"Honey I love you." That's all she wrote. Oh, Ophelia, You've been on my mind girl like a drug. Oh, Ophelia, Heaven help a fool who falls in love.

 I woke up with the Lumineers song Ophelia playing in my head. And all morning it's being growing in me that I need to walk down to Tiedemann Pond (and maybe Strickers Pond too) and so I'm gonna go now and do that. It's the last place Audrey Pupburn insisted on going for a walk, and she actually reached the end of her strength (never walked again) halfway up the hill of Gammon Rd and I carried her cuddling her trying not to cry all the rest of the way home.... Probably gonna cry over things lost to time can't have back and acceptance of that.... But i feel I need to go do that today before whenever I next make that walk with Waffles, after I drive back from Kirkland with her next month. 

So I'll listen and go walk down to Tiedemann and cry if I must and make space in my heart around the grieving for the joy once Waffles is here....

 

[Post Title: Lyrics to The Lumineers song Ophelia.]

 That was a very interesting experience. It wasn't clear cut any way, all over the potential fatelines throughout and afterward... Though I did feel gratitude and desire from all of them to not have this be the last time but not necessarily a desire or promise to right what set everything awry down paths where we arrive at the place where this could be a last time farewell. So I walked away unable to resolve the issues of being blocked on Instagram that is the root cause instigation of me feeling that I am unwanted/unwelcome to the band at their shows and as a fan. And I'll be honest, I still can't tell if this is a place of love HAGL wish you success but closed chapter farewell or if this was a step toward returning to a renewal of the old "every time you're driveably close let's have a love fest energy exchange." i still feel very much that I'm standing at the crossroads waiting to know which path will be chosen and which will be erased as if it never was.... It's a crossroads where knife edge could go either way where this for me is a new beginning renewal or a farewell for this life. (Cue Erykah Badu, Next Lifetime.) And like these aren't about my choices, it's about whether or not anyone steps up to taking accountability for past choices and acknowledging the blocking boundary issue to alter it thus opening up present/future paths to healing 

I was able to cut all cords and remove all hooks out of Britt, her reaction was an immediate, "I don't want this, I never wanted this, I didn't ask for this. Please help me and remove this." Which is the exact same reaction Crissy had when I offered back in college after her gifts first awoke (that was my fault; she was around when some shit happened and it was one of the most terrifying experiences of her life and being there while I dealt with something that targeted her as having no defenses is what awakened all her dormant gifts with no training whatsoever; and since it was my fault because "any soul seeking me be able to find me" is broad and was disapproved by many deities/archangels much less reckless than me, I felt it my responsibility to crash course train her spiritual gifts if she desired when I offered) but I gave her the same question, "Do you want this or do you want me to extricate you from this entanglement?" to cut the cords that a vampiric entity at St. Paul's in Madison that was energetically feeding on her in college. And a complete certainty desire to remove the cords is all that my respect for the sanctity of free will choices requires for me to act -- so I was able to cut the cords and remove all the hooks out of Britt. Verbal telling me what you want and it aligning with your inner truth is preferred, but in a pinch when I don't know if I will have another chance energetic permission/desire that I act is good enough in a situation like this. I did as much as I could for Liz to cut cords for her but couldn't remove the hooks into Liz, especially the deep ones. Which means those are points of potential future reconnection with either this entity or other entities in other contexts. I tried but every time she stepped forward close enough for it, she wavered. She was in a place of conflicted, "I don't want this but I want it in the name of the temptation it promises." And that doesn't meet my free will sanctity requirements to cleanse cords/hooks from an unincarnated entity out of an individual. I have to know that they completely desire no hesitation want it removed or to extricate from the entanglement if the opportunity offers. I can only help those who are ready and wanting my healing catalyst of opening fatelines.  She has to want it for me to heal her remove those cords/hooks/open paths into her soul and right now she doesn't have certainty when given the choice..... 

I will deal with this Minne entity on Sat and she won't have it able to reconnect with her because it will be gone -- but those openings into her from the hooks I couldn't remove because she didn't know if she did or didn't want them removed will be there for any other entity she encounters to connect to. And unless we're under attack and it's instinctive protective, I can't protect or heal anyone without their directly asking me.... And I certainly can't protect or heal anyone from what they are choosing of their own free will.  Because of my stance on the sanctity of free will as giving meaning to everything that could be. 

As far as Delta Rae goes.... I love what I love and will always love what I love for the esse of it and that will always bring me great joy to know it IS. That said. Choices need to be made to heal things. If that's desired. But they aren't my choices to make. And I am standing at the crossroads waiting to see what is chosen.... If healing the blocks that were created is chosen, I will be overjoyed welcome with open arms any rapprochement choice to heal this breach and my reaction will be the whole-hearted unalloyed welcoming joyousness of regaining what I had written off as lost. But if the choice is pride and defensiveness and doing nothing leaving the block, I will accept that as free will choice, walk away with no ill will but never make another opportunity or come to another show again or open paths trying to heal the boundary not of my creation. What I love, I love unconditionally -- but I will not cross a defensive boundary of personal free will choices maintained by pride and ego, especially when any choices regarding that boundary are not (and never were) my choices to make since it's not my boundary. My choices are to decide if I will respect that boundary or not -- and me even showing up last night, which was important to my sense of personal responsibility and karmic debt, required that i chose to disrespect and ignore the boundaries the girl's willfully created and chose to defend and that nobody in the band has ever been willing to even acknowledge.

And yeah, I recognize there is a vast difference between welcome with joy and simply accepting.... I never said I don't have any fucking preferences and desires for what I WANT for myself here, but my preference doesn't mean I have the ability to act and make my preference here shape the future reality. Because, this situation and whether or not I ever attend another Delta Rae show in the future isn't about my choices or my accountability or what is within my power to change/fix because I can't unblock myself and i can't even have a conversation over how/why that happened when there's only ghosting lack of responses to my past efforts to bring it up. So yeah, i can accept that things were improperly dealt with in the past and there was memory erasure from a vampiric spirit entity involved -- but recognizing that third party involvement that has led to this crossroads and rupture is a place of understanding but doesn't empower me to do anything to fix the source of the boundaries issue and me feeling I am unwelcome/unwanted by the band as a collective. I am empowered to remove the third party entity because fuck that bullshit entity and its manipulations, but I am not empowered to make choices or take accountability for others or unblock myself.... So my crossroads is not to know if action will be taken to fix this and to be in a place where I can at least accept whichever path is chosen as the genuine free will choices of the band and the members of it and what they allow to be done in the band's name.

Now. After much introspective existential car chats about something else crazy esoteric but not about the band just me questioning my choices and future choices regarding changing rules/fatelines sitting in the car park (that's not how we say it stateside... Parking garage, twas a parking garage) and my all night wandering between southern accent and Irish accent the entire many hours before the show at Vintage and pre show pretty suddenly settled into just an Irish accent (with occasional deep south idioms/exclamations) before we walked to Ian's Pizza at the top of State St for some post concert second dinner.

P. S. I adore Raye Zagaroza.  I categorically, unironically adore every single dang thing about her she shared of herself onstage tonight. Thank you. I don't know that she would have crossed my path otherwise. And she is darling. So thank you! 

P. P. S. If you can't surpass ego and defensiveness.... Take care of Adeline. She was a young soul darling at the show tonight, and she saw me shining through my bubble and took pictures of my shininess during certain moments and songs and came over after the show to share with me the pictures she took of my glowing joyousness. If you don't choose to keep me around, protect her. Please. She is young and doesn't yet know how bright and true her second sight is.... 

Okay. Pizza eating. Time is flux around me, I burned lots of energy, for reasons I stand behind. And Crissy is being patient but is tired. 

P. P. P. S. Somewhere in the course of the evening between taking my Detroit Zoo souvenir rose quartz polar bear paw print crystal out of the car where it hangs and wrapping it around my wrist so nobody did a smash and grab for it and when I got home, the rose quartz fell out and the metal almost completely oxidized from silvery to copper colored every exposed surface that touched my skin... 

I didn't notice it til I got home and realized the chain was still wrapped around my polar bear Fahlo bracelet (holiday gift from a family friend who is a bonus auntie unrelated to me; the bear that it tracks and helps supports is named Ella.)

No idea where the crystal is or what happened to it. Not sure if this was to keep me from going in all empath sponge forgiveness and hope or if it portends something bigger.... All I know is that the rose quartz part of this souvenir necklace has brought all it could to me and has now moved on to find somebody else to help and heal.... And that is as it should be if it is no longer meant to be mine.

Uffda. Ain't nothing like the moon moving into Cancer to hit my heart with a massive tsunami of tears and to make me  feel all the grief to drown in like it's fresh and new and I've not spent any time at all or made any progress in learning not to drown in it.... All water moons always get me deep in my feels (whatever my feelings are, when the moon is in a water sign I feel them extra deeply but there are subtleties as to which are amplifies the most; Cancer moons make me feel all the grief and loss, Scorpio moons make me feel the stinging pain of unhealed hurts (which is why Scorpio moons is when I'm most likely to pull away distance myself from Eric down the bond, because I feel the unhealed hurts of all the choices made in the band's name toward me since 2018), and Pisces moons make me feel the deepest wells of love and compassion and forgiveness.)  The last year of me grappling with running into all the "last times" with Audrey Pupburn, but especially the last 6 months as her end crept closer and the "last times" got more everyday mundane of our life together across nearly 15 years, every time the moon is in Cancer I just feel such deep grief and I spend so much time crying until the moon moves into Leo and my heart breaks over what is lost and I cannot have back again.... And then if I have to be around people but my grief is feeling a bit raw, I get pretty snappish defensive at being needled (even if it's meant to be teasing, it's not funny) so as not to start crying in front of them when the grief hits me hard.

The funny thing is, most people are sensitive to phases of the moon affecting their mood -- but I've always been highly sensitive to what SIGN the moon is in and how it affects the seas of my emotions... Fire moons make me reactionary active doing mode impulse to start new things, earth moons make me really good at getting things done checking them off the lists of adulting and homebody chores, air moons make me highly energize and sociable, water moons make me feel all the things down to the deepest core of my being.... There are some subtleties between the different iterations of fire/earth/air/water signs, but that's mostly how they hit me. But if you want to bypass my overthinking and reach my heart most directly, reach out to me during water moons and earth moons -- and water moons are better if you want me to feel it all intensely whereas earth moons are best for nurturing seeds of slow growth from the heart. If you want me to really think about things from the head and logical space and want quick responsiveness from me, fire moons and air moons are the time to reach out. 

But yeah, water moons hit me deep to drown in whatever emotions I'm in. So my grief of missing my sweet emo Pisces pup drowns me to crying anew over it every time theses last months when the moon goes into water signs. Especially Cancer.  I mean, usually when you see me out about these recent months, even when I look more emo than you would have seen me in any many years, I'm doing the best I'm doing with moving forward through the absences where her presence was. I expect I'll be clsoer to my non-grief me while at my sister's because my Audrey Pupburn's presence was never a part of my life while visiting there, y'know?  The hardest times for me are every time I'm going out or in my own front door (and also sometimes coming and going at work) when she's not there for me to get puppy kisses while I wipe her feet and clip/unclip her halter/leash from around her. Also whenever I'm trying to sleep but there's the silence where my dog's breathing presence should be so I'm having the damnedest time sleeping until I reach a point of sheer exhaustion and again it hurts deeply when I first wake up and go from her soul walking dream space with  me when the Morrigan brings her to visit me in my sleep but then I awaken and she's just gone again. (I don't like drawing her soul to mine while I'm waking to feel her presence because I don't want her to get stuck by my grief missing her, excess grief in the living can cause a dead soul to get stuck forget their way back to the light and to cycle into their next life or to move on their spirit guide roles. Even if she keeps telling me she intends to hang around until I get married have children for her to be reborn or when I'm looking for a puppy to raise from puppyhood and she can know she will be with me again without too many trials between reunions. But she's got her heart set on being my son as I promised her she could be if I can find my way to a path where I am happily married ready to bear children. Which, that future is still possible, those fatelines are still out there shining brightly with promises, even if I can't see from here a way to get to there.

This transit from moon in Gemini to moon in Cancer has been no exception of going from giddy Tigger energy happy on Sunday/early Monday to suddenly when the moon moved into Cancer Monday afternoon starting to feel like I'm drowning in grief over the absence of my sweet Pisces pup. I'm looking forward to the moon moving into Leo in the wee hours of Weds into Thurs.....  To deal with it, I stayed to work until sunrise last night to help me get hours in then slept across the daylight hours and plan to stay at work til sunrise again tonight. I may work late on Weds into Thurs morning to get hours in but I think it's only like 8 or 9 hours left to get in for the week since I'm planning to stay til sunrises again tonight -- even with me needing to take my grandma to an afternoon doctor's appointment on Thursday and now planing to go to the Delta Rae show at High Noon Saloon. 

And thinking of which... Thunderbird accepted my original plan and promised to let me leave him marking the venue while I lured the entity out to some neutral grounds to face it. (A shit stupid reckless plan to do while incarnating in a mortal body as it required channeling a lot more energy through me than most bodies can take, but the sort of thing you should expect of me while I'm in the hollows of grieving and have the "eh why not sacrifice this body if need be to do the right thing?") Anyway, Thunderbird didn't LIKE the plan and thought it shit stupid but accepted it as best we could do without knowing where the lair is to mark it leave it for hawk god/thunderbird to handle. But then after I dug down to find the memory of when I first encountered the energy signature of the entity, I discovered I DO know where it lairs, at least I know it well enough to circle and make it for an ally to cleanse and send it back where it belongs rather than risk so much spiritual source energy channeled through me to damage a physical body. And so after I realized I DO know where the lair/place it's tied to is, Thunderbird decided, "You are canceling your stupid plan and we're going back to the way we do things since you changed all the rules and just to be certain you do this in a way I approve, Minneapolis WILL be flooded to hold the entity in place so you can't lure it out disobey me and it will be constantly raining from Thursday through Sunday across the time you're here. So find the location, circle and mark it, don't engage, and let me deal with this." Which, given the protectiveness of both hawk God and Thunderbird doesn't surprise me at all, they both call me reckless and stupid and don't quite trust the crow/raven deities to watch over me because chthonic deities have a different relationship with the living/dead boundaries of the soul than their protectiveness approves. 

So okay, I'm still planning to use the moon in Leo energy to burn out those cords/hooks and try to burn all the way back and down through the entity burn out EVERY damn cord/hook it has into EVERY incarnating soul because fuck that manipulative spirit bully bullshit and after I burn all those cords out, I intend to cap them from the entity's side so it can't reconnect them and then let the Thunderbird rain and flood Minneapolis to hold it where it is until I can encircle it and make its lair and hand it over to the Hawk god for justice and try to keep myself from getting involved in an energy channeled battle. I can't unbury all the buried memory rewriting it does though with those whose path it crosses and with everything dealing with it and its actions... It was a damn hard job uncovering it within myself that I had found the lair in Minne between the varsity and our hotel is what started it trying to hunt me down all the way to Iowa tracking me.... Even after I remembered, Crissy kept trying to slide away to other memories until I pinned it and projected to her the time I meant. As I understand how it works, those memories are THERE in any person who the entity encountered/used/fed on but they're buried and hard to get to but if you delve inside yourself you can and will find those memories if you want to reclaim them. Depends on if you have healing or responsibility taking or cleanup from anything related to this entity that would be best served b remembering.

But I've altered my plan from the questionable one to listening to Thunderbird (who is just going to inundate Minne flood it to make it safe for me to be there on Saturday not allow me to lure it out because it won't cross running water.) I mean, Thunderbird isn't really giving me any damn choice about changing battle tactics to a more sensible, less sacrificial one. But also this is a better plan, significantly less reckless and stupid, and when I looked at the forecast and saw what Thunderbird was planning I just laughed and said thank you, this is a better plan than my reckless one.

I will be the first to admit that sometimes I come up with a reckless impulsive self-sacrificing way to deal with things and the archangels and the gods/goddesses and fae who watch over me go, "Um what the what?! No. No no no no. Did deciding to incarnate make you stupid or something?! You are living in a mortal body while you are in the incarnation, you do actually need to think about what a mortal body can and can't survive. By all the stars that shine, that plan of yours is the damn stupidest thing we've heard from you recently. That is NOT what you're going to do, not on our watch. What if you just don't. Here, I have a better idea for you. Maybe try this instead and keep your idea for backup plan, yes?" Not just in this life, in past lives too. And like, Thunderbird is correct -- any plan where you make your mortal body the bait to lure out the enemy is a plan where a damn lot of things can go wrong beyond your control and you should try to find something that's tactically a bit more certain. 

I didn't say it was my BEST battle tactics ever....just that I had one... It was just the best plan I could think of for finally dealing with this entity when I didn't realize I knew the location of the place it lairs and is tied to..... And like, when I encountered the place it lairs. that was before the gods and I setup our current understanding for how to handle entities like this when I find them, to mark and encircle and summon a deity to deal with it rather than risking the amount of energy coursing through a mortal body that connecting up to source and me channeling all that energy would entail.... 

I deserved to have Thunderbird shut down my original plan by flooding Minneapolis with rain from Thursday through all of Sunday to keep the entity's anchor point stuck within flowing water.....

O. And. 

I really loved Song 9 Let Down. I'm not certain that I fully understand what it's about letting go of trying to accept, but I love the song and it's probably my favorite so far of the 100 Songs project. I'm glad he shared it even if it was written from a hard heavy heart place needing catharsis.... It makes me want to give him a big hug though. I think it's beautiful, but it does make me want to give him a big hug -- and I might be biased in liking this one because as a recovering ballerina I'm always a sucker for a slow waltz.  It's at least tied with Come Back Home as my two favorites and the two songs that resonated most deeply with me of the songs/stories he has shared in this project of 100 songs. 

And what he said in the story about the difficulty of acceptance and letting go, I get that. All of it resonated with how I handle those moments in existing.  Especially right at the end. I also have to put my emotions into words to make them stop being such stormy seas and freeze them into a snapshot form to see the shape of them and all the faceted angles of them. I actually only write poetry when I'm feeling things heavily trying to get the feelings into word form. Dreams, grief, death, breakups, identity across lifetimes -- I write poetry to make the form of all those things and to hold onto them. I rarely write poetry when my heart is dancing with joy overflowing happiness -- it's only when my emotions go deep in me that I need to put them into a word form to look at. I also tend not to write here or journal about all the beautiful wonderful things, only about the things I'm grappling with trying to come to terms with -- the bright emotions stay inside my emotional seas but the deep and heavy and difficult ones need to be grappled into a word form for me to look at them. 

Also, in the course of writing this, my third eye and crown chakra both just got super wide open full of love and light pouring down through me and i don't know why. But it's cozy and it's nice and something deep to feel that isn't grieving over the absences of my sweet pupper who died on Jan 21. Thank you for that flood of love and light into me. I'm not certain why I'm receiving it right now, but I'm so very grateful for it! And Cancer moon still -- I feel all the love light in it as deeply as it's possible to feel it.

 So the unincarnated types of spirit that I encounter with and deal with spiritually, it's not so much an assigned task or anything like that. It's just more self-appointed. I didn't know what to do with myself and my energy and my gifts and if I don't exercise my gifts enough, I get bad migraines with intense electrical auras and the power builds up inside me until it slips my control and weird things happen around me that I didn't mean to happen -- and that's a really bad idea when living in the modern electronic age..... And I don't seek them out or advertise or anything, it's only what I encounter in my wandering that needs to be dealt with that I bother with. I only help or force to exit this plane those who I wander across or who seek me out. Also, my rule is that I won't touch any angry Native American tribal spirits because I side with them believe they have every damn right to their anger against those who invaded their land committed genocide against their peoples. Leave the native dead alone in their holy spaces to protect and go find somewhere else to build and live -- the USA ain't lacking in land! I will work with native spirits when they invite me, but I never presume and no matter how malevolent their actions toward living souls I will not do anything against them.

Most of what I do is helping trapped souls, standard ghosts, reconnect to the white light and return to it to face soul reflection and if they choose reincarnation to be reborn within the cycle of souls and the lessons it teaches. That's how I first realized my gifts as a medium. I encountered a child ghost that was scared and said it was lost and couldn't find the way back so I just opened up a way for it and wished it well on its way and only later when someone asked me who I was talking to did I realize they hadn't seen the other child talking/playing with me.. Sometimes I encounter spirits that are stuck because of something they fixate on need to see righted or made known before they can move on, and that is trickier depending on their fixation. There are also some who feel they serve a purpose by staying stuck, like the girl who was raped and murdered in Owensboro by confederate soldiers and who stays to protect the park camping grounds there from any women being raped in her territory.  There are also some that get stuck out of sheer cussedness and cruelty and meanness and who ENJOY their cruelty to the living -- and those are the ones that I don't give a damn if they want my help or not, I'm done with their shit and forcing them to face the light of judgement whether they want it or not because they're breaking the rules of the covenants between incarnating and unincarnated spirit. 

I don't seek out unincarnated spirits to perform chthonic medium gift duties -- but when I wander across something that needs to be dealt with or if something comes hunting/seeking me I won't back down from dealing with it if I must. I also have a tendency to agitate and awaken them when I come nearby until I make them understand my "if you don't harm the innocent, mild mischief games is fine but nothing that is malicious or could hurt living incarnating souls; if you can keep to that rule then I won't mess with you unless and until you want my help." This policy means that there are several haunted places, especially haunted concert venues and old theatres and churches where whenever I show up the activity gets extra intense and lights/electronics don't work and often my hair starts dancing around without any wind or static lol. And when I stay for a while in haunted houses, especially ones with child ghosts who like to play games, I have a habit of finding hidden things in secret forgotten spaces and of having things disappear then reappear somewhere else completely random and nobody knows how. If I gave up helping trapped spirits and cleansing away malevolent ones wherever I wander, I wouldn't miss it -- it's not a mission of any sort. It's just something I do to fill the time and because I am one of the few with a skillset to be able to do it. If you are able to do a small kindness for another or to clean up a mess others couldn't handle, why wouldn't you?

The one in Minneapolis is a strange hybrid..... Part of it is what was once Pig Eye's soul based on my research but another part of it is something else that he let in and that clung onto him after the body died. (The body that disappeared was never found nobody knows where he went.) Whatever the entity clinging on through Pig Eye's stuck soul letting it in, it obeys the rules of Catholic demonology as far as I can tell. Which is interesting because most don't but this one does as far as I can tell. Which means that whoever called it through to them did so as a believer with knowledge of Catholic demonology. (I tend not to delve too deeply into demonology and don't research or own books of names/attributes. I consider meditating on them and especially naming them to be opening a way for them in past your defenses. So I will study what I encounter to be prepared for whatever is needed to deal with clearing it  out from where it doesn't belong, but I try not to casually read up out of curiosity on the subject.)

I have many layers of plans regarding the one in Minneapolis that I am not going to share here -- but I want it to know that I have remembered where I found it's lair hidden and I'm pissed as hell at it and will be coming for it next Saturday when I'm in the area... And I want to personally clear out every vestige of its cords and hooks in the girls because I consider it a karmic debt since it only found and used them because it had been tracking me after I angered it by seeing through it's hiding and then scared/angered it that I could be powerful enough to defy it entry when it tracked us to the hotel room. I'm not saying I won't enjoy the show as much as I am able given I am knowingly breaking a boundary imposed and defensively maintained in the band's name, but in the name of justice I want to make certain I clear my karmic debt by cutting then capping those cords and burning out the hooks from it. 

*yawns* time for me to get some sleeps now this coffee is kicking in. (ADHD + caffeine = sleepiness when overtired physically; oftentimes if i make coffee when not well rested, I'll fall asleep about halfway through the French press.) Crissy and i decided to buy tickets and head up to Green Bay for David Howley's solo show up there so she can listen and decide for herself how she feels about his solo songwriting. So I need to get at least some sleep after staying up all night after post show hangs and stopping halfway through the drive back from Milwaukee to Madison so I could stargaze and wish upon some Lyrids when the clouds cleared out for a bit. Didn't go to Farmer's Market because very cold and snowing at 6:20am when Crissy and I were texting to see if we were still going to meet at 6:45am. And somehow I managed to use Dani logic to convert the premise "not going to Farmer's Market" into the conclusion that we should go to Green Bay for the concert and Crissy bought tickets before going back to bed. 😆 Also, there was definitely the bribery of Cheese steak Rebellion for dinner if we went up to Green Bay and have Philly cheese steaks and cheesecakes in a Star Wars themed ambience as one of my main arguments for it being a good idea..... 

 Also. I'd be a liar if I tried to claim that there isn't an incandescent joy inside me that I have decided to let me see Eric next week when Delta Rae is in town instead of making me stay away for ethics reasons that aren't even about boundaries he created.... Just going to acknowledge that coming to that decision was as much a part of my exuberant joy the other night as getting soaked in the rain and the fiddle and cello music. It took a superseding moral argument for me to make that choice to go despite the blocking/ostracism/bullying/boundaries issue, but once I made that choice, my heart felt so full of light and hope and joy in a way it hasn't in all these many years of me trying to accept what ethics demands of me letting him go based on the choices that were made..... Like the little burbling spring of joy inside my heart finally broke through the dam. It's all champagne bubbles and shooting stars and sparkly snow and glittery disco balls inside my heart since I decided that I needed to go and that I was going to let me go see Eric while he's in town.

And I wanted to acknowledge this truth in its own right before I try to get at least a few hours of sleep. I'm not currently particularly tired, but given the drive to and from the ICHC in Milwaukee tonight, it behooves me to try to get at least some small amount of sleep before the driving, if I can. 

Everybody's been there, everybody's been stared down, By the enemy. Fallen for the fear and done some disappearing, Bow down to the mighty. But don't run, stop holding your tongue. Maybe there's a way out of the cage where you live. Maybe one of these days you can let the light in. Show me how big your brave is! Say what you wanna say, And let the words fall out. Honestly, I wanna see you be brave. With what you want to say, And let the words fall out. Honestly I wanna see you be brave.

So. 

I know that I said I would not be attending any of the Delta Rae shows this tour, not even the one here in Madison, despite the promise Liz got from me outside of the Old Rock House in St. Louis that I would always come to shows driveably close so long as they stayed true to their ethics and I was wanted and welcome to the show. And I have felt that was right because while they reclaimed their ethics after selling out for Big Machine, I do not consider myself welcome at their shows since October 2018 when I was blocked on their official band instagram account, especially after I sought opportunities across the summer and fall of 2019 to do the simple click and accept that it was a management thing and not a bullying ostracism exclusion act. I approached the shows in 2019 with hope and belief that bringing it up once they were under their own management choices would get it cleared up. And when it didn't, when the band members continuously ignored and ghosted me whether I tried to bring it up publicly or privately but then the official band account LIKED the victim blaming attacks saying I must have done something to merit it, I decided that no matter how deeply it hurt me I needed to accept the boundaries created in the bands name that I am NOT welcome at their shows or as a fan and that the ostracism and bullying is an intentional choice on their part as a collective and the best thing for me to do with the options available to me was to accept their choices and boundaries and to treat them as not existing to me as that's what they asked of me.

I didn't like that conclusion. It hurt. It hurt a damn lot... But I didn't see any other way for me to come to terms with the information I had at my disposal and the silent ghosting and rebuffs of every attempt I made to communicate or make peace and to fix what had been broken.

I don't say it's a wrong conclusion, because the thing with boundaries is that when someone else creates them it's not for you to decide what to do with them by how they make you feel but what is yours to do is to respect the boundary as it exists and to only engage in communication or energy exchange if you can do so by being respectful of another's imposed boundary. 

But despite that, I have failed at the cord cutting and taking Baltasar Gracian's advice that "the best revenge is to forget and bury them in the dust of their own nothingness" the Universe refuses to let me forget them and ignore them.... For weeks now, every time I am on facebook, 1 out of 3 of my Sponsored Content posts are about the High Noon Saloon show -- either the tour image or a video about the tour. EVERY time I scroll down my facebook. And while my dog was dying and refusing to eat, my youtube randomly decided to play a mix of Delta Rae songs starting with My Whole Life Long from the Tarquin Sessions videos they did and it broke my heart more than a bit because it was joy mixed with sorrow over what was sacrificed by that choice made in the band's name in October 2018 while I was already dealing with knowing I couldn't save my little girl and I had failed and we were in our last days together -- but before I could cry or turn it off, my dog who was curled up in her bed near me gave the happiest sigh and lifted her head with the biggest love eyes watching the video playing on my monitor and started licking my ankle asking if she was finally going to get to meet for real life (and no, now she never will; at least not in the form of the sweet Pisces pup she was) and it made her so happy to have those songs again.... She would have been so happy and so pleased and so full of the brightest joy at getting recordings of new Eric demos every week. So I left the playlist on for her while I worked that night because it made her happy and the time remaining so short that I would have done anything to add more joy to her life for those last 10 days she refused to eat.... despite everything still being messed up and me being blocked and trying to do what I felt right regarding the boundaries created in their name, it didn't actually matter to me more than the joy in the music and me letting us listen to it again.

I still don't have anything I can do to unblock me or heal or fix the brokenness created by that action done in the band's name. And I have lost all faith and hope that me trying to reach out communicate to the band as a whole or to any members of it will ever lead to communication/healing or even acknowledgement from them because that's what their past ghosting and inaction taught me to expect from my efforts. And I do still believe that as long as that block stands on the band's Instagram account, the ethically right thing for me to do is to respect it and let Delta Rae cease to exist to me....

But. That said. I had a lot of realizations about some things unrelated to them and did decide on the drive back from Minne, when we stopped at the Kwik Trip in Chippewa Falls and I held talks with the spirit shaman who leads the ghost warriors that protect that area, that I would buy tickets for the Madison show at High Noon as a nice closure of a cycle since that is where I first saw them play a show. (The time I was walking by on the path at Summerfest while they were filming  an a  capella of Hey Hey Hey that stopped me in my tracks to watch and listen before continuing on my way to go meet up with friends holding space for me at the stage i was there to see that day/night.) It feels a right close of a chapter to have it be at High Noon and not the last show I saw of theirs in Minneapolis where I decided I was done and never coming back because Britt kept hammering down on the "just find us and follow us on Instagram message" from the stage while ignoring my every attempt to tell them that was the one thing that I could not do because I had been blocked by their official band account for me being honest that the country music played at shows or as openers was causing my color-timbre synesthesia so much pain I didn't think I could attend further shows and so I was sad that i didn't expect I'd ever get to see Hands Dirty live though I loved the song and the message. It feels better to close karma where it started instead of walking away in hurt and bitterness and anger at the injustice of her standing up there preaching about wanting everyone to follow them on instagram specifically (where I was blocked, by her, in October 2018) and shoving the knife in to twist deeper in the cut she made and refused to even acknowledge whenever I brought it up. 

It's not anything the band or any member of it did that made me come to this choice and that tonight I bought two tickets for the High Noon Saloon show for me and Crissy. It's because I came to the realization that there is karma there that needs closure and that there are things in the spirit realm that have contributed to this mess that are my fault. I. Their Minneapolis show many years ago, we were staying there and Crissy's high school friend Jaime who was raised a witch joined us. And on the walk back from the venue to the hotel I unburied something hidden in plain sight and woke him up troubled him (bit of a woman hating spirit, especially spiritually powerful witchy women) when I stopped in my tracks and said, "WHAT are you?! You don't belong here! Why are you hiding?" and then I was poking at it to figure out what it was, it was buried in a vine covered marble something set in the ground and the spirit entity was underneath in there. Jaime was ahead and i had been lagging behind talking to trees when I discovered the lair of this spirit and Crissy came back when she felt me poking at it waking it up and she asked me if I needed to deal with it and I told her, "No. Not tonight. Not at night time when we have with me someone whose defenses I don't know, this is too malevolent for me to be distracted from offense to try to have to protect her and there isn't TIME for me to teach her proper energy defenses not to let this in if it pushes her. This is a bigger fight than my current skillset and allies here tonight. But it can't just be left like this. I'm going to put it back to sleep as much as I can and then do what I can to ward and bind it here until I can come back and deal with it properly." Only here's the thing, that was before I had changed some of the rules and had as extensive a set of allies among old gods/goddesses and archangels. At that point I really only dealt with The Goddess who is omnipresent around me as one of her ancient longest lasting High Priestesses and Gabriel who answers my questions keeps an eye on me as my guardian angel because I'm too much chaotic good mischief for any other angels and the Seelie Court and only occasionally Raphael whenever I lost myself in the stream of time and needed to be brought back to when/where I belong. Anyway, I didn't ask any of those unincarnated powers to help me, and the rule for those aligned with the Creation unfolding is that they can't intervene UNLESS a mortal asks. Around the dead of night witching hour that entity I found dug its way out of all the wards I put on it and I insisted I couldn't sleep that night because what was trying to get in outside the door was too strong if I I wasn't active guarding and let me sleep. So I stayed up all night sketching wards and symbols of power. It left at sunrise (it tends to follow Catholic demonology rules and patriarchial morals) and then I let me sleep briefly because I'd be needing to drive to the Iowa show and while I slept the Hawk god/Thunderbird/Michael came to talk to me about it and offered me his protection and allyship given what I'd dug up and I accepted. And then the entity in Minneapolis hunted and followed and tracked all the way down to Iowa and the brief time we lost it tracking me, the Hawk God cloaked me in his energy shield so that my own energy completely disappeared except if you physically touched or if you had the pull of a soul bond. It actually didn't stop tracking us until Thunderbird deluged the area and we crossed the Mississippi. (it seems to be contained by floods and large bodies of rushing water.) 

But now here's the strange part. Me discovering it where it shouldn't be and intending to come back to deal with it in the light of day.... That's not the thing that should be forgotten. EVER. But we did. Both Crissy and me, we FORGOT that I had found its lair and that's when it all started. We remembered it tracking the "three" witches to the hotel room (Jaime had come back with us til her husband came to pick her up) and me having to stay up to defend against it getting in and we remembered everything related to the drive to Iowa, and me being cloaked, and the moment of Britt not recognizing me until she touched me and then not wanting to let go because she didn't understand and Liz observing it all happen and we remembered the rain chasing us back across the Mississippi when we suddenly felt safe and suddenly Crissy could feel my presence next to her in the car instead of the Hawk God's cloak hiding me.But somehow, both Crissy and I FORGOT about me finding its laid and me promising I'd have to come back to clean it up under better timing/allies than what I had that night. And I had to dig and dig and dig to uncover that memory when I was trying to remember where I had first encountered and recognized that energy signature. And when I brought it up and asked Crissy if she remembered it, she could only think of a time in Chicago I found an entity in a basement but it wasn't actively harming or preying on the living so I warned it not to or I'd come back and force it back into the cycle of souls and to face the light of judgement. But once she DID remember because I forced her and kept digging and digging it out until she remembered, she was aghast wondered HOW either of us could have forgotten it, let alone both of us....

And that's when I realized that it protects itself and its actions in making people forget, in burying memories and covering them over deep and hard to find under layers of shadow work and vines grown over it.... It was able to make ME forget finding its lair and while I've known I need to deal with it and I've asked the Hawk God/Thunderbird to do what it can, all it has been able to do is contain it with floods of water try to drive it out into the open to deal with it BECAUSE this entity has hooks in incarnating souls and the rules don't ALLOW unincarnated beings aligned with the unfolding of this Creation to intervene with mortals unless act of free will asks them to.... It's one of the ways to tell those who are trying to unravel the Creation and those who serve/protect the unfolding, if they're willing to transgress the sanctity of free will or intervene in incarnated soul affairs without being invited/asked. Suffice it to say, I'm pissed as hell that it buried that memory from me of the location where it lairs and I have every intention of coming for it guns blazing now -- and I have a lot more gifts and skills than when i first stumbled across it.

But now here's the thing. That entity in Minneapolis got its hooks into Liz and from her Brit when it was hunting me all the way down to the show in Iowa where i was cloaked under the Hawk God energy It does, I followed up and SAW those cords shining and those hooks in them and how much stronger they are when they are in Minne. And because of that, given what I now realized about how this spirit buries and distorts memories..... I genuinely don't believe that Liz even knows or REMEMBERS blocking me on her personal instagram account in May 2018 or Britt remembers blocking me on hers in Oct 2018 and 24 hours later blocking me on the band instagram account. And they don't REMEMBER it because the hooks in them made them do it and it has made them forget whenever I have brought it up or if they've said they would take care of it, they never did and they forgot or claimed they did while never dealing with it. It also explains why the show in 2019 at Stevens Point where it poured and we were by the running water on our western side, Brittany was the old Britt I remembered and she said how she wanted to stay there in that magic forever and when the band came down for a picture with everyone she came straight to me and hugged me tight and said to me, "Thank you. For being here tonight. Please don't ever give up on us." Which surprised me and confused me and I didn't know what to say or do because she hadn't been like that toward me since the middle of nowhere Iowa show and she still had me blocked and i was blocked on the band instagram and it's literally a one click thing to change if you go to the banned accounts list so why was it still a thing if that's truly how she felt? It was just, very beautiful and etched deep into my memory -- but I was so confused and didn't know what to do with it or how to make it make sense with the blocking and the ghosting every time I brought it up to try to address it.... But, it may have been one of the only times that she and I ever crossed paths while the Minneapolis entity COULDN'T have any hooks in her due to the running hour.  And if memories are buried and you don't REMEMBER blocking someone or REMEMBER to unblock them even after saying you would take care of it or even REMEMBERING that you never replied to them or addressed it, just forgot all of it.... Why then I can't say I've ever given a fair chance to make this stupid thing right. And if it could bury so I had to dig so hard to find the memory of when i uncovered its lair and didn't have the resources that night to deal with it -- then how can I blame anyone for anything they have done while its hooks are in it twisting their memories and burying these interactions surrounding the blocking and my attempts to bring it up? And it's not fair of me to cast blame or fail to give an opportunity to make things right if I've never given a TRUE opportunity to make this right because of how this entity works once it gets hooks in.....

And that also makes it my karmic responsibility that it ever took any interest in the girls and was able to get hooks in past their defenses because it was trying to track and hunt me after I found it saw through its illusions to its lair AND then defied it all night from entering past my gridding and energy shield so it followed as far as it was able and when I was briefly visible from Britt hugging me then recognizing me and grabbing my arm in confusion asking me, "Wait. It's you. How did I not know it was you?!" and then as soon as she let me go not being able to see me anymore it pounced on those it could reach who were without proper energy shields and not under a male protection it recognized. (as far as I can tell, it's only interested in getting hooks in dominating women, and only those who are not properly under the protection of blood family/marriage male figure in their presence -- if you don't have strong gifts or if you have a dad/brother/husband with you it won't attack to reach past your defenses. The Goddess has told me this is also why she was okay with Hawk God/Thunderbird taking on the protective mantle for me with this one as opposed to her normally doing it, because this spirit reveres and recognizes male authorities differently than female and her presence made it more angry wanting to hurt me/her more whereas the hawk God/Thunderbird makes it back off see me as properly chaperoned....)

So before I try to take this entity out, it's my karmic responsibility to close the cycle with what it's done with its hooks in the girls and for me to cut those cords between them and it. I could cut them now, but it would only seek them out regrow the connections as potentially useful when the girls are in Minne next week and that show is sold out so I couldn't even go and grid the whole damn area so it can't get in to them or anyone there without a fight...but here in Madison, here I can close the cycle and cut the cords to the girls and remove those hooks into their souls and make sure that entity can never reach anyone on that stage ever again.... And if I'm REALLY good, if I can channel through me enough power, I can grab hold of those cords and even across the distance shove pure raw Light source through back down the cords and burn the damn thing out. Whether I can truly burn it make it face the light and judgement of its actions and the part of it that was Pig's Eye Parrant get folded back into the cycle of incarnations and what he has fused into destroyed folded back into its point of Final Judgement or if I can just damage it badly and sever all the cords possible is an unknown.... I'll find out on Sat 29 when I'm headed back to Minne for a Frank Turner show. 

But it tried to bury my memory of finding its lair AND it used me to find and target innocent others AND it tried to keep me from facing it and thus fulfilling my self-appointed duty this life of cleansing out unincarnated spirits that harm the living incarnating souls (because I have the gifts and knowledge from past lives to do it, and few do and this nation is riddled with energetic scars and unincarnated evil vampiric spirits that the white man brought with their colonialist expansionist misogynist colonialism -- if I don't do it, who will stop these things preying on innocents?) AND it's fucked up everything between me and the band and the karmic bonds and soul bonds between me and members of the band -- AND I AM FUCKING PISSED WITH IT! So, I need to clean this up, because it's something only I can do, and it's time to close this chapter and end this fucking cycle because it has gone on for too long.... And now I am fucking pissed as hell and I'm in a state of emo grieving given my sweet dog's death that I don't mind burning down a path to take out this entity. I came to these realizations at the opening of this eclipse window and one way or another I am ending this chapter with this entity in Minneapolis before this eclipse window closes. It's time and past time. 

And so. I will be at the Madison Delta Rae show as part of clearing the karmic debts and doing what needs to be done regarding this entity. Whether it will be my last Delta Rae show is an unknown thing to me, because I am still blocked on the band instagram and the only reason I'm transgresisng that boundary imposed in the band's name is to clean up this mess of a malicious spirit that predates the creation of that boundary. And as I see it, there's nothing I can do to unblock myself from their account and for as long as that block is in place on the band account, outside of my spiritual warrior work of taking out malicious vampiric unincarnated entities, the ethics of me respecting the imposed boundary made/upheld in free will supersedes any desires of mine....

But here's the thing, here's how I see it. Free will exists in every moment, the past free will choices don't have to be the present or future ones. And there is, quite literally, nothing EXCEPT the defensiveness and the ghosting surrounding that ostracism and blocking and boundary of not wanting me to be able to see or be a fan of the band that is in the way of me coming back to the music and the shows and believing in them supporting them again. It was a free will choice that blocked me, it is free will choices that maintain that boundary of the block -- and it is free will choices that can remove that obstacle of the block and open up a path to making things right and healing what was broken. It's not my free will choices that can open that path by unblocking, but the path is THERE and can be opened by any singular act of free will to remove that boundary.

I tend to incline to wanting to be fair and understanding the perspectives I didn't consider and to forgiveness and giving more chances than I should and to finding the paths to healing so long as I believe there's a sincere desire for finding a better way. I'm a Libra sun/Mercury with a Pisces rising -- the only thing stronger than my empathy for the suffering of others is my sense of justice. It is within free will choices to open up a path of reconcilliation and healing rather than having this High Noon Saloon show be the last time the band ever sees me or hears from me, in the same place I first came to their shows.

Because people hate endings. I do too. They hurt, even when they're necessary. but the important thing to remember about endings is this: Every ending is also the beginning of something waiting to be born. And the REASON free will is sacrosanct is because it only takes one single act of free will to plant the seed of that new beginning and to nurture its growth. Every story, every cycle, every chapter that needs to end, in the moment of it ending there is the great potential and power to exercise your free will and decide WHICH new beginning storyline the new chapter will open into. It doens't have to be the one you most fear or have been trying to make yourself accept as inevitable -- it's an ending and a beginning -- what's ending is beyond your abilities to alter with any act of free will but what's been born.... o what's being born is always yours to choose what your actions will feed and nurture, whether it lets weeds and poisons grow or whether it plants and creates beautiful gardens of your dreams. It all depends on your free will in the crucible of the present moment, where you decide what actions/inactions you will take as one chapter ends and a new chapter begins.

That's why free will of those inside the cycle of souls incarnating is sacrosanct. because it is only things done in free will that has meaning and it is only free will actions that can trump the fates to shift paths by making a conscious choice deciding which new chapter we start as the old one ends.

I don't blame anyone for the way the closing chapter has played out. If it's strong enough to have buried the memory of finding its lair from ME then it's incredibly power and burying memories is one of its specialties and it will take a very concerted act of will to fig back up whatever memories it wanted buried regarding it or its influence.  So i can't hardly blame anyone else for anything this entity has done or the memories it buried so deep only your subconscious know they're there.  And I genuinely don't know yet which of the chapters beginning will be chosen from amongst the tangled fatelines.... . But I do know that I'm choosing to use this eclipse window as a time for clearing the karma to the best of my abilities that this entity's interference created and I'm cleaning up the mess of hooks and cords it has sunk in innocents whose defenses it got through and I'm going to go in guns blazing against this motherfucking entity that DARED to bury my memory of finding its lair and use me to find others it could use to get to me and try to hurt me....And when I get angry and decide to go in sword swinging guns blazing, I either die in the fight or I am victorious in the end no matter how many battle plans and tactics I need to consider -- I do not allow any other outcomes.

But I bought tickets for the Delta Rae show at High Noon Saloon next week. And while I have to take my grandmother to a doctor's appointment earlier that day, I will be there for the show that closes the chapter. And while I told Crissy that my plans and battle tactics don't leave her and me and my car Buddha because I don't know who this entity has it's hooks in.... I want it to know that I have unburied the memory of its lair and I'm pissed as hell and I'm coming for it -- starting with cleaning the karma and cutting the cords of those it found and put hooks into attached energetic cords and buried memories in BECAUSE of it tracking me when I first defied it. And if those cords aren't there for me to follow next Thursday, I have other paths and other cords I have found that lead back to it that I can use to burn it in the Source light of its own Judgement come due. I don't care if it knows I that I defy it trying to use others to impose boundaries on me to block me from the band to hurt me and protect it -- and I am going to start there to burn the damn foul thing out of this plane of existence where it doesn't belong. Do I tend to prefer to be underestimated and do I know full well this might be me tipping my hand? Hell yes. But when I get angry, I get impulsive and will charge in against worst odds than this entity (which is a different entity than the far more powerful nephilim I'm playing a long chess game across multiple lifetimes who lairs in the Dark Forest and tries to take me out when it gets strong enough.)  Perhaps I shouldn't tip my hand that I will be at the Delta Rae show and I remember what the entity buried and I'll be coming for it.....but I wanted to acknowledge my realizations and my change of heart that I will be at the show to close a chapter (and we'll see what chapter begins on the other side of the ending; I genuinely can't See it.)  And anyway, I may have tipped my hand about next Thursday but I'm pissed as hell at the entity in Minne and it's played fuck around and find out with the wrong ancient soul elf witch and I don't care who knows that I'm angry and ready to hunt it down make it face me... And once you rile me up to action, the fire of my anger burns bright and far reaching -- I am after all a Sagittarius Mars in this body. 

But also. You had every reason to take me at my word that I would not cross the boundary of that block telling me that I am unwanted and unwelcome as a fan of the band and thus I would under no circumstances be at the Delta Rae show even though they came to me, in my home town, to the place I first ever saw a show of theirs. That IS the ethical backbone head/heart space I was in AND articulated even on my drive to Minne. It is only all the epiphanies and realizations I had while driving and communing with the Thunderbird after asking it WHY it keeps trying to flood Minneapolis full of running water every time I come there for a concert in screaming defiance of forecasts and basic rules of meteorology and it reminded me that it doesn't know where the entity lairs so the best it has been able to do is to protect and contain with running water since the rules this entity follows don't allow it to cross fast flowing water. And it was only after all the epiphanies started tumbling out after I asked the right question to unlock so many answers and make the pieces fit that I recognized I HAD to go to the Madison show, to clean up what is karmically my fault and to create a REAL opportunity to heal what is a petty stupid middle school reason to have created the wedge of alienation and ostracism that it has between the band as a collective and me. And my midnight decision to change course regarding the Madison show was only made a real tangible path forward tonight at 10:46pm when I completed the purchase of the ticket. Because, until the purchase made it really possible, there were always fatelines that it sold out before I even realized that i OUGHT to be at that show and to stop ignoring the signs and all the dang sponsored content reminders/ads about it flooding my sponsored content on Facebook.

Now I'm still at work til sunrise to get my hours in because it's been a busy week and I still need to water my plants here before I head home because they can't wait til Saturday and tomorrow night I'm headed to Milwaukee to see David Howley solo show at ICHC.  ((I would have done it earlier, but I had to finish the pages for Flat Stanley's visit to Dairyland so my maman can mail back the book of Flat Stanley's to my nephew's class It's pretty adorable, basically the elementary kids all sned Flat Stanley to family far away and they send back Flat Stanley and write back about his adventures and send pictures and flat souvenirs as stories for the kids and then the kids all make a big map together with pins of everywhere Flat Stanley visited. It's been a thing for decades, and my nephew sent it to my parents, his grandparents.)

[Post title: Lyrics to the Sara Bareilles song Brave. If you tell me that you don't turn the volume up and scream sing your agreement and defiance whenever this song comes on, I call you a liar. And if you say that you don't feel a tiny wee bit brighter and braver and ready to face whatever battles are in front of you whenever you hear it, then I'm gonna go ahead and call you a double liar.]

 Safely home from Minneapolis, despite Thunderbird screaming at us that it was time for us to get back across the river before Minneapolis flash floods itself again. It was a delightfully cleansing cold pouring rain to be out getting soaked in on the walk back to the car, perfectly fitting for leaving a show of Scottish tunes (because even when trying to explore and respect other musical traditions, both Alasdair Fraser and Natalie Haas have very Caledonian anti-syzygy composing styles flowing through their hearts blood.) also, if you know me well or have ever seen me outside when the sky is precipitating anything except hard pellets, you have seen just how laughing giddy transcendent beaming joyous aliveness I get as I get soaked to the skin in rain or I'm snow. So for me, unless i have unprotected books/electronics, a walk in the pouring rain is puddle jumping frolic of a dance opportunity spent laughing at the rain on my face and grinning at the lightning. (My birth chart is as balanced as possible between the four elements and cardinal-fixed mutable if you consider the sun/moon/planets/ascendant/chiron/north node as a set, which is surprising given I have two stelliums in my chart, EXCEPT that my chart inclines ever so slightly toward water of the elements because the Scorpio stellium plus Pisces ascendant. Technically, my bff Crissy who shares a birthdate with me, though we were born half a world apart since I was born in the Holy Land, is ever so slightly fire element inclined because of our Sagittarius stellium coupled with her being a Sag rising. But given I have 4 water placements among the major 13 placements and only 3 of every other element, it should come as no surprise that being outside in water falling through air make me feel intensely joyously alive, especially when the weather is warm enough I can be barefoot grounded dancing in the rain.)

And I'm so so so so delighted to have seen Fraser and Haas tonight!!!!!! I just adore them so!!!!! I love their compositions and their techniques and their energies and their playing styles and their anecdotes and their twinkly bright soul lights!!!! And just, quite literally, their music and their energy while playing it is such a wee dram of scotch sipped by the fireside hearts glow warm you up feed your soul with light and music and energy exchange vibe!!!!  Granted you have to a) love instrumental compositions b) appreciate brilliant fiddle and cello playing and c) have an abiding love for Celtic lilting mélodies and rhythms to appreciate all the reason I adore them!!!!! And o but I get to see them again on Sunday!!!!!!! A day at the Milwaukee Art Museum with the special exhibit of art made of real flowers and then Fraser and Haas at the beautiful converted church acoustics of the ICHC!!!!!!! I'm so excited happy for my Sunday plans!!!! 

I am in such a delightedly happy inner space after that show and the frolic in the rain to get to the car and the chase back to Wisconsin ahead of the rising waters and the driving back during the opening of the eclipse portal!!!!! Also, the Lyrids are this week and next with the peak Fri-Sun AND it was a new moon around midnight so the skies will be nice and dark with only the thinnest mostly invisible crescent moon to compete, so if the weather gods cooperate and you have clear skies (without excessive light pollution) this coming weekend, make sure you take some time to watch for shooting stars and make you some heart and soul wishes. Shooting stars during an open eclipse portal on the Aries-Libra axis AND Mercury going retrograde to give you a chance to heal and cleanup miscommunications from the past!!!!! This week and next week are divinely gifted opportunities for healing and growth and soul path corrections -- be watching and ready and certain in what you most deeply want while open to however the Divine must flow to unblock what has been blocked and it promises to be a life changingly magical couple weeks between now and the full moon closing this eclipse portal. Don't try to guide or force your way, be certain of where you want to get but open to the unfolding of how the path wanders to get there in Divine timing but go ahead and wish upon the falling stars of the Lyrids meteor shower for some extra luck as long as your wishes are for a hearts desire and not an ego imposed plan.

Make wishes but not plans, speak/act from the truest place in your heart/soul instead of from ego, and trust in the Divine timing to open and guide a path. That's how you make the most of these next couple weeks of the eclipse portal. And o but go star gazing and wish on some beautiful shooting stars!!!!! Especially if you're a musician or a songwriter or if you have strong connections to Apollo because the Lyrids originate from the constellation of the Lyre!! This is a good one for Orphic wishes on the shooting stars of the Lyre!!! For wishes of love you felt lost and divinely opened paths and the hearts pull to find a way through. Just don't wish for demanding your timelines/plans or from the ego during an open eclipse portal -- unless it's divinely inspired your plans will fail in the flow of unfolding and if it's from ego the Fates will laugh and give you what your karma earned to humble you. So don't presume the path or how to get there and don't ask for anything tied to ego driven goals or identity in these weeks. But do trust Divine timing and Mercury retrograde healing second chances and making soul wishes from the heart on shooting stars of a meteor shower (not just falling space junk) during the dark of the moon.

And now. I am going to sleep, perchance to dream. Bonne nuit! 

P. S. My hair and all my skin that was uncovered like my face and hands are so soft from the rain water soaking me to the skin!!!! Both my hair and skin love rainwater or snow and get a softness to them that nothing else ever has or could achieve, like the way you imagined the softness of clouds at sunset should feel before you learned that they were mostly just cold and wet! If you ever get the opportunity, I highly suggest running your hands through my hair or against my skin after rain/snow soak and letting me air dry. 

 What is it about laying in bed listening to the rain that is so relaxing? Even if you can't sleep, it's so nice to just lay there in the dark listening to the dancing rhythm of the rainfall. (I slept earlier in the night after sunset, because this entire life across the hours of gloaming when the veil is thinnest are the only time of night or day that I am always wide awake wary can never sleep but it also means that the only times I ever miss a sunrise or a sunset this life is if I'm stuck inside somewhere without windows, and then I woke up as the witching hour approached.) Laying in bed with the windows open to listen to the rolling thunder of storms which make me feel alive with possibility and the rhythmic pattern of the rain is one of my favorite things in the world, it always makes me feel an inner tranquility that no other weather does. 

When I was a kid, I used to lay on my bed under the roof angled above me in my sunshine bedroom (the carpet and walls were yellow, the walls were a delicate floral of diamond shapes with white flowers and light green leaves, it may have been brighter once and faded but it was a mellow lemony sunbeam yellow in my childhood, a 50s wallpaper inspired by Victorian wallpapers) and when I listened to the rain on the roof I would pretend that it was the steps of the fairies dancing their joy and gratitude for the life giving rain the trees and flowers all needed, and that if I listened closely enough to the rhythms of the drops I could discern between them the melody of the fairy song just from the rhythms of the dance.  I would spend hours laying on my bed listening to the rhythms of the falling rain trying to hear the music woven around it and imagining how the choreography of the fairies dancing it would look if I could see it on the other side of the roof and that's how I would fall asleep on rainy nights or nap on rainy afternoons, in a peaceful hyperfocus on the rhythms of the rainfall and imagining the melodies woven around it and how the Sylvan folk would be dancing for joy and gratitude for the life given to all their beloved trees and flowers. And some of that magic glimmer is still there in me, even all these years and science courses later, it's a brightly shining part of the peace and the deep listening relaxation I feel while laying in bed or on the couch with the windows open to hear the pattern of the rain as it falls. 

Then again, I also love to go outside and dance and skip in the rain til I'm soaked through and I still love to splash in puddles when I get a chance. And the way the drops of rain cling to tree branches and blades of grass that catch the street lights always looks to me like the world has been bejeweled with diamonds and starlights. And I love to be in the snow and go on snow frolics til my cheeks are bright red and-- I guess I just really love water, whether it's a calm lake or the ever shifting ocean or all the various ways it falls from the air and days with precipitation makes me playful and tranquil in a way that bright sunny days never do. I think my Pisces rising and Scorpio stelliun are showing there a bit. 😂 But genuinely, I just get so much peace inside me listening to the rain and such intense sparkly joy when it snows. Especially times like this morning when it's too early for traffic or neighbors so all I hear is the patter-splash of the rain and the songs of the sparrows and cardinals and finches waking up in their hidden nests and shelter of the cedars and pines, voicing their feelings about cold rain before the leaves are fully formed on the trees to protect them. 

I'm getting close enough to first light though I won't sleep now.... I should get up and ch as the my phone and go shower now the rain has stopped (until the next cell of this front reached us) and there is only the twee-whoot call of a lone bird outside so that if the sky is gilded in colors between the clouds I won't miss my morning's sky painting. If I could sleep across sunrise then that would be the best choice given I have brunch plans followed by symphony and don't wish to fall asleep during beautiful symphony pieces -- but we now have a winter weather advisory from 7p-10a and they're predicting 3-4" of snow on top of all this rain freezing once the temperatures drop. So I will come home right after symphony and if tired I can nap til the sunset hours before I make a late dinner and hygge it up at home! And whenever I choose to sleep, I can lay a fire to crackle while the beautiful white snow falls outside the balcony doors since the snow is all night and across the morning! O and some music, I do want something to hug itself around the silenced and the fire sounds, I'll have to figure out what but if Spock gets any say in the matter the cat will want piano music. He always wants piano music, I've never met a cat made so happy by piano playing as Spock.  *happy sigh* a week of early summery sunshine to bud and burst the world into chartreuse and a gorgeous sunny blue skies morning for first Dane County Farmers Markets if the season around the Capitol square and then evening heat lightning and thunderstorms to drop the temperatures and then the peaceful light rain with birdsong in the wee hours of early morning as the temperatures descend into the cool comfort of the rainy mid 50s and then cozy delicious food/cocktails with good friends I've know for over a decade now and then cozy warm inside with beautiful instrumental compositions played by a full symphony avoiding the bone chilling damp and then safely home to hygge and watch the beautiful snow by the side of a fire!!! O but I am a spoiled elvish weather witch to get to live in a world that gives me such beauty and gentleness and variety of an April weekend when so easily now that the jet stream is so unstable I could be at the savage mercies of the dramatic weather flooding and fires and mudslides all over the world at this time. I recognize and feel gratitude that I am blessed and protected and spoiled  even when the world is in a time of chaos and rapid accelerated change as Gaia tries to rebalance and heal from the damages done to her.  

And after my shower, while the kettle boils to make a sunrise cuppa tea for myself, I shall check the hourly forecast to find when the fairfolk dance of joy and gratitude for the gift of life giving water will start up again and if the almost discernible melodies around the rhythms of the rain will wait long enough for some visible sky painting this sunrise.

Have a lovely wonderful Sunday, however you fill it! It doesn't have to be in the elvish pantheist fée joyous gratitude from a tranquil playful heart ways of rain and sun and trees and birdsong and flowers and a feast with friends and hours of symphonic beautiful compositions and then the homey hygge of reading with a snifter of whiskey beside a fire in the fireplace with nowhere to have to go while the snow gently falls outside that I have planned for my Sunday. it's okay to be jealous wish you were here for the peaceful play and relaxing beauty of my Sunday, if it weren't my Sunday magic but I heard of it from someone else it was their wyrd I'd be wishing it were my own, but I hope you find joys in the Sunday you have before you with whatever happiness you choose to fill it with. 

 

O right! I figured out what the crows were on about earlier this week! I forgot to explain it, didn't I? Damn craziest thing!!!

 Apparently, not only my crows have been worried about me, but the hawk god too.... All this week we had unseasonably summery weather for April in Wisconsin (sunny and highs around 80) which is dropping like 40 degrees when the arrives tonight and then by tomorrow night it's down to 28F and up to 2" of snow.... Right so on Tuesday, I decided after breakfast that I'd go outside to sit on the balcony to read (my current poetry is Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass, selections from which I had to read in college American Lit course but I never read in entirety because it's ridiculously long; And then this week my at home book has been alternating chapters of John Steinbeck's the Pastures of Heaven which I've never read before with parts of David Hume's Dialogue on Natural Religion which is thus far my least favorite work of Hume; my purse book is Bernal Diaz's Conquest of New Spain which is a first hand account of Cortes' mission to conquer the Aztecs for Spain.)

 

So I spent Tuesday morning after breakfast just sitting on my balcony in the sunshine reading and sipping coffee then bancha green tea while Spock glared at me because now the dog is dead, the cat thinks that as the senior pet of the household he should get to join me on the balcony as the dog used to.

So all that morning, my crows (who I don't feed because of condo association rules about bird feeders) were keeping an eye on me and Jon Snow came over twice to say hi and to sit on the balcony edge bring me two new pinecones and a feather and caw chat at me.  So then later that morning, while sitting here, a hawk flew up right into the choke cherry tree and sat on the branch not even 5ft from me, Literally right behind/next to me in this tree: 

 This gorgeous hawk, of a kind I'd never seen before, he sat there preening itself and bobbing it's head at me amicably and very loudly asking me, "where have you been young lady?!?!" and it only flew off when some of my neighbors came outside the other door and startled it. I didn't dare reach for my phone to get pictures with it so close because I didn't want the light reflecting off my phone to startle it and make it attack, because wild hawks you don't know are still very much wild beasts no matter how friendly they seem. It flew up from underneath the branches, skimming low along the ground and then just popped up next to me on the branch.  The funny thing about it is that I had absolutely no idea what kind of hawk it was, I've never seen one like it before -- definitely not the typical red tail hawks and red shoulder hawks we most often around here and who are the ones that normally come visit me at work. When it first flew towards me swooping down near the ground before flying up into the tree to land near me, I just saw the blue-grey blur of it thought it a bluejay except it was far too large for a bluejay being nearly the size of grey parrot. But then once it was sitting there, I could see that it was DEFINITELY a hawk with a curved raptor bill and its upper body was blue-grey with no obvious markings other than some darker grey bars across the lighter grey chest. It was one of the largest hawks I've ever seen up close, I've actually never had ANY wild hawk that near me, only trained peregrines with a falconer working with them, and this hawk in the tree right near me had the most stunningly bright amber red orange colored eyes I've ever seen in a bird. I'm still baffled by it tbh. According to an internet search of hawks in Wisconsin, it looks like it would have been a male northern goshawk -- but they're very quiet secretive boreal woodland hawks that avoid people. So what it was  doing circling near me instead of nesting in the woods I don't understand. They've never been sighted or confirmed by DNR in Dane County, most of them are north half of the state where the large undisturbed forests are nearer Lake superior, but there's no other hawk it could possibly have been based on the massive size (almost as big as an eagle) and coloring of the body that blue-grey  and intense red-orange dark amber eyes.

After that first chat when it flew off because the neighbors startled it and it didn't want the other humans to see it in the tree, I saw it a couple more times after that flying to come back, but the crows chased it away quickly those two times before it could get near enough to land again. (Crows chase off hawks so the hawks don't eat the chicks in the nests.) I would guess the presence of the Northern Goshawk in the area is what had them all so loud in the predawn the other day and have been so overprotective checking in on me these last several days. I'm a bit big for a hawk to try to eat, but I appreciate that the crows were worried enough by it's presence to want to make sure the goshawk hadn't eaten me.  

So then right before I was heading back inside, the goshawk came back the same low flying stealth route to land on the branch near me and was being friendly but THIS time the crows saw and they sat nearby in all the trees and on the roof, about half dozen of them circling the hawk. And it looked so sad and miserable and asking me for help. So I called aloud, "Jon Snow! Come here!"  So he came and swooped to land on the balcony, furthest corner from the hawk and thus not near me. And he was glaring at the hawk and cawing and sidling along the balcony. And I just gave them a lecture that all are welcome near me as long as they don't harm each other and that Jon Snow knows my rules but since this new goshawk didn't, I would tell him that as long as he didn't hunt from my tree or in my garden at work and he didn't attack the crows or try to eat the crow babies in their nests he was welcome by me and the crows would keep their peace unless attacked by the goshawk, because if they didn't I would consider it an attack upon me from my crows since this hawk was my guest friend. I warned him of the red tail hawk territories claimed nearby and wished him good luck finding his own space in the small woods nearby. He tanked me and plucked a feather to drop on my balcony before leaving and Jon Snow was sheepish and upset and I told him I lvoed him and he wa sfamily but he still had to be polite now that the goshawk introduced himself and only if the goshawk breaks the peace attacks the crows can he mount a murder against the hawk friend. The hawk has come to visit since as my crows have this week but the raucous ruckus has stopped and they don't chase each other. Mostly ignore each other now and the crows won't approach while the goshawk is in the tree but almost as soon as he leaves they gather over by me to swoop and tell me everything on their minds and gift me little gifts.

I did not see either goshawk or crows this morning though. I got home a little before 1am from Milwaukee where I'd gone to see STARS at Shank Hall, and then I stayed up all night reading to go meet up with Crissy and my mom for Farmer's Market (my mom came with to get some more Flat Stanley pictures at the first Farmer's Market and at the state capitol building -- my nephew Jack sent us a Flat Stanley for a school project and since he didn't go to Panama, we've been taking him on a Madison based holiday visit.) I did however, see a massive doe this morning! On my drive between home and work, right at the curve of Island by Owen Woods near the crossroads where i once saw a massive black dog ghost that wouldn't let me past it to go back toward work but after growling to attack when I tried to go back to check on it thinking it might be an injured actual dog, it disappeared from where it was standing guard under a street light as I was watching it in my rear view mirror. Anyway, I love those words but they're uncanny and I encounter a LOT of unexpected wildlife in that area. And this morning, it was a deer that did NOT like Lady Gaga (I had my windows down and the radio switched from Queen Need Somebody to Love me to Lady Gaga Poker Face and as soon as it went to Poker Face, the deer ran across about two car lengths in front of from right to left to disappear into the woods. I slowed down to an absolute crawl looking everywhere for more because usually when you see one deer there are 1-3 more but this was the only one left to cross the road -- the others were deeper in the woods while I was looking all around. The funny thing is there was a person walking about a block ahead of where it happened heading the same way as me, had no idea there had even been any deer except that another pedestrian walking toward me had seen it and while I was not moving checking for more deer to be certain not to hit one he yelled at me, "Who knew deer weren't lady Gaga fans? I've never seen one book it so fast." At which point the person walking the same way I was heading whipped around to ask, "Deer? There was a deer here?! Where?!" It was quite funny and I pointed into Owen Woods and explained and added they were long gone now.

But so anyway, no goshawk and no crows this morning (well, crows related to Jon Snow came to check on me once I was down by the square, he originally came from a nest in a tree on the Capitol square)but I did have a deer cross my path from right to left.

I should look up the symbolism of hawks/goshawks animal guides. Crows and deer often cross my path so I only look their symbolism up when they do something particularly unexpected to make sure I'm not missing a nuance in it. If you spend a lot of time with me, you get used to the way that animals, even wild animals I've never encountered before,  appear around me, completely unafraid and tame and intelligent as if they understand me. It's gotten me called "Disney princess" and "elf" many many times in my life after people witness things I consider normal that other people say are just wyrd and not how wild animals typically interact with humans.

Okay, back to working now and smiling at my flowers I bought myself at market from Lewiston Perennials! Just wanted to share. trying to get a ton of hours in today despite the heat lightning thunderstorms coming tonight to cool down some over 52 degrees in the next 24-36hrs, even though I'm rather tired, because tomorrow I have boozy brunch plans with Crissy, Denis, and Karissa reservation at Cento for 11:30 before matinee of this month's Madison Symphony Orchestra (guest violinist I believe.)  Crissy, Denis, and I have been doing symphony season tickets together for like 6 or 7 years now and we switch off years as a round culture so that we can always have the "new season ticket holder" discount. This year Karissa decided to try joining us (she paid me just for hers when I ordered as it was my year to order for the 22-23 season)  but said she doesn't like classical music enough to want to join us again next year (Crissy's year to buy) though she would join us any time we had an extra ticket. But anyway. Tomorrow is boozy brunch followed by matinee of symphony weekend (options are Fri night, Sat night, and Sun matinee and you can switch after you order up until day of if need be; like if a favorite band form Montreal who you've loved since 2007 are playing in Milwaukee on the fri night of original tickets) and then the rain is supposed to change to mixed precipitation and snow right around the time we're heading back from downtown. and it's like 1-3" of snow projected over very wet slick roads of water/flash flooding turning to ice... And not worth heading to work then having to head home. So I'll likely just head home post symphony and enjoy the snow being super hygge at home. Maybe lay a fire in the hearth. highs in low 80s all week, even today, and snow on Sunday and Monday morning. Welcome to April in Wisconsin, lol. The snow will be pretty all around my blooming daffodil at least....

And then Weds heading to Minneapolis to go see Alasdair Fraser (Scottish fiddle) and Natalie Haas (Scottish cello) for an evening of beautiful fiddle/cello tunes at The Cedar Cultural Center! Then on Friday is Dave Howley's solo show at ICHC (Irish Cultural heritage Center) in Milwaukee. And then next Sunday after that is Fraser & Haas at ICHC at 4pm -- so Crissy and I are going to Milwaukee Art Museum and have tickets to the special exhibit In Bloom (flower art/sculptures) at 10:30am and I have an art museum membership. And then from art museum back to ICHC on Sunday at 4pm.

I promised Rory (amazing Celtic-bluegrass banjo/mandolin player, he also does the sound mixing for ICHC shows; ICHC is a converted old church so amazing acoustics and a bar in the back) that after he's done packing up and clearing front of house for both shows next weekend that I'd stick around (with Amy one night and Crissy the other) at the bar in the back of the church/venue for a drink and a chat and sometimes private session if musicians desire.  Not sure that Dave will want that, but maybe he will, I make Dave nervous even when he's dating other women but he always wants me to stick around -- and I'm rather anxious about if Dave asks my opinions about his new album and I have to remind him his recordings are unlistenable for me due to how my color-timbre synesthesia perceives Siobhan's vocals even in background/harmonies given he's been dating her and living with her and loves her voice and she produced his solo album AND has vocal layers on every track he has shared off his solo album...But that's a problem for Friday me how the interactions with Dave will go on the day of his solo album release amns hi Milwaukee show, not tonight, lol. And I've never met Alasdair or Natalie 9though I have met her sister Britney who is a fiddle player, lives in Nashville and a member of Hawktail with Paul. But being in the bar with a drink and talking to Rory and/or each other won't be a problem, if the musicians want a private session we just leave them to hang out with Rory and the bartender and it's cool. Literally with Drowsy Lads, it was the guys and Rory and the bartender and Brooke Billick (a photographer friend who specializes in live shows; he is now photographing and reviewing artists/live show for Bluegrass magazine) and then me and Crissy and Amy who were asked to stick around to join/create harmonies for the singing of the session because John had been talking voice training/technique with me after he brought up having ruptured his voice completely from shouting on stage after I was bemoaning how whooping caused my laryngitis every fest season and that was how he found out Crissy and I both sing and his voice was getting sore after two 50mins sets with an intermission and then also encore. Sight reading an old not well known tragic love ballad that John was trying to work out a bouzouki part on it for performing the song, a song I'd heard once and Crissy never and we only had a lyric sheet with no staff notation or chords written down, but I promised her that if he could help pick the part as he knew it I remembered the melody well enough from the time I heard it once years ago that she could harmonize around me as long as I could read the lyric sheet (upside down from my spot across the table.)  And all of the members of Drowsy Lads loved what we did and had scribbled down notes as fast as they could and one of them had recorded the last half to two-thirds after listening to what we were playing around with cut them off mid conversation but they asked us to repeat the first part of it and we just laughed and laughed as I explained we were just messing around didn't remember what we had done because I'd only heard the song once before and Crissy never so this was my first time ever trying to sing it from that past memory years ago and a lyrics sheet and a half learned bouzouki part while she'd just been harmonizing around my part because we sing together harmonies with my car karaoke whatever is on the radio all the time on long drives so she knows how I sing parts and where I'm likely headed. We tried and the singer of Drowsy Lads told us we're working on it at sessions with him next time we see him or he'll pull us onstage make us work it on mic with him harmonizing around his memory of what I'd sung with his mando part. So there's that. But that's an August problem -- and I don't even know the proper name of the song and will have to look it up from what I remember of the lyrics which I've only heard/read twice now with many years between, lol. Or I could ask John now that we're past St. Patrick's month when all the Irish musicians are busy beyond belief.