were shining bright, whose were dimmed with inner illnesses that could still be cured, and whose were snuffed out to end in the next 6 months and by what cause(s) -- it's one of my healer's gifts, all healers with the sight have it. If you don't have this gift to see the light of life, then you're either not a healer or don't truly have the sight. Everyone knows that.

Anyway, the problem with the healer's death sight is that it's for everyone not just the one person you seek. It's not like laying the healing hands and energy flow to find the illness where you are looking at what internally your energy can set right. Pinching and twisting the veil to see with the death sight, you look at everyone through the twisted veil til it untwists again....

I was duly relieved about the actor who'd had me concerned. But it was a sold out show, including shuttle buses from the retirement homes in Madison. And there were so many dimmed, and so many snuffed out within the year.  It was disconcerting the percentage to be sure. But I could have dealt with the load of all those end of life stories flooding my consciousness, as I typically would, after all they were old and had lived long lives -- some more fulfilling than others but all long.

But what gutted me was that right across the theater from me on the opposite side and halfway up, there was a 15 year old girl with her family. And her life force was snuffed out. In just under 5 months, she takes her own life. She was surface enjoying the play, but through the twists of the veil I could clearly see her fate and her life force snuffed out, and by her own hand....

But what shook me hardest was there was nothing I could do about it. I couldn't, as a complete stranger, go up to her to try to change her course tell her not to do it nor could I have told her family to keep an extra careful eye on her and surround her with love and watch her pver the next 5 months... . There was nothing I could do for her as it wasn't near future and there wasn't anything I could explain how I knew or even say anything to shift it.... I know, I searched through all my little pebbles to shift the course for them and none would do it. Just niceties and some positive energy from a stranger that would shine through for a time but not into her darkness 5 months ahead of now.....

And there was no way for me to untwist the veil, to turn off the death sight until the gloaming passed of its own and the sun finished setting. It was stuck. I couldn't stop seeing that light snuffed out in all of them and in the 15 year old girl..... Not til the sun set and it wasn't a thin veiled between hours... So I turned my head and fixated on the stage in an angle to shut out all the audience even from my peripheral. For all the actors onstage burned bright and clear full of life force -- even the not yet announced bitty one in one of the actresses. Thankfully, the sun set as it always does and the veil righted itself and pulled back to its normal thickness before intermission and while I could still wade through the future fates and perhapses with my normal precogs, the death sight was past until next I called on it. So I didn't have to watch her sitting there with her snuffed out self-slain life.... Poor dear....

The gifts and the various forms my second sight can manifest, they're as often curses as blessings in what they show. There's always a price you must pay for the gifts.... The fate of Cassandra where no one believes your precogs til too late is the fate of every prophet/prophetess and the least of the curses that your gifts can manifest.

It still haunts me though, that 15 year old whose suicide I could do nothing to shift..... There are plenty of such things that I see but cannot change that haunt me always. Some I see from people's pasts (including long ago pasts), some in their presents, and some in their futures.... And when I can do nothing to avert the fates that are immutable or that their choices will bring them... It haunts me, that I can do nothing to change it. With all my gifts and all my free will, still there are things that no amount of fighting can change.

*shrugs*

Such is my lives. There is plenty of light blazes through them and through me. but there are still shadows from it of the things I cannot change. Especially when I come up against the free will choices of another soul. It's my own set of rules, how I sight my course of ethics to guide me through. The greater the powers, the greater the  chance of it corrupting you -- yet to retain your powers and for them to grow, you must prove the trust that has been placed in you and not let it corrupt you. The more you are given, the more peril there is for it to corrupt you, and the more careful you must be to not be corrupted by the ego and the venal and the lies that flatter you..... Otherwise, you'll fail your testing and you'll lose far more than you temporarily gained....  For me, I set my course and try to keep clearheaded in my ethics by two maxims: 1) Cleave to the truth, no matter how much it hurts or how ugly it is -- still never turn from the truth for the sake of the beautiful lie. Not even the ones you tell yourself that you wish to be true. truth is eternal and to be chosen no matter how difficult it is to accept. 2) Free will is sacrosanct. You can try to teach or sway another -- but whatever they choose of their own free will, must be accepted without any attempt to shift it from their choice by the use of gifts. Free will is sacrosanct and magic and gifts are NEVER to be used to enslave or shift or sway the free will of another. Never ever.

Those are my 2 rules that I use to guide me -- for thousands and thousands of years now. Cleave to the truth no matter how difficult the truth or tempting the beautiful lie and always respect the free will of every soul as sacrosanct as it is what guides the course of their lives and the lessons they must learn....  All else changes, all else is of the moment it's in then gone. But those two ethical core maxims can be trusted to guide you through anything -- no matter how difficult the battle you're fighting in any given life and no matter how heavy the price of the gifts weighs on you.

Still. I hate when I see things like a 15 year old who will kill herself in 4.5 months and nothing I can do to shift that even though I can see it.... It makes me wish I didn't hold myself to the two old rules and I'd allow myself to meddle and force people's free will to bend to mine for their own "good" like so many dark practitioners do (any magic that requires forcing another person's will to be enslaved to your own desires IS dark magic -- no matter how you've rationalized to yourself your reasons are good.) But I have the gifts I have because I'm trusted with them and pass my testings and don't let power or ego unduly corrupt me. And that is entirely because I'm so strict about these two rules and always have been.

*sigh* So it goes. So it goes... She'll have other lives and there must be some reason for the path she's on and the lessons she must learn (and that those who love her in this life must learn) for it.  Still. It's hard to know and not be able to alter course....

The gifts are what they are. And I do more good for the having of them than I ever have to suffer for the carrying them. I have more power in my little finger and a flareup of temper than your hippie witch in her life with her rituals and her blood magic that she doesn't know what she's truly tampering with. If you wish to learn and to grow in your gifts, study with the old souls who have been priestesses in more lives than you've ever even incarnated in. That's where the true knowledge and power is to be found. That is what I've been working on raising up in this time since Rome (which I vehemently fought against ever rising to feed like a locust and destroy this planet with its insatiable greed and colonial selfish taking.) Why did you think I ran away from my homelands, from Greece and France, to spend so many centuries in the great northern wild woodlands of "the new world" that Rome would never touch and its diseased basic premises wouldn't reach for at least 1500 years of building and instilling. Those who are grasping at the after shocks of what us old ones are doing know nothing -- especially if they've turned their back on the old souls and old priestesses who still walk among us. Calling yourself a witch doesn't give you any of the true gifts -- no more than attending white chick yoga retreats teaches you Hindu spirituality.

~*~*~*~*~

In happier news. I'm about halfway through season 2 of Anne With An E (the new CBC series, it's on Netflix as well.)  I adore it!!! It plays INCREDIBLY fast and loose with the storyline, but it's true to the soul of the novels and the time and the characters. And it's utterly gorgeous and sublime!!! So perfect for the crispness of fall!!!! I always associate Anne with the color and glory and crisp everything of fall -- the 8 books of the series are what I'd most likely bring to re-read while eating apples up in my red cedar tree every non-rainy afternoon after school til sunset..  (L.M Montgomery is one of my forever favorite authors of a million re-reads since I first learned to read when I was 4 -- skipped right over kids series like babysitters Club which I thought stupid. Went from picture books straight to Andrew Lang fairy tales and Edith Hamilton's Greek Mythology and L. M. Montgomery and Louisa May Alcott and Frances Hodgson Burnett and Laura Ingalls Wilder and adventure novels like Island of the Blue Dolphins and Julie of the Wolves - and of course completely free range through scifi and fantasy with some gentle nudges from my father and grandfather of works I HAD to read. I own and have read every book and short story L.M. Montgomery ever wrote, over and over and over and over -- she is one of my forever favorites and an author I reread whenever I need a pick me up.  I relate to her characters more than I relate to most modern girls.  I adore Anne, she's certainly a kindred spirit. But my favorite is Emily. Read the Emily of New Moon trilogy -- even if you're a grown man and think it well beneath you, read it. They're brimful of magic and wit and beauty and the eldritch and love.)

And tomorrow (today now) I'm taking my grandma to see her accountant about Richard's estate and taxes and getting her finances squared away now Richard has passed. And then we're going to lunch and then I'm taking her shopping at Trader Joe's -- it's one of her favorites to explore!!!

Later this week, on Fri night I'm headed to Chicago to see Aoife Scott (and her man Andy Meaney, also her guitarist and co-writer of her songs, lol) at the Chicago Irish Heritage Center. Then on Sat is Ian & Jane's wedding. Then on Sunday, back to Chicago to see Cathall's other band The Conifers -- but Cathall doesn't know yet. he was so sad at the prospect of not seeing us again til next summer (not even as Aoife's fiddle player when she's back stateside in April as he'll be in school finishing up his undergrad in music composition, music theory, and Irish language/literature) that after big hugs and orders to facebook befriend him, he ran to his bag and came back with 2 copies of each of The Conifers CDs as gifts for Crissy and me -- just for the joy and the smiles and the great conversations and the good craic over the summer and fest seasons. Anyway, because Ian & Jane's wedding means not going to Muskegon Irishfest this year and having to cancel all those plans, Cathall didn't think he'd see us again. but when we checked the schedule for The Conifers, they're playing Chicago right before they fly back to Ireland (he starts uni again next Tuesday.) so we're going to surprise him! And then nearly two weeks with nothing in the calendar but Packers games and meteor showers and moon phases!!  Nothing til heading up to Minneapolis to see Hawktail and then see Penny & Sparrow!  😁 (not going to get to see their Chi show on the Ginch tour since they scheduled it same night ad the only Hawktail show near me alllllll year!)

I'm also excited I'll get to see my banjo boys (3 of  the 4 are older than me, Dave is the only one younger than me) again this year, in Skokie in October!!!! It's the randomest thing that date -- they're just finishing up their Ireland tour and their home show in Galway and all. then off to Oregon and Alaska and a handful of October dates including Skokie again!!!!!  I'll see them in October and then not again til January per their tour schedule... Very much looking forward to that!!! Though it's on the other side of many many concerts and theater tickets and the joy of autumn!!! I love autumn -- the season is just so deliciously gorgeous and full of so many of my favorite seasonal things!!!!!!

O!!! And Aunt Geeta is coming to visit Oct 15-21 during the South East Asian Conference!!!!! She comes to Madison every year for it, but it's always exciting. (I still haven't visited their place since they moved to Charleston from Boston....though they're always trying to get me to visit...)  I'm so excited to see her!!! I love her so much!!!

O and these thunderstorms tonight!!!!! They're glorious!!!!! And bringing a few days back in the 80s before we return to our nights in the low 50s (even some in upper 40s) and days in the 60s that the last week or so has been!