Yesterday I went on a nice long 2 hour walk in the woods with Mikaela and the dogs (my dog Audrey Pupburn and my parents' dog Sophie) during which we did some preliminary energy work teaching. I do teach, though never for money nor will I teach anyone who will use their gifts for monetary, political, or social gains. If you will use your gifts for monetary reasons in this life, I won't take you on as a student -- and I do peek ahead on that to see when i am considering if I will be a teacher for an individual with awakened gifts. And I don't seek out students, I only teach those who find me by chance/serendipity/timing in a haphazard way to those with their gifts already awakened and ready/willing to learn. I don't bother with teaching those who want gifts they lack or who say they want to learn but have no respect for those who question them.  I tend to use a fairly Socratic method that is individualized to whomever I am helping. I also tailor how I teach to each person whose gifts I help develop or teach. For example, Mikaela is a strong empath, medium, and healer with a strong instinct for defenses/protection -- but weather witching, telepathy, prophecy/precog, and time manipulation aren't among her awakened gifts even after her entire lifetime experiencing secondhand me manipulating those energies. She may never have those gifts, and that's as it should be.  However, it means rather than trying to teach her to memorize things that will frustrate her because she can't do them, I'm mostly working with her on recognizing her own body's responses as cues, protecting herself energetically, realigning/blessing a space to make it safe/protected, and how to tell other people's emotions from her own and how to influence them and separate them from altering hers. I also intend to teach her how to help trapped spirits move on if they choose to -- I feel it's a necessary thing for her to know how to do (and I trust my instincts on that) even if she doesn't choose to make a habit of it she should know how to do it if she finds it necessary.

I've waited (other than being around me being a catalyst for dormant gifts waking up -- which is something I can't alter, it's just part of my me-ness) for several reasons. The first is that her family are Jehovah's Witnesses and while her mom will love her no matter what, their religion is very strict and different than my own spiritual views. And also the poor child had a mental/emotional breakdown when she was five over the fact that I wouldn't be in the Witnesses concept of the new World after the second coming of Christ because I'm Jewish (and a pagan witch, but that wasn't even part of her conscious realizations at that point) and both her mom and I had a long talk with her about the fact that G-d must see more than where one worships to be truly omniscient, eutheistic, and omnipotent. I also told her a bit about my own personal beliefs and why I have them and i told her that I see religious/spiritual beliefs as being a purely personal thing between the individual and G-d/the Universe and whatever is best fit for the individual to experience and share in the good in Creation. I also told her that while she was living with her parents as a minor, whatever her personal spiritual beliefs are she must keep them between her and G-d but while a minor she should still go to the services of Witnesses and learn and listen even if she didn't accept or believe it all because every religion can help teach ways to be a better person AND while she lived with her parents it wasn't worth the fight it would be with her father. You must pick your battles and unless they asked of her something she felt completely unethical, this wasn't a battle worth fighting while she was living in their house as their child.

The other reason I waited is because while she was one of my older sisters 2 lives ago and she's experienced deaths before, in each life a soul with awakened gifts must experience death to know how their current body recognizes/reads it.  Death and the process of dying is a part of the cycle of lives and if you want to be a healer, you must recognize how to ease the dying as well as heal the living.  It's important that you know how to help them let go so they don't get stuck with unfinished business or guilt over the life they are releasing. and you must know how sicknesses that can't be healed feel.  It's important to know how it feels and to know how to let go. And she hadn't experienced that until earlier this year when her grandfather died of heart failure because he refused to do what was recommended/needed 3 years ago. But the experience of a loved one dying and their death is necessary imho before teaching gifts related to healing. I'll teach protections and how to cleanse/bless a place without it, but healing requires a knowledge of death/dying.  On our walk, I stopped to hug one of the trees because it was too sick for me to heal but I could still take away its pain and acknowledge it and when Mikaela came over to hug it and feel its energy with me, she said very quietly, "It feels like my grandpa did." which confirmed for me she could recognize dying as opposed to sick that can be healed. Which is something she couldn't do six months ago.  And it's important because when it's the time for death, if you don't recognize that truth then you as a healer can pour energy in until you burn yourself out but still not be able to heal it -- all you can do if it's that being's time to die is take away pain so they can have a peaceful dying experience. And if you wish to do energy work for healing, you need to recognize that difference when you encounter it. 

Anyway, a few months ago while her grandfather was in the process of dying, I had a talk to her acknowledging that she does have gifts and that i can teach her but I wanted her to tell me if or when she wants that, that I'd not force her to learn it if she didn't wantto. Now that she's nearly 16 and she knows herself better she is old enough to decide what she wants to learn  and how she feels about it relative to her own personal religious spiritual beliefs. And I told her that I can't teach her anything she doesn't have a natural gift for EVEN IF she can recognize other gifts in me or other people and that I expected we could start working on it over her Spring Break.  I haven't yet told her that migraines can happen from over-working gifts and from empath overload -- I don't want her blaming her gifts for when she has pain.

Tomorrow she's going to get dropped off at my place to have a cozy day with a fire in the hearth and some time with my cat. (Provided she doesn't have a migraine or anything.)  so we'll work some more on fundamentals and to help me get a better idea for how her use of energy flow works. I never teach by rituals, I prefer to simplify and work through focus of will rather than have people rely on meaningless rituals/dogma HOWEVER some people require rituals they believe in to focus their intent. So I'm not anti-ritual, I just find it like trying to stop thinking by guided meditation -- the exercise gets in the way once you are more advanced than it's designed to help teach.  So I tend to just skip that phase in my teaching and just use energy work force of will/intention for teaching. 

Anyway. That's also going on in my life this year, I've taken on the teaching of a little.  Which isn't surprising to anyone, I'm sure most people expected it in this particular case -- and I'll teach anyone of any age with untrained gifts or newly awakened gifts if they approach me to ask for my help in them getting a handle on it and growing stronger more comfortable in their innate gifts. I've not directly talked to her family about it, but she'll be 16 in Taurus season so she's old enough to know her own self and decide her own beliefs. And she's now experienced the dying and death of a loved one so she can recognize it for what it is which was my unvoiced requirement to work with her healing gifts. (And many of her best friends are LGBTQ+ even though Witnesses are against it so acknowledging energy work and spiritual matters beyond stricter Christian dogma and the importance to her of me is not the only reason she has issues with their teachings.)  She also knows that I believe in reincarnation and remember past lives and she once asked me if she and I have crossed paths before and i told her, "Yes, but right now you don't need to relive that death of the most recent life we knew each other sweetie" and we've not really discussed it or dealt with past life memories affecting her current life.  I deal with them when the memories surface naturally, I don't like forcing past life regressions when a person isn't truly ready to remember on their own.

P.S. There was no bitterness or doing wrong down the bond tonight like most Wednesdays this last year or so. I don't know exactly why, though I was on Youtube catching up on some videos from Lightworker Tarot & Oracle and the live video popped up there as recommended so I watched it until the three fans came on and then I left because they annoyed me. I don't know why the band did it there not insta, but it's probably why the poison fed down the bond didn't happen.  But I'll take it. It was nice not to have that expected poisoning down it tonight. It was a nice reprieve from that weekly gritting my teeth and try not to flinch on Wednesday nights at 8pm since I can't do anything to stop it.

P.P.S. I had a vision dream last night involving the polar bear that I intentionally woke me up at the end of it to be certain I'd remember it. But I was tired so I went back to sleep again and forgot it when I woke up the second time. The only part I remember about it was the start of it we left the cave by the open entrance (not back deeper into the othr cave that was beyond the now unsealed door) and were walking together through the forest of all seasons and the overwhelming feeling I had of being safe and loved and where I belonged.

 O mon bon dieu....  I have not missed the intensity of his sorrow and his pain when he feels bereft and that he can't find a way to make things right.  The depths of his despair when he wallows in it is so intense and overwhelming. It just feels like something essential has been carved out of you and there's only the lack,  the absence, the lost irreplaceable that you don't believe you can ever have again....  And when he feels that way,  it hits me so hard out of nowhere...

(Something worth mentioning. When the bond is in its normal active state, not blocked, there's a curious amplifying effect between his emotions and mine like two mirrors facing each other making infinite regressions. This is particularly true if we're both feeling the same sorts of emotions. The reflection of each others emotions due to the bond magnifies them to an intensity unlike anything else with anyone else -- beyond normal empath-empath connections. And that includes longing and desire, if we're both in those same feelings, the reflected magnification gets incredibly intense.... Especially after having the bond so recently restricted.) 

Anyway,  his sorrow and despair and hurting just smote me unexpectedly and it was absolutely intense....  I don't know what brought it upon him.  But the overwhelming coherent thought I hear in all that sorrow was not knowing what to do if he lost even the promised hope of what he needs to be whole.  Something like that.... 

Anyway.  It's late.  I'm very tired.  And me pouring love down the bond reassuring him he can't lose anything he truly sets his heart on keeping has helped with that sorrowing in him.  So I'm heading to bed now.  I'll likely snuggle up close to him via the bond and maybe try to find him in dreamspace.  To help him find his way from here.  

Same as whenever I see him with the corners of his mouth turned down,  I just want to kiss them until he starts smiling. I don't want him to be unhappy,  I want for him to have the happiness he chooses for himself. Deep despair is no part of anything I'd ever desire for him.... I hate knowing he's so miserable without hope and I hate feeling powerless to help him find a way to make it all right and fix whatever broke to make him feel that way. 

 O I'm not in any way contemplating severing ties or anything of the sort. Not right now. That conversation has just sat with me and made me tell myself that it's something I need to make certain I consider if/when it matters I remember.

If anything, right now I'm curious. And cautiously optimistic. But mostly curious.

I don't understand how/why the door was unsealed again for the bond to flow so strongly. I don't know when it opens -- if I'm feeling the ripples form before it's happened or if it's already happened now. I don't know if he can feel the change or if right now only I can.  And I don't know what changed on his side of the door to be ABLE to unseal it -- though I know the geas laid on it before it could be unlocked and opened.  But I do know what ever caused the shift and the change MATTERS, it's important. And I need to understand the who/why/when of it. I need to understand and find answers about that change to udseal the door the Morrigan laid the geas upon.

I have many unanswered questions and truths that I'm missing.... Which is why I'm more curious than anything else.  I don't intend to comment or react or bring it up again -- I have enough times that I see no good from me bringing it up yet again. I don't see how that helps bring any form of healing or closure.... I accept their choices for what they are and exactly what it says about them. So i don't intend to bring anything up or reach out to him (or anyone involved in the band) or try to press to get this acknowledged and cleaned up.  But I am curious and need to understand some truths I don't yet have. So I don't intend to take any further actions to create distance or sever ties or pull away.

And through all the hurt and distrust based on what happened (or didn't happen in the case of inactions and gaslighting and non-responsiveness) what i desire hasn't changed... Whether I have believed it possible has shifted and my current state of acceptance about what their words/actions/inactions has taught me about the truths of who and what they actually are and stand for, what I desire has not. Genuinely, all I want and all I've ever wanted is to heal this and make it right and be able to wrap my arms around the bear and feel the love flowing between us and know the rightness of claiming and having that energy exchange and growing/nurturing that love between us.

But I'm not intending to pull away or push away any further. And I'm not intending to do anything from my side to try to bridge the distances or to heal what they broke and refused to ever even acknowledge or try to make right. If they want to fix any of what's broken, it's on them to reach  out and actually acknowledge what happened and their guilt/complicity in it and how they're the only ones who can do anything to make it better than indifference from me and a lack of desire to hear or see anything they create.

So, tell me pretty lies, look me in my face. Tell me that you love me, even if it's fake. You can lead me on and leave these questions in my sheets. I'm under it, I made my bed and I'm still wonderin'. I'm wondering why do all the monsters come out at night? Why do we sleep where we want to hide? Why do I run back to you, Like I don't mind if you fuck up my life? Why am I a sucker for all your lies? Strung out like laundry on every line. Why do I come back to you, Like I don't mind if you fuck up my life? Thinkin' about you, you're in my head Even without you, I still feel dead Why do I run back to you Like I don't mind if you fuck up my life?

Last Friday evening, my aunt, my grandma, and I went out for Thai food at Sa Bai Thong and ate inside for the first time in about a year. We went early, 4pm when they first open, so for most of the meal it was just us and the staff in the entire restaurant though around 5pm 2 other tables came in. We had planned it the day my grandmother got her second Moderna vax which was coincidentally the same day that my aunt got her first dose.  I was hanging out with grandma to keep an eye on her for adverse reactions (she never had any) and Fridays are the day that my aunt has free to come into town to run errands (and she picks up groceries and such for my grandma as long as she's already there) and then she goes over to one of her best friend's to dance party (Jeannine is the wife of one of my dad's best friends -- they're an aging hippie couple I've known my entire life and Brian actually used to cut both my dad and my grandfather's hair at a barbershop back when my dad was in high school.)  That particular Friday night she had a frozen Thai dish and said it wasn't worth singing and dancing about like actual Sa Bai Thong, but she was just so happy and relieved to have gotten her first dose now the twins are back in hybrid school that she wanted to celebrate at least a little. (Thai food is a comfort food for my aunt even more so than for me -- when she was "the dress lady" she would winter in Thailand with her business partner picking out fabrics and getting the stock made of her cotton hippie dresses she sold in a booth outside of the student union on campus and at festivals/events in Spring through Fall.  So while everyone in my family loves Thai food, for my aunt it's about specific memories and versions of her she has been on this life's journey.)  Anyway I said, I had meant to ask her if she wanted us to pick some up for her after grandma's appointments but then we hit awkward timing and I had prioritized getting food into grandma before she got too tired.  But then I suggested that to celebrate the vaccinations, we should plan to meet for Thai food after grandma's NEXT Friday appointment on 3/26 since she'd be well past her 2 weeks for full efficacy on it (though my aunt doesn't get her second dose til Tuesday 3/28, but she thought the first dose stats made her feel comfortable enough for early off peak in restaurant to celebrate.)  My aunt stopped the receipts/checkbook balancing she was doing to put the Thai food dinner date in her calendar immediately. At the time we made the plans, me having my vax wasn't even on the radar, but because of when our company got allocated a spot officially through the county AND because I was one of the few people who got J&J doses the week they shipped in, I was considered fully vaccinated and halfway through the 2 week for "full immunity" window afterward.  So I also got to be included as part of the celebration we were vaccinated instead of just along for the celebration.  

Curiously, my aunt and I have the same go to dish at Sa-Bai Thong (42B, Veggie Pa-naeng) though I get it as spicy as possible and she gets it with no spice. And she gets a Thai iced tea whereas I get a Thai iced coffee. Still, it was a funny genetic similarity in tastes we didn't realize we shared. 

But that wasn't what I was thinking about got me started on this story. My aunt was talking about how one of the twins said something incredibly wise she wanted to share with us. (the twins are Cassie and Kayla my 13yo cousins, my youngest cousins, they were born in Leo season the same year my dog was born in Pisces season) who is an old soul (but a different soul path from mine, most of her lives have been in China and Tibet before this one) who wants to be a writer when she grows up and like me reads pretty constantly (especially fantasy novels.) One of my aunt's friends had said to her on the phone, "I would be bored with your life" and my aunt took it very much to heart as a judgement and condemnation of her life and everything that matters to her.  My aunt has an incredibly thick skin (she grew up with 3 brothers on a family owned organic farm after all) and she is incredibly outspoken blunt "what you see is what you get" type but this hurt her. (I'm actually not outspoken or blunt or stubborn by the standards of the Jewish side of my family.)  My immediate reaction was to interrupt at that point in the story and say, 'O what a terribly mean thing to say!" and my aunt paused and thanked me for immediately being outraged at the cruelty in it which was good and helped her with her current processing her own hurt.  Especially because when she had called out her friend on how much that comment hurt her, her friend got defensive said there were other mutuals whose lives would also bore her and that "there was no meanness in what I said -- if it hurt you that's about what you bring to what I said." I ascribe to the theory that it's for the person who is hurt to assess if the act was hurtful to them (regardless of the intentions) and the appropriate thing for the other party is to acknowledge they caused hurt even if they didn't intend to and to have a dialogue about WHY it caused hurt so you can avoid causing hurt the same way in the future. That's my sense of responsibility taking and I know it's not everyone's -- but it's the only right thing that I as an empath know to do when something I have said or done causes pain to another.... So for me, acting in a way that's so blatantly obviously cruel and then getting defensive about it rather than acknowledging the hurt it created is a set of choices that makes absolutely no sense to me at all. But that's me, that's not everyone.  Some people genuinely don't care about the pain they caused, they care more about their ego/reputation and not taking responsibility or ownership of the pain they created....which is a defensiveness that doesn't bring healing and I don't understand it in my emotions though I have observed it in others to recognize the patterns of it with my head.

And we also talked a bit about how the joy your life brings your own soul and the light you can create to pour out into the world as a result is the only litmus that matters for the "worth" or quality of a life. External metrics and fame and other people's opinions are meaningless unless you give them power over your own ego.  But anyway, the thing my aunt wanted to share was that Kayla's reaction was to ask her, "Mom, are you really going to throw away a 35 year friendship over one insult?" and that made my aunt pause to assess that.

And it's a valid question -- how do you measure the worth of history against the hurtful things done in a present moment from a place of ego and defensiveness? How do you decide when to let the ties go versus when to continue investing after you have processed your hurt over something that the other person gets defensive doubles down on refuses to apologize for the hurt their words/actions created. 

And it's something I've been thinking on recently -- how to process the hurt someone caused and the damage it did when they won't take ownership or acknowledge it and whether that hurt is worth throwing away the ties that were formed from before it happened.  Processing those emotions without acknowledgement/ dialogue is more like scarring, not proper healing. So when communication gets shut down and a person refuses to acknowledge or address the hurt and the damage it created, it's like leaving a displaced broken bone instead of taking the time/care to set it for proper healing.   Figuring out if it's damaged beyond repair once it scars over without that true healing is actually the hardest part of the emotional processing when the other party gets defensive refuses to even acknowledge the hurt their words/actions created. 

But it's good to also remember alongside that processing what it is that you're considering throwing away, and how long it's been a part of who you were and the version of you that you have become. when you're trying to decide how to move forward in a case of ego based defensiveness refusing to acknowledge the pain created so you can't get proper healing of those wounds... Is it a relationship that is replaceable or irreplaceable? And is the pain from it greater than the good it brings into your life? 

But then. Also. if this is a question worth asking about a 35 year friendship, how much more important is it to consider about a group of people and their art that you were invested in for 10 years or releasing all karmic connections to a multi-life relationship across 800 years or about blocking out a twinned soul with a bond stretching back like 6,000 years or so who you've hardly shared lives with over the last 400 years.....

But then, I mean, I am clearly very good at letting go or blocking out what reaches me via the bond or keeping him from reaching me.... Clearly....  I mean, clearly I'm very good at denying myself the bond and the joy it brings. It's definitely something within my skillset to deny myself when it comes to him. (which is probably why the Universe forces it for us when one of us fucks up, need to work on our lessons that we need to learn apart.  That's the real threat you know -- not me insisting that I can't let him if there's anything toxic in the connection, but that the Universe will separate us as long as it takes if we refuse to learn our karmic lessons we avoid.)

Still. While true healing would be better than the scarring that will be the result of not dealing with this, if the circumstances won't allow it because of the defensiveness and refusal to communicate or even acknowledge the pain caused from the other party, I should still consider once I'm on the other side of processing my emotions if the wrong(s) done are worth throwing away all the rest that has come before and all the history.  I can't take the future good into account, because the future good is stunted by the scarring if it's not healed properly. And that's not something I can change without properly dealing with this -- and like my aunt I can't heal the hurt of the choices/actions of others when they won't even acknowledge the wrongs they did and the pain it created. So the future good is all stunted and poisoned by the choices of the past and it can't be healed properly and made right without facing the past and the consequences it created. And the present is me processing all the pain it created and the consequences of those choices and I'm not out of that yet. I probably won't be for quite some time -- especially if you ask of me that I go through the processing of it without healing it.  But once I'm past it, then it will be time for me to face the question if the wrongs done to me by Britt and Liz and Eric and in the name of the entire band are worth me throwing away the entire history of the relationships built across the past with specific souls tangled up in this mess.  And I don't have that answer yet. And I won't until after this is properly healed or done scarring over -- whichever method I am able to use for processing my emotions over the pain their choices created and have perpetuated.

Having the bond reopened and flowing again doesn't change anything of that. And it doesn't make this any easier on me while I'm trying to process without the very basic respect of acknowledging what was done in the band's name and continues to be done in the band's name every time they put anything on the band's official instagram account (like going live or makking videos for songs only available in the full version on their instagram from which they blocked fans for being honest about disliking the country music.) Those are their choices though, no part of my choices or things wihtin my control/power to do anything about. But I'll not forget that question, once I'm on the other side of the hurting they inflicted, continue to inflict, and defensively refuse to do the responsible thing of acknowledging so it can be healed instead of scarring horribly. 

I'll keep the question(s) in the back of my mind. For later. After I've finished processing all my emotions about it all.  I'll come back to it once I'm ready to consider it and able to objectively seek answers to it.

[Post Title: Lyrics to Monsters by All Time Low.]

Thinking of which: Tomorrow is World Piano Day so I'll definitely have to wear one of my Billy Joel shirts to honor the day, lol. It's always the 88th day of the year (because there are 88 keys on a standard piano) but because of leap Day it's not always the same day every year.  March has my dog's birthday and International Polar Bear Day, St. Patrick's Day, the vernal equinox, most Pisces new moons, International Puppy Day, most Libra full moons, World Bear Day, AND World Piano Day.  It just has a lot of really great holidays celebrating things that make me happy going for March as well as the first early flowers and trees all waking up bursting forth new life from their winter hibernation!

But anyway. Tomorrow is World Piano Day. Please make sure you figure out how to celebrate.  I don't know what the appropriate way to celebrate is, that might be a personal choice thing. Just make sure you DO celebrate World Piano Day, however feels right for you.

Also, I'm still obsessed with the fact that the second plague, Moses threatened Pharoah with a plague of frogs but syntacically, Aaron raised a frog singular and so the Talmudic scholars decided Aaron raised one giant frog that spewed forth a multiplicity of frogs  every time it was whacked and because the Egyptians didn't know what to do about the One Great Frog, they just kept hitting it until the entire land was covered in frogs spewed forth by the One Great Frog....  I mean, it's just such a classic old school myth/folktale way to deal with the syntactical plural versus singular  issue instead of chalking it up to, "somewhere along the line, a scribe forgot the yod mem and now we just continue this transcription error." Because clearly scribes are infallible when copying out scriptures so we must invent monstrous frogs that spew out normal frogs when hit....

Also. Please just know that all my life, whenever I heard of the plague of frogs, I imagined how ecstatic all the holy cats were having these weird leapy prey to stalk. And so in my mental imagery of the second plague, it includes cats playing and hunting and generally getting in everyone's way as they think Plague of Frogs Day is the best day ever.  And now, I've just added to that mental image the idea of the One Giant Frog being taken to the Temple of Bastet and Bast (being a cat) just loving to bop the One Giant Frog and watch the frogs spew forth to the delight of her minion catlings and so that's ACTUALLY how the One Giant Frog managed to cover all of Egypt with frogs, because Bastet was entrusted to guard the one Giant Frog but a cat is gonna cat, lol.

Okay. Now I need to go transplant snake a plant that my parent's dog has continuously dog out while playing with her ball and put it into a deeper pot so hopefully she can't hurt it further and then water all my indoor plant babies at work.

 Omfg, help me, because right now I have ths strongest fucking desire to wrap my arms around Eric and kiss him until nothing else exists but him and me and the love between us.....  It's literally all I can think and feel about right now. 

*sigh* I should probably not have "bore p'ri haggofen"-ed my way though that entire bottle of red blend myself.  Too wine drunk and too many months/years alone means my entire red wine induced need to snuggle and agapic love is currently fixated on Eric and my need to wrap my arms around him cover him in kisses and make him feel how much I adore him .  currently it's overpowering every damn thing else!!! 

Every.  Damn.  Thing.  Else.  

Except my entertainment at the One Great Frog.....  

Google up plagues midrash great frog.  You will not be disappointed!!  😂😂😂😂

Make sure to read this article from Ask a Rabbi. 

I have been dying of laughter over this mental image of One Giant Frog spewing out hordes of normal frogs whenever the Egyptians  hit it.  I have been laughing over the mental images of fighting this boss level plague FOR HOURS!!! 😂 

I should really never be left alone with a bottle of wine and random unexpected linguistic/philosophical analyses!  😂😂😂😂😂

 It's completely normal with me to have me reacting to things that haven't happened yet (whether it's trying to find ways to avert a bad fate down another path or trying to come to terms early with things that need to be accepted because they are beyond one's means to alter.)  It's also normal with me to have me off-handedly make remarks or warnings,  especially around level setting expectations. These aren't normal with most people, though as a kid I thought everyone experienced time as I do and could know things before they happened,  but it's normal for dealing with me. 

I also don't always tell people what's coming unless directly asked because quite often my assessment is that them knowing early wouldn't help them deal with it - though sometimes I slip up and mention something I thought already happened which hasn't yet happened.  I do not,  and will not, give information that would be used for investment or money making or political gain at the expense of helping people and I won't use anything I foresee for my own monetary gain.  The most selfish things I do with the gift are to avert deaths,  injuries, accidents,  or breaking things.  

Also I definitely use it to make meal decisions and to decide what to wear and to pack a suitcase for travel - being a Libra sun Pisces rising means I can be really fucking indecisive, especially about decisions that are relatively unimportant but still must be made. Unless I know exactly what I desire and that nothing else substituted will do, decision making is an excruciating process of weighing all pros and cons to assess the balance of what is the best choice for me and everyone affected by my choice... Picking a paint color is hard, peeking ahead to see what colors the walls are around my future self is easy.  Picking an outfit beyond weather constraints is hard but peeking ahead to see what I'm wearing later in the day when I do something brings me joy is easy.  Often with furniture or art or flowers for the garden,  I see it ahead of time placed in my space but have no idea when or where I'll find it...   

Even people to whom I've never outed my precog gift or who are complete anti-spiritualist atheists have commented about my ability to know things before they happen (probably from offhanded comments I don't realize I said.)  You get used to it or you decide I'm creepy af and choose not to keep me around.  There are other gifts I have that are more showy, and some that can be really fucking annoying, but the precogs and vision dreams are always useful. 

It's also why I absolutely adore happy surprises and try not to peek ahead intentionally, just accept what flashes and ripples I can't help seeing.  Because for a precog,  anything that is a happy surprise in the moment unfolding is just such an extra high!!  There's still joy in the unfolding of moments when good things you saw were waiting on finally happen.  But there's an intensity in being surprised with good things as they're happening that you didn't know about which just delights me so much! 

But yeah,  I can sometimes be a bit vague about whether I'm reacting to something past,  present,  or future.  I'm not always clear and certain about temporality....  I know that I only see possibilities until a choice is made that makes those glimpses manifest or destroys them,  but I'm not always clear about if that choice has already happened,  is happening in the moment,  or is going to happen in a near enough future that the ripples reach me.... 

I'm also pretty awful at passage of time generally, I live in a very constant state of flow this life.  It takes a lot of energy and focus for me to bring myself into a linear conception of time and to count the moments as they pass.... I experience time as a rotating sphere you see,  not linear sequence of nows.  The present is like the line of sunlight as a planet rotates and most people only experience the illuminated daylight half of the sphere of time, seeing the past but the future dark to them... But I experience all of it at once and can do fun things by skating along any part of the surface of the sphere rather than waiting in a fixed spot on the edge where the dark turns to light.... That's the best I can explain how I experience time this life and why I'm in an almost perpetual state of flow and energy exchange with the Universe.   I've not been like this in all my past lives (though I've always been able to precog deaths, especially my own potential deaths) nor will I be in all my future lives....  But in this one,  I perceive and warp time in very curious and unusual ways that make it so I'm often imprecise about the flow of moments and vague as to where now is relative to things I know and am experiencing. 

You get used to it.  Or you don't and then we just avoid interacting, lol.  

P.S. Also worth knowing about me: during Jewish high holy days and for a few days before/after, my precogs tend to be intense and uncontrollable and farther reaching into the future.  So Rosh Hashanah,  Yom Kippur,  Pesach,  and Channukah. Also around equinoxes,  solstices,  and both hallows (end of October/early November and end of April/early May.)  It's just something to know about me.... That at those times the veil is EXTRA thin with me confusing when I am and I fairly perpetually glimpse both major and minor things that haven't yet happened. 

Given that the equinox was last Saturday AND Pesach started at sundown tonight AND the Libra full moon is tomorrow morning,  this last week has been super intensely packed with precogs and future flashes and vision dreams and this coming week should be just as intensely confusing for me and full of randomly experiencing future moments both short term and long. 

P. P. S.  Yeah,  I know about the devastation in Alabama...  And yes,  it's because of the mix of nudging the system south enough not to have snow or ice here on Friday for my grandma's appointment and the way that the warmer Gulf couple with weaker jet stream  makes ALL weather systems south of Mason-Dixon line more volatile than they used to be....   Without me shifting things,  those tornadoes were going to land across Tennessee including another in Nashville. The flooding in both states (and the deaths related to flooding) was to happen no matter what I did... Wait, they did both flood already, yes?   By pushing things a little further south,  I saved the tornado related destruction from being in Tennessee but I couldn't stop it from landing somewhere...  I did my best by cheating with precogs to have it land where it would kill the least number of humans and cause the least misery...  But you do need to understand that with a weaker jet stream and warmer gulf,  northern Mississippi/Alabama/Georgia and all of Tennessee are the new tornado alley the way the midwest used to be.  And that can't be shifted unless ocean temperatures come down so the gulf isn't so hot raising moisture that heads straight up the Mississippi River and spawning low pressure zones that sit over the south like this.... I can keep the moisture headed further north where it wants to go anyway, though it means drought eventual desertification across the south - but there's only so much I can do about the low pressure zone created by the warmer gulf....I can't cool the oceans, that's a man-made society problem for man-made mass societal solutions to solve.  Natural gifts that deal with energy flowing and trying to help the Earth survive this nexus in human history can't fix the warming oceans...  Humans fucked it up,  karma requires humans fix it or perish before they destroy all life on this planet. I'm just trying to mitigate consequences and keep green sustaining life as much as I can of this continent while waiting to find out if humanity manages this 11th hour hail mary to fix what humanity broke.... So I never could have stopped the destructiveness of those tornadoes landing somewhere,  but I am complicit in where precisely they landed... 

 So.  I had a thought after a phone conversation with my best friend (who incidentally told me she's never seen me in another pair of glasses in all the years she's known me.  And I joked that I should have waited a bit longer as this pair is almost old enough to vote and go to war.)  Anyway,  it was because she thanked me for giving her warning so she could process the emotions of an organization she volunteers with (and has for longer than she's known me) disappearing.  She also said that in a work zoom meeting somebody brought up the stupid trope,  "who'd have predicted a year and a half ago life would be like this" and she had to bite back a snide comment of,  "well I knew,  but my best friend is a precog and warned me." She also told me that it was unique,  and in many ways easier, to have processed the emotions beforehand though disconcerting to be on my side of that divide.  

And it made me realize.... Because I process everything out of sync with the actual events - I process them the instant the choice is made that decides between fatelines - that I should apply knowing this about me to what shifted these last few days. That right now,  I'm reacting to the ripple backwards where it meets me from the consequences of a choice and NOT the moment of consequences itself.  

So I shouldn't EXPECT to be seeing any evidence or signs that anything was changed or healed or fixed because it hasn't happened yet.  What happened was that the choice was made that results in that change/healing/fixing - and it's the ripples from that choice being made that I heard in my dream space and that unsealed the door. I'm processing my emotions out of sync with events and experiencing the waves of the precog before anything happens.  I'm hearing the echoes of the action before it occurs that ripple from the choice that leads to the action.  He may not even know yet he's made that choice which unseals the door,  it may not be conscious choosing yet.  But it's strong and sure enough to ripple back reach me to process before it happens.  

Which actually makes a lot of sense. 

And it means I should be wary in trusting this whole-heartedly. For there is a long distance sometimes between choice an action,  many places he may falter or chicken out or change his mind.  And I shouldn't be building my hopes up too high on choices and precogs without anything substantial to cling onto.  That's just asking to have my heart bruised, if not broken,  by reality as it unfolds..... 

It also means, I should expect the bond to continuously grow stronger,  more overwhelming, until we reach the event itself whose ripples are just lapping against my precog these recent days.  

I'm surprised the Morrigan would unseal the door without the geas being fully met though....  But maybe it is,  maybe inside himself he made the choice and changes that meet the geas to unseal and open the door - and he's just not manifested those choices/determination into real world action yet.  Which is why I'm so baffled at the distance between my inner knowing and the cold hard truths of reality. 

*yawns* I'm sleeeeeepy now.  Early bedtime methinks. Bonne nuit.  May you dream beautiful and true dreams tonight.

Weds night/early Thurs morning (somewhere between midnight and sunrise) I dreamt that I was sitting in the cave watching and waiting when the ravens turned white and before I could even stand up,  the bear came barreling through the door,  knocking it off its hinges leaving just an arched doorway,  empty with no door.  And then he was there,  just hugging me close against his chest,  sometimes a bear,  sometimes human, but very insistent and clear that he wasn't going to let anything stay between us.  

And I thought it just a dream, because in my actual day to day life nothing changed.   but in the afternoon/evening while taking my dog on her walk,  it hit me just how sad and alone I felt having the bond so diminished and quiet.  Just intensely sad at the prospect of letting him go leaving it like this.  And then over on one of the Clover Nooks, just past the giant ancient oak and ash trees I always hug in greeting, there were suddenly crows, a group of 4 and a group of 3, and they were circling right around me cawing - even circled full speed in a circle right in the street close enough to feel the rush from their wing beats.  And they weren't any of Jon Snow's family,  they were crows I didn't know.  One of Jon Snow's brood was following watching me and hid under a pine tree along with a squirrel  from these circling crows I didn't know.  Anyway,  the group of 4 flew in from my eight, circled, disappeared to my left; then the group of 3 came from the right,  circled,  flew off to the left.  Then all 7 of them came back from my left, circled the opposite direction 3 times,  and then disappeared back to my right the direction they came from.  It was the wyrdest thing.... Jon Snow's grandkid who was hiding from them was so scared wouldn't come out til I said,  "I think they're gone now.  I wonder what that was all about" and then kept along pacing me tree to tree making the particular sequence of vocalizations that Jon Snow and his brood use for me.  Finally I promised them we were heading home and they should go to nest before it got too dark for them to see where they were flying.  (I don't know where Jon Snow and his family live - they watch over me and bring me gifts,  but have never entrusted me with their nest location. 

And then last night,  ever since I had dinner,  thers's just been this flood of his love down ths bond.  Overpowering everything else. Like it used to be.  And it's like that again this morning,  and if I reach down the bond there's an instant response. 

And I dunno what to think about it all....  The Morrigan's power is such there's no way to break it except by meeting the geas.  But I've seen nothing to make me trust there's anything but wishful thinking in hoping it's opened legitimately.  And yet,  if I reach for the bond,  there it is as if it had never been sealed.....  

And I don't understand the whys of it,  I only know the is of it that I experience.... I'm sure it will eventually make sense. Probably. But at this point it doesn't.  So I'll just take it on faith my experiences are true and have hope there is joy woven through in whatever is unfolding that caused the shift. 

On a completely frivolously vain note - my curl pattern is really beautiful today after washing it this morning!! (it isn't always,  perils of curly hair means you never know what it's going to do because never in my life has it curled the same way twice,  lol) 

I also have no idea why I'm so glowingly white light lit - I have no lights on in my living room and there's no sunlight.  It's a completely gray sky horizon to horizon type morning here.  But with lots of bird song.  I'm going to chalk it up to the main reason I dislike pictures of me - I almost always have weird light radiating out of me or haloing me or random orbs/beams/lens flares surrounding me.  When I sit too close to fires, there's always a protective purple shimmer between me and the flames if you take pictures of me.  Anyway.  It's a known issue with trying to get pictures of me, lol. 

Let me try again somewhere with no windows in my flat so you can maybe see the curl pattern, which was the goal, not just me being extra luminous for no reason physics can make sense of... Somewhere like my closet.

Anyway.  I'm going to drink this last cup of coffee and go back to my non-fiction book. (Play Like A Girl: How a Soccer School in Kenya's Slums Started a Revolution by Ellie Roscher;  it makes you tear up good cry at the tenacity of goodness some people create out of nothing in some of the worst situations of endemic poverty and misogynistic cultural trends imaginable. So far,  it's incredibly beautiful and inspiring through the heartache of real life stories of Kibera for the young girls growing up there.) 

After coffee I'll go get ready before making tea and back to reading.  My grandma's appointment is at 2:30 and then we're planning to have Sa Bai Thong with my aunt (who always runs errands in town on Fridays) to celebrate grandma and my aunt being vaccinated. And me too now, though I still have 1 more week til full immunity, even if my vaccination wasn't any part of it when we made the plans to have Thai food to celebrate - we made the plans the day my grandma got her second dose and my aunt serendipitously got her first and decided we'd celebrate together the next Friday appointment my grandma had.  Which was weeks before our company was allotted a scheduling. 

P. S.  This quote though: "She seemed to understand that hope cannot be passive, that only the hardest workers can have the audacity to hope." p. 43

 I really really really really love my new glasses I picked out this afternoon!!!!!!

They won't be ready for up to 2 weeks because of my high prescription and I paid extra on both pairs for the Hi-Index lenses so they'd be thinner and crisper/clearer And with the insurance covering the cost and the heavy discounting on them, I bought both of the two I was torn between. Because I loved them both in different ways but so much!  I of course didn't take any pictures of them ON me, because I didn't think of it, but I was able to find them online.

So I bought a pair of super classy classic (but with a little bit of sparkle) pair to go with anything. The St. Moritz Brooke metal frame glasses in Black with gold.

 

And my fun pair (which make my eyes look super intensely extra green!!!) are Longchamp 2616 in sage.  And they're just such a pretty color of jade and mother of pearl!

So it all depends on if I want classy black with a hint of sparkle or if I want earthy hippie child green and white that make my eyes extra intense, lol.  Which really sums up two of my most dominant moods/personalities.  They also will both match with pretty much everything I own except for some of the shades of green I own which may not quite work with them.  But I always have contacts and the black pair! 

I'll try to remember to get actual pictures of them on my face once I get them in.  But they both make me super happy!!!  And I figure since I haven't bought myself any glasses for nearly 2 decades, I had earned both if they both make me happy and will continue to make me happy for a nice long time.

(I can have a hard time finding glasses I like on me, that's part of why I've been using the same pair for the last 17.5 years now, lol. There was a span I could never find any that looked good on me so then I just stopped looking made do with what I had.  I actually can't wear aviators at all... Anything that are too flat/straight across the top look horrible with my eyebrow shape. Absolute worst ever.... And then anything that's super rounded below my eyes too far down my cheekbones, I can wear them as sunglasses but if I try to wear them as actual glasses the curves are all wrong with my eye shape and high cheekbone curves. But both of these are super flattering and look really great with my eyebrows, almond shaped eyes, and high cheekbones! And I'm so excited for them!!)

P.S. To celebrate International Puppy Day today, if you don't have a pup of your own let me share with you some digital pup love from my little luck dragon.  In case you never got to meet my lil Audrey Pupburn when she was a wee 12lb 12 week old pupper when I adopted her 13 years ago.... She was a true black and tan Yorkie coloring for the first year or so of her life -- until she decided to lighten up to ash, strawberry blonde, and silver for her adult coat.

 By 1 years old, she looked pretty much the same coloring as she is now.

And these were just taken yesterday morning when a friend of mine was having anxiety over the wait time for her covid vaccination so I sent her cute animal pictures to help distract her from her over-thinking. This is my little bear in her golden years as a 13 year old senior dog.

 I've been shoving around the weather to try to keep Friday from being icy/snowy on Friday here like it was supposed to be because my grandma has another appointment on Friday with her glaucoma specialist, Dr.  Momont.  (As the person in the family who takes my grandmother to her appointments, this is part of how I've learned a lot of very technical numerical aspects about it beyond the basic science and art history about Monet's glaucoma and cataracts. This is also why with the thinner parts of my own eyes,  I agreed that given my family history it's better to be cautious and get me back in after a few weeks with a proper prescription (especially for the astigmatism which makes visual field testing difficult) so we can baseline if that's just my eye shape or potentially very very early pre-glaucoma symptoms.)

Anyway,  with my grandma's mobility issues and some of the difficulties her condo association maintenance has had, the prospect of getting her to and from her appointment with ice/snow was mentally taxing me before even getting there, so it was easier to just shift the weather so Fri will be clear here after several days of rain and then late Fri night/Sat morning will come the ice/snow. 

Shifting weather has actually gotten far more tricky and volatile over the last 15 years as the jet stream has weakened - it takes a lot more effort and focused control to achieve similar results. I don't think anyone knows hiw weak and wobbly it is or how close it has come to completely stalling out....i know meteorologists are puzzled by some of those that it hasn't happened,  but they don't know what jumpstarted it again when it's been close.  I've also come to accept that storm systems that stretch across 7-20 states is the new normal and that I actually cannot protect against damaging floods,  winds,  tornadoes, or hail across such large swathes no matter where they fall so if I can minimize their damage or keep from creating more/worse of them than I will because that's the best I can do.  My primary goals are to maintain the seasons to avoid mass die offs of insects/amphibians/birds and to keep the desertification that was supposed to consume over 60% of mainland US (the west, everything south of the Mason-Dixon, and Ohio are actively on their way to turning into desert lands the way the Sahara did) by 2060 from occurring.  Trying to maintain and regulate even semi-normal weather patterns across the entire US has been an exhausting thankless task I took upon myself that often gives me horrible migraines from the amount of energy/power it requires I conduit through this body.  But it's worth it for the lives it has saved from devastation....  When I die, if there is no other powerful weather witch or shaman chooses to step forward to maintain control of the jet stream and modulate it keep it going as much as possible, then every single living creature in the continental US is beyond fucked.... So we better hope I don't fuck up and die before there's someone else can do this work to keep it going until the planet heals enough the air/ocean convection patterns can once more maintain themselves.  

Anyway,  because of how much I do to maintain what I can across as much of the US as I can, I feel no remorse about my occasional selfish shifts to keep the rain inexplicably stuck on the hill line for the wedding of one of my best friends or to be able to safely/easily get my grandma to her appointments. I also will shift timing to give good travel windows for myself and loved ones and touring bands I befriend. I can't promise them anything outside the given window, but I can shift and manifest those windows/corridors for them.   One of the perks of staying on my good side and letting me know your travel itineraries,  lol.  

Anyway, I'm almost done with the major tweaking I did last night while normal people slept for shifting the Friday weather here. So the rest of this week should just be subconscious maintenance and not require any use of power drastic enough to cause migraines.  Which is good as I have some physical healing things in people to focus on and some "light frost is okay but no major snow cold snaps" flower seeds that I hope to be able to sow soon. It's kind of nice having this enforced year break from traveling to hunt down and release/battle/cleanse trapped souls,  malicious unincarnated vampiric spirit,  and places with psychic/emotional scarring.  It's been nice to be focused so solely on nurturing not cleansing aspects of healing. There are some very difficult powerful ones I know to still be ahead of me on this stepping stone path, so time to rest and strengthen and only worry about the weather/plants/animals and small handfuls of humans has been good for me. 

And now I'm very hungry.  So breakfast time! 

 Soooo I finally went in for my eye exam and now have disposable contacts to try so I can actually see properly for the first time in about a year!!  (I actually have very horrible vision, so anything is such a contrast to the way the world looks without my glasses I hadn't realized til today JUST how not good the glasses were, lol... I've needed glasses since the second grade, so it's very hard for me to even remember what it was like to be able to just wake up and be able to see clearly unless I like fall asleep with my contacts in. Genuinely, my near sightedness is bad enough that even if I got lasik surgery, I'd still need light glasses or contacts to get me to 20/20 if we wanted to avoid damaging my eyes and so I've never even considered it for me.  Everything beyond about a foot further from my face is a blur without glasses or contacts. It's -9 in my right eye and -9.5 in my left plus some astigmatism correction and more astigmatism in my left... In contacts my left is -8.5 and my right is -8 and only my left eye needs correction for astigmatism in contacts... Which is why even an 18 year old prescription which was like -8.25 and -8.75 and minimal correction for any astigmatism was "good enough" for me to be managing with even though it was definitely NOT good enough for an optometrist visit level testing, lol.) 

This is the eye appointment that I needed to schedule last year before I went to Seattle and I kept telling everyone quite stubbornly last January/February 'if I don't get it done before i got to Seattle or while I'm in Seattle, I won't be ABLE to get it done for an entire year!" and everyone kept asking why and I'd just tell them, 'o well, there will be as much Irish season as possible before St. Patrick's Day. And then i just won't be able to. Don't ask. you don't want to know. This is a precog thing."  I told my eye doctor the shortened version of that as apology for why my contact prescription was from 2019 and my most recent glasses prescription I had was from 2018 and she laughed said, "O, it's like you were psychic." and we both just sort of laughed a little uncomfortably then moved on.

I apologized even further for my glasses I've been wearing and how awful they were going to make my baseline testings.  (I haven't replaced my glasses in so long that the plastic in the frames is yellowed not clear. So old that the plastic of it is literally disintegrating along the ear pieces from wear looks like it's been chewed on. I did the math today and realised those glasses are from fall of 2003... Yep. 18 years with the same pair of glasses... But I genuinely wear my contacts 95% of the time I'm not sleeping - I prefer them with my extreme myopia. And these glasses are actually from before the astigmatism in my left eye got bad enough to need more correcting -- something that became super obvious as soon as we had me doing any of the one eyed testing. Whoops! Also I've been mildly nervous low key subconscious stressed out anxious about breaking them with having zero backups in contacts or glasses form -- especially since the right lens got a small crack in it at some point this winter that's been slowly getting worse.  It was the weight of that anxiety I could so easily fix that finally made me schedule my damn optometrist appointment.... I need one every year for contacts, and yet II haven't replaced my glasses in 18 years... Yep. Have I ever mentioned that I'm exceptionally good at making do with whatever I've got?  I'm not going to buy glasses from next door -- their estimate for Hoya lenses was $611, $11 after what my insurance covers plus whatever the price of the frames above $150... Yeah no. I intend to go to EyeMart Express tomorrow and take advantage of one of their pricing and quick turn around and trying them on to get me something usable and not older than Mikaela is and then buy myself a backup pair from like Zenni or Warby Parker if they have any I like.  I really loathed the glasses shapes from like 2012-2018, they didn't suit my face at all, and I decided that if I was going to spend even the absic $50-$200 on a pair of glasses I should at least not hate the way they look on my face. So I decided to stick to my very old prescription that was completely not even any good at all for me as my backup to contacts and for at night.  Anyway. I'll up to $200 invest in a new pair of glasses, but I ain't got $600+ to drop on a pair of glasses AND still have to order contacts and who knows what all else this year will be bringing me...)

Anyway, it was super funny because after popping in the disposable trial contacts she gave me to try while waiting for the astigmatism trials to come in she ordered before we finalize my contact scrip I turned to the wall and she gave me a wry grin said, "Bet you can actually read the TV now." and I said "Yep. Wait! What's your middle name?" and she looked confused told me 'Rachel" and I said, "I JUST realized that we have practically the same names -- you're Danielle Rachel and I'm Daniella Raechelle. Out at the front desk they just said your last name and I couldn't read the diplomas before!" We got a good chuckle at that and it turned out she's also Jewish with a non-Jewish last name (hers is Sicilian-Arabic while mine is French) and she recognized the Hebrew version of Rachel immediately when I said it -- which is why as a kid I just introduced it as Rae because it was easier than the teasing about the chet which to American schoolkids sounds like a hairball.) It was just really funny that I hadn't even realized til we got something approaching my actual prescription in though she had noticed the similarity when she was reading through my new patient info, lol.

Also, apparently, she can see in the blood vessels of my eyes under the scope that I do have mild allergy, probably cat, but if it's not bothering me not to worry about it. And when I'm not around cats, like when I was living downtown in college without any pets, I actually DID sneeze from them whenever I visited one. But when I'm around cats regularly, I don't show any allergy symptoms to them. but nearly everyone on my da's side of the family have mild to severe cat allergy, though most of us still own them and live with them. 

Anyway, I'm super happy with them as optometrists and really got along with Danielle. I'm actually scheduled to go back in a month because I opted to do the retinal image annual wellness scan ($44 NOT covered by my Delta Dental/Eye Med insurance) because of how bad my myopia is it means the curvature of my cornea is more prone to potential retinal tearing/detachment which needs to be caught immediately AND I have the family history of glaucoma from my paternal grandmother AND green/grey eyes are the most damaged by UV prone to cancers so I'd RATHER get the baseline imaging and scanning on a regular basis just in case. If there's something going on in the retina or optic nerve, the earlier you know the better to start dealing with it if one must.  My optic nerve and retina look good and my pressures are completely normal BUT there's thinning on the rim that could be related to either my corneal shape (see the high scrip) OR the genetic predisposition toward glaucoma and we can't get an accurate visual field test to determine which without me having a scrip that is correct (especially for the astigmatism) because the astigmatism shuttering if not corrected can mess up visual field testing.  Also, given my family predisposition, insurance will cover the glaucoma testing as a followup appointment but not in the same visit due to health insurance codes or she would have just done it today. So I'll be back there in about a month and we need to finalize the contacts scrip anyway.  

Even though I'll be buying my glasses elsewhere, I'll probably just order my contacts through them since there's only like an $8 difference for a year's supply between Brandon Eyes small business and 1800 Contacts. I can't afford to buy the glasses from them, but I can swing ordering my contacts through them for the little bit extra it is and I will continue using them for my eye exams moving forward unless we switch health/dental/eye care insurance companies again... 

Also, if I'm going to only buy myself glasses once every 18 years and never have even a backup pair, I could probably spend more on them then just a Zenni/Warby Parker pair, lol. 

Also though, LOOK at how beat up these are (and they haven't even made this sort of shape in glasses for at least a decade, lol.  They're some straight up vintage Kate Spade glasses.... Literally. They're 18 year old Kate Spade frames. We can call them legit vintage now...

Yep. And remember, that plastic on the sides was clear when I got them NOT yellowed...and it's never been chewed on, that's just the breakdown of the plastic itself over years as it gets brittle and tiny bits break off.... When I say I can stoic through and deal with inconvenience/discomfort/pain that's not a joke or exaggeration, it's just a simple statement about my nature. I will make do with what I've got if it's all I've got. (In this case I just had to call and schedule and appointment AND find a pair/style I liked on my face AND have the money to afford what I found that I liked...and that didn't align so I just kept wearing contacts all the time and now here we are 18 years later and I damn well need to find something I like "well enough" over at Eye Mart Express to use my insurance coverage on so I'll have a decent backup if nothing else, lol. (It's $150 on a pair of frames OR $150 in contacts and then discounts on lenses and an extra 20% off after that $150 that's covered. I'll spend it towards the glasses this time and get a good pair to last me. I can get cheap pairs that i try on digitally and hope I don't hate when they arrive n person at a later time...)  

But genuinely, you should probably never trust me if I say "It's fine, I can handle this" because it's probably something where we should fix it and not have me living for an entire year with no backup form of prescription lenses other than my 18 year old glasses with pitted yellowed plastic that looks like it's been chewed on when it hasn't AND a cracked lens AND loose hinges that feel ready to break AND the prescription in them don't even properly correct for my astigmatism so I'm getting 20/30 vision in the right eye and like 20/50 in the left eye even with the glasses I'm "making do" with because "it's what I've got right now."  I mean, genuinely, I really OUGHT to have been made to deal with my glasses situation sooner even if I still waited for the staff/optometrists to get vaccinated at least before scheduling my appointment following the world shut down pandemic, lol. I mean, at least to have ordered A pair of glasses with the 2018 scrip to have SOMETHING for daily use instead of what I was making do with from fall of 2003 because it's what I already had in my possession... Like I said, my capacity is high for making do is something you should really question, especially when it could actively be harmful to me and/or is fairly easy to correct.  Instead of accepting me saying, "I can make do survive with this" even if that's accurate you should ask me, "Can we make this better?" and then get me to do the steps to make it better instead of making do and muddling through with accepting what I've got to work with.  Like that's legitimately behavior patterns in me to push me on instead of letting me be stoic about because we don't live in a century of deprivation or such abject poverty for me to NEED to make do instead of taking care of my basic physical/emotional needs in this life. So legitimately, you can call me on my "I can make do with what little I have" when I clearly shouldn't or we could easily make things better if I just acknowledged I SHOULDN'T just make do stoic thorugh as is.

That said, now I've got contacts and can see again without my eyes hidden behind lenses, I'm back to the huge anime eyed Disney princess green-grey-blue sea colored eyes that change colors with my emotions that you're accustomed to seeing from me.lol.

So, I mean, there's that. Also, I prefer wearing contacts because the blurriness outside the frames with glasses can give me headaches and causes me not to use my peripheral vision as much which can lead to visual field loss which can look like glaucoma or macular degeneration from not exercising those eye muscles.  I feel much safer driving when I'm wearing contacts than glasses because of that peripheral vision blurring outside the glasses themselves...

Anyway, I feel great relief that I have a prescription AND that I will go get an updated pair of glasses this week over at Eye Mart Express so I will no longer be relying on my 18 year old beat up cracked lens not even my current prescription pair as my only ability to not be almost completely blind, lol. I also have 5 pairs of the "one day" contacts to try and I'll get another trial set when they come in with the astigmatism correction for my left eye. And then I'll order a year's supply from them (and remember to order another year's supply right before this contact scrip expires to stretch out between optometry visits (unless that thinning isn't just the natural shape of my cornea and I need some form of nightly prescription eye drops (I think these are the ones that can actually make your eyelashes grow longer/thicker -- which is NOT a side effect I need since mine are already ridiculous wihtout any eye makeup)  to stave off worsening glaucoma losing my peripheral vision as I age. And then I'll need to ACTUALLY be better about my annual optometry visits actually being annual)

 So. I was thinking about it on my walk with my pupper an hour or so ago.  And my including statements like "even if I'm not what he wants" may have been misleading.  It makes it seem like I'm ambivalent when I'm anything but.  I know full well how entirely I want what I've always wanted and how selfishly I want it to be what he wants too.  I know how all consuming my desire is and that nothing else will make me happy and how desperately hollow I get when I try to let him go or not reach toward him across whatever distances are separating us.  I know what it costs me to try to make me let him go instead of holding him tight refusing to ever give him up.  I know all these things.  

What I don't know is what he truly wants.  And that not knowing is why I make me acknowledge "even if I'm not what he wants, what he chooses for himself." Because I would be unhappy even when I should be happy if I knew it wasn't what he wants - it was just my selfishness insisting on holding onto him when that's not what he wants.  I hate even thinking "unless I'm not what he wants" because it hurts to feel even a "what if" version of his rejection,  but as long as I don't know what he wants I'm going to continue questioning that and phrasing everything I want as hypothetical contingent upon what he wants....  I have to.  Unless/until I know from him what he wants so I can discard that entire line of thinking as impossible.  And I don't have that sort of certainty about his heart at this time.  

And that's why I must constantly include the reminder that I want to fix what broke in him make him happy EVEN IF the answer to how to do that doesn't involve me.  Obviously I would prefer if it did involve me,  if I was as necessary and integral to his inner spring of joy as he is to mine.  But I'd like to heal him even if that means letting him go because that's what his choices demand of me....  I'd rather that losing me not be any part what he chooses,  but his choices are his to make.  Not mine.  

But I'm not ambivalent on this.  Nor do I ever desire to leave him.... I do so only when I feel that the only way for me to respect his choices is to let him go and let our paths diverge. That is the only reason ever for him to lose me out of his life. 

 I did tell you that I'm not very good at resisting the temptation of what I want when it's right in front of me.  So whatever my previous expectations, I can't say that I've not listened to The Dark now.  (I can still say I haven't listened to The Light,  because I haven't.)  And I can't say I didn't love the songs once I allowed myself to listen to them or that they weren't beautifully crafted.  (I mean,  I could say it, but it would be a lie.) Will I listen to it again?  I don't know....  It's not a vow or anything keeps me from going back to listen to their previous albums, it's because instead of bringing me joy the songs only brought me disappointment and hurt after October 2018....and without healing that,  I don't really have any desire to listen to their songs.  Though I do have a deep longing and desire to feel again the way I felt listening to their music before that happened.... But I don't know how I have that without healing from what happened - and the only way I know to do that starts in the honesty of acknowledging what happened - which they have refused to do and I can't force them to do that if they won't choose to... But I don't know ways of healing that don't start from a place of honesty and mutual truth telling.  I just don't.  And so I don't expect I will want to listen to any of their music while it evokes more pain than pleasure, which will likely be for as long as this remains unhealed. 

But I'm not upset I had the opportunity to watch it and listen to the songs at least the once.  Nor am I upset I took that opportunity when it was given.  (and not just because of how hard Ian made me laugh - he reminded me so much of both my dad and my sister with his over the top dancing and faces.) The songs turned out beautifully - I'm glad they exist and grateful that I listened to them at least once. 

Last night, I was conflicted and full of intense emotions that I couldn't words.  (I was also very tired,  I hadn't slept in over 30 hours.) and it wasn't the music, beautiful as it is, had me in such a storm of deep emotions. It was seeing Eric and I won't pretend it wasn't.  There was a sense in him that.... There was a lot of anxiety in him.  And something he wanted and needed and had hoped for and that not having it held a part of him in the hollows. (the hollows is what I call that place of inner pain where you can't find catharsis and everything that should make you happy just doesn't. You can fake a smile or laugh at something unexpected, but under that inside you is hollow and empty and a desert where nothing will grow.  It happens for me in mourning deep loss.) And he seemed like at the start he'd hoped for something that would release him from the hollows but when whatever he'd hoped for wasn't happening, the weight of the hollows just settled onto him.... And honestly,  as I saw it, all I wanted to do was hug him and wrap my love around him so he could feel that it was there surrounding him and pouring into him.  That regardless of anything else, that love never fades or dims or dies, it's always there and it's a just him thing. Especially when he had to cover his face or eyes at points.  I think the one that stands out to me was during Never Coming Back, though he also had a hard time during God Damned Shame, he just seemed so broken inside at that thought of finality, of never coming back to get another chance to make things right. So much despair and hopelessness...  And it broke my heart to see him like that - I just wanted to hug him and tell him that there's another way, that anything that makes him that hollow and broken is a series of mistakes and wrong choices that got to there and now it's time to make different choices to get to a different path. I want to break through that hopelessness in him and to give him a spark of hope to find the way to fix whatever it is he doesn't think he can fix.  

I don't want this for him,  I never have and I never will. It guts me to see him in that place of broken despair.  I just want to heal it and make it right more than I've ever wanted anything else.... 

He should be proud and overflowing with joy over what they created.  I hate seeing that he isn't, I hate seeing that emptiness in him... I just want to go to him and pour my love into him while I ask him how we heal it,  how do we bring him back out of the hollows he's in.  I just want to make it right - and anything that makes him feel that empty and hopeless is a mistake that we got wrong and now it's time to correct it and make it right.... 

That was the dominant emotion in me when I woke up this morning and it's with me still - the decision that I'm not okay with that level of hurt in him. I'm just not.  so it's time to make things right and to heal that brokenness. To take him from the hollows inside him and make him grow full of light and life and sparkles inside his heart space. 

I haven't figured out how to do that, I don't know what he needs for that.  I'm just certain that it's what I choose and so I need to figure out how to do it. Even if I'm no part of what he needs, I still want to see him healed more than I would insist on me staying for my own selfish desires.  Failure to heal this isn't an option.  Leaving him in his own hollows in that much despair and hurt isn't an option.  I can stoic through my own hollows if I need to let him go once this is fixed, but damnit I'll not leave him alone in his.  I'd rather sit there with him, even if I'm wrong and my presence doesn't help him because it's not what he needs, I'd still rather be there beside him through it than know he was suffering alone. I don't want to ever see him that hopeless again - and I'll do everything in my powers to fix it. Even if all I can do is continue waiting, sitting with my palm pressed against a sealed door waiting to shove it open again the moment it's unlocked. There's nowhere else I'd choose to be than waiting for the very first opportunity to heal this and help him to reach the happiness he seeks. 

That's the strongest feeling I am left with... And that's not about the music, though the music truly is brilliant, it's about me being made to look at him to see what's going on inside him beneath the surface.

 For the record,  my jewelry tastes aren't just $5 glittery mood rings shaped like bears.  Or pricey custom setting cat's eye opals and dreamy aquamarine cabochons.  It also includes things like my Ojibwe made beaded necklace and Lakota made beaded earrings that I wore today in honor of Deb Haaland being sworn in Secretary of Interior.  

(This necklace is one of my favorite pieces,  actually. It reminds me of past lives in Native American  tribes and past lives in Egypt.  It's just very tricky to match with anything other than a single solid color top.)

First indigenous tribe member to ever hold the office of the interior!!  And while there are some issues surrounding freedman's rights (descendants of black slaves held by members of native tribes,  and often unofficially due to rape, descendants of tribal members as well as the former slaves)  and her support of laws denying them full tribal rights. And that's a right mess.... But it's still such an important step forward to have an indigenous person as head of the bureau that cares for the land and water and air and wildlife of this nation! 

The freedman's issue is difficult because of the way tribal rights are conferred by official bloodlines and how hard that is to document in those who were owned as slaves by tribes in the 1800s. And I understand the emphasis created around tribal bloodlines to weed out people with family stories of tribal descent trying to use the money/hunting/higher ed rights meant to uplift the extreme poverty on reservations.  It's self-preservation and protection of what little remains to them as their own nations....And I understand that, though the Freedman's Rights cases are particularly painful and a great injustice, twice over....  But there are lots of unverified stories, including within my own family... Supposedly my mom's dad's dad was part Cherokee and Dakota -- but the family story isn't documented in any way. So i don't talk about it much and I don't claim the heritage because who knows?  

That side of the family is quite literally an enigma -- my mom's mom's side is mostly straight forward, we can even document it back to the last witch officially burnt at the stake in a town near the Black Forest.My aunt who has lived in Germany my entire life found it in the church records doing genealogical history delving and had it verified. (The witch who was burned was the older sister of my great-greath-grandma I don't know how many generations back, on my direct matrilineal line.  Yeah, I do have actual witches bloodline, documented, in addition to my da's Jewish (including Cohenim marker) and Hungarian heritage. Also gypsy blood. I'm quite a mutt with a VERY ridiculous bloodline, lol. And my mom's dad's mom Marie was French-Canadian and Scots-Irish-English, was very Catholic.) But my mom's dad's dad's side is truly an enigma.-- quite literally my maternal grandfather's grandfather came to the US under a changed name speaking a language nobody recognized and went to his deathbed without ever telling anyone his original name or country of origin. All we know about him is that he played the fiddle, drank a lot of whiskey, had jet black hair and a cleft in his chin. And his wife was also an enigma beyond her name and that she was born in Oklahoma "or somewhere in the Plains" -- it's from her that supposedly we have Cherokee and/or Dakota blood. I do know that even though I don't claim it, every Native American/First Nations person I have ever met all across the US and Canada look at me and tell me I am one of them, if not from this life's blood than from my past lives. But because I don't want to take or claim what may not be mine, I will say that there's a family story of it but that it's undocumented and unverified so I don't claim it for myself though I am proud and honored they would choose to claim me -- for in most tribes, before the European invasion, being claimed and adopted into a tribe made you as full a member as any born into it.

So anyway. I have VERY strong soul ties to the tribes and how they've been treated, and perhaps blood ties in this life, but I only use anything of cultural significance with deep reverence of the traditions and without appropriation.  I limit myself to tribal created jewelry, art, and dream catchers and to purchasing herbal teas form them and attending pow-wows and ceremonies to which I am invited but never to presume or to show up uninvited. I actually refuse to burn white sage or palo santo since the force of will intention is what matters for cleansing ceremonies, not what you burn itself, and to burn those endangered species if it's not part of your bloodline heritage IS appropriation. I actively loathe new age hippe/witchy/yogic white cultural appropriation of shamanic traditions that they were never invited to share in and that have actively caused plants to end up on the endangered species list. You do NOT want to get me started on my true feelings about sage burning... 

Anyway, having Deb Haaland hold that office to be in charge of policies for the natural land of this nation itself is such wonderful precedent! And so important for tribal representation and empowerment.