I just finished Madeline Miller's Song of Achilles and my heart is in a trillion tiny pieces right now. I've had the book for ages, but I've not been able to bring me to read it. I bought it long before Circe was in all the bookstagrams before it was published, before waiting the hardcover release to be a paperback release, since long before I bought and read Circe.  Circe was an easy read I could relate to as a woman and a witch and burned as a witch in multiple lives. Song of Achilles was always going to hit me personally and shatter me before the end and I knew it. It's why I held off reading it. 

To this day, I cannot get to the death of Patroclus in any retelling of the ancient battle without feeling utter desolation and bereft and a need to avenge the goodness that hubris destroyed. It doesn't matter how many years pass and how many lifetimes I live, whenever I re-read the Iliad and I get to the place where Patroclus is murdered in Achilles' armor, I set the book aside and weep and rage as if it's happening again right now today. I don't care how tender you make the parting of Hector and Andromache and little Astanyax, I still want him to die, and I don't care the horrors that happened after the fall of Achilles because nothing matters after that. The great horror for me in the entire saga of the fall of Troy is the murder of Patroclus in the armor of Achilles. Still to this day. Not because he died, all mortal lives must end in death. It's just. There are good deaths and bad deaths, necessary deaths and unnecessary deaths. And that was a bar and unnecessary death and the fault of another's hubris... it's unforgivable to me because he died mistaken for another whose pride was too great for him to make a single move to save his allies by fighting in his own damn armor. 

Why do you think I so often incarnate as a woman even though the only reason I incarnate is as a warrior here to seek out and right karmic wrongs and fight incarnated vampiric entities - because if not me who?  I'm deadly enough in a woman's body and the rage and guilt doesn't overwhelm me so strongly I can't think, only react to that one knowledge, as it does in lives where my body is flooded with testosterone. 

There are things that others forgive you for sooner than you can forgive yourself. And the only time in any lifetime that I don't feel that sorrow and rage and hatred of myself and my own stupid pride are the lives we get to be together and I can hold him in a living body again and swear that however he does that life it won't be my fault or because of my hubris.

It is perhaps that ancient rage in me as much as his guilt from 600 years ago when he handed me over to my death despite my warnings that the promises given by his lord would be broken that have kept us separated these recent centuries. But see, it's much easier to forgive others take the long view across lifetimes than it is to forgive oneself.  I still don't know how to forgive myself for that hubris and the bad decision and the consequences it birthed. And it's always the last few days of September it hits me hard even if I don't re-read it. It's the sorrow spot before my birthday, and it's nothing to do with this life or any events of the last 4000 years.

Actually, I can't say I've handled any of the times he dies while I'm still living particularly well.... I tend to make choices that lead to my own death soon after his rather than live in the hollows of his absence knowing I can't get him back while in that body.... That's a bit of a pattern with me, non?

I'm going to go take the dog on a long walk to anchor myself back in the present of this beautiful last day of September and to wear out the sorrow and rage echoing in me across all these millennia. Eventually I'll come home to make some food and shower. Whenever my little  bear leads me home again because she is 13.5 years old now and an old dog not the young pup she once was.

 Random Life Update: 

The current song haunting me on the radio across multiple stations is For The Longest Time. At least once a day every day this week while I'm in the car. Which I can't say I mind at all - in point of fact, I grin and squee "O I love this song!!" and jump on my seat happy dance while driving during the intro Ohs and finger snaps whenever it starts. I mean, the reason Billy Joel on randomize is most often my dog's babysitter when I leave her by herself is because of how much I adore Billy Joel songs and him being my favorite since I was like 5yo so my dog grew up hearing his songs all the time and me getting happy every time they come on. 

Also, both my cat and my dog have a very marked preference for piano over all other instruments - Spock will lay on the piano bench whenever he wants to hear piano music and if I ignore him he'll meowl plaintively, reach for me with his paw if I walk nearby, or tap at the keys himself til I get the idea. 🤣 I'm not a particularly good pianist, I have it to get the random melodies in my head out of my head - but he's pretty happy with that. Whenever there are fireworks or the fire alarm was pulled/tested, or noise in the halls or on the roof or even just the lawnmower going, I put on George Winston or Billy Joel for the animals. Even if I wanted to choose another favorite instrument in my household (o my favorite is piano too, but a beautiful strings arrangement gives even piano music a run for the money with me) I'd be outvoted by the fur babies and piano would win.

So yeah, definitely not at all sad that nearly every time I get in the car for the last week I catch For The Longest Time on the radio. Not sad in the least. Not even sad it's currently still stuck in my head and I'm wandering around my kitchen singing it while making fried rice after I heard it while driving home from watering my outdoor planters at work around sunset. (Highs in the low 80s and sunny all week - so once again daily watering the herbs and the nightshades. And the banana plants that have been outside since their division- will ask my papa to help me bring them in on Monday before the lows dip back down into the 40s.) 

P. S. Made an interesting spicy sweet Japanese style fried rice with habanero, jalapenos, umami powder, sansho seasoning, garlic, wasabi, pickled ginger, and yuzu hot sauce. (the soy sauce soaked rice, wasabi, and pickled ginger were from my dad's bento box - he doesn't like rice, only eats it in sushi rolls and neither of my parents like pickled ginger so I always inherit all of it when we have sushi.) Veggies were carrots, peppers, frozen broccoli, kale. And then scrambled egg (the distinction between stir fry and fried rice is, imho, the egg in fried rice. Because you can make stir fry with or without rice, but fried rice always has rice and eggs in it, in every Asian cuisine I know of.) And then organic Houijacha green tea to drink with it.

As I said, spicy and sweet Japanese inspired fried rice. I went back for seconds so I have no leftovers, would definitely do again!  Too and there's no recipe since I make up my cooking as I go once I know the rules and reasons for a given dish/cuisine. I tend to cook by smell and my mood, but I know the basic recipes and reasons for them. My cooking habits tend to be French, Mediterranean, Middle Eastern, southwest, Mexican, Native American, Indian, Thai, and Asian fusion.  (But all of them when cooked by me don't have any pork, bacon, or lard because of how violently sick I get from ingesting even the amount of pork protein in the gelatin of a gummy candy/vitamin/edible.)

 After going to Takara for a sushi and sake lunch with my parents (alright my da had the teriyaki salmon bento box, but it comes with California roll so he still has some sushi) I did make it to Target finally for the things I needed to buy as well as the cat litter I needed for myself and the cat litter I owed Crissy for gifting me the cat litter in her trunk last week when I was desperately low and didn't have time to make it to go pick up more. They say to shop after you've eaten to spend less but they probably don't apply that advice after drinking half a bottle of cloudy sake split with your maman -- I spent more than I should have (and not necessarily all on things I needed -- not even on Halloween things because there was very little there of interest.) I did buy a lot of Halloween candy. Sorry not sorry. O and on that subject, I was mildly skeptical though curious about the Reese's Take 5 fun size candies -- but they're ridiculously good!!!! sweet and salty and crunchy and caramely -- peanut butter and chocolate and caramel and pretzel. Ridiculously addictingly good. (Also though, I've always loved Reese's peanut butter cups. I may or may not have bought a bag of Reese's pumpkins and put them in the freezer at home.) Also, it's caramel apple pop season (even if they do turn your tongue green) and I definitely bought a bag of them in my candy raid of Target and then gifted one to each of the employees who said yes after I offered them upon my return. As I told Jane (Ian's wife) when she stopped by, "Today is Happy Surprise Caramel Apple Pop Day!"It's amazing how happy it made people the random surprise and how much laughter it created at the end of the work day watching people try to navigate eating a sucker with a mask on until people decided to leave and eat it outside.

Also. On the scale from 1 to probably my favorite sweatshirt of ever, this beaut is $15 at Target for those who can fit into kids size clothing. 

Isn't that fucking amazing though?! Just look how deep that hood is!! AND it's a nightmare Before Christmas hoodie!!! Also. You can't tell in the picture, but the white on the chest of Jack Skellington has light blue sparkle in it. I wish they'd had a xxl girls sweatshirt (because y'know girls sizes, not adult sizes) because the xl girls is smaller in arm length and torso length than ideal sizing for me as, y'know, an adult... I may decide to buy it in a xxl instead/as well if I can find it. 

O, and I put my dad's salmon skin in a to go for the dogs and split it up between Audrey Pupburn and Sophie when I got back to work after my very lengthy Target visit.

That's it for my life update from today: Sushi and sake, Halloween candy update, and a kid's sized Jack Skellington sweatshirt.

P.S. The reason this post is a quotidian "this is my life" update is because right now my head and my heart are not in an over-thinking second guessing place -- I'm in a "wait and see, trust in the unfolding" place right now.  I just feel like... If I overthink or second guess or question things without reason, I'll start rocking the boat right as things are coming into calmer waters getting us closer to where we want to be, where we want to get to. What he needs is confidence and stability: in me, in the situation, in his options available to himself, and most of all in himself and what he wants for his own life. And he can best get a grounded stability by me not rocking the boat asking questions that lead to dead ends and what ifs that haven't happened and don't exist outside the maze of fears created by an over-active mind with a heart ruled by fear. So I don't want to over-think or second guess or ask questions that don't lead to uncovering truths but just take you down the scariest "what ifs" your mind/heart can make. I'd rather give trust in the unfolding and faith in him and time to see the path we walk and what he chooses for himself. Right now, my every instinct tells me that that's the single best course I can take for my own sake and for his and allow for whatever is trying to come into being without digging up the seeds to look for growth before anything has even sprouted -- to enjoy my here and now and the people in it AND most importantly to trust the future in his hands and his choices. 

If something shifts, you'll be the first to know. Well, second to know -- I guess I'll have to be the first to know by discovering it in the seas in my heart and amorphous airy shapes crystallized into thoughts.  But then, also, sometimes things crystallize best for me when I shape the amorphous into words,into written words -- it means I can finally get a look all around the 360 degree all the angles and general form of it. Sometimes that's all I'm doing when I write stream of consciousness -- I wait to figure out if I like or dislike what I unearthed in me until I've put it into words clearly enough for me to see it for what it is. My written words aren't always my final choices and edits of what's inside me -- most of the time they're me trying to see what I find and make decisions from what I see when I look at it with complete honesty. Scars and rationalizations and ugly parts inside me that sound better before you examine them too closely. 

But right now, nothing is currently shifting inside me and my primary goal at this time is to give him the stability and trust he needs to make his choices and pursue them as far as he can go and as far as they can take him towards what he wants most in his life. What better can I give him at this time than my complete faith in his choices, whatever they are and wherever they take him, and trusting the time however long or short it is for him to discover and create that future path for himself? I can't promise it will turn out how he or I want -- but faith isn't a promise things will happen the way you think best form your own limited subjective point of view, it's trusting that the absolute best will manifest no matter how different it looks than your preconceptions might have led you to think you should force in your impatience or assuming you know best. For all I know, maybe what he wants and choose involves someone else not me  in his life this life. Or maybe what he wants and chooses is me. That's not something I can know until he makes his choices for himself his own truest desires, I won't know until I see how his life path choices unfold for him on the course of his choosing not anyone else's choices for him or "in his best interests." 

And anyway, as far as Eric goes, I know what I want for myself and for him -- how I get there doesn't matter so much to me as long as I eventually get there.

 So. I still don't really understand the tides of his emotions on the bond and what prompts him to sometimes flood my consciousness with the powerful intensity and depth of his love. I appreciate it and it gives me all the warm fuzzies and it's far more intoxicating than actual liquor -- but I never know what prompts it or why it will hit me suddenly like standing where the waves break as the tide comes in. When the tide was further out, it was just the normal lapping in even ups and downs, rises and falls that you can float with or stand in but the water just changes levels calmly, but then suddenly the tide shifts the waves just enough that it crests exactly when it hits you and it's so powerful you feel like the force of it will knock away everything in its path right in that sweet spot. It's like that, like standing where the wave crests and all you feel is the power and intensity and force of it -- it's like that but a wave of raw emotions and love. I don't have a tidal chart for it nor do I have any idea what in his life he sees or does or thinks of that makes it happen. (Certainly not me in the flesh -- tonight it happened around 10:30 or 11 while it was just me and my dog at work -- my dog sleeping on my feet under my desk while I drank pumpkin spice rooibos tea and munched  on heirloom orchard apples while alphabetizing a stack of invoices before filing them later this week. And, I'm covered in dirt after spending my entire day wrestling with a severely root bound interwoven 12ft tall clump of banana plant into 3 separate pots and transplanting other green friends into new pots until I ran out of soil. But he's not here and even if he were I'm covered in dirt smudges, no makeup, and my hair back in a French braid, desperately in need of a shower, wearing a loose fitting tee and water resistant black pants I've had for literally over a decade.  I know it wasn't anything of me in the flesh that prompted that sudden intense rush of love from him tonight.) 

You'd think by now that I'd have some idea of the tides of his love and the reasons for it to suddenly get so overwhelmingly intense -- but the truth is I don't. It just sort of happens sometimes. I do know that it often happens (and by often I mean most nights) when he'd be heading to bed. But it can also come through early morning and really any time randomly throughout the day/night.  

O! Thinking of which! In addition to finding 21" diameter 18" tall pots for $12 today (at Home Depot -- my guess is end of season clearing things out rather than warehousing them over winter now that it's hitting holiday stock) I also finally found myself a plant rack that I like the balance of and that will actually help me with all my at home green babies  Most of them are over-priced and I don't love or the construction/design just doesn't look stable.... But I more than $70 like this one! And, I don't have the wood or the tools or the skillset to make it from scratch. So I ordered that and when it comes in, I'll put it together (I have skills and tools enough for that, lol) and I can get that off my plate before I have to bring my 3 shamrocks back inside and find places for them and all my expanding collection of African violets because they keep separating spawning babies....  Also though, if you decide to be in my life and have any sort of woodworking skills, please know that I will expect better than found at the curb bookshelves for my books and I'll be in need of more than just this one plant stand if I ever move into a real house and not just my flat with east facing windows.....

I also made my internal decision about deodorant. See, I don't use commercial deodorants because 1) aluminum is bad for you, breast cancer and Alzheimer's and all  2) my skin breaks out in hives from petroleum derived products (including polyester/acrylics in cloth/yarn) 3) palm oil also gives me rashes/hives 4) in the last year or so, sometimes coconut oil causes redness and itching on my skin. And have you EVER tried to find a natural deodorant that doesn't use coconut oil?! Or tried to make a natural deodorant from recipes that all suggest you use coconut oil and every suggested oil substitution doesn't set right?! I used to use American Provenance, and I can still use it occasionally, but if I use it regularly then I react to the coconut oil in it.....  Honestly, I've spent much of this summer just letting myself smell or putting isopropyl alcohol or hand sanitizer on my pits (basic chemistry: high enough proof alcohol kills bacteria that makes your sweat smell just as thoroughly as it kills bacteria on your hands that can make you sick.) Anyway, I recently had someone recommend Pit Liquor and then I started getting facebook ads about their limited edition pumpkin spice scent for the fall.  So tonight I decided to order myself some alcohol based deodorant and see what I like and how well it works for me. That said, in typical indecisive Libra sun Pisces rising fashion when I don't know exactly what i want and lack the data to weigh out all the pros and cons to the nth decimal point, I didn't know what scents I'd actually like, so I got 6 scents to try, lol. the trio of their 3 best sellers, the pumpkin spice, the whiskey pineapple, and the whiskey cedar. That last one is probably more of a man's deodorant/perfume smell, but I like the smell of certain types of wood and I was curious about it. That should keep me covered for the next 6 months to a year dependent on how long each 50mL bottle lasts (it said 1-2 months) and by the time I'd reorder, I'll know what I do/don't like of their scents. Unless of course I like it enough to have my curiosity piqued by a seasonal scent.... I intend to start with the pumpkin spice one so that I can know immediately if I'll want to order more while it's available, lol.

*yawns* I'm headed home and then to bed just as soon as I finish this cuppa French Macaron rooibos tea. But I'm le tired. (So take a nap. and then fire ze missiles!) And I have to get up early if I want to shower and have my hair dry and have breakfast before heading to my grandma's to take her to a 10:30am podiatry appointment. Then lunch before a much needed Target run. then some more working with plants (either transplanting the indoor ones or getting the garden bed ready for winter) until Crissy gets here. Then running over to the Halloween store and also to shop the fall/Halloween and plant sections of Home Depot as I only got a glance at them before when stopping by for the online order. Then back to work until whenever I head home tomorrow night. That's my plan. Probably will give myself Wednesday to just stay at home and clean and introvert recharge. Maybe read a bit. On verra. 

P.S. Here you go as evidence that I am covered in dirt and no makeup and not even trying to do anything with my hair other than braid it back because it needs a wash because all of me needs a shower and I'm very le tired... So le tired that my ADHD brain is quoting internet memes from 2003 at you and if you're not careful, we'll be entering Trogdor the Burninator territory soon....

(can't help that the end of the braid curl -- if I leave my hair in a braid or pigtail braids for over a day or if it gets really humid hot like when I'm in Florida, the braid itself will curl a corkscrew around itself....) 

 P. P. S. Also, for personal reasons, I shall be moving into this image at the first feasible opportunity:

Or maybe this one - it has a cozy fireplace and a wall of library for me to peruse (and you can't have a library without a Libra in it):

But with more books and music and dogs. Yes? Yes. Glad that's settled.

Well now. No. Just because a person CAN survive something doesn't mean they should be put through hell or left there. that would be a really shitty life philosophy that would allow a lot of rationalizing the unjustifiably cruel/immoral and a really masochistic take on stoicism. Good or healthy versions of stoicism (imo) is enduring what one must, accepting what cannot be changed or made better in this time until such time as you can improve the situation. It isn't enduring pain just for the sake of enduring pain.... So just because he CAN survive another life without reaching me or hearing from me doesn't mean that it's in his best interest to choose that if it causes him too much pain and suffering and there's another way (even if it's been made unnecessarily difficult) that brings reunion rather than continued separation.

Also. For the record,  I didn't seek out fame,  money, or power last life because it was a desire of mine.  I won't lie, I had all those things and everything that goes with it and I could put on and off the glamour at will to walk through a crowd unnoticed, just be me. But even that was hollow that life. And the money/fame was never an end in itself, it was my means to an end.  Last life I chose my life path because I was so fucking frustrated and impatient at our life paths never fucking crossing that I decided given his stubborn determination,  I'd plaster my face and my soul light across the entire fucking world's consciousness so everybody would see it and recognize it. So he'd know where to find me.  I wasn't expecting him to be so old,  to still be in that same life I'd visited twice after dying my two previous deaths. So sure he found me, but it turned out a tragedy not a comedy in the classic sense. 

It might not have been the smartest way to make sure he found me, though it did work. I thought I was smarter this time by asking for my reward life that any soul seeking me be able to find me, that I live this life surrounded in love for me qua me,  and that for as long as those conditions were met I'd like to grow old since I haven't in so long.  Which,  I genuinely really thought a foolproof way to get what I desire without laying down demands or coercion or in any way abrogating his free will choices.  I really thought I got it right with how I asked and planned for it this life. 

But so far,  it's not really looking like it,  is it?  The choices made haven't been the ones to get us from here to any sort of fairytale ending.... And I've spent the last several years doubting that's even in the cards this time. But I'm not sure how else I could have tried to fix the game before entering into this lifetime with my choices and have a meaningful outcome where we both get what we desire and choose. Still.  I really thought I'd got it right this time.  When I was a child, I was so certain it was merely a matter of time until we were grown up and he found me and that would be it. But we're all grown up,  have been for well over a decade,  and it's gotten to be such a fucking mess when it ought to have been easy.  And we've still not figured out how to get it right. 

Why not? And what do we have to do to stop getting it wrong?  

But then. Why am I being fatalistic about it? He has lots of options to choose between -- I'm assuming his choices and his paths he wouldn't look beyond. Just because I assume which paths he'd stick to doesn't mean that he recognizes those same limits among his options. He just has to know what it is matters to him and what he's not willing to sacrifice to guide his choices and his life path. As far as I can tell, he still has much more than 37 seconds on the clock to try to make something work to turn seeming defeat into victory. And as a precog, getting an "as far as I can tell" is generally pretty decent odds given I always foresee my own deaths and potential deaths in every life and major emotional earthquake like events are also things that i feel at least the emotional waves in advance. 

P.S. Just watched the Libra  video for October from Lightworker Tarot & Oracle. (She's just starting the October reads, so she's only started the current sign and the very next so far.)  It's exactly what i needed to hear advice wise about my fatalism/overthinking as mentioned above.

 I'll be honest, I thought we'd lost the game with the last 49ers touchdown.... I thought we were going to lose by 1... Not that you should ever ever ever discount Aaron Rodgers and Mason Crosby is consistently the GOAT. Most solid kicker I know of. I try not to be pessimistic and give up on games until they're over over.  But 37 seconds and no timeouts...And then it was a 51 yard field goal attempt at the very end of the clock..... I mean, that's a lot stacked against even the Packers -- I know that all my life we've been the team of last minute last chances coming through. But that was nerve wracking tonight! Especially given the preseason and first game of this season where we just sucked.... 

All that said. I was jumping up and down ecstatic over that win when i saw it!!!!!

Also, I was so pissed off about that helmet to helmet hit that took down Adams that wasn't called. I understand the explanations from the ref's perspective about why/how he couldn't see it from where he was.... But damn that's a hard hit on a key player to not even call.... Especially when he's down on the field for 2 minutes....

In other recent news: 

~ I located where in the dog walking park on the old Milwaukee County asylum is the aggressive spirit near the medical center in Wuawautosa.  I couldn't quite get to where it is nor could I properly encircle it to trap it in a finite space to make it easier for the hawk god to force to no longer remain among the plane of the incarnated,, but I was able to get close enough and mark the spot energetically. And I saw 25-35 hawks/falcons on the drive to Wauwautosa. Immediately after marking as close as I could get and then driving over to the parking lot area a hawk flew right to where I had been trying to reach and then it just circled over the area marking it and keeping an eye on the energy and containing it fro the hawk god. I walked with the pup to the "calm" cemetery for those who were properly buried under the 27 years of "humane" treatment of inmates. The hawk continued circling after reading that and then walking the path around that plot (but I didn't feel any need to lay down an energy circle nor did I feel any active spirits restless there. My dog didn't want to hike the paths, was ready to go and kept looking to where the hawk was circling and whining. (My dog is sensitive to ghosts and unincarnated spirits -- most dogs are not and none who we met there were.) All that said, even with it cleaned up, the place is so remote even though it's in the middle of Wauwautosa and so few people find it and can go there and none of the paths interconnect in Sanctuary Park in County Grounds that it would be a physically unsafe place for a woman to hike alone (or even with her dog) if she were molested or attacked. It's surprisingly beautiful and peaceful, but there's an underlying "be cautious if you're a woman alone" vibe there.... I won't be able to make it back to check if things have been tidied up fully by the hawk God or if there's something left for me to do until weekend after next. (Incidentally, I haven't seen a single hawk or falcon since finally taking care of that. And hey were getting so impatient that i even had a hawk visit me at my grandma's, lol)

~Then we went down to the lakeside Collectivo and visited Lake Michigan before heading over to Weston's Antique Orchard and visiting with Genevieve and buying more apples.

~Symphony was good. They had to last minute scramble change the program back in August/early September because the county mask mandate did not have an exemption for woodwind/brass performances. They have since amended that, which I have mixed feelings about even with my love of symphony. So they switched it to strings pieces (though one also had organ and timpani) which was particularly beautiful. Elgar, Fourenac, and Tchaikovsky (90 minutes program with no intermission.) The Elgar piece was my favorite! The second movement of the Tchaikovsky was gorgeous (but it was a waltz, and I'm an absolute sucker for a waltz, lol) and the fourth was quite beautiful as well -- but it just felt too long. The Fourenac was... not one of my favorites... It sounded like a horror film haunted carousel score. I wish that was an exaggeration

~ I went to Art Fair on the Square with my maman today telling myself that I have so much art, including lots that i still need to frame, so I wasn't going to buy any more art. I was just looking.  Yeah. Um. I kind of sort of definitely bought 7 more prints. Sorry not sorry. (This is actually not that many for me at art fair...) Also though, look at these lovelies. (please excuse that I need to sweep the floors.)  Just look at them!

A crow, an owl, a fox in colorful swirls of flowers and colors and mystical energy. mostly grayscale with pops of subtle blues/peaches of a black Friesian horse, a white Andalusian horse, a polar bear with her cub, and a snow covered forest.  None of that should surprise anyone who knows me that these 2 artists would call to me and I'd buy their works in the multiple.... Here's a closer look at those last 4:

I mean, they're all very me, in very different ways and even my mom got that. (I hope you like animals and birds in artworks if you ever want to live with me...There's a lot of it in my interior design aesthetic.)  There were other pieces I loved artists I have bought from in the past -- but nothing else but these 7 that I'd have felt sad if I went home without them. (My maman also bought art from both these artists.)

 I just found that realization about the ancient nature of my interpretations interesting. It's not necessarily better or worse. Not even surprising now I put the connections together. Just interesting.... 

Does it mean Eric has no chance to be with me this life? No. But the fact it happened and is still happening make it extremely difficult. Without acknowledging and correcting the source of the pollution, there's nothing the band can create or do that isn't poisoned to me. And the band is the very center of his life and the most important people to him. And worse, his sister's actions/choices on both her personal account and in the name of the band collectively mean that I have no affection or admiration in me for his sister and prefer to respect her chosen boundaries not have her touch my life or have me know anything to do with hers. In social situations, I will be painfully polite and scrupulously comme il faut - but I have no warmth or welcome or love anywhere inside me for her while her boundaries make it clear she wants me to have nothing to do with her life. I don't say it to be cruel, I say it as my honest reaction to her boundaries created by her actions and choices in response to honesty. And she's his sister, he loves her and is close to her - and that puts him squarely in the messy crossfire as the one most hurt by her choices and the consequences of them. And that's why I had decided following her choices in October 2018 that the kindest best thing I can do for him is let him go and accept that this was not meant to be a reunion life after all between him and me. That if I loved him, it was for me to let him go to find the happiness he chooses for his life and to quietly remove myself from his options and his life path with his sister and the band in the very center and heart of that path. 

I still think that would be kinder than putting him in the middle of this mess where he can only be hurt and his sister's actions demand he chooses between loved ones.  Her choices aren't his fault, but whether I stay or leave him so he can't find/reach me, he's the one who pays the highest cost and consequences for her actions. And I hate that. I would keep that unfairness and pain from him if I could. That's why removing myself without bringing this to him to arbitrate seemed to me a kindness to him, as compared to him being in the middle always getting hit by friendly fire and paying the price of her actions and choices.... I still think removing me from his options, something he's not yet fully had in his life this life, remains kinder. Right now I'm just a yearning and a dream and an energy in his inner life, I'm not a tangible presence in his quotidian life. He's not losing anything real in his life by me fading from his options and his reach. 

I still stand by the analysis that I should let him decide for himself what he does and doesn't want to choose to have in his life. I just still think that choice the best given the enduring people/systems already a part of his life and which he has built his identity and sense of self worth around. I'll let him make his own choices, but I won't lie to myself that removing me from his options remains the easiest, kindest, and least complicated solution. Especially since there will be other lifetimes for us to be together if choices mean it will not happen in this one. He has survived not finding me, reaching me, or hearing from me before....he can survive it again. and the other things mixed up in this that his sister's defensive choices set at odds with having me in his life in a meaningful way are all incredibly important beloved anchors of his life. I won't lie to myself or deny that truth. 

But it's his choice what he wants for his life. I've transgressed that before assuming what is "best" for him in given circumstances and it's not gone well for either of us. 

In my actual life though. Tomorrow  (technically today now) heading to Wauwautosa and Weston's Antique Apple Orchard earlier in the day. Then symphony tickets. Sunday my maman and I are likely heading to Art Fair on the Square (if her back is up for it) moved from midsummer to now. Then after that heading to work to get in hours for next week and then an evening Packers game while working. That's the plan. Then this week my grandma has appointments on Tuesday and Friday and then my birthday is on Saturday. I don't actually have any plans for my birthday this year, but it is coming up right quick!

 I'd say that my reaction toward the use of ostracism and when it's appropriate versus inappropriate and how deeply and completely you obey anyone's use of ostra whether or not it was rightly or wrongly applied and my extension of digital ostracism into respecting it as applicable and with physical real life implications is also me applying ancient Hellenic concepts of morality in the modern world.

I mean, think about it. The miasma that has me so upset are the consequences of a misuse of ostracism in the name of the collective and a respect for the ostra misused in the digital realm as being applicable to all contact or existence of the band as long as the ostracism and miasma exist.  Living under the ostra is itself a source of miasma if you transgress it in any way - there is only ritual katharsos available when the ostra itself is lifted. And the misuse of the ostra is itself is a source of miasma for those who engage in it. 

(Incidentally, in Greek religious terms, the two concepts are closely linked. Ostra of outcasts with miasma is stringently followed and until they are both ritually cleansed, transgression of either is a spread of miasmic pollution from any form of contact.... )

It's the deeper ritual religious aspects as well as the injustice in the modern setting of their "everyone come sit with us -except you" that makes any contact with any of them a source of poison if the pollution of the past action(s) is left uncleaned as far as I'm concerned. 

I also find it interesting that in dream space, the Goddess informed me when it all happened in October 2018 that Britt was no longer a follower of hers and I could not intercede with the Goddess or bring her back into those marked by The Goddess and who have her favor and power as Britt's miasmic transgression was against the one who had first initiated her to serve the Goddess, the one who opened that path and way for her all those lifetimes ago, and it is the Goddess herself who won't forgive what was done or the defensive rationalizations of such a betrayal.  

How ironic that it was me stating how much I loved a song called Hands Dirty but was sad I'd not be able to see it live as the country music at shows caused too much pain via my synesthesia for me to attend and further Delta Rae shows while the country music was any part of the concert experience that caused the defensive misuse of ostra and a rational of a system of injustice and inequality toward their "fans" that created the miasma poisoning everything between me and Eric and between me and anything regarding the band as a collective. I mean, miasma is spread to all you touch with unclean hands until you have your past acts ritually undone and ablutions to wash the past sins off your hands are central to all paths of katharsos and to once more be pure before the divine. So it's ironic that it was defensiveness and rationalizations regarding honest response to a song called Hands Dirty that is the source of the miasmic pollution that has poisoned all the good that Eric and anyone else has attempted in the name of the collective guilty of the miasma pollution transgression against justice due to a misuse of ostracism to create a bullying system rather than an inclusive one. I mean, if you wrote it in fiction, your editor would tell you to change the song title of what created the miasma spreading to everything touched as it's too much to be believed.... And yet, here we are. And it's the miasma of the actions/choices to honesty following the release of a video for a song called Hands Dirty and the rationalizations of gaslighting created systems of cruelty/injustice on their collective social media account that have poisoned and continue to poison all things created by or in the name of the band.... It's an improbable serendipity that wouldn't pass in a fiction even though it played out in the choices made in real life.

I just realized all that. I really am reacting in ancient ethical ways to modern morality and holding myself and everyone to standards that were ancient long before most souls currently incarnating differentiated from the sea of spirit. But, I still say that even in a modern lens, nothing good or healthy grows on poisoned soil until you've reclaimed the land to remove the biotoxins. That's not ancient religion, that's modern science or agriculture and land stewardship. And if you try to build on a foundation eaten through by rot, the entire structure collapses and cause more death and destruction than taking the time/effort to replace the cracked and rotting foundations when you learn of them. And that's not ancient religion, that's modern science of construction and structural engineering. The same physical principles of contagion/cleansing when applied to spiritual questions of ethics and justice and the soul also aligns with the ancient beliefs/practices surrounding miasma and katharsos.

Wow. You really can take the Pythian out of Delphi but you can't take the Pythian ethos out of her ancient soul.... 

But. If I'm wrong, show me how there's a disconnect in logic to believe that buried truths and rationalizations of acts of cruelty/systems of injustice beget continuous contagion that pollutes all you touch and every act you try to do until it's faced and acknowledged and cleansed. It's like poisoning the soil then wondering why flowers and fruits won't grow there until you address the issues in the soil and fix them. It's not the fault of the plants or the seeds you try to grow, it's the fault of the soil that was the poisoned. 

 O you don't NEED to listen to me about howto clean out poisons from infecting everything you touch. To each their own. I firmly believe ethics must come from within, from a knowledge of oneself and what one desires to be and how one chooses to live. *shrugs* I'm not here to make you. I'm just saying that in my experience across all my lifetimes, nothing changes for the better without facing and acknowledging even the most difficult truths and that only poisoning the places in which you buried the truths happens from trying to hide difficult truths. But you're welcome to find out your own view on this by trial and error and your own hard knocks road rather than heeding the advice and seeing it play out around you.

I'm not here to tell you WHAT to choose, I'm here to ask the questions to help you understand yourself/the world and present you opportunities for growth/change -- but I'm never here to make your choices for you. It's always up to you if you want to listen to me. Because after all, the karmic repercussions of any/all choices are always yours to bury -- only you have to live your life path. So it's for you to choose. i can only provide a catalyst of a window of opportunity and push you with the questions you should consider. I won't choose for you. Not now not ever. I don't walk your life paths, I walk my own life paths. 

I just hadn't realized until last night how much of my language and how I personally conceptualize of the contagion of past choices/buried truth needing to come to light is through the spiritual lens and terminology of the Pythian oracles.  I didn't realize until last night how ancient my way of conceiving and seeing the rot of past wrongs and buried truths is compared to how younger souls must view it. That said, even younger souls tend to learn to understand it from the ancient view on it -- whenever they're ready to understand the necessity of facing hard truths to heal and cleanse the consequences from the past actions/choices. 

P.S. Been seeing sooooo many hawks and falcons of all varieties recently!!! Hawk God definitely keeping a close eye on me lately. So are the crows. Everywhere I go....  And cardinals, surprisingly. Cardinals are less typical, but they're everywhere around me lately. Not as omnipresent as the hawks/falcons and crows, but still every single day. 

 So I realized something on the drive back from Oedipus Rex at APT (a very good performance and production, hit it perfectly that the tragedy is that everyone trying to do the right thing to defy FATE is what brought about the exact circumstance for the fated prophecy to become reality. It was a particularly well done production of it - my biggest critique is they picked the wrong shade of blue in the costumes as that synthetic dye is a hue that couldn't have existed in ancient Greece.)  Anyway, I was talking to Crissy about how I wished people did the Sophocles properly and put on all 3 of the Theban plays as a triad with a longer intermission between each as the arc of gods-driven tragedy, expiating the pollution at the hands of gods, and the hubris-driven tragedy of defying the edicts of the gods is important. And you don't get that if you only stage Oedipus Rex or Antigone without Oedipus at Colonnus in between. And she got a mini lecture on the Greek belief that moral contagion is a pollution that spreads to poison all you touch til you make a public atonement and expiate before the divine who can wash away the pollution when you are ready to atone for it. And then I said that Sophocles' Theban triad is my favorite of the tragedies and Oedipus Rex my favorite of the three because it's about having the moral courage to face the buried truths no matter how hard they are and to cleanse the poisons of the sins (even if they were committed in innocence) rather than burying them to fester. And I added, "I'm very much still a believer in the Pythian Oracles motto 'Know Thyself' even if you don't like what that honesty shows you." She laughed and said sarcastically, "You don't say? I never noticed. You've never pushed me against a wall asking questions until I finally faced in myself what I'd been hiding from." Me laughing, "Right. Yeah. I guess I really don't hide it well. But. Seriously. How can you ever grow healthy patterns without making yourself know thyself as you are? How can you start to see the truths in things without knowing your own blindspots and biases?" Crissy: "I don't disagree with your way of getting to healing even if it hurts. You just never pointed out to me where you picked it up."

And it made me realize, you can take the priestess out of Pythian and live so many lifetimes that Delphi itself is in ruins and nobody remembers the goddess incarnate cult who created the motto that the cult of Apollo took on when they absorbed the prophetess cultic worship, but you can never take the Pythian out of my soul. I still very much believe that buried truths causes moral contagion that poisons all it touches and the way out is in knowing thyself no matter how much you don't like who you have been or the immoral things you did in innocence of buried truths - and I still very much believe that all can be cleansed and forgiven by proper expiration of acknowledging the past pollution on your unclean hands and asking that the divine stop it's poisoning all you touch by your admission of what happened to cause the pollution on your hands. The Greek tragedies of atonement and cult expiration for sins that were fated are culturally and ethically as important as the idea that running from your fate is the very set of choices that create the fate. 

And. My expectations of Eric and Delta Rae are rooted in the ancient traditions of miasma poisoning all it touches and the importance of expiating the moral transgression that created the pollution in a proper bringing forward the truth to have it acknowledged and ritually forgiven once it's been acknowledged it happened. It's not that I don't want things healed made better and to try again, it's just that I know ignoring this source of miasma and unclean hands will continue to poison everything it touches and make even the best of intentions turn out unclean spreading contagion until you know yourselves for who you have been and make atonement for the acknowledged wrongs of the past.  

It's not due to a lack of love. It's due to a very ancient wisdom of old soul knowledge about the poisons of buried hard truths and the tragedies that arise from failing the Pythian creed to gnothi seauton.... (The other Delphic maxim was meden agan, nothing in excess.) I don't want to be guilty of my actions contributing to worse tragedies when I at least should know better as a precog, a prophetess, and a past life Pythian priestess.

Like I said, you can take the priestess out of Pythia and leave Delphi in ruins, but you can't take the ancient Pythian rules of incarnate goddess out of my soul.  Know thyself. And once you do, face the goddess with that knowledge of your past pollution to have it expiated and cleansed in your acknowledgment of the truth about who you have been.

I don't want Christian redemption or Freudian analysis or post modernist takes on how everything is broken. I want to cleanse the poisons before they spread further, as they always do when buried or hidden or refused to be faced. I want the ancient answers and the key of knowing thyself and asking for acknowledged sins to be expiated by proper ceremony before the goddess. How else does one cleanse away pollution rather than spreading it in everything you touch that is built upon buried truths that are morally hard to face?

I don't know if that's the best way to handle this situation.... But it's the only way I know to cleanse and provide antidote for the ever spreading pollution of unclean hands from immoral acts committed in innocence or under the guise of buried/hidden truths that must come into the light and be acknowledged to be healed. I don't have a better answer than my ancient Pythian teachings on truths and cleansing the soul stains of hidden truths by bringing them to the light and asking the divine to forgive them once you acknowledge and have paid atonement in your own suffering over the wrongs you did before you knew how wrong they were. 

P. S. These were in my memories on Facebook. In exactly this order. Forgive me for uploading as is without blurring last names. Battery at 4% and must be at my grandma's at 8:30am and I need to download a basic photo editor for my new phone to pixelate the names because Motorola didn't come with one...

But anyway. The day after the equinox, my past self shared Delta Rae lyrics and snow covered birches in Sweden and Aristotle quotes pertinent to respecting the Pythian roots from which my soul grows.

And as a bonus, here's some of my own philosophizing from the equinox 12 years ago - evidence of my own knowledge of myself from before we ever crossed paths this life. (And long long before any of the current mess was made to complicate things....

I'll pixelate last names and reupload tomorrow. After I sleep and then assist my grandma with her online doctor appointment.

May set this back to draft once I wake up until I can do that... Too tired to weigh in the balance pros and cons of my current options before sleep. Intuition told me to share the lyrics and snow on birches and Aristotle along with my realizations of where my expectations for how to cleanse the poisons that immoral acts and defensive lies to hide the truths have caused to contaminate things. And I don't have the energy right now to fight my intuition or to try to figure out which free photo app to download and try to do the ethically proper with my screen caps. I'll make better decisions after I sleeps....

 Me on Monday (not having washed my hair in like 4 days so I brushed it and pulled it into pigtails: "My hair's not that curly... Mostly just frizzy. Maybe I should stop thinking of it as more than wavy... Also it's really dark, should definitely not call it auburn these days...."

Me today (now that my hair is finally dried after washing it): "Right. Curly and auburn are definitely the word for this curl beast"

Definitely not curly at all... 

Whoops. Should probably just deal with the hours of it dripping down my back and simply wash my hair next time I get to thinking that way 🤣 Also, it smells really good right after washing it.

It's also definitely not naturally curly hair... Definitely not... 😏 (You should see it any time I'm near the ocean and get salt water in it, lol)

Time to finish my coffee then finish getting ready and eye makeup and brush my teeth and such before heading to work for free lunch and then to the DMV to renew my license. And then tonight I'm headed to APT to see a production of Oedipus. Chilly autumnal nights in the 40s all week, so will bring blanket/layers.

P. S. Yeah no, definitely just tell me to wash my hair if I try to disown my having curls 🤣  Luckily, the curves are undeniable so I can't lie to me about those even if we dress me in a burlap sack - Marilyn Monroe proved that truth. Not that trying to buy bras and swimsuits for a 28G could ever let me forget, lol. I should definitely get a Jessica Rabbit dress and wig for Halloween some year.

P. P. S. Also, last week's game against the Saints, my pupkin refused to let me put on her jersey, actively hid in the corner under the chair when I tried. It was a shit show of a game....  This week, on Monday she was ecstatic jumping on her hind legs when I pulled it out. 

First Packers win of the season!!!! But how did my sweet little Pisces pup know?!

(I don't watch all football games, though I will watch most sports if they're on. But I do watch Packers games (and Soccer World Cup matches) religiously.  You can take the girl out of the frozen tundra, but she'll never be disloyal to her Pack.)

 Apparently, there were actually incredible auroras across Saturday and Sunday and early Monday morning. Just like in the dream. Some of the images even look like the auroras in the dream. 

I just found that interesting. 

I've only ever seen auroras in person low on the horizon, never overhead.  (because of where the magnetic north pole is, the auroras actually come extra far south right over where Wisconsin is and across an angle of Minnesota and Michigan -- so when the kp is above 6.5, I can see them in town where there's low light or go right outside of town where there's less light pollution and see more than dancing green.)  But seeing them overhead is one of the things I really want to do at some point. I also really desperately want to visit the Hotel de Glace in Québec, and if I can I'd love to find anyone crazy enough to stay overnight in an ice hotel/ice castle with me. I'd love to stay there overnight! (You can also get married there, they have a chapel made of ice/snow. But that seems less suited to most normal people (even as guests) because snow and ice isn't everyone's cup of tea. I also know of an ice palace in Norway and another in China -- but the one in Québec is the only one in North America. 

I also want to go on a dog sled ride at some point. It's another thing I've never done, even with how far north Wisconsin is. I've done plenty of snow shoeing, plenty of cross country skiing, I've even gone frozen waterfall climbing. But never dog sledding. 

Also. 

I just realized something. When I say that I'd rather he be happy than mine in my life, that's me lying to myself.... I want him to be happy AND mine. That's what I want, what I most truly want. Yes I'd rather he be happy than unhappy, true. But me letting him go, me making me do that -- regardless the reasoning or rationalizing I tell myself behind the behavior doesn't leave breathing room inside me for my own happiness. And every time I try a new excuse, a new rationalization, a new way to try to make me stoic through with letting him go, all I do to myself is find new ways to make myself unhappy. It never turns out different, I just reach the point I feel like I can't breathe and nothing matters except at least he's happy, at least he has the happiness he wants.

But. What if he isn't? What if he never was? What if every time I rationalized taking all the air out of my own lungs, all the light out of my own heart, by telling myself it was necessary for the sake of his happiness I was doing the same to him? What if the consequence of rationalizing the lie to myself was making him as unhappy and miserable as I made myself in trying to believe the lie was a part of my truth?

What good can ever come of anything you try to do that is built on the foundation of a lie you tell yourself until you believe it?  It's just as unstable a foundation as anything you try to build in a relationship with other people that has lies breaking down in the cornerstones. 

So I shouldn't let me lie to myself. Not even out of stoicism or self-martyrdom or claiming it's in his best interests or somehow what he wants for his happiness. I need to stop repeating that lie, because it's harmful if I believe it and harmful if I make others believe it. It's a harmful lie that I need to stop repeating. I shouldn't tell myself I'd rather he were happy than have him in my life. I wouldn't rather that -- that doesn't bring any happiness into my life.  I should be honest that I'd rather he be happy than unhappy but what I want is that he was happy while in my life.

That's on me. That's not on anyone except me. That lie didn't come from anyone else, it's a part of my own past choices and my own patterns and modes of behavior and versions of myself that I don't desire to be any longer. It's something in me, in who I have let myself be, that I need to work on and improve in the present for the sake of the future. 

So starting right now, that's not a lie I'm allowed to say any longer -- not to myself and not to anyone else. I wouldn't rather he was happy than in my life. I'd rather he was happy than unhappy but my happiness wants him happy WHILE he's in my life.

And I genuinely don't think we can get to a real life version of that spirit vision dream without first fixing this lie I've told myself for too long.  Nothing gets better without cleaning out the lies, including the well intentioned lie I've told myself for far too long. And after all, how can you expect to reach a reunion and recognition and shared joy/love when you're undermining the very idea that the joy and love in getting to be together is mutual? How can you expect to find shared joy, shared love, if you're undermining it by lies that say that shared love/joy isn't what the other person desires or is seeking? You can't. You're destroying it before you ever even find each other by doubting the other person's potential for joy when you have reunion. And that's not fair of me. And what in the lie is even worth fighting for? A false nobility? A false humility? A false pride in being saintly? Isn't it better to be human and honest than trying to maintain a facade of false saintliness built of lies? Isn't that the point of incarnating in the cycle of souls and being mortal?

(Yeah I know. I know I ask a lot of questions. I always have. Sorry if it's annoying. Blame Socrates. Blame Socrates across many lifetimes. And I don't have, or even expect to have, all the answers to even a fraction of all my questions I ask. I don't always expect to find answers by asking my questions, the questions themselves are often what matters.  The questions are a part of how I observe the world and learn about myself and others -- and sometimes I learn as much from the questions I pose but can't answer as I learn from the ones I find the answers to. The act of asking the question makes you examine the information in new ways. Particularly the information that you never did fully examine.)

 On the scale from 1 to full moon in Pisces, 2 days before the equinox: 

Last sleep I had a polar bear vision dream for the first time in a very long time. It wasn't particularly action filled and certainly not full of warnings of anything. It was just loving and warm and sweet.  It was us literally walking towards each other in the tundra - somewhere with fluffy snow but not hard ice pack, the joy of recognition/rediscovery, running toward each other, and a big "not ever letting you go" hug. Finally I looked up asked, "So where are we going from here?” and the polar bear said, "Doesn't matter to me as long as we go together to the next adventure." I grinned and said, "That is a plan I can get behind. Always. But maybe let's wait a little for the next adventures. Spend some time right here and now just being together." And he said, "How about we stay right here?" I hugged him tighter said, "That sounds perfect." Then we curled up snuggled together, my polar bear and me, watching the stars come out and the aurora dancing with them. And everything was right in the world for us. 

That was it. That was the entire dream. I mean, it was a long dream, but not a warning or anything happening except finding peace and mutual love and comfort under the stars and the aurora. Like I said, it was overflowing full of sweetness and homecomings beneath the open sky of the heavens - no anxieties or warnings. Just the brightness of being and finding each other and choosing to share our existence together simply because we could.

The more I think of it, I'm not saying I'm wrong in my read from this morning -- my heart and intuition tell me quite loudly that I'm right.  What I'm saying is that I don't know for certain those were his feelings bleeding into mine or that he was physically near enough for that to be likely and my head doesn't have logical proofs so it's questioning the illogic of it as an answer. Me admitting not knowing everything isn't the same thing as calling it untrue.

And not all the things in this world can be boiled down to brass tacks logic. In fact, most things of the heart and/or the soul are precisely the things that defy logic and the statistical odds. All the most magical things defy everyday logic -- that's what makes them sparkle with wonder and feel precious beyond words. 

So I'm not saying that I was mistaken, just an acknowledgement that it makes sense but it's not logical.

But then again, what about the bond is logical? I mean, start to finish, what about it is typical or logical? Asking it to conform to logic isn't accepting the bond on its own terms of existence. And I'd rather have the bond and accept it as it is than destroy it by asking it to conform to any sort of logic of the everyday ordinary. 

I don't need it to be logical. I'm just happy it is. And I'm grateful for the restlessness going away at 2:20am and the peace of sleep, uninterrupted sleep. And for the moments tonight of intense overwhelming love pouring down the bond. I don't need logic to make sense of my feelings about the bond's existence, its esse -- it's enough and more than enough to me that I have it and the joy it and rightness it brings. (It brings me far more joy than the past troubles the misuse/misunderstanding of it has caused.)

It's okay with me for the bond and everything related to it not to have conventional logic, for it to simply have its own internal sense of rightness and ebbs and flows. I don't need it to have logic so long as the magic of it is real and woven through our lives. 

P.S. All that said. I would like it to be real in the quotidian real life not just internal along the bond. It doesn't need to be today, but I would like it to be tangibly real. Preferably on the sooner side.

 So. I was thinking about it. And while that theory that maybe those were his emotions bleeding through makes sense by the internal logic of the bond, it doesn't make logic of any of the facts I have. And you should always build your theories from facts, not what you want to believe is true.... And factually, it doesn't make any sense to think that 1) he was close enough for me to have a hard time discerning where my emotions end and his begin and 2) any reasons he might have been feeling that way. Like I said, it has an internal sense, but it isn't supported by facts. Which doesn't mean I was wrong, but it means i should remain skeptical about it as a theory without further evidence to support it. And I won't get evidence unless from him, and that doesn't seem likely. So I'll just have to accept the events themselves as experienced but leave my hypothesizing about the why/how to make sense of it as a question mark....

I mean, on a basic evidentiary level, I don't even know that he misses me or desires me (let alone feels like he's messed things up) or that he remembers our past lives or that he feels the pull on the bond the way I do.  There are reasons I want to believe he does, and he clearly feels the pull to someone or something inside him from some of his lyrics -- but that doesn't mean that it's me. Intuitively I feel it is, and most things spiritual pull both ways like a taut string, but that's not evidence that it does in his particular case... And I know that I have a strong cognitive bias of how I WANT to believe he feels wanting me. Which isn't the same thing at all as knowing what he ACTUALLY feels about me, y'know? I lack evidence to back up my intuition/cognitive bias of what I desire to be his truth.

(Also I don't KNOW that it's 300 miles distance for me to have the bleed over of his emotions into mine.... I know that it happens when he's been playing shows in Minneapolis and Chicago area that I haven't attended and I also know that it did not ever happen while he was living in Nashville. Chicago is around 150 miles, Minneapolis is something like 270 miles away whereas the handful of times I visited Nashville (hated it every time -- NOT my scene at all) it was over 650 miles, close to 700 miles if I remember correctly... So it's a bigger radius than 250miles, but not as big as 600+ miles. And, come to think of it, I don't think it happened when they've played Indianapolis -- which is like 330 or maybe 340 miles away. Like, I could tell that he was closer than when 500+ miles away or across the country or across oceans, but still the edges of his emotions and my emotions were distinct. Unshielded newbie empaths can't tell their emotions from any other people's, but I've always been able to recognize the distinction of mine versus other people's. EXCEPT in his case with that soul bond, but only when he gets within a certain physical proximity does the overlap of emotions and not recognizing whose is whose get tricky for me.  If I know to expect it, if I know he's near, I can pay vigilant attention to know, but when I haven't paid attention, then it gets confusing and I just feel his emotional tides he same as my own emotions and I get confused as hell about what I'm feeling and why I'm feeling it.... Which is why that hypothesis that it was his emotions and he was near enough for the blurring to occur makes internal sense of the experiences. It just doesn't make evidentiary logic.)

 For the record, about 20mins or so after that 2am post (maybe 15, I didn't look at the time) it was like a switch flipped and that restless sense of missed opportunity and increasing distance was replaced by this snuggly warmth and comfort and reassurance down the bond that it was alright and there was plenty of time and love to get things right but that now it was time to sleep.  So I just curled into that feeling and  sense of peace and third eye forehead kisses and slept soundly the rest of the night until sunrise. Then I got up to take the dog on our morning walk and now I'm sipping coffee waiting on the egg to cook enough to flip my omelette without breaking it (hopefully) and fill it. (I don't know how to pan flip eggs or pancakes and have mad respect for people who do. It's like a magic trick that skill.  Someday I'd like to learn the trick, but for now I do the flat spatula flip lifestyle still.)

Thank you for that peace and love and middle of the night cuddles, whatever brought it on. Makes me wonder if all that overthinking restlessness was his not mine.  It is true that when he's within like 300 or so miles of me, it's often hard for me to tell where my emotions end and his begin. They blur together at the edges. And they amplify each other when we're in close proximity, like an infinite hall of mirrors when 2 mirrors are facing each other just right. That's a just him thing, for both of those. 

Perhaps that's what it was last night and the reason I couldn't shake it was I was treating it like my own emotions not responding to his.... Although, I can't fathom why he would have felt that way... and I don't know that he was close enough physically to me for it to be that.... But then, I guess I don't actually know where he is atm. Not following him or anyone in the band that he might be traveling with on socials anymore. 

That said, I'm not complaining. I'll take feeling surrounded by his love and comfort any and every day that it's offered. It's even more "all is right with the world" cozy feeling than curled up by a fire watching the snow fall.  Honestly, feeling the strength and warmth of his love along the bond is my favorite thing in the entire world.

Eggs are ready to flip. And nobody likes overcooked eggs. More later. 

 O, it's not weird I miss him or feel pouty that coming home isn't synonymous with coming home to him - that's just general isness of existence with me. Especially this life. It's the intensity of the"something is wrong" and "you're further from making the choices to make things right than you were this morning" and something panicky unwilling to do anything else until I acknowledge what I'm doing wrong and course correct. That's what is irrational. Not the missing him basic esse, the intensity and weird specificity tonight of missed opportunity and running out of time to fix things. 

I'm clearly doing a great job sleeping.... Restlessness and "this isn't where we should be, fix this before you can't" keeps troubling my sleep waking me up before I can hit REM dream state. At the moment, my cat just came to curl up along my spine purring when I  reached for my phone or I'd get up and give up on trying to sleep right now.  So I'm just laying here trying to understand and soothe this restless sense of mistakes that need to be fixed immediately, staring into the dark while listening to cat purring through my bones, the dog sleeping/snoring, the fan, and the crickets/frogs from the pond at the end of the circle via my open window. 

Also though, WHY is this hitting me like this tonight?!?! I get that intuition and logic aren't always related, but normally I can find a sort of connectedness and sense to it. I can't this time. And it's so fucking intense.... Make it make sense.... Please?

 I had a really great day today, spent most of it outside or driving (to/from Madison to Waukesha County, antique heirloom apple orchard in New Berlin.) I'm very much loving the nice camera on this phone!!! 

I don't really have much to say right now. Feeling restless tired don't know what to do with myself. Thinking about heading to bed early tbh. For some reason, ever since leaving Westons apple orchard the closer I got to Madison the more intensely I felt myself missing Eric. Which is random and stupid and utterly completely illogical. Like, it just hit me hard as I got ever closer to home that sense of phantom limb "but he's not there, I'm not coming home to him tonight” overwhelming feeling. Which is random af, because like he's never here. This is my home, not his. And last I saw/knew anything about him or where he was, he was in NYC for his solo show. And I mean, maybe that's not where he is, modern world with planes and highways and all. But I can't find any logic or sense in my internal overwhelming emotion of his being further from me tonight than this morning missing him and that I was coming home but not to him. 

And it's so fucking illogical. But I can't shake it. And it's the root of my restlessness and inability to focus do anything. And nothing is making it better. And the fur babies are asleep and I'm thinking I should just call it bedtime to not feel this completely senseless and irrational but unshakable feeling of distance and missing him. 

Grumph. What a weirdly frustrating end to such a sparkly sunshiny happy day..... yeah. I'm just going to head to bed. Hopefully whatever this illogical moodiness of missing him making me restless will be improved upon waking next. Because it makes zero sense and I can't settle myself to do anything since getting home. So I'm going to just call it a day and try sleeping since the only other solution I can think of to solve it would be to find him or see him - and that isn't actually anything I can do right now tonight, lol 

 O I saw the most beautiful shooting star while taking my dog on a midnight walk!!!! (Okay, yes, fine, sometimes my decision making can definitely cross over into the territory normal people might call reckless.... But I brought my dagger as well as my dog. And did you SEE how gorgeous the midnight moon was over Madison?!?!?! It was an hour and a half walk in the area near my home and a nearly full moon midnight sit on the little dock on Tiedeman Pond  well worth the risk of having to gut any drunk opportunistic rapists if they crossed my path and thought me a soft target. And you'll miss far too much of the beauty of this world if you spend your life not doing the things to add joy and magic to your life. Be ready for idiots to happen because they will and confident you can handle yourself with situational awareness, but don't let too much caution and  good sense keep you from the beauty of living.)

It was right about 12:12, because I had to pick up after my pup just afterward and my phone switched from 12:12 to 12:13 as I flicked it twice to turn on the flashlight. We were back on our circle  near home that it happened. I was actually staring up at Sirius and Orion in the exact opposite direction. And it was like this voice suddenly whispered, "Turn around or you'll miss it, foolish mortal child!" So I whipped my head around toward Cassiopeia behind me (you can always find the w of Cassiopeia) and from Pisces or Pegasus area in the south east skies there came this incredible lateral shooting star (or falling satellite) headed straight toward Cassiopeia- it burned bright red then flashed white and then ended in intense emerald green into teal instead of the typical blue at the end! There are no meteor showers from any constellations near Pisces, trust me. Next meteor shower isn't until the Orionids in mid-October. My memory of chemistry was confirmed by the internet that burning green generally means the presence of nickel or magnesium - but that was not even remotely anywhere in my brain while I watched it, mouth actually quite literally agape, and made the first wish that came from my heart. (It was a good wish, a wish for Christmas morning magic surprises - but if I told you the actual wish, it could never come true; wishes on stars and candles be like that.). 

I wonder if anyone else was awake and staring up at the stars in Madison area tonight and saw it....or if it was just my own shooting star to witness. O but it was such a brilliant gorgeous one - like a flying quetzal with the long streaming tail or a high speed flashing hummingbird!!! 

It was so exquisite and unlike any other shooting star I've ever seen - and I put all the meteor showers in my calendar so I can hope for clear nights during the peak to go find dark skies and sit/lay for hours watching them.  This one was so beautifully unusual and brilliant!!! 

Right. I'm home now and tiiiiired. So bedtime. But first go look at the moon if you didn't yet tonight. She's been gorgeous since moonrise during the end of golden hour pre sunset! And she'll be a Pisces full moon on Mon night - just 2 days before equinox and the start of Libra season! 

So go look at the moon if you didn't yet. And then bed. Bonne Nuit. Sweet dreams!

 1) I dealt with replacing my phone today!! I'm very happy and excited with my phone!!! *squee* I was thinking I'd go with the Samsung A52 5G but decided on the Motorola One 5G. They were pretty close in features but the Motorola was $100 cheaper with longer battery life. (I loathe iphones, they are very unresponsive for how light my touch is and I feel like I have to push my finger through the screen to get iphones or ipads to respond to me and then i get frustrated and angry and fuck up people's devices and they lock up the screen and the owner's freak out... and it's just not a good time for me any time I have to use an apple touch screen. So I don't want one for me. Not now, probably not ever tbh.....)  Also, Nestor the guy selling it was cute and thought I was cute and so gave me what discounts he could including the glass protector screen for free. (last time I bought a new phone, my cat went into ass hat mode and knocked it off a counter, only time he's EVER intentionally knocked anything off a counter/table, and it landed face down hit wrong and shattered the gorilla glass in the shape of a phoenix -- in under 24 hours of me having the phone. So I decided if possible, I'd just not leave the store without protecting it from accidental catting so I'll not have to buy a new phone the day after buying a new phone, lol.) Anyway, his name really was Nestor, but I doubt he was Athena in disguise.  He was just a cute tall bisexual gender fluid Asian-Latino biracial. Probably not Athena disguised as a human. Though he did laughingly comment on my own confusion and multiplicity of names when he asked my name, "Daniella. Only, that makes me feel formal. I'm Dani to my family and friends. Because otherwise I'd be Ella. And then I really WOULD be a walking Disney princess, not just look like one." and then after laughing at that he said, "Actually, you do remind me a bit of Belle" and I made a face said, 'O. That was the nickname kids at school teased me with all throughout elementary school and middle school. because I'm always reading and have books on me. And I look like her. And it's a small step from Ella to Belle." At which he laughed said I had nearly as many names as Odysseus. But I still don't think this Nestor was a Greek god pretending to be a human. Probably not. Also he's the reason I switched from what I'd intended. After telling him what I'd eyed up based on specs and price points online I was leaning toward the a52 and the reasons, I asked him straight out, "Okay, before we ring things up, is there any that you'd say I should seriously consider other than the Samsung A52?" and he absolutely lit up and said, "If I were you, I'd get the Motorola One 5g. Let me show you why!" I also really love that it has hand motion cues to turn on the camera and a double chop to turn the flashlight on and off. Like, as a dog owner, being able to turn the flash light on with a double chop hand motion to make sure I can find/pick up my dog's poop instead of having to find my flash app is really a wonderful thing!"

It's sooooo weird going from "omg my phone turns itself off dead if unplugged for 10 seconds and must be always plugged into wall or external battery" to having a phone with a 2 day battery life even when used pretty constantly. My brain is having, "Wait what?! You're still at 100%?!" since charging it fully after it had finished all the app updates and syncing. I keep having panicky "Ack! There's no cable! And none within arm's reach! Shit shit shit shit shit it's gonna die!" moments then reminding myself "It's okay Dani. Shush! You're not living that making do life any longer. Turn your phone on and look. See? it's literally at 100% still, 3 hours later...."

1.5) Also. I definitely went with the pretty princess clear pink case with silver rainbow sparkly stars and glitter like a disco ball rose colored glasses universe (the phone itself is a gorgeous blue.)  Also also, the wallet I bought instead of a phone case wallet is ACTUALLY a sparkly halloween-vibed Disney princess one of Snow White with poisoned apples saying "Just One Bite" and that literally has my name printed on it. I have a hard time spending more than i think I should on something I don't particularly love -- so I've been looking for a wallet I like at a reasonable price point for like 2.5-3 years. I was very happy to find the one that I'm waiting for it to ship to me that i bought on pre-order from Hot Topic for $15 after shipping with my bonus cash. The Disney princess witchy sparkly dark one that literally has my name on it, lol. I'm just using the leather phone case wallet from my old phone until the new wallet comes in. Tore out the phone case plastic part. So mostly just like a regular wallet now.

2) Just took care of my online portion for renewing my driver's license. Will have to DMV at some point to finish up though because Real ID. But I'll do it this coming week, yeah? Just have to get it completed before my birthday  in like 2 weeks.

3) I also decided tonight that to reward me for getting those things done and also as a gift to myself for my birthday, I was going to buy myself this Liquid Light candle from Mossy. I've been coveting the selenite athame to be the balance for my obsidian cord cutting athame, but not with the wrap and intentions on how she sells it solo. And this candle has been calling to me since she released it and isn't sold out yet. (I've also been eyeing this particular cauldron with the triple moon on it.)

4) Sketchy guys from next door were once again trying to use our work lot to sell cars without license plates.... And my dad went to talk to them while a bunch of us were having cocktails (and i was watering the plants outside that needed it) before Crissy and I had dinner together and caught up on the week. And Ethan (the new tech we hired last week) who lives right across the road asked if I'd seen or knew why there were half dozen cop cars (marked and unmarked) here last night and I told him I hadn't even come in. Had been dealing with fire trucks at my condo instead, lol. So maybe not the best idea I've ever had for me to be at work by myself with my dog getting the last of my hours in for the week.... But that said, I punched in at 7:07, when I did the math I need 4 hours and 4 minutes more of working -- which means i can head home at 11:11 -- which is a hell of a lot of angelic numbers.And like, I'll trust the angels on it.

5) I have no plans for tomorrow except that at some point my dog and I will pick up Crissy drive over to Weston's Antique Apple Orchard to buy more apples while the home stand is open between 3 and 6. (Crissy has to clean/move stuff around before her apartment complex replaces her windows on Tuesday -- so I'll just be going to deal with the the volatile haunts at the park where the old mental hospital in Wauwautosa was by myself (with my dog) on Monday for the full moon or maybe Tuesday. The full moon is at like 6pm, so like, I want to deal with this at midday. So six one, half dozen the other if I do it midday before the full moon or midday after. Well, I guess it's the difference between moon in Pisces and moon in Aries tho...)  And tomorrow I'll likely take the dog on a good long walk at some point in the morning. Just around the neighborhood near me most likely. O and Sarah went to the farm for fresh eggs today -- which is good because I've been out for AGES.... And so I have 5 dozen eggs to bring home tonight which means I can make some sort of egg dish for brunch!

*yawns* okay. More working.