On the scale from 1 to Capricorn placements (moon and Jupiter) I managed to get 30 hours of work in across the 40 hours from when I went in on Sunday afternoon and left at sunrise this morning. I've done better, gotten the entire 40 hours of a work week in across a 60-72 hour span of available time before or after going to London or driving to a festival or things like that - but I also know that Weds evening I'll have to do an end month deposit and also water the work plants right before I leave so I knew I'd have to go in Weds anyway. The nice thing about setting my own hours though is I can get them all crammed in for a week and then spend the better part of it playing.

I'm currently home again in my pyjamas going to take at least a nap with my dog and cat now.  My plan for today after this snuggle and snoozle time is laundry and cleaning and figuring out pre packing and reading and spending time at home with my fur babies. Also, looking forward to the rain and thunderstorms tonight. Tomorrow I'm thinking to go in for scrounge o'clock and work and then home early (by my standards) to pack and sleep and read and spend more time with the animals. Then shower and be ready in the morning for my early afternoon flight. 

That's more or less the plan. Glad to know I'm on track for it. *yawns* okay. 1 REM cycle of sleep before getting up to do laundry. Ready? Go! 

P. S. He's really intensely full of love down the bond. Has been since like 11ish or midnight. Unclear to me why, just know is. I can't really figure out how to describe it exactly, but there's a strong clarity of determination mixed in with the love right now. And I like that in the mix - it feels trustworthy and safe and cozy hygge in the certainty in it.  So I'm going to curl up into that warmth and love and stability in the bond for sleeping. Because I can and I want to and everything in the bond feels like comfort and home and a promise this morning. And I like that very much.  

 Last night my sister was excitedly texting with me about how soon I'm visiting. She's been counting down the days and she reached the point that she felt she could start counting down to me now that I have no more concerts before my visit to share her excitement in the group text with me and her husband Jon. She's still counting down to me tonight. We haven't yet reached the counting down hours point but I know my very type A Virgo younger sister and I know it's coming, lol. One of the things she said to me was, "We told Monroe this morning that you'll be here on Thursday night and she told us that it made her the happiest because she loves you even more than us." And I was just like, "Awwwwww! That's so sweet! But also. Wow, that's a lot to unpack. And a really high standard for me to try to live up to this visit." My guess is it's in part because I'm the only person who acknowledges Monroe's gifts and her past life memories and she talks to about them to help her learn how to handle them -- and that's important to a very young child with spiritual gifts and past life memories, to have someone close to you to help you learn how to channel and control your gifts rather than suppress them. Monroe also has taken to having tea every morning with her pre-breakfast snack/oatmeal and then in the evening with dinner. (I drink a lot of tea and my niece absolutely loves to smell all of them when I buy new ones or bring them with me and there was one which she called "the pink tea" which I had thrown in the last of a bag and she loved the smell so much I offered to make her a cup for herself to try it and then ended up leaving them what remained of the bag of the Apple Strudel tea from Churchill's Fine tea. (Churchill's is my Cincinnati OH tea shop.) That was the oolong one, but the last of that bag and I made sure she didn't have too much of the oolong itself because caffeine. Then I checked with them in January to see if it was something she loved all the time or just during Aunt Dani visits, if I should send some more, and she got super excited and happy definitely wanted it. So I ordered them a big box of a bunch of teas for my sister and Jon as well and some fun colored ones Jack might enjoy watching the color change and 8oz of the Apple Strudel herbal for Monroe. (8oz or more of one type of tea counts as bulk so it gets you a discount per ounce.) And she's been having it every day pretty much since it arrived "just like Aunt Dani" lol. Within the last week, her tea cup, one of my da's pieces of hand made pottery that he made for her, had the handle break off in the dishwasher and she got very upset. He's not currently throwing any pottery because covid restrictions but she wanted a new tea mug sooner rather than waiting for him to make another one special for her. So I'll be bringing her a new one of his mugs with me in my luggage for the visit. She originally said she wanted Frozen blues, but then today after seeing the pictures of the blue ones that my parents and I have she said pink was first choice, then yellow, then blue third place.  So this afternoon/evening I texted my sister a picture of the 5 that we had chosen for her to pick between (before being told about the shift in color preference) and Monroe was offered her choice from the pictures when picked up from her school/daycare and she decisively knew which one she wanted -- the center pink and blue stripe one that wasn't what she asked for at first but one of the ones we thought she might like. And she was VERY decisive about it.

I'm glad she didn't pick the frozen colored one though that I brought in for her. It's one of my absolute favorite mugs he's made and one of the few that I have as a matched pair. He rarely makes matching glaze work on his pieces, even within the same batch.  When my da made that pottery batch in 2012, I claimed the first mug right away because I love the shades of blue and the colors that the glaze melds. And then the next week, he brought home the second (slightly taller and with pale rose undertones where the blues end. That one's at home, so I'll have to wait to get a picture of the matched pair) and I seized it immediately! I adore them and I only offered it to Monroe because I love her dearly and her tea drinking habit is because of me and if she hadn't been drinking so much tea then her mug wouldn't have been in so much use that the handle broke off in the dishwasher.

I love her enough to offer her up one of my beloved wintry ice blue seafoam as the tide goes out matched pair of mugs. And the offer was completely genuine, it would have made me happy to know it was making her so happy. But I must admit there's a part of me that was relieved she didn't choose it because I do really love them very much. And they match feel like they belong together.

Also. Apparently my nephew is having his last day of online school the day after I get there and then he's on Spring Break and then going to in person school on the Monday of the week I fly home. My nephew is incredibly sensitive (as in Frozen is too much conflict for him, and I wish I was joking but it was) does NOT handle change or goodbyes well and even though he had wanted to be in person with his friends but now he's really upset about losing all his online class friends/teachers.  But he does need more in person socialization and to learn how to interface with different personality types. So it's important.  Also, my sister told me last night that they added  another doctor's appointment for me to babysit him which will be Friday around the time he's done with his last day of online school -- and I can't tell if that's legit a third appointment or if it's an April Fool's Joke from her, lol.  (She's in her third trimester and it's easier for them to schedule appointments while I'm there to keep an eye on Jack so they can both go than to try to go herself and have Jon, my brother-in-law, stay home. So I already knew about the Tues and Thurs appointments during Jack's Spring Break while I'm there.) It feels a bit too serious a thing to make an April Fool's Day joke around though.... I don't have plans to April Fool's Day prank them at all because I don't think that's something I want their 6 and 3 year old to learn is a thing from me.  They're not malicious or mean humor kids at all, but with a new baby coming, teaching the preschooler and first grader pranks could end up causing more serious trouble than the kids would ever intend if they knew better.

I'll also be there for my half birthday, but I mean nobody celebrates half birthdays. Most of the time I don't even celebrate my actual birthdays other than to buy myself books and something special that makes me happy and nobody else would think to buy me -- although my best friend is also my birthday twin so we often schedule seeing an APT play we're excited about right around our shared birthday. (Birthday is Oct 2, but the APT play tickets are for Oct 4 this year. The Moors at The Touchstone, my mom is coming as well as my birthday twin bff and me. I don't actually know the play, but the 4 person cast is brilliant and it's apparently a comedic take on Gothic English romance novels like Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre so I'm excited for it.) 

 My other plans for my visit are gardening and spending time with my family and Tues night Cath Cath (my mom's best friend since high school, she's like an aunt or godmother unrelated to me) is coming for dinner and stealing me for some adventuring on Weds returning me for dinner.  And then.  I think we talked about having an at home high tea at some point while I'm there as well. But mostly it's just to go se them and spend time with them.

Also, my brother-in-law asked me what new Danipocalypse I was bringing -- if it's just BA2 and WWIII or something else? This isn't a Nostradanimus prediction joke (although my sister is an atheist who suppresses her gifts so only i can talk to my niece about it answer her questions, the anti-religion and anti-spirituality and anti-psychic gifts and anti-magic and and everything must be logically scientific explainable sort of atheist, but when I speak a precog she gets really still and immediately listens to me and specifically asks about my precogs when the world events are makign her nervous  -- too many times she's seen them come true or barely escaped disasters due to contingent precogs) but it's because I keep visiting them in the lull before the next big wave and the shutdowns related to covid and everything accelerates in the days right as I'm leaving. I barely made it home before the 2020 lockdowns.

 Actually, this is once again "a Dani always arrives precisely when she's meant to" timing for a visit  not only is this exactly the timing I told them I'd visit next, but I also get home on the 15th so right before the dropping of all mask requirements on public transport including in planes and airports. And I would never go visit my three year old niece too young to be vaccinated against covid and my third trimester pregnant sister knowing I would be traveling through airports and planes with nobody masked. And I won't do it once the new baby arrives until it too can be vaccinated against covid because the highest mortality age range for covid is under 1 years old. So I'll have to drive to see them or drive to meet them somewhere in between if I want to see them while there's no federal mask mandate in public transportation if federal mask mandates remain dropped on public transportation.  I'll be quite reckless with myself and do shit stupid things that put my own life at risk -- but never with anyone I love. Especially innocent little kidlets.

So when my parents go out to their Montana cabin (yes my parents have a cabin in Whitefish Montana -- they rent it out but family including me can stay for free as long as I or other people staying there do at least a little maintenance work on the property) and thence for a long weekend at my sister's in early May, they'll be driving there and back in a rental care rather than flying since it will be after the lapsing of federal mask mandates on flights. They won't be taking their dog Sophie with because Waffles (my sister's family's dog) is not socialized with other dogs so bringing Sophie to their place would be a problem - so I'll be watching both dogs and my cat living at two places simultaneously.

For the record, the reason my shoulder blade starts aching after long drives isn't from being in a car or van qua sitting in a moving vehicle that long. if I'm a passenger in a vehicle, no shoulder pain. It's the way i drive. You see, hyper flexibility in my shoulder joints means that for turning and steering the car, I can do all of that one handed without ever releasing the wheel by slightly dislocating and relocating my shoulder.  It was very funny in drivers ed on my last day of behind the wheel, the instructor congratulated me and asked if I had any questions remaining for them. I said, "Yeah, when exactly am I supposed to switch to hand over hand? i know how to do it, but I don't actually know when in the turn to initiate it." He laughed and said, "Well, you just do it when it starts to get uncomfortable and hurts not to." I made a face and said, "See, that's the problem. There's no point at which it gets uncomfortable to me or hurts. And I know I'm not supposed to do this on my driver's test."  At which point I demonstrated a flawless right hand turn without ever letting go of the wheel. He just blinked and said, "Wow. That is straight out of exorcist. And it doesn't hurt?' Me, chirpy, "Nope! I can do it the other way as well if you'd like to see."  He shook his head, "No. That's alright. Once is enough. That's creepy your shoulders do that and it doesn't hurt you. Um. 10 o'clock and 2 o'clock. When either hand hits 10 o'clock or 2 o'clock on the opposite side from its normal 9'oclock and 3 o'clock position for driving, then you switch into hand over hand. ESPECIALLY on your driving test!" I grinned and thanked him.  But in normal driving settings, I'm more relaxed than that, often just one handed driving and so the muscle memory for when to switch to hand over hand isn't there the same way since I'm starting differently. And so I have a tendency to subluxate (i.e. minor dislocation and put it back into place again) my shoulder joints while driving. and that can cause some minor bursitis in the shoulder blade until I put the shoulder fully back where it belongs in the socket. I've also had times where I subluxate it out as I fall asleep and then wake up with bursitis under the shoulder blade. That's rare and didn't happen last night, but it really sucks when it does happen and usually reminds me to be better about doing stabilizing shoulder exercises to minimize the minor dislocations.

None of that involves the painless crepitus (i.e. clicking) in my shoulders every time i roll them forward or shrug upward/forward or why the right one is noisier than the left, I just had brought up how long drives can start my shoulder aching if I'm not careful and thought I should explain better when and why that is.

Also worth better explaining.... When I say that I don't get any precogs of Eric any longer. It's because I don't. The last one I had was on Oct 28, 2018 and it was seeing the consequences for him of the choice made in his name (as a member of the collective in whose name it was made) unless he chose to stand behind his stated morals of inclusivity and acknowledge the ostracism committed in his name.  I did try once to peek just in his fate lines even though they didn't touch mine any longer because I thought it would be easier to let him go if I could just be certain he'd reach the happiness he seeks -- and I got yelled at by an angel for it.... Raphael, that's the one who mostly deals in time and sets me right whenever I get a bit lost in playing up and down the time stream. (I fidget with time and do a lot of weird things with it, very fae things, not things most incarnating souls do. It's a just me problem -- nobody else in my family does it except in emergencies. I just do it pretty constantly as an ADHD fidget sometimes.) Anyway. Raphael was very annoyed at me trying to look down the future fates of someone else who currently doesn't affect my future path -- apparently it's alright to get glimpses when their life paths touch mine, but it's not appropriate once their life paths don't touch mine.  I got a very stern lecture on the improprieties of what I was doing and was told if I was caught behaving that way again just to satisfy my own curiosity, I'd have some of my time related gifts stripped from me until I could show I deserved them. Which is about the most serious threat an angel will ever make -- and they do mean it.  So I haven't even tried and I won't unless or until Eric makes choices that cause our life paths to cross again so our fate lines touch.  You don't play fuck around and find out with angels, they mean exactly what they say with no ambiguities and even if they are fond of you, it's their purpose to enforce boundaries and rules so Creation can unfold as it's meant to. So a warning like that is one I personally heed -- I will only peek at fate lines that involve me or touch my life and while I can glimpse the fate lines of those whose life paths touch mine, I'm not allowed to go seeking through them when their life paths DON'T touch mine. Got it. That's straight forward enough.  

Definitely an angel, all fire and light and seeing in all directions/dimensions. It's the one I recognize as Raphael since that's the name it used with me as a child the first time I got lost playing in the stream of time's flow. Technically, the lines between angels and old gods/goddesses and fae/deva are a bit blurry. They're all unincarnaing individuated bits of spirit/essence and they all serve a purpose. Most of the angels have purposes that deal with making sure the Creation is unfolding as intended and that nobody is breaking the important rules or trying to work contrary to the unfolding -- they also aren't very good at and don't see any point in dimming their Divine light that radiates from and through them so they're just blindingly luminous.  They shine brightest. Old gods and goddesses have personalities and deal best with humans as they focus mostly on the human world and they come in as many versions and ethics as there are human desires and motivations -- there are good ones, bad ones, amoral ones and they all function by their own rules and relationships. I would advise to always be cautious with any unincarnated spirit that asks you to sign a binding contract with them or tells you they need to feed off of life force (yours or others through you.)  These are beings that are disconnected from Source for some reason or other and so they require to feed on it secondhand and they are generally energy vampires will bleed you dry. You should always question why anyone is blocked from direct connection to Source and why they won't face the block to heal it -- especially the more power they offer you in exchange for letting them feed on/through you. Any unincarnated being that can't just connect to Source should raise all your defensive hackles and your suspicions -- they are looking to prey on the living rather than face whatever they did that is blocking them from reaching Source/Tao/Creation itself.  The Fae/Deva are unincarnated care takers of specific planets and ecosystems and they generally care more about plants and other creatures than they care about humans -- especially since humanity started down a path of wanton destruction of the environment and the natural way of things.  They are helpful if you are tending to nature and they are only tricky if they think you intend harm to the planet or ecosystems they protect -- but their motives and goals are always based in wanting to serve all that is living in a holistic way, never to help out any individual incarnated soul. Make things grow, heal the injured, help the whole and they will help you, do wrong to the natural order and they will fight you and trick you and manipulate you. A fae/deva will always choose the green world and the natural order of the planetary whole over any human lives. Always. At least, that's my experience of the distinctions between all three types of unincarnated spirits I've ever met and encountered. And it's my encounters with them all is why I'm a pantheist you see. My conception of El or G-d is closer to Taoism than typical Judaism -- I find G-d as the Universal Spirit of Unfolding Creation Light that Weaves Through Everything that Is. Both Old Testament and New Testament concepts of a personal god (be it jealous or redemptive) are just more avatars of gods that interact with the human realm, more limited human concepts of a power that focuses on them if they call on it. It's not the great light behind the powers itself, just those who serve the light and as such are no different than any of the other pagan gods and goddesses. Many of whom are allies of mine in my wandering work of cleaning up those unincarnated spirits that would prey on the living and their life force. (This is what I do with my life, it's a job by choice even though i don't get paid for it, between the joy and the wandering. It's why I'm given as many gifts and as much grace as I am. Because there is work that can only be done by an incarnated soul and when the purpose was seen I volunteered to enter the cycle of incarnations.)

So anyway. I'm not necessarily banned from precogs about Eric and his future path -- I just can't see it right now while his fate lines don't touch mine. And since it was a choice of his, or made in his name and affirmed by him, that caused separation of our entangled fate lines it is only through choices of his that our fate lines will touch again in this life. If they ever do. Free will and all -- it's really about his choices.  And the best thing I can do for him is to love him and trust him to make his own choices for his own life path because I don't know better than him what he needs for that. Which wasn't an easy internal place to arrive at, but it's where I am at this point. Also a very important angel who usually smiles on me and helps me out told me that I couldn't meddle or peek into his fatelines so I just have to trust him to do what is best by him and will eventually bring his soul the healing and growth back to the Light by whatever path he chooses. But I would have gotten to this internal point anyway even if I hadn't been chastised. Probably. I mean. I'm very curious. And I just wanted to be certain that his choices would bring him to whatever happiness he chooses and sets his heart on... I just wanted to know he'd set himself a course to bring him that happiness he seeks, eventually, before I let him go to find his own way.  But apparently I'm not allowed to do that unless/until our fate lines touch again. And Raphael and I are on good terms still. I've seen her/him/it since then, it was only a warning reminder of what I already knew after all. 

Also. When I say that I won't say no to dating anyone else if the Universe gifts someone to me, I mean just that. I'm not actively looking -- not on any dating site or social media. I actually haven't properly dated anyone in like 6 years and haven't even had a good hookup in like 2 years. I genuinely don't dislike being single, empath and psychic and a medium and an introvert -- people think/feel loudly. I have to really like you to invite you into my space for long periods of time. I'm not casually dating and I don't desire to casually date. I'm not even looking for an infatuation or a fling. The only really serious competition so fr for someone that I would allow into my space that Eric has ever had or still has to worry about is David. (Dave and I do have past life ties, though not as extensive and the karmic cords to him are ones I can cut or put to sleep at will. It's only the bond with Eric that I can't sever.)  And during the pandemic he shacked up with Siobhan who uses hypnotic suggestion in her music to prey upon the life force of others. Which angered me and when I realized she as doing it uninvited and preying on innocent animals as well as unsuspecting humans, I demanded the Goddess intervene to protect the innocent and only allow her (or whatever she lets feed through her as a conduit) feed on those who offer their life force to her never on those who she can just find a way in and never ever ever on innocent animals/plant life. She got really sick right after that but I don't feel bad about it -- you don't play fuck around and find out about preying on the life force and light of others within my sphere of protection and within what I can see. And she never would have been unearthed crossed my path and found out if she hadn't thought to use him to expand her net and prey on those who trust him. But it was really adopting a puppy to try to hook him to stay and then watching him share a video where she was energetically feeding off the dog that crossed the line for me so I had to do something. The adopted dog had no choice in the matter and so it was just wrong and unjust to allow an innocent to be used that way. Technically, I don't know if it's her doing the feeding or something she has forged a soul contract bond with that feeds through her -- but she is complicit and allows it and it's wrong and feeding on an innocent pup was a line I couldn't stand by and keep my peace. Because it was wrong, just ethically morally wrong to do that to an innocent who doesn't have a choice! The reason I had the Goddess do it is because she always protects the innocent and she is much more ruthless than me and she is not as distractable -- for her maintaining this enforcement of the karmic rules isn't something that she even has to pay attention to once set in motion.  Anyway, as long as Dave is in anyway connected with her, I have severed the empath soul bonds to me as a precaution and he can't have them back while he's connected to her. And I told him that there is nothing he can do or create that involved her in which I will be interested and when he saw me he felt the difference and wanted back what he used to have. But I won't budge on this -- you don't let energetic leeches feed on you or through you. If she wants light and power, connect to source. And if you're blocked from connecting to source, work on healing and making right whatever the block your past/present choices formed. But again, I'm not actually looking for anyone right now, I actually enjoy the silence and my conscience is clear enough that I can face my own company.

Anyway. I'm at work with my pup right now. Will be for a very very very very long while. Trying to shove in all 40 hours before I fly out westward on Thursday. Also will need to do laundry and  pack. Which is why I'm here working for like 17 hours straight today. It was going to be longer, but my cat was cuddly and that's important too right before I leave. Especially since he's 12 years old now.

Also. Yes I do intend to eat leftover curry tonight and probable coconut allergy be damned.....  Look if an archangel of light and flame told me that I needed to stop eating coconut because it's going to kill me, I'd listen. But Gabriel isn't here right now and he's the one who typically looks after me. Especially in matters pertaining to healing me after I do something particularly stupid. What's a little stomachache so as not to waste my egg korma with carrots, red pepper, chickpeas, and peas? 

Speaking of something particularly stupid, I accidentally sliced open my right middle finger last night on the lid of the can from my chickpeas (I realized that I never soaked or boiled up any beans or lentils or chickpeas so I cheated and used some of the chickpeas I'd bought for making falafel. I tend to avoid canned foods, but canned chickpeas make better texture of falafel than dried/soaked/boiled chickpeas.)  Anyway, I cheated because I was too hungry to wait to boil up the lentils and I sliced up my finger. 

 

Yeah I know, I have to trim my nails again, they just grow stupidly fast. They were trimmed down to the quick not even 2 weeks ago, right before painting them green on St. Patrick's Day. So I'm waiting to trim them until right before my visit to my sister. Typing for inputting today is great fun with that cut on my middle finger.... Great fun I tell you.... Oy. Good thing I don't play guitar on the regular, just to get random melodies out of my head when they're rattling about my inner silence. And the thing is I KNEW I'd slice up the finger, precogged it happening. And I still did it anyway despite being as careful as possible. Damn immutable precogs. They're so annoying when they're right. And the immutable ones are ALWAYS right.... It's only the contingent ones I can alter the course of fate lines in motion before they manifest. It did mean that I already had the Simply Neosporin and Wonder Woman band-aids in the kitchen with me though instead of having to go to the bathroom to deal with it after the paper towel pressure had mostly stopped the bleeding. I still cussed over it though. Both when I saw the precog as I reached for the can of chickpeas in the pantry and again when I sliced open that finger. And it still twinges a bit while I type every time I hit a key with that finger.

 My clicky right shoulder that subluxates more easily is extra clicky today. No idea why. 

Old old repetitive stress injury due to training excitable young puppies on walks. That shoulder has clicked since I was a kid. I mean, the subluxation in both shoulders is because I'm hyper flexible and so it's easy to pop my shoulder and elbow joints out of their sockets and back into place again. I have to be extra careful in hot yoga not to push certain poses to the point I feel them or I will end up popping my shoulders out partially dislocating them. Which makes it less relaxing than it ought to be when I have to constantly question, "Would this dislocate the arm of a normal person?" It's just worse in the right shoulder due to dogs yanking it slightly out of the socket while walking them. There's no pain when my shoulder clicks, just makes noise (which it does click all through the joint every time I roll it forward. Definitely have had exes who were incredibly concerned about it because it clicks in the subtle movement relaxing into sleep if I lay on my stomach or side. Because gravity and relaxing muscles means the shoulder moves forward.) it doesn't hurt me when my shoulders click moving them and it doesn't affect my range of motion at all, just makes a lot of noise sometimes. And by sometimes, I mean literally every time I roll my right shoulder forward or shrug it up/forward. And with a subluxating joint, they really only recommend any type of surgery if there's pain or reduced range of motion. Which isn't an issue for me. It's just noisy when moved certain ways. If it's slightly out of the socket too long I can get pain in it, but that's actually typically bursitis in the shoulder blade getting pulled by it too much, not the shoulder itself. About the only thing to help with it is shoulder exercises to strengthen/stabilize the joint which don't stop it clicking, just help keep it from minor dislocation while I'm doing things like long distance driving. (This is when it tends most to subluxate and thus when I am most likely to get pain in the shoulder blade. Weirdly, wearing a racer back bra or the straps crossed across my back on a convertible bra helps hold it in place better while long driving. Wearing a strapless bra or no bra at all is the worst as far as the subluxation goes.)

Completely unrelated. But I'm pretty certain I'm developing a coconut allergy..... I've had intermittent reactions to topical use of coconut so I don't use coconut oil on my hair and skin. It's not as intense as my reactions to palm oil, but it's definitely an intermittent break out in red patches itchy skin issue. It started with my natural deodorant and if you've ever tried having migraines from synthetic perfumes, breaking out from petroleum derived products on your skin (including polyester/acrylic fibers) and getting hives from palm oil derivatives, then you realize just how tricky hair/skin products already were for me. Once you add in contact dermatitis and intermittent hives from coconut oil, it's near fucking impossible unless I'm making my own.... Basically, my skin loves olive oil and beeswax and Castile/glycerin soap and herbs/essential oils for scent and that's pretty much it, lol. Luckily, I discovered Pit Liquor which is an alcohol and arrowroot and essential oils deodorant. I've only been using it since the fall though so I have no idea if it will be effective enough for summer..... If I weren't a hippie witch raised by hippies, my skin sensitivity and allergies and migraines would force the issue, lol.

But for the last month or two, in addition to contact dermatitis from coconut oil, I've been getting headaches and nausea and occasionally itchy throat/ears every time I make tea with coconut pieces in it and I've been really intensely stomachache and nauseous after putting coconut milk in curries (but not when I make curry without coconut milk) - which really sucks because some of my favorite teas have coconut slivers in it and curry is one of my go to "I don't know what I want to eat" solutions. Also, Tom Kha soup.... I adore it and haven't let me order it since this coconut issue started. I really really miss Tom Kha soup... I can still have Tom Yum soup, which is delicious but not the same thing.... 

It's not yet as bad as my pork allergy (instant vomiting and small amounts like gelatin cause intense stomachache with internal bleeding, break out in hives from touching pork or adhesive with pork products in it, include off brand bandages) or my Cascade/Citra hops allergy (closing of bronchial and itchy throat/ears - this one is pretty scary as it affects my breathing which means it could turn anaphylactic if I'm not careful, but also I miss good grapefruit-y IPA beers; even though I've always preferred dark malt bomb beers, a good IPA is just nicely refreshing.). But also, both those allergies got worse over time and continued exposure..... 

Also, in completely unrelated news, I made a coconut milk korma curry for dinner last night and while it was fucking delicious, my stomach has been displeased for like 6 hours now curled up in bed in fetal position. But damnit it's such a dang tasty curry I made!!!! 

Pork allergy wasn't so bad, I never ate much of it anyway, until it got so severe that cross contamination has been an issue. But when in doubt, I just order vegetarian/vegan options. The much more recent hops allergy is annoying and sucks because IPA beers still smell good other than the throat itching and sometimes not breathing thing when i smell them or even worse when I drink them - but also very easy to avoid if I stick to dark European style beers since it's generally only a couple varieties of hops or dry hopped beers. But giving up coconut milk curries and Tom Ka soup?! Do you have any idea how much of my diet is composed of Thai and Indian cuisine?!?! (Indian food, like Middle Eastern and a lot of Mediterranean, is always a safe pork free option for me. And both Thai and Japanese are very cautious and good if you order vegetarian or sushi due to stricter forma of Buddhism. This is a large part of why these are all among my comfort foods, I don't have past associations of getting sick after eating them.) I was really hoping that avoiding coconut oil in skin care products would be enough to still allow me coconut milk cooked in things.... 

*sigh* I am very displeased by this turn of events.... Still a bit in denial. But I won't buy any more unsweetened coconut milk for making curries once I use up what's still in my pantry..... I actually do prefer using pomegranate juice or orange juice or citrus in my curries if I have them on hand. It's just that coconut milk is shelf stable in the pantry unlike fruit juice so it's easier to stock in bulk, y'know? But I've been having intermittent issues after having coconut in teas and curries since mid-January now.. So of course I ordered Caramel Delites in my Girl Scout cookie order.... because i was dumb and didn't think about it.

So what I'm saying is that I'm laying curled up in bed with a right shoulder that clicks every time I move it even slightly and I'm still mildly nauseous after putting coconut milk in my korma curry even though I should know better. I should go make me some ginger tea see if that helps. (To help with the nausea from the coconut allergy, not the clicking shoulder subluxation, lol. The shoulder always clicks when I roll it forward.) Definitely not feeling particularly desirable or lovable at the moment, but the animals are snuggly cuddly sweet, so at least there's that going for me tonight.

 Sometimes I think that these choices are causing intense suffering in Eric's soul, even while he gets what he has said he wants from the world his heart is not happy. And that weighs upon me. But the thing is, I know of no way to exist, to go through this life except by a fidelity to truth speaking because anything less is a disrespectful act of cruelty undermining a person's grasp of reality itself and by holding free will in a sacrosanct respect because it's the only thing that gives meaning to actions. I bend and break rules all the time and I am spoiled by the Universe itself so that the most improbable things unfold as gifts in my life - but the price of it is that I am bound by my own laws of justice seeking and truth speaking and unqualified respect for free will. I always have been, in every life. Every rule I change is catalyzed by the injustice I point out in the old rules. It is a way of amending the laws of Creation from within where they are unjust to those within it, never an act of defiance against the unfolding of Creation. 

I know that the promise he thought he held from me was that if he could find me our paths would be the same for the remainder of that life. But that isn't what I promised him.... I promised him that if he found me and so long as he wanted me as I am then I would always choose him, in every life that he is among my options. But our life paths can never and will never be the same if I'm not wanted by him or accepted by him as what I am. I will always let him go be free of me if I am no part of what he chooses for himself. And to choose a course of burying truth and allowing an injustice to stand is to say you do not want me as I am, that you do not value the ethics by which I find my path across my lifetimes. 

I do not have goals of the physical world, I seek only to be faithful to my principles while leaving sparks of light that make whatever I touch grow stronger and better for my touch upon it. That's it. That's all my goal in this life and in all my lives. I don't have a 5 year plan, a 10 year plan. I do not have career goals or fiscal goals. I am not dazzled by the false lustre of celebrity or the corrupting influence of power. My goals don't form a nice neat checklist nor do they align with anything society says mark success.  All my goals are to stay true to my own ethical principles and to brighten this world for the healing strength I give to all I touch. That's it. 

There is no path to me nor any path shared by me if your goals are success on the terms of the world that involve rationalizing actions that create cruelty or injustice to others or require burying/hiding truths rather than bringing them into the light. There never has been. Not in this life or any other. 

It's not my choices that remove him from my precogs and the fate lines that touch my life path. And so it's not my choices that could ever bring him back to a path with those futures. It was his choice to turn away from hard truths about the past and to rationalize accepting acts of cruelty and injustice committed in his name and for him to take active part in such acts. Those were his choices. Never mine. My only choices in the matter were to speak only the truth of my own experiences, even when those were inconvenient or unflattering, and to accept his choices he made in free will every step along the path he has created for himself. 

I hate the times that he feels empty and hurt and full of sorrow over the distance between us and the fact our future paths do not currently have crossing fate lines in this life. But I cannot make his choices for him and I will not knowingly betray truth or justice or my ethics. I would not be deserving of the great spiritual gifts I have been given if I did not guide my use of them by a fidelity to truth and justice and a compassionate acceptance of the sanctity of free will. And I do more good with my gifts, for all my wandering ways are chaotic to catalyze changing the old rules that have ossified into cruelty and injustice. I bring more light into the cycles of incarnation than if I betrayed my gifts and ceased incarnating with them.  And is that not my entire reason for entering into the cycles of Incarnation? For catalyzing the changes and bringing in light from within it rather than serving the unfolding from without it?

If he ever truly chooses me and my path, his soul know how to find me again. In this and every life. And when he makes that choice, I will welcome him with open arms in whatever capacity our lives can grow together. But he can't have me while choosing a course that pays only lip service to equality while perpetuating a system of exclusion created in his name. And he can't have me while rationalizing the burying or ignoring of hard truths that he or those he loves don't want to face. Because on such courses, he is choosing for himself a life path that denies everything that I set my course by. 

I hate that he hurts. But I will not betray my higher self and I cannot make his choices for him or fight what his free will chooses. He has always been free to pick any path he chooses, including the ones that lead away from what I use to guide my own path. And so I see nothing I can do to help heal his hurting given these constraints bound by the choices of my nature and choices made/perpetuated in his name. And that's the same reason that at this time there is no choice of mine that can bring him back into my precogs - only choices he could make can do that. And I have no reasons to expect he would make such choices. So I work to accept the choices made for him and by him whose consequences bring us to a present where he is no part in any of my precogs or any of the currently available fate lines. I have hope that he might choose a different course, but I have no expectations he will choose differently than his past choices for his life path this life. 

I don't say any of this in a spirit of judgement or condemnation, though I recognize I could be (mis) read that way. I say it in a spirit of recognition of reality as it is at this point in time. And I say it as a profound (re)affirmation of my faith and respect that his free will choices will lead him through the lessons his soul most needs and down the life path to the happiness he seeks for himself -- even if that means accepting his freedom to go far from me and the paths I must walk for my own soul journey. For however long that means letting him go and however far apart our lives paths lead us on our soul journeys. I say this from a place of unending non-possessive love. When he decides to seek me once more, his soul and his heart will always know the paths to find me again. No matter how far separated or for how long a separation there is. But only if I let him be free to choose his own path where his choices lead him. I cannot stop him from being hurt by the choices of his path, all I can do is love him enough to trust that in time he will find his way back and to keep clear and true the paths that radiate from wherever/whenever I am.

P. S. Rena Rossner's novel The Light of the Midnight Stars is phenomenally gorgeous and I absolutely love it. Heartbreaking and full of light no matter how the shadows try to destroy the brightest burning. It's strange that Barnes & Noble shelves it in the mythology/fairytale section (where I found it) given it's a modern novel published in 2021 even if its themes are mythic ancient and it's full of storytelling. But I highly highly recommend it!! It is a personal favorite that I keep making other people buy and read since discovering it earlier this year. Even if nobody seems quite certain which genre section of the bookstore it belongs in. 

P. P. S. In the realm of facts not fictional, my dad's mother's mother's lineage are red-haired green eyed Jews from Hungary/Romania/Ukraine and many of my gifts come down that bloodline. I look at gifts as having a soul component for accessing them but also a genetic component for how spiritual energies can be channeled through an incarnating mortal body. Certain gifts follow certain bloodlines, even if the souls born into them don't always have the ability to awaken or train their gifts. The reason for me deciding to tell this truth here will make more sense if you read the novel I recommended above. 

 I did used to have precogs involving Eric you know. All the time. Tons of them. Both contingent and immutable. I also used to always get overlays of what he was experiencing when he had strong emotions as well as feeling his emotions in my inner stillness and shared dream space interactions. I've even been known to get precogs about people/events that matter to him and I remember telling him some in dream state when younger, long before our real life paths crossed. I still feel his strong emotions echoing inside me and sometimes he reaches me in my dream space, but the precogs and overlays dried up.

All overlays of his moments of intense emotional experiences and my precogs involving him and possible fatelines with him in my life stopped quite suddenly following the choice/events of October 28, 2018. All of the contingent precogs were just gone like popped bubbles. 

But for most of this life, I've always had precogs involving him and overlays from his life when he has strong emotions. Statistically speaking the time of our potential fatelines and life paths being separate is less than 10% of my life.  And so it's less than 10% of my life that he has not been in my precogs. The other 90% he was often in them, especially the contingent ones and long range probable fate lines for my life path.

It's weird. I'm still not used to it. And I miss so many of those contingent precogs and potential fatelines......you have no idea how much I ache over their loss.... I've spent all this time since the choice in 2018 that erased me out of his life path trying to accept that's how it is and I've spent since late August 2019 trying to accept that this is truly what he wants based on the evidence of his choices and (in)actions when I told him directly in 2019 about what had occurred in 2018 on the band's account in the name of the entire band. But it's still weird. Some things stay weird no matter how hard you work at accepting it as the new normal of existence. Like amputations and TSA and Alexa and social media and targeted ads and your phone mic constantly wire tapping you if you're not careful about permissions granted to apps.... You learn to accept things as new normals, but also they seem really fucking weird if you look at them objectively through the lens of before they changed some aspect of your life into something unrecognizable to how it was before.  The things that make memories and old movies/TV/songs/literature seem so surreal bizarre because the before is so incredibly different from the after. 

I'm still in the "this is weird, I'm not yet habituated to it as my new normal" stage of the complete absence of Eric in any and all of my precogs. Both contingent and immutable precogs. And I know that nothing short of a free will choices that brings our life paths back into a collision course again will bring him back into any of my precogs. And thus far, no such free will choices to re-align our life paths to meet again has been made. It doesn't mean such a choice can't ever be made, it just means that it hasn't been made and thus no precogs involving him. Those fate lines are blocked from manifesting and have been since the free will choices and action taken Oct 28, 2018 made that rivet point and no choices have yet been made to change things back to the life paths where those fate lines are possible. 

And it's still incredibly intensely weird to me not to have him anywhere in any of my precogs, contingent or immutable. For all we're getting near to 3 years 5 months since the choice that cut off all those fate lines and 2 years 7 months since I faced accepting the bitter hard truth that he was fine with losing those fate lines and it wasn't a set of consequences that mattered to him. 

It's still so fucking weird to me, his complete absence from my precogs and from everything I see in all the potential fate lines before me on my life path..... They're just gone, all of them. As if they never could have been. Even though I remember them all and how all the probabilities favored at least some of them until that choice in Oct 2018 cut them all off from ever manifesting from possible fatelines into walked life paths..... And that absence is still so weird to me and so unlike all my life experiences with my precogs that came before the ripples made by that one choice. 

I can't say I like it and I can't say I'd have chosen it if I could have chosen. I can only say I'm working to accept the absence of him in my precogs and glimpses of possible fate lines as my new normal. And I can only say I miss when he was in my highest probability life path glimpses. Not all accepted new normals are better than the normal that existed before.... And some take longer and more internal adjustments to accept than others. Nobody chooses to have a limb amputated, but when faced with the reality of it as the only option to keep moving forward with, you just learn to accept the new normal of it. It's like that in my precogs and the possible fatelines that touch my future life path, he's just been amputated out of it as a consequence following the choice made in his name (as well as for everyone else in the band) on October 28, 2018. It's that total an absence from my precogs. And that intense a sense of phantom limb over all the fatelines that used to be there....

Unrelatedly related. Don't ask about my world wide immutable precogs. You'll sleep better not knowing until they happen in typical linear time normal people experience. Most people, most of the time, prefer not to know about the devastating traumatic things they can do nothing to avert or soften. Facing them out of sync with everyone else is my own cross to bear - it isn't yours unless you also possess the gift of precog. 

I should head to bed. But the world fate lines are in such flux when it's daytime in Europe that it is extra hard for me to sleep in the wee hours of my own time zone. It's like trying to sleep where the tide is coming in - unless you're too exhausted to function, self preservation keeps you awake watching as the sands and tides shift until you can find a more stable space to sleep. 

Still. I miss so much when he was woven through my probable future fate lines and I glimpsed him in my many precogs. I'm working to accept this new normal as I have been striving to accept it for nearly 3.5 years. But to me, it's still fucking unnatural and weird. It just is. It might be the modern reality of how it is now, but it still doesn't FEEL normal to me yet.

Yesterday the 16 year old and I had a pizza party for lunch. Then my friend Alana came into town around 2ish from Racine (it was her day off and as long as she felt up for it didn't need a day to self-care r&r she wanted to come visit during Mikaela's Spring Break) and we caught up chatted for a bit while Mikaela finished her English assignment she told me before lunch she really wanted to get done today so it was just done. Then we went to the zoo even though it was raining and only like 41F because cute animals and we were all in for it.  After that the three of us went to Barnes & Noble (also my idea) for some book shopping and Crissy joined us there. Then we went back to my work and just hung out chatting until everyone left and my dog and I worked until I headed home.  

Later this morning, Mikaela is getting dropped off at my flat post-chiro appointment at 10:15 and we're going to have a fire as the cold Spring rain converts to mixed precipitation and snow and eat the leftover pizza for lunch and drink lots of tea while she does some non-internet homework while I do some tidying up chores getting ready for my visit to my sister's family.  (Non-internet homework for her because I don't have internet at home. I got angry at Charter about 12 years ago when they didn't come out to cancel my service the day scheduled and showed up two days later which was after the new month rolled over then tried to charge me for the entire month of that 1 day before they could come collect their equipment.  Fighting them over it until they dropped the charge took me over a year and they sent it to collections while I was fighting it and it was a huge mess and as a matter of principle I swore I'd never give Charter another cent of my money. And when it's a matter of principle, there's nothing will make me budge but a proper apology and making right the wrongs done against the principle of things. due to the "anti-monopoly" laws surrounding cable in our area, I'm zoned so I could only get Charter for high speed internet or cable and my condo association didn't used to allow any satellite dishes on the exterior of the building. So I just got accustomed to using only my cell phone data at home and otherwise to use wifi at work, coffeeshops, my parents house, etc. and I came to the realization that I'd rather spend the $70 a month at coffeeshops and enjoy not having the distraction at home. It's more peaceful to ignore social media most of the time and live like it's still the turn of the millennium. I like having my digital life mediated by me and my conscious choices as opposed to mindlessly omnipresent in my life. Digital presence on social media is not really the best way to reach me, lol. As of a year or two ago, TDS put fiber optic lines to where I am and if I had a strong need for internet at home (like someone living with me whose career required they have internet for zoom meetings for work or school) I now have an option and I would certainly do it for anyone I care about. But also, for myself, I'd rather have the money saved from not having internet and streaming service bills every month that i can instead spend on books and music and concerts and tea and coffee and nice bottles of wine/whiskey than mindless social media consumption if I'm honest, lol.)  I promised her we could make fireplace s'mores (with vegan marshmallows because pork allergy = no gelatin) as part of our hygge day at my flat. Eventually I'll head into work to return Mikaela to her mom and then to get the last of my hours in for this week. 

Then tomorrow Tim O'Brien show at Stoughton Opera House. Saturday will have a day of rest and sleep at home and more chores and reading.  Sunday getting as many hours in as possible so that I can hopefully have a day for laundry and such on Monday or Tuesday. Wednesday is packing and also working that evening to get end of month deposit done and water all the work plants right before I leave so they can get by longer without full watering in case Sarah doesn't do it. And then Thursday is my flight out westward. (The following week will use PTSO days while I'm out in Seattle area, obvs. and the week after that I'll get in on Thursday morning (red-eye back from SeaTac with layover in Minne in the morning) and I will do my best to get my hours in across Thurs/Fri/Sat/Sun to save as many PTSO days as possible for later in the year. Because I do love me some travel and wandering for concerts and fests and visiting friends/family and so if I can save up PTSO days it means more wanderings later in the year if opportunities arise.) And that will bring us to mid-April, lol.

 It's somehow nearly 3:30 and I got distracted listening to BeauSoleil and inputting and didn't head home..... 😂 Whoops! Classic Dani "time is a human construct" moment there.

So I guess I'll just wait out the rape o'clock wee hours and keep working and head home to my very lonely cat after pre-dawn/sunrise. Which will safely get me across the 2/3 of my hours for the week threshold.  Which will make the rest of my week much easier more manageable by me cramming all of my hours in across Mon-Weds. And then I'll have to do my best across Sun-Weds to get all of next week's hours in and pack and get all my Spring cleaning done before I fly out westward.

But also. yeah. Still working. Not home. Not sleeping. Only my poor Taurus cat Spock waiting disconsolately for my return. 

And yeah. I'm still single. I've told you, I got tired of breaking hearts that didn't deserve it and casual dating and wasting my time/energy on relationships where I could see the end before the beginning. Thankfully I came to that decision before the age of apps and I never considered joining any of the dating sites because I was having too much fun dating without attachments in college. Which never worked out for me as expected....always ended up hurting them even when we both said up front it was casual for fun never intending to be serious. Doesn't mean I won't date anyone ever. Bond or no bond, I can't allow the choices of other people to steal my sunshine. If that dream is not to be in this life, well, there's still good and beauty and love in this life for me to find and cherish. I can't make other people's choices for them, but also I can't live my life defined by other people's choices either. So I won't promise that I won't ever date or be in a serious relationship with anyone else if Eric doesn't choose me. that's never what I promised. I promised that if he found me and chose me and we could have any lifetime together, I'd choose him every time, every life I could. But if he doesn't choose me, it doesn't mean I'll wall off my heart from all other lovers..... But I know me and I also know that both my heart and my soul have to feel it worth my time and emotional investment and I'll be willing to go into it with my whole self. Or not at all. I've always been one to jump in the deep end once I decide to do something. And anyway. I only wish for him the happiness he chooses and seeks for his life. I always will wish him that, but if it doesn't include me then I can enjoy the happiness I find along my wanderings and i can do so with a whole heart and a clear conscience that I have never knowingly done wrong by him -- I just always have given him the freedom to choose his own life path even when it didn't fit with my life path. That was always a clause in all my promises to him. So long as he wanted me and chose me, I'd choose him. Those promises don't apply in any life where he doesn't want or need me for his life's happiness.  Because that's the only fair thing to do, for myself and for any/everyone else. But I'm not actively looking. Just will gratefully accept whatever gifts my life path opens for me.  So I've been happily enjoying life as a single lady who isn't actively looking -- I figure the Universe will send me whoever is right for me in the Divine timing of when we can build something beautiful together as a happy surprise. And until then, I'm just playing and wandering through the world like a will o the wisp making things brighter for my touch upon them. 

Including stacking my hours ridiculously in a short span of time working til sunrise so I can concert and travel and rest as needed. (but also I'm getting old enough that tomorrow afternoon me is probably going to be VERY displeased with late night me. And I'm going to need much sugar and caffeine to get me through to the second wind, lol. Did I tell you that i have 2 silver hairs?! And I think they're ACTUALLY silver this time, not just ash blonde highlights that then turned copper then auburn after a couple months like the last silver hairs I thought I had.)

And first light is in just a few hours at 6:28am, sunrise at 6:57am. Because after the equinox.

 I'm still not feeling overly wordy or chatty (or emotionally at sea) -- mostly I'm feeling overwhelmed by plans, lol. Hey Aries season while the moon's in Sagittarius, how you doing? 

Just finished the second to last of my Irish month concerts on Sunday with the Skerryvore show up in Appleton. Last last is Tim O'Brien at Stoughton Opera House this Friday night. Technically he's a bluegrass artist, but given his last name and that he's also an Irishfest alumni I'm going to count him as part of my Irish month concerting season.  It's actually a very funny story about Tim O'Brien having played Irishfest. In 2011, at Summerfest, I was just causally eating a red icee at what was then the US Cellular stage (no idea it's current name, but the one closest to the Art Museum and Children's Museum entrance) while waiting for a Neon Trees show (Summerfest being in late June/early July before Milwaukee Irishfest which is always on the 3rd weekend in August) when I suddenly turned to Crissy and said, "I can't wait until we see Punch Brothers on this stage at Irishfest!" She looked at me like I was completely batshit as I blithely went back to eating my red flavored icee and said, "WHAT?! Don't you mean Summerfest?!" And I shook my head decisively side to side, ate another bite of my red flavored ice and happily said, "Nope! I mean Irishfest. They're definitely going to play Irishfest. Not this year, obviously. But soon. In the next year or so.  I know it makes absolutely no sense. But it's going to happen. I've seen it. I can't make it make sense, I just know it will be." She just shook her head and said, "Dani. I've never known you to be wrong in your second sight glimpses of the future. But this one really makes no sense. I mean no sense at ALL!" And I gleefully grinned, "I know!! I love that about it! I have no idea how it can possibly be true, but yet I know that it will be. I saw the future flash when I sat down on the benches. Just suddenly saw them playing here with the Irishfest banner and stage name behind them! I can't make any sense of what I saw, but I  saw it. And it's an immutable. So it will be. I can't wait to see how it unfolds!!"  She spent the entire next month and half laughing at me teasing me about his one for being crazy and me just happily certain about it with no idea how it would happen. Then at The Scattering in August, they announced the theme for the following year (generally a county of Ireland so artists from that county get featured, but sometimes a Canadian province or other Celtic community) was going to be "Roots and Branches, Irish influenced Americana and bluegrass artists" and I just whooped super loud started jumping up and down like I'd won the lottery and Crissy just turned to me shaking her head and said, "Well. I guess I understand now how you're going to get to see Punch Brothers at Irishfest. Only you, fairy child... Only you...." Me chirpily, "Don't tell me you're not happy about it! They haven't announced it yet! But they will. In about 6 months or so once they have them confirmed and contracts signed they'll tell us Punch Brothers on the schedule. But don't tell me you aren't happy at the juxta of it!" She laughed shaking her head, "Of course I'm happy. And I won't doubt your precogs again. Crazy spoiled elf witch."  Anyway, there were a LOT of my favorite bluegrass artists with strong Celtic ties randomly at Irishfest in 2012, including Punch Brothers and Aoife O'Donovan and Tim O'Brien, and it was the first time that We Banjo 3 were invited.  It was a solidly great year, even if it made absolutely no sense at the time that I got insistent about how we were going to see Punch Brothers at Irishfest. And the randomness of 2012 is how/why Tim O'Brien is an Irishfest alumni as well as having the last name to count for an Irish month show, lol.

Also, that is absolutely 100% the sort of thing you should expect if you choose to have me in your life, lol. Random giddiness over inexplicable future events that I can't fathom how it could make sense but I just know it will come true. (Or sorrowing/preparing for traumatic big events before they occur. I suffer as I celebrate, out of sync with the normal linear flow of time.) For me, that's a completely normal typical interaction with people I know and trust and who don't get weirded out by my gifts because they accept it as "typical Dani." I have a personally imposed blackout on precogs about sports, because otherwise they're boring, and I have asked and been granted to not get any precogs whatsoever about anything that would affect money/investing/gambling as that becomes an ethics issue. But other than that, anything that sends ripple through the fate lines, be they personal or localized or global, is fair game for my precogs. The more emotions an event triggers in me, the more intense and the further back the precogs tend to travel. But also, they only emanate outward from the choice that fixes the rivet point of the fate lines to be certain which one the future will hold. Until the choice is made that SETS the fatelines, it's all just possible pages for me to rifle through and try to pick the best. Precogs once choices are made set specific paths in motion are what I get the flashes and ripples from, both the contingent ones I can still alter and the immutable ones that nothing I do can alter.  But that sort of "This makes absolutely no sense how it could ever be, but it will be and finding out how that happens makes me so happy and I can't wait until we get there for it in linear time and find out how it come to be!!!" giddiness is VERY typical of having me in your life, lol. 

Anyway. So Tim O'Brien on Friday.  And then Mikaela is off this week. And Alana is going to come up to Madison on her day off to spend some time with us and see the munchkin. And then tonight, not only finalized remaining Irishfest season plans (don't try to see me in August unless your plans are to be in Dublin Ohio, LaCrosse/Minneapolis, or Milwaukee across the first three weekends (ish) in August) but we ALSO took care of APT tickets tonight. (That was also my doing. I told Crissy on Sunday that I needed her to come into do it and Tuesday end of day was the best window to make it happen and get it done.  So now we have tickets to everything up the hill except A Raisin in the Sun (cast looks amazing, and I'm sure it will be a phenomenal production -- but I don't really enjoy the play....and it's likely to go on sale later in the season) and 2 of the 4 plays in the Touchstone (The Moors and Stones In His Pockets.) We didn't know the other two and they sounded weird. But we're going to look into them before April 29 and see if the plays seem like they could be worthwhile and make a call to order them if we so decide. My mom took care of the big group ones and I ordered the other medium to small group sets.  So that's done. Have to write them into my physical/Llewelyn's calendar, but the planning is done. Also Concerts on the Square is back this summer for Weds evening plans. We're going to miss the most interesting of them all to me, but also Karissa said she wanted to go along for Hamlet so that meant limits to family 4 pack nights as opposed to buying 3 in the fall for Crissy, Mikaela, and me. (The 16 year old ADORES her stabby stabby Shakespeare tragedies best of all the Bard's plays, that's my influence, but neither my parents nor her mom enjoy them. But at least we're to the point that she and her mom agree with me and know she will go with us instead of me insisting that she must come with us to Macbeth because it's important and the munchkin will love it, lol.) 

As of tonight when I head home I'll have about 60% of my hours in for this week. (probably around bar time as opposed to waiting until sunrise given that I'm planning to shower and come back into work tomorrow to hang out with the 16 year old and then also Alana and Crissy later after lunch or across dinner time. My cat has been feeling lonesome because he forgot how concert season works because covid just meant I stayed home a lot more since when I don't have concerts or theatre or family visiting plans, I'm a stay at home bibliophile/gardener/woodland wanderer hermit introvert and I consider it completely normal to not see any living humans for weeks or months at a time unless they actively seek me out, lol. Unless you're family, your best bets to find me is to entice me out into public situations with music or theatre or to find me in my wandering hikes or to try to find me at Farmer's market on Saturday mornings or while I'm in my garden or at work or at a bookstore whenever I decided budgets don't matter because money is all imaginary fiat human construction but knowledge and stories are something enduring that matter across lifetimes) I expect that Thursday and/or Saturday will be my at home doing chores and tidying up Spring cleaning days. Thursday because of the weather going from several days of rain into mixed precip and dipping below freezing, Saturday just to have a break if possible unless I have to finish out hours.  Then next week I'll have to do a deposit and get all sorts of hours in and next Thursday I fly out to visit my sister, brother-in-law, nephew, niece, Chicken (cat) & waffles (dog), and the not yet born nibling. (Listed in order of how long they've been in my life, lol)

And then I'm out in Seattle/Kirkland area until April 14th when I come back home. And then nothing for the latter half of April except catching up on work which means waking up the garden and planting new seeds and I think only one appointment for my grandma in the calendar and concert tickets to the farewell tour for BeauSoleil on the 22 or so. (They're a primarily francophone Cajun/creole/folk/bluegrass/zydeco/roots/they don't fit into any particular genre band from Louisiana that has been playing and composing tunes together longer than I've been alive and who I discovered back in high school and I love them and I'm sad they're retiring and regret all of the La Fête de Marquette free shows they played in town that I couldn't make but promised myself "next time" and now I'm all out of next times except this farewell tour...They're amazing though! And while all of their instrumentation is incredible, their rollicking fiddle licks are INSANELY mind-blowing! And so much high energy fun to dance to! Quite impossible not to at least tap your feet when the fiddle starts in on any BeauSoleil song or tune, lol.)

But May looks pretty chill. Aries season is a whirlwind and it's generating so many of my plans for later in the year (Leo season since I was 17 is always the blur of Irishfest season for me -- crazy full of music and laughter and dance and travel and friends and the drama of too many egos in a room and more music and drinking whiskey with my Irish folk, lol, Virgo season is like Taurus season for me, it's always the chance to breathe and recharge after the madness and catch up on late season gardening work and long rambles in the woods and start getting excited for apple season changing of leaves and the advent of birthday/spooky season) being made all at once... But Aries and Leo seasons (and often the week or so leading into them) are always complete madness in my world. So right now, all the things to be doing in my next month are overwhelming me. Once Taurus season hits, I have space for new plans and happy surprises and life unfolding and getting my hands in the dirt to bring forth a riot of flowers and enjoy the new greenness of all the world waking up.

But right now I'm still in the midst of my Aries whirlwind, lol. First half of Pisces season is always slow and dreamy and being at home and enjoying the hygge in the calm before the storm -- but once I cross the threshold of Mardi Gras, St. Patrick's Month shenanigans take over and end of Pisces season is a whirl of all my Irish friends and music and whiskey/Guinness addiction/escapist aspects of Pisces as I whirl myself into Aries madness and new beginnings, lol. I measure my life in the natural seasons, the astrological seasons, and ebbs/flows of my friendly sociable introvert lifestyle -- and somehow that madness all tends to align for me.  I'm excited for all the things, but I'm also definitely looking forward into relaxing into the new growth and flowers and fecundity and time for surprises and slowness of Taurus season, lol. But that's still a month and a lot of plans and doing all the things away from me.

But anyway. second half of April and May. That's when I'll have time to slow down and breathe and have room and space in my life for reflection and new growth and happy surprises. Until then it's just whirlwind in my world and my life right now, even with all my Irish lads returned back home again post St. Patrick's month, lol. That's your next window of opportunity to not be lost in the whirlwind of all the madness of my plans and travels and movement and focus on everyone and everything else. Second half of April or May. That's your next window if you've now completely missed the winter hygge time snuggle by the fire and smile at the snow but other than long walks in the sparkle fluff it's mostly joy in keeping the house at hame curled up into the music and books and hot tea and tasty slow cooked meals of winter. Taurus season, my north node this life, is your next window of opportunity for further introspection and inner growth and to try to get my attention bring me the flowers of happy surprises and unexpected joys showing up in my life.

P.S. Also. The last 24 hours, so much intense love and connection down the bond. Didn't expect that. Not certain what to do with it. No idea where it's going or how it can grow in the current way things are. But it's there and it's warm and full of light and love. And so it makes me happy and I'm not going to push it away. I'm okay with accepting, "I don't know how to bring this into my everyday life and I haven't had a damn precog involving any future paths with you since your sister's choices back in Oct 28, 2018 and every subsequent choice to double down on the defensiveness about those initial choices and all the consequences of not choosing honesty and bringing truth into the light and facing it to clean things up" and also accepting "there's still this connection and bond and it is a source of light and love and strength regardless of if it only exists in the spirit not manifest into our 3d lives in this lifetime" as where we are at right now. I'm just sort of in an inner space of accepting that these are both truths and while they seem irreconcilable because I can't see a way to square the circle, they are both still the truths of this life at this time and that there can be no growth or change without sitting with the hard truths and accepting their isness, even when they conflict with each other and obstruct paths from unfolding in easier, less complicated, ways.  Right now I'm sitting in the space of accepting the truths as they are in this moment and not making any attempts to reconcile them since there is nothing within my choices that can reconcile them since it wasn't my life that setup this scenario and these truths that are at odds with each other as far as any form of targeted actions or goal setting or shared life paths.. right now I am merely accepting all the truth of what is in this lifetime and where things are right now -- because that's all I can do with the hand I currently have to play. But that does require of me that I accept and acknowledge the beauty and warmth and love and light and strength down the bond and all the promise in it of could bes.  Because that's a part of the truth. And trying to deny that truth or ignore isn't a healthy way out of this mess. Even if this lifetime means me letting him go and finding another path with someone else who can give me a lifetime surrounded by love for me as I am, I'll never deny that bond IS. He doesn't have to be the center of my life if that's not where his life path choices lead him this life, it's all a matter of free will choices and I can't make his for him. But my nature and thus my choices won't allow me to deny the ISNESS of the bond, even if I simultaneously accept that the bond may not now manifest into my external life path and my happiness in this lifetime.  That is the balance point of acceptance that my journey since Oct 28, 2018 has brought me to -- and unless circumstances change, it is the internal equilibrium I will be moving forward with. What else would you ask me to do to find my inner peace and balance and to stay in this lifetime given my own created rules for this reward life given the choices I have at my disposal in the context of the choices other people have made?

 Curious... I woke up crying this morning. Not sobbing, just quiet tears streaming down my face. It's rare for me to cry. Mostly I just chin up stoic through when hurt or sad or upset. And I'm not currently sad inside about anything, I'm really quite ridiculously happy. I've missed all my Irish music friends a lot and so I'm full of giddies having them all back in my life. And my cheeks hurt from grinning so much through the shows (4 for We Banjo 3, second for Socks in the Frying Pan will be tonight. Skerryvore will be tomorrow.) And yet..... The thing is, it doesn't even feel like my sadness, it feels like when his echoes inside me down the bond. But why would he be sad? He's in Brooklyn pursuing the life path of his choosing, he sold out his first three solo shows of his NYC residency so he got upgraded to bigger venue for April, one of those sold out solo shows is coming up real soon, he's got fun multi artist fest style concerts coming up over the summer with his band.... So why would he be sad? He has everything he's asked for and chosen to prioritize for his life path and happiness this life. I highly doubt that sense of aching loss echoing in me that made me wake up with tears streaming down my face is his.... And yet, that's what it feels like. But what could he possibly have lost that ever mattered enough to him that he chose it for his life and it's absence is making him sad? As far as I can tell, he has everything he has ever chosen and prioritized and valued for his life and everything he (or anyone in his band) have ever reached for creatively or career wise is coming up Midas touch roses for him.... 

It's probably just the full moon and end of Pisces season drawing near. It's probably not anything to do with him or echoes of his sadness in my inner stillness. Because why would he be that sad when everything he's built his life around and choosing to build his future around is going so well for him? We'll go with saying phase of the moon, astrological season, and collective world suffering as Ukraine burns that's hitting the empath precog. Because how could it be his sadness down the bond making me cry when he has everything he's chosen to value and create and build his life around to make his doing so well? What has he lost that he ever valued or chose for his life that would gut him so deeply it would reach me via the bond so I would wake up crying? No, we'll lay this on the moon and the stars and the state of humanity and the collective suffering that is closer than most humans can see coming. Even if it does feel like when his sorrowing echoes down the bond 

*yawns* I'm not tired right now, but I haven't been sleeping enough or deeply when I do for the last two weeks or so. Especially the last several days I keep waking up every hour or so as I'm about to enter REM/astral dream vision state. Should I listen to my body get up? Or listen to my logic brain and try to make me sleep more  now that we're well past sunrise. Je ne sais pas.....  

It was so good to see Fiachra and Aodyn again last night after so long!!! And I'll get to see them (and Shay, the button accordion/concertina player from the Bronx filling in for Fiachra's brother Shane who is the third member of the band but only plays the summer gigs because he's also a teacher) again tonight!!!! 🥰 Also, all the songs and tunes again tonight!!!!!! (Which in Irish music culture are not the same thing. Songs have vocals and words, tunes are the instrumentals.)

 For the record. As a full moon reminder while I wait for my chamomile tea to cool. 

1) I tend to serve as a catalyst for growth and healing by the shortcut of facing hard truths and consciously choosing a better path. If you don't take the opportunity that encountering me gave you or if you intentionally try to bury or hide from the hard truth(s) and lessons, fate will deal me out of your life to protect me and will make you learn the same lessons on much longer more emotionally painful paths. Every damn time. For everyone. People find me as an opportunity and a choice in their lives, but I will never force them to choose because their life path isn't mine to walk and thus their choices are not mine to make. For me, free will is sacrosanct. Personal choice is the only thing that gives anything meaning.

2) even if you choose to learn and grow, you still only get to keep me in your life for as long as you continuously and consciously choose that I matter and you want to maintain the connection. If you don't, I will get lost and distant from you on my wandering path. 

3) For this reward life, I didn't ask for any specific person or scenarios. (See: free will is sacrosanct to me.) I asked that a) any soul seeking me be able to find me b) that I always be surrounded by love of me qua me just as I am, and c) that as long as the first two conditions are met that I get to grow old because I haven't in so very many lifetimes.   There is no promise that any given person will be sharing my life path in those conditions - you only get to share it for as long as you choose me on the terms of walking the path of honesty and love and moral courage that I catalyze. There was never any guarantee of reunion in my reward life choice - just the opportunity for it if you sought me and loved me and chose me for your path. 

*yawns* chamomile tea now and then sleeps for me. Bonne nuit.

 I'm still in my "all my Irish friends are back in my life finally" party mode. It's a normal March phenomenon in my world, but it's accentuated by having lost it last year and having it cut short and then the year before worrying about my friends who and a near impossible time getting home to Ireland and losing thousands of dollars by being forced to cancel international touring and visas and nonrefundable travel/hotels.  So this year is pretty intense as it's been longer than usual since last seeing all my Irish scene friends. 

Tonight is We Banjo 3 in Peoria. Tomorrow night is Socks in the Frying Pan in Green Lake. Saturday is Socks in the Frying Pan in Cedarburg. Sunday is Skerryvore in Appleton. (Skerryvore is technically Scottish, not Irish. But same scene fam.) And then next week Mikaela is on Spring Break. And next Friday is Tim O'Brien at Stoughton Opera House - though he's from my bluegrass friends not Irish scene. 

But I will be masked at all the remaining shows as we're now at the two week mark before my Seattle visit. And being irresponsible by being unmasked so the boys could see my smile joy in their music for the shows last week when only I might pay for it is one thing. But being unnecessarily reckless with my three year old niece (too young to be vaccinated) and my third trimester pregnant sister is not something I'm willing to do. *shrugs* I take best care of myself when it's for the sake of taking care of others I love.

 I'm fine. Really I am. Just haven't been writing here since I've been spending a LOT of time with banjo boys recently - this tour is the first I've got to see them since March 2020 show in Green Bay after which the rest of their tour got cancelled and they had to scramble just to get back to Ireland. But they're tour is a little wonky sending them out to Idaho for a few dates but I'll see them one more time for St. Patrick's Day in Peoria IL. Which gives me all grinning til my cheeks hurt giddies!!! Dios MiO but I have missed them so much!!! (Many people joke about how I see them more often than my actual family. But also, it's true. I do see those lads more often than most of my family, lol. They just keep coming back to Wisconsin and near to Wisconsin. Milwaukee Irishfest is where they first played in the US and what launched them as a touring band so Milwaukee and all over Wisconsin is their home away from home. Just happens to also be where I live, lol ) 

*yawns" I had a drive back home from Minneapolis tonight after the show. And the chamomile tea is kicking in so I can barely keep me eyes open....I'm headed to sleep as soon as I hit post. More another time.

The thing with having eyes the color of the sea is that some days they can be a super intense hue of blue-green-grey that defies typical color nomenclature....And you can't even blame the colors I'm wearing or my makeup for it because I'm wearing black/grey with gold text/stars on it and I'm not wearing any makeup at all today.

It was far more intense in person than on my phone and was continuously changing from moment to moment -- everyone kept stopping in their tracks commenting on them today asking me exactly what color they are. Including taking my car over for its overdue oil change/tire rotation/checkover (which I wanted to get done before my drives to/from Green Bay and Milwaukee and Minneapolis later this week for We Banjo 3 shows) and stopping by EyeMart to have them check my glasses for any scratches or repairs and adjust the sizing slightly before my 1 year warranty on all damage replacement/repair is up. I hate when people ask me what color my eyes are....I get terribly embarrassed and confused and I usually say, 'I dunno, they change colors constantly -- what color ARE they right now?" And I also hate having to fill out licenses and passports and such that make me list my eye color. Because I never know what to list...and so then I just ask the person when I go to turn it in which one they think I should fill in. And yes, wearing kn95 and n95 masks leaves a mark on my nose -- I'm actually allergic to the poly/acrylic fibers they're made from but you're not supposed to wear cotton masks under them or you don't get the right fit and electrostatic charge defense on them. It's the same reaction I have to poly/acrylic fibers in clothes -- makes my skin red and itchy and eventually will cause hives or blisters where it touches my skin.

That was while I was hanging out with my favorite 16 year old and my dog, listening to Aoife Scott songs and drinking tea and reading while she caught up on schoolwork. Before I stuck the swords in my hair to get it out of my face, lol.

 

(I'm not particularly good at getting pictures of the back of my own head, lol. Even when I cheat and use a mirror as well as the front facing camera.)

Sarah discovered the hair swords from a hair accessory company from Bristol Ren Faire and she told me about them and I got excited and so she ordered 3 sets of them for her and her daughter Mikaela and me. Today both Mikaela and I were wearing them.  She's been teasing about a swordfight with them and asked who won and Mikaela squawked at her, "MOM! You don't cross swords with Dani! Not even for fun! Dani with a blade in her hand is scary fast and she knows what she's doing!" and I added blandly sipping my tea, "Also Mikaela has almost no automatic defenses if you just poke at her with your finger or kick her. Even when you warn her and telegraph it. See?" Mikaela, 'Ow." Me shrugging, "She lacked any siblings except me and I'm enough bigger that I couldn't properly teach her self defense the way a real sibling would. So I wouldn't pick up a sword against her. It wouldn't be fair to her." 

P.S. I've always wanted hair swords this life!!! I'm so excited to have them!!!! Also, i want a bladed Japanese war fan.