The crows have a lot to say this morning.... And it's their warning danger caw pattern. One of them came and sat on my balcony cawing danger at me til I went over to see what he was on about them Bobbed his head three times at me. When I went to go open the balcony door to talk to him, he started up the danger caw pattern again started hopping about. So I laughed held up my hand said, "Alright alright! Stay hidden, stay safe. I hear you loud and clear! Don't worry, my plan was to read and introvert recharge all day until I came to find out what the murder was on about." Then it smoothed it's hackles, nodded it's head at me three times again making the happy crow chuckle-purr sound with a happy little hop. And then it turned around and sat on my balcony railing alert and guarding body language watching everyone and everything. The only time it stopped was when another crow came to take it's place to keep guard. 

Also. Waffles was hackles up growling at the new neighbors when they were in the hall in and out of their unit with their dog all morning until she got tired at being yelled at for being impolite and took herself back to bed. That was before the crows started up though. And Spock has been curled on my lap quite protective since I sat back down after making a cuppa tea after seeing what the crows were on about. 

Something major is up today and I don't know what or why.... Fate lines are all a tangled mess and my precogs are all opaque. And the crows are on high alert. And my inner compass is swinging pretty wildly with the overthinking self doubt telling me quite practically that there's nothing ACTUAL there between Eric and me so I need to let go move on accept reality as it IS and ignore my heart and look elsewhere, look where I'm wanted and invited and chosen and put my energy into building there. It's probably the same sort of overthinking brain lying to me as the other day about the body dysmorphia. But also it's an overthinking that speaks truth and twists in the doubt like a knife where it knows how to hurt deepest. *shrugs* heart and soul know what they know insist it is truth in defiance of logic and practical real world evidence in the 3d. I'm not acting on either what the (sometimes lying) brain logic says or putting any deeper faith in the steady stubborn heart knowing. I am choosing non action at this time because I don't trust I know what right action is in regards to him. But I do know the difference between me feeling unwelcome due to the choices of Liz and his sister to even be a fan of the band, that even showing up at a show I feel guilty transgressing the boundary created the moment that someone hit block from the band's account. And I know how different that feeling of being unwelcome and crossing a boundary just listening to any songs feels from the open armed welcome and invitations and asking me to be there and to join and spend the time sharing the moments and the music and the joy of the craic, from literally everyone within the Irish music community for nearly two decades now. Emma the other night is just the most recent occurrence of it. It's literally what happens pretty much every time I ever have a chance to share space/time with anyone from the Irish music community. They recognize the shining fey wyrd honesty in me and they love me BECAUSE of it and they intentionally seek me out invite me to stay and enjoy the craic with them. It even happened when I was in Ireland ended up attending a wedding at the castle we were staying at because I had turned down the father of the bride and the groom trying to get me to stay because I'd only been checking emails and hours on the main computer but when the bride herself invited me to the reception to toast to their health and happiness, and it was the third invitation, how could I say no? Had a lot of whiskey that night and kissed more than one of the groomsmen who were there without dates, lol. Great craic! Got an earful from the group when I did show back up at our rental house from being up at the castle so late. Apparently, "there was a wedding reception And I tried to say no but the third to ask me to come drink open bar whiskey celebrate with them was the bride" was not a good enough reason for not letting them know what was taking me so long. Also had to be up early the next morning as I was the only driver listed on the rental to take us to Galway area to visit the Cliffs of Moher, but it was great craic at that wedding. And I mean, when the three most important people of the reception all invite you, how could I not say yes to some open bar whiskey and to toast the happiness of strangers who welcomed me into their celebration just because I was there in the front entrance lobby of Adare Manor? It's not just the musicians you know, it's all the Irish I've met everywhere I went in Ireland and everywhere I've met them. They see my shiny wyrd fey honesty, and they love it and always invite me ask me to stay and make memories and spin bright joy with them..... They see me qua me and immediately open arms ask me to stay let me know they would choose to keep me around and be friends. 

So I know the huge gulf of distance between feeling unwanted/unwelcome and to feeling chosen and loved and invited to stay as long as I possibly can. I know the way I feel unwelcome by Eric's band as a result of the choice made in October 2018 and the victim blaming some of their diehards engaged in when I just tried to bring up about the block both in 2018 and again in 2019. And I know the way I feel included and wrapped in love and welcomed and repeatedly asked to stay when it comes to the Irish, especially Irish musicians. And I know that a smarter less stubborn girl than me would stick to choosing the light and love where I am wanted and welcomed with open arms and asked to stay -- and that would be seeing where things go with Keith (who fb keeps suggesting first of all the suggestions for me to add as a friend.) But I'm not smarter and less stubborn than I am. I'm just me. So for now, I am choosing non action toward Eric because I don't know what right action IS anymore since I'm not welcome in core central parts of what his life is built around, I haven't known since October 2018 when I was made to feel unwelcome and unwanted and that even trying to be a fan of the music was crossing the created boundary of wanting the band to not exist to me.... I don't know if I should listen to my head or my heart for me to hear the truth about him and his choices. So I am choosing non action toward him right now, I won't let me pull away at all but I won't trust that I ought to try to move closer either. Instead, I am going to do my damnedest not to think about people/places where I'm made to feel unwanted and unwelcome and instead I will let the people/places where I am wanted and chosen and invited and desired draw me to their light and love and I will be found there if anyone is looking for me. So I AM focusing my energy and time being present with those who want and invite and choose me. that's not about turning away from any hope but just acknowledging how busy and people-y my next while is so I'm all about investing what energy I have to be extroverted on fully being present and caring in the moments and opportunities the world opens to me. To be there for the people who want me enough to choose me and be clear enough to ask for and invite the interactions. Right now while I have so much in the calendar, everything that isn't any part of someone choosing me and wanting me and inviting me being clear they want to share time/space with me while we can, that's all part of the back burnered "not present in this moment so it doesn't get my focus or attention which is for who/what IS choosing to be here now."

Luckily, my plans for today are to stay home for introvert recharge between all my overabundance of peopling and read and drink tea until I get sleepy or hungry or feel I ought to be productive and then take care of those needs. And my plans tonight are to go to work at some point before heading to my parents house to have dinner then catch up on dvred figure skating with my maman while my da is at friends playing cards. I have a vague idea to stop by the pet store to get some more dog food and use a $5 off coupon for any Stella & Chewy product. But the coupon expires tomorrow and if I don't go today I can go tomorrow. 

So whatever danger has my crow family all riled up today, I'll listen and stay safely hidden in my introvert bubble while they deal with it. It's what I was planning to do anyway today, lol.

 Home from an absolute amazing day that went extra late because Emma multiple times invited us to make sure we joined them for drinks across the street at the Ambassador Hotel (yes THAT Ambassador Hotel and yes I cleansed the fuck out of it after I learned that's where ICHC pays for musicians to stay after Dave invited me and some other people for drinks and my hackles went up fight reflex as I approached; now only friendly ghosts remain on premises) and some impromptu acapella session harmonies of Irish songs with Emma and the band and some other core Irishfests people like Rory who ran sound for them at a bunch of their shows. I didn't take any video of our harmonies all together, but they were gorgeous enough that several band members did. Alec and Hannah and Kyle and the drummer (whose name I can't remember but who I know ive met before touring with someone else but between us we couldn't figure out when or who) all surreptitiously took video of the song circle while keeping their parts going. 

It was incredibly beautiful!!! We had 7 women and 6 men with ranges across all different parts so did some interesting harmonies on the choruses. And I loved being a part of it!!! I really really love sessions and singing together over drinks by invite of the performers to wind down post shows! One of my favorite things in the Irish music community!!! Even if it means not leaving the hotel bar til 2am closing time to then drive back from Milwaukee to Madison, lol.

I told you, the Irish and I, we just click. They are just very much my people and they get me and I get them. And they always always always love and accept me and all my shiny wyrd fey honesty and love me for it.

 I did take a picture of Emma's last two Polaroids of this tour, one of just the band and then one of all of us, lol. 

Also, Hannah (I think that's her name?) who played keys with Emma on this tour is an even bigger Billy Joel fan than me, which is really hard to find, and it came up organically multiple times in the show then afterward. O have never met anyone who I can geek out THAT much about Billy Joel with, lol. She said that she'd be tempted to fly back from Cork to see another Billy Joel show, but only if I'd also fly with her to go see one of his shows with Sting opening, lol. She also asked Emma if they're coming back stateside for Irishfests season and if they can fly in Aug 10 so she can buy tickets to see Billy Joel in Wales on the 9. She also got the horizontal white and navy stripe memo (on her skirt) so we decided that was now the official look for the Emma Langford Show Friends Billy Joel Fan Club. 😆

Also. For the record. When I said I was having body dysmophia issues today, these are cropped to be just me from the pictures Amy took of her, Crissy, and me at our VIP table front and center. Both without and then with Guinness pints for scale, lol. 

And like , this is from the bathroom at the art museum, in my wool coat even, I had Crissy take because I want to do a side by side picture comparison to one of me another friend took back during college when I was putting lipstick on underneath an Andy Warhol quote sticker.

Me having body dysmorphia issues at all this morning, especially when I look almost identical to how I looked in college and still wear clothes I owned in high school is fucking ridiculous. I know. I'm a size xs/s between a 0-6 depending on cut and how the boobs are sized because my bra size is a 28H and I have hips. So not actually any real REASON to have body dysmorphia over having a bit of an oatmeal filled tummy his morning. But even with the dysmorphia, I still put on horizontal stripes because it's what I precogged me wearing to see Emma tonight. 

Like, I acknowledge I didn't have good reasons for it.... But also, body dysmorphia hating the way all your clothes are fitting you is a very real thing... Even if you say "eff it, I'm beautiful and I'm gonna go shine" doesn't mean you didn't hate the way everything was fitting/looking on you before you hit the "eff it" point lol. Just because I haven't been TRYING to be fit because I only enjoy exercise when it's fun doesn't negate all the years of ballet and drama and martial arts and Irish dance and the body ideals they taught me I should be trying to fit into to be fit or the "right" body type and thus shaped the self critical opinions I hold about myself and the shape I let myself be in when I'm not trying ... Brains are fucking weird and stupid and sometimes they lie to us when they run away with negative thought patterns. And self criticism body dysmorphia is real, especially in women. Even those of us who don't wear any makeup and say "eff it, I'm wearing the horizontal stripes I precogged me wearing with the plaid skirt and I'm going to shine my inner joy from the soul level so I look amazing in it!!"

Brains are cruel. They just are sometimes. You just have to fight them back, tell them to shut up and they can't steal your joy and you're going to go out have a brilliant time and ignore the intrusive thoughts until they go away.

 I hate hate HATE the times when I stand staring at my closest thinking I hate everything I own and don't want to wear any of it.... And invariably this happens when my precogs are opaque and I can't cheat to get even a glimpse of future me to know what I wear...... Grumph! 

I do have to figure out something other than this bra and fleece lined leggings so I can finish getting ready then finish my coffee and the rest of this chapter (non-fiction so there's a subject break I stopped at) before I have to go drop the dog off so I can pickup Crissy as soon as she's done with her di training so we can pickup Starbucks to head out of town to meet Amy at the Milwaukee Art Museum (she has never been) before dinner before the Emma Langford show at ICHC. That's the plan. 

And I have TRIED cheating a precog of me in the car, at the museum, at dinner, and at ICHC and no luck..... Well, I did precog one possibility for ICHC, but it could be a different time at ICHC since I have two more shows there coming up in the next month or so, but I haven't tried it on yet because...actually I don't have a good reason I haven't tried it yet other than stubborn cussedness to find something else  Eventually I will give up and try it and I will probably hate it less than everything else I have tried. 😆  But I'm still stubbornly trying on other things and getting frustrated instead of listening to the answer I already got when I tried to precog cheat.

This would be easier if I hadn't decided to eat such a big bowl of oatmeal for breakfast that I have a visible food baby and it's causing body dysmophia dislike of the lines of everything I have tried to put on. I'll get over it, I have no choice unless my plan is to go out in public in only leggings and a bra...which sounds exceedingly cold in January in Wisconsin...even with a coat... But right now, I gave up on clothes entirely and went to check my phone for texts of timelines and drink more coffee and pout. The pouting and coffee are clearly crucial to the getting ready.... Obvs.

P. S. Update: put on the outfit I saw me wearing. Don't hate it on me at all. 😂 Looks quite good. Even if it is plaid with stripes. 

So I hopped over to Facebook briefly to check in a couple meteorologists to see how hazardous heading out might be later this afternoon. (I still haven't made coffee or breakfast, lunch now, and still have another 50pgs or so in the book but I'm so hungry now it's distracting me from reading) I had promised Waffles a long walk if it stayed warm enough, but 34F with drizzle/rain is miserable chill in the bones awful and liable to get us both sick so I told her not til the rain is past and so she took herself back to bed in her kennel and I went back to reading. (I did taker her outside obviously, but just around the circle not around the entire block -- and she was shivering teeth chattering by the time we made it back to the building; bare belly and all.) But anyway, I wanted to check in if it was liable to freeze up black ice or dip the temperature before going back above freezing. And while I was there, I decided to scroll a little and try to find something I liked to share. (As an introvert often permitting with my books and music and animals and tea, I make sure that I post beautiful/profound things on Facebook that make me happy so the people who care about me know I'm fine just introverting. I don't bother on other social media, but a lot of family and friends who are chosen family are on Facebook so it lets them know I'm alive and being a quirky hermit introvert Dani who will resurface whenever she's ready.) 

So I found this post from The Smart Witch (which I did share) and my heart just sort of resonated this really clear true tone recognizing, "THIS is what I was trying to articulate the other night and WHY it matters to me to want to know what he wants and how I could help him get closer to his greatest happiness or at the very least how I can make sure I don't get in his way of reaching his greatest happiness! THIS is what was promoting what I was trying to say!!! Exactly this!!" 

So here's the long quote:

"We really have to understand the person we want to love. If our love is only a will to possess, it is not love. If we only think of ourselves, if we know only our own needs and ignore the needs of the other person, we cannot love. We must look deeply in order to see and understand the needs, aspirations, and suffering of the person we love. This is the ground of real love. You cannot resist loving another person when you really understand him or her.

From time to time, sit close to the one you love, hold his or her hand, and ask, 'Darling, do I understand you enough? Or am I making you suffer? Please tell me so that I can learn to love you properly. I don't want to make you suffer, and if I do so because of my ignorance, please tell me so that I can love you better, so that you can be happy." If you say this in a voice that communicates your real openness to understand, the other person may cry.

That is a good sign, because it means the door of understanding is opening and everything will be possible again. 

Maybe a father does not have time or is not brave enough to ask his son such a question. Then the love between them will not be as full as it could be. We need courage to ask these questions, but if we don't ask, the more we love, the more we may destroy the people we are trying to love. True love needs understanding. With understanding, the one we love will certainly flower.” 

 - Thich Nhat Hanh,  Peace Is Every Step: The Path of  Mindfulness in Everyday Life

I haven't read that book. I've never actually read or picked up ANY books by Thich Nhat Hanh though I know many quotes of his and there are a lot of my friends swear by home for spiritual growth to become better versions of oneself. It's not that I don't desire to read his works, eventually, I just have so many many things I'm interested in and want to read that I never made his books a priority to buy and they haven't yet found their way to me in little libraries or used bookstores.... 

So I only know that quote in the context of the quote itself not the larger work. But my heart did the Khalil Gibran/Rumi singing out in recognition at another soul expressing a truth I felt but didn't know how to explain WHY it mattered. That quote, that's the WHY it matters to me that I learn and know what he ACTUALLY wants for himself instead of assuming, so I don't hurt him again by assuming something like he'd not be hurt my absence because he has set his heart on someone/something else and then later on I learn that me making me leave him hurt him deeply.... I want to KNOW that something like that would hurt him so I then won't do it to him assuming he won't care but in actuality hurting him deeply. Yes you can grow from such hurt and sometimes you have to learn the hard way, but also we could find a better way like reflecting and questioning and realizing, "O hey, this will hurt both of us and isn't what either of us want -- so maybe let's not, k?" 

That's the sort of love I wish to embody. The love that asks and then waits to hear the answers that are the beloved's truth.  The sort of love that tries with intention and compassion to understand the beloved and what they need/want/don't want -- because if you don't do that, if you only sit in a selfish or ego love that recognizes your own wants and your assumptions about what you think their wants might be without actually trying to understand their needs, that's when your love can end up destroying things or making them suffer even if accidentally. Because it's selfish and all wrapped up in your own ego and self and not trying to truly understand them from their own side, their own wants/needs. You have to ask and keep asking what their happiness needs so you can make sure you're listening rather than assuming, so your love doesn't become the source of the rationalizations/assumptions that cause the beloved to hurt and suffer. That's why it's the sort of love I wish to embody, the kind that asks and cares to learn the truth behind the big questions of what the beloved knows to be their meaning/happiness/desires and what is needed to make it real. 

That quote is another way of explaining the why of it, of wrapping the head around what is so obvious to the heart, at least to me. And yeah, I know it's the sort of thing must run both ways to work, but it is only over myself and my own actions and choices that I can have control to free will try to be better about. I can hope he would agree and also try for it, but still for my own sake I must ask the questions and listen for the answers that are the truth not assumptions and begin there. With what I can try to do to make things better than the ways they have been. Other people must live and die, sink or swim, by their own free will choices. But this is mine, to ask from a place of genuine desire to understand and to be willing to wait for the answers that are truth rather than my own fabricated assumptions/overthinking/rationalizations. It's what I have. And it's why I said what would help me most would be to learn his truths.

And I stand by what I have said -- knowing what he wants/needs for his own happiness and knowing what I can do to help get there (or at least what I shouldn't do because if I do it, it takes him further from what he's seeking) is what I need most for my own path of growth and healing and unlearning to learn to be better together in the future than we have been in the recent past. 

I should really go eat something though. I'm at a chapter break and if I don't eat something now, I know myself and I won't eat until I finish the book.... (I am not very good at taking care of my own self for my own self's sake: stoic "I can endure this for this too shall pass" streak + ADHD time blindness + ADHD hyper focus = really bad at taking care of my own time based physical needs. I am much better at taking care of others I love and taking care of myself for the sake of others than I am at taking care of myself for my own sake.... I know this truth about me.)

Some sunrise thoughts while my tea steeps

 You can't really see the sunrise today, there's a thick fog because it's right around freezing and high humidity so the snow sublimates right into vapor. But I know the sunrise is there. Even when I can't see it, my body knows it's there and I wake up in the predawn for the gloaming. Or I don't go to bed at all because I know I'll wake up for the dawn and be groggy cranky from the wrong amount of sleep of interrupted rem cycle so I figure I will just wait til the other side of the sunrise to rest. I don't know why, but my whole life this life, I find myself wide awake and watchful at the gloaming. I can go back to sleep afterward, but I can't sleep DURING the liminal hours of twilit when the day and night exchange places.... My parents and friends/family and exes always remember me as the early bird first one awake, but it's not that at all -- it's that I can't sleep across the gloaming so I wake up for dawn and depending on when I went to bed and what time I'm expected to do anything I decide to get up (or at least read in bed) or snuggle down to sleep after sunrise is finished. When I visit my sister's family in Seattle area during the winter months or when I visited the UK and Ireland in winter months, I always have had to set alarms to get me up and going because of how late the sunrise is. I also wake up extra alert at the sunset gloamings, but that's less obvious to people unless I was tired or taking a nap or something. I don't have an explanation for it, it's an instinctual response in me to be wide awake then -- though I have always heard from shamans and mystics and spiritual seekers and woo-woo new age types that the veils are all thinnest at the liminal hours of dusk and dawn. So maybe it's a protective spiritual response to what could come through when the doors between realms are widest. Also though, I can't say I mind at an aesthetic or a philosophical level that this life I never miss seeing a single sunrise or sunset. 

I like the winter fog this morning, for all it meant a gradual brightening to the grey but no vivid sky paintings for this dawn. It makes me feel like I live in a cloud or on a mountain. Granted it's a freezing fog and when I took the dog out last night around midnight, there was nearly invisible black ice coating everything that didn't have salt sitting directly on it. (Yesterday I stayed home all day with my fur babies because we had ice storm freezing drizzle all morning before it turned to snow. I definitely saw some neighbors fall trying to go anywhere in the morning. And then I considered heading to work later in the evening to get hours in during the night after I finished the slow cooker dinner I was making. But when I took the dog out late afternoon/evening, there was black ice and slush sloppiness everywhere and I saw multiple vehicles fish tail turning on/off or changing lanes on the well plowed and salted Gammon Rd so I said "O eff dealing with that!" And then I looked at the overnight forecast and it was freezing fog between 31-33F and I decided I didn't need to risk getting myself/dog/car seriously hurt by late night driving home on black ice from freezing fog.... 

So I went back inside and finished making my dinner of a spicy burrito stew (I had some older things to use up, a soft but no rot spots poblano, a bag of dried pinto beans I forgot about in the pantry because I've been using up CSA organic dried beans that was best by the fall, my last bag of local frozen sweet corn until farmers market starts again, two things of frozen pre seasoned taco meat and frozen pepper jack cheese that got buried in the work freezer instead of uses for a company meal and my mum told me to take it home while we were cleaning out the freezer on Tuesday. So I decided that with a poblano and pinto beans and taco meat and pepperjack cheese but no tortillas at home, I could make up a delicious spicy burrito soup (not really chicken enchilada or tortilla soup though because ground beef and beans and corn and rice) if I just added in an onion, some dried rice, my remaining box of beef broth, and some of my frozen stash of summertime surplus of my homegrown tomatoes and death peppers (habaneros, Trinidad scorpions, ghost peppers, and carolina reapers that I grew in pots all near each other and also near some sweet barons and poblanos and they all cross-pollinated; this year even my sweet peppers had heat and the spicy ones are INTENSELY hot but with some complex almost fruity flavors.) Flavors turned out incredible but it would be texturally better if I had been using fresher dried beans and frozen meat, not ones that I'd forgotten about til past their best by. Not bad, just texturally the meat was a little tougher and the beans a little drier than they ideally should be. That said, food multiples when I cook it and I have so much leftover soup in the fridge and freezer right now! Like, 8 or 9 more meals of soup without stretching it by like adding avocado or baking a squash or sweet potato/potato or tortillas/chips to go with the soup leftovers, lol. 

Honestly, any time I'm using the wok or frying pan or slow cooker, expect that I will end up with 2-5 times the volume I should..... Multiplying food is one of my specialties as a kitchen witch. That and my cooking always tastes like the mood I was in when I went to make it. If I cook when I'm sad, everything tastes excessively salty even if I don't add any salt to the dishes. If I cook when I'm angry or irritated, everything burns and glass shatters and sometimes metal pans fall apart and utensils either melt or get scorched or break in my hand. Seriously, never even let me attempt to boil water to try to make coffee or tea if I'm in a foul mood. If I'm in a bad mood, someone else cooks or order something in but don't let me any damn where near a kitchen until my temper breaks so I can reset. Not even to boil water or try to make tea or coffee.... It's not worth the broken cups, kettles, and coffee makers.... That said, when I'm happy (which is most of the time) I cook fucking amazing meals and in vast quantities even when I didn't start with much to put into it. You will never have anything as delicious as what I cook or bake while singing and dancing while I made it. You will also never be able to repeat the complexity of flavors I achieved even if you follow step by step exactly, I can't even do it unless you can get me back in the same head and heart space to make it again. I can literally cook the exact same thing every morning for breakfast for a week (usually veggies with eggs or when I have the makings and get cravings for it, breakfast quesadillas are one of my favorite things) and it will taste different every time.... My cooking just always tastes like my mood I was in while cooking it. Every time. It's just something to know about me, lol. Also, maybe don't give me any bad news or get me overthinking or stressed or upset me while I'm in the middle of cooking.... Ain't none of us want to eat the flavors of those emotions -- just save it til the meal itself not while I'm cooking, lol.  

Anyway. I didn't have anything to say other than quotidian catching up on the stillness of the sunrise and recent crazy weather and food. I just sometimes feel when I'm really centered and connected tranquil that even if I have nothing to say which is deep or IMPORTANT or an epiphany (I wanted an adjective form of epiphany, but epiphanic is definitely NOT an actual word, though in speaking I'd probably have just used my made up word and kept going) that sometimes there's just a need for a little bit of my stories and the every dayness... Just that little reassurance of "hi yes, I'm good here. No need to worry or miss me. Here, have lots and lots of words about nothing of overwhelming importance so you can't possibly miss me and my ridiculous wordiness." I don't know why, but sometimes I just get that sense in me of wanting anything at all rather than silence and it will be real strong inside me when I don't write here because I don't have anything new to say or to work out in word forms. So I figured I'd write a little note of my ordinary every day world and stories now before returning to my book I'm currently reading (Alphabet of Thorn written by Patricia A. McKillip; fantasy novel, under 300pgs, just started it this morning but I'm loving it very much can't put it down, I'm so happy I have it and saved my first read of it for today's vibe/mood -- at this rate, I expect to finish it before I head to work later today) and while waiting for my tea to cool (Nutcracker in New York green tea blend from Churchill's) and watching the grey-whiteness of the fog and fresh snow in gloaming grow brighter and brighter! 

Also, on a personal tangent, I'm very grateful for a couple days of gloomy fog and rain and snow in the forecast -- I quite stupidly forgot to put gloves on before I started cutting up death peppers for the soup last night and it's going to be a couple days til I can get contacts in and out again, lol. I got some pepper near my eye then automatically went to brush it off last night while cutting them up and so much searing pain I had to blindly set the knife down on the counter then eyes closed get to the bathroom to grab tissues to try and relieve the pain because my fingers were just spreading more pepper oils.... It was a solid five to ten minutes before I could get that right eye to open again without the fresh oxygen causing so much pain I had to close it again and press a fresh tissue against the eye to gather up all the tears of my eye trying to flush out the capsaicin oils.... I also got such bad aerosolized capsaicin chemical burns on the backs of my hand from the steam off the soup adding in other ingredients and stirring the soup that I couldn't use hot water at all to wash my hands or dishes until I has slathered on after sun balm and aloe vera gel on my hands.....  So anyway, even after using carrier oil and soap to try to get all the capsaicin off my fingers, I don't trust with how sensitive eyes are to capsaicin that just because my hands don't hurt, my eyes can handle it. I'm gonna be in my glasses, no contacts at all for me for the next couple days, lol. And a LOT of using butter and olive oil and balms that will bind to any remaining capsaicin oil on my hands then washed away with soap. (Soaps bind to oils, using a carrier oil that can grab onto capsaicin oil and bring it along with the soap is the best way to get the burning to stop. From a biochemistry perspective. Water of any sort will actually react to increase the burn... It's not actually the pH of milk or dairy that helps cool spicy burning, it's the lipids that help.) But there will be no putting my contacts in or taking them out til Saturday when I will need the peripheral vision correction for highway driving to Milwaukee.  Just in case.

Okay. That's words and plenty of them and reassurance via everyday stories about how I'm doing in this moment in time. As I hope you have realized after reading all this, I'm burbling over inside like a spring or fountain of cheerful happiness and the words are easy flowing through me. My typical me state when I'm not grappling with my overthinking or stoicism or exhaustion or need for introvert recharge time.  I hope you found all that reassurance in word form giddy and cloyingly bubbly like champagne to start off your day. Now I'm going to go put my phone to charge and then back to reading my book and drinking my cuppa tea now while the animals sleep. And after this cuppa tea I should probably make me set aside my book so I can have coffee and breakfast before back to reading -- I'll save the second steep of this tea for after the coffee is all done. Or I'll be too into the book to want to pause for eating food so second steep of tea first and more a brunch into lunch for coffee and eggs and veggies, lol. 

Have a beautiful wondrous magical day! Do something with your today to happy surprise yourself (or someone else) just because you can! The world and everyone in it always needs more happy surprises. Just make sure it IS a happy one -- there's already enough bad surprises in these interesting times. That's why the delight of happy surprises matter so much you see! So make an unexpected brand new happy surprise, for yourself or someone else, with the time and energy you've been given today! And if not springing the happy surprise, start it in motion today something for a future happy surprise. K? K! 

So. I think. That. Remember how I said what would help me more than anything is to know what he wants for himself this life? 

I still believe I would make fewer mistakes if I knew that. It would help me immensely. I always seem to go wrong when I assume things about what he wants. Which, I should try not to assume, I know, but also it's hard not to draw conclusions from whatever evidence you're given and yeah the conclusions will be wrong headed if you don't know or ignore crucially important things.... But nobody ever knows what they don't know and we all just make the best of what we can observe and what we've learned, y'know? Which is why knowing what he wants would be a better starting point for me than assuming about what I think he wants for his life.

But I think. What I actually want most to know is: 

What would bring you greater happiness in your life? And what (if anything) can I do to help that happen? (or at least what can I do so as not to hinder it or make it harder for you?)

Because. I think asking someone what they want or what they need for their greatest happiness is a big question. And there isn't always one answer to big questions. Often it changes. And sometimes what we think we want, we learn from experience isn't everything we hoped and thought it would be. And so maybe he doesn't know what he wants for his greatest happiness. Or maybe he can't put it into words. Or maybe it's contingent on too many things out of his control so he doesn't even know where to begin or how to get closer to it. 

But asking what would bring greater happiness than the current way things are, that's smaller more achievable. And maybe the question shouldn't be about happiness at all, maybe it should be contentment or meaning or the sense that everything is as it should be.... But I think all those things are also a part of ones greatest happiness and so if you know what is missing than you can get closer to greatest happiness. 

But the important part isn't just trying to know what would bring him greater happiness, it's the second part about wanting to know what I can do to help (or at least not hinder) making it real. So like, even if he doesn't know or care what would make him happier, it would help if I knew what actions or choices of mine would reduce his happiness as well as what I could do or say or choose to increase his happiness. 

Because. I don't have enough hubris to believe that my every action and choice affects his happiness, and sometimes I get so full of doubts that I question if ANYTHING that I say or think or do or choose could affect him. And maybe I ought to have a bit more hubris and a bit less doubts, but I'm just me and this is a little life not for the world but just for myself and those I love and who can love me just as I am. So I'm not going to pretend that I believe what I say or do or choose affects his happiness most of the time.... But I'd like to know when and where and how it does. So I can know how I can add more happiness and meaning and contentment to his life. And most of all because... I don't want to be guilty of doing things that snatch it away from him. I wouldn't want to knowingly hurt him, and I don't want to do things I genuinely don't think would hurt him only to find out later that it was actually something that hurt him quite deeply.... I'd rather know so I can avoid hurting him unintentionally. Because pain hurts just the same if it was unintentional, sometimes it hurts worse because you wonder, "how could they not know this would upset and hurt me?!" And the answer is people don't know what they don't know -- even intuitives and clairvoyants don't know or see everything. Trust me on that.... Knowing more and knowing things you couldn't possibly know isn't the same as knowing everything, mistakes and misunderstandings still happen even with strong intuition and clairvoyance in the mix. And so we all have to give grace of forgiveness as well as gift of truth speaking if we want to be sure they know. 

So I'd like to know, both how I can add to his happiness and how I can keep from detracting from it. Because it takes great vulnerability to let someone know the ways they can hurt you, it feels like giving away your power to let them in past your protective defenses, but I think there's greater power in deciding you can trust that once a person who cares knows how they can hurt you they will then actively try to make sure they never do hurt you that way. Or at least, never do again. 

I think there's a great power of love in knowing someone could break you and trusting them not to. And I think there's something very beautiful and powerful in being told, "this is how you could hurt me and break me" from a place of trust that once you know, you will make sure you never do that. And, I would like to earn that sort of trust and honesty. Especially since I feel like in his case, I seem to have the greatest power to hurt him exactly when and where I don't think I have any power and it won't affect him at all. And since I have never and would never knowingly hurt him, I think it's important I learn to know where those assumptions and blindspots cover pain I could cause him so I don't accidentally or unintentionally hurt him that way again. 

So I'd like to know these things. Because I'd like to be better and do better by him than either of us have done by each other so far this life. And I do realize knowledge is better than assuming, but you can't force someone else to tell you things and as long as they don't, all you got is observations and the conclusions/assumptions you can draw from what you have observed. So this is me formally saying I want to know these things so I can better help build towards greater happiness and avoid unwittingly doing harm or causing pain.

 Me: "O I'm just gonna be all cozy and hygge getting introvert recharge time from now til Spring planting/gardening season, la-dee-da-de-da!"

Also me (looking at my calendar tonight realizing how (relatively) limited my introvert recharge time ACTUALLY is) : "HOW is my calendar this full?! What happened to hygge cozy time at home just me and the books and the music and fur babies?!  How is Aquarius season the new Leo season for me socializing? How did this happen?! Dayumn!"

My actual schedule for definitely not being at home over the next (checks calendar) until early/mid March:

~1/27: Emma Langford @ ICHC (Milwaukee) 

~1/31: Flying Lovers of Vitebsk @ Overture Hall; Promenade Theatre I think (in Madison; there's like 5 or 6theatre spaces inside Overture Hall; Forward Theatre Company; two person show, one of them is Marcus Truchinski and he is so phenomenally great that he sells the show himself imho)

~2/2: Madison Opera presents The Anonymous Lover @ Overture Hall (don't know much about this one other than it's a famous black composer in the 18th century whose works were lost, it's in French, the music sounds like Mozart compositions when I listened to Minneapolis Opera's production from last year; we are waiting to purchase tickets on finding out from friends who play in orchestra/chamber and thus take on playing with opera if the soloists are pitchy or not since we don't know these soloists; but we likely will pick up the tickets)

~2/4: Cirque FLIP Fantastique @ Overture hall (Madison)

~2/7: Nickel Creek @ Overture Hall (Madison)

~2/9: Stardust Contemporary Dance @ Overture hall (Madison; in the Capitol Theatre)

~2/14: Les Misérables @ Overture hall (Madison)

~2/16: Talisk @ Celtic MKE (Wauwautosa, a suburb of Milwaukee)

~2/17: Drowsy Lads @ ICHC (Milwaukee; also accidentally double booked for first row to see Talisk at Stoughton Opera House that night; but Denis and/or Karissa want the tickets once offered so no worries)

~2/19-2/28: My parents will be in Panama (I will have both dogs and the cat at home; Sophie isn't supposed to come visit my condo and I don't know she and the cat would get along so I balance time house sitting with dogs at the house where I grew up, time at home at my condo with cat and maybe Waffles joining us while Sophie is at work during the day and me getting hours in at work with both dogs at work with me, lol)

~2/24: Madison Symphony at the movies: Pixar Scores @ Overture Hall

~3/2: Aoife Scott @ IAHC (Chicago; don't currently have tickets, waiting to see how Crissy's work schedules looks before money level commitment because of all the other shows)

~3/3: Aoife Scott @ ICHC (Milwaukee)

~3/5: The Coronas @ Empty Bottle (Chicago)

~3/6: The Coronas @Shank Hall (Milwaukee)

~3/9: The Simon & Garfunkel Story @ Overture Hall (Madison)

~3/17: Symphony @ Overture Hall (Madison)

And then I have nothing after that in my calendar right now for shows except April/May symphony dates. 

I still need to figure out if I'm going to see Fraser/Haas in Madison or Milwaukee or both in April. (Scottish fiddle and cello; gorgeous instrumental playing! Crissy can't make it due to both shows being during state DI and so I need to pick up my tickets and figure out if Sarah/Mikaela or Karissa or Denis or anyone wants to come.)  Also haven't picked up or added in either the Madison or Milwaukee Gaelic Storm tickets (I think one of the shows is with High Kings, the MKE show maybe, and the other just them?) but they're in the middle of the Aoife Scott and Coronas shows I believe so I need to talk to Crissy and Maddie and Amy about that and then let Karissa know what we decide in case she wants to join us.... And I don't have tickets yet for the rescheduled date for Bailen at Majestic, I think maybe that's in late March? But they're gen ad so it's not urgent I buy immediately.  O and I haven't even broached with Crissy or anyone else which dates we are maybe considering that aren't conflicts for Skerryvore dates in the area in like March-ish...

None of those are yet moved mentally from potential/probable to likely or beyond that to tickets purchased mental categories, lol. Most of my mid or late March/April shows are mentally tentative not tickets purchased level commitment. That said, once we're past mid-March though, I ACTUALLY don't have anything in my calendar but appointments for my grandma to take her to and the couple of symphony dates. At least not yet. But somewhere in the Spring is when I'll be figuring out the summer/fall APT season tickets with people, lol.

So anyway. Yeah. I know I genuinely believed so I said I'm going to be such a stay at home hermit, but I'm having a hard time seeing that become reality with that many shows and plans already in the calendar between now and the equinox... Ooft. How did this happen?! I better prioritize introvert time when I can this week, lol.

How am I THIS bad at introvert recharge time when outside of music/dance/theatre/musicals/sports and travel related to those all I tend to do outside of working is read and garden and hike and write and dance/martial arts and sketch/paint.... Like, I don't go out to bars unless there's a show I'm there to see and I don't have any dating apps (never have) because I don't have enough time for casual dating -- you need to actually matter to me for me to set aside time to spend with you make me believe you're not just a waste of my time.

Like, I said back in July that once I was past mid-October life was slowing down so I should have fall/winter going to be my re-charge time and yet that still hasn't happened much and here I am looking at all those plans during my "introvert recharge time" that doesn't look very introverted to me.... How as an introvert, one of the most introverted introverts I've ever met because I don't get lonely if I don't see anyone for days/weeks/months, am I THIS bad at introverting?! What the what?! 

And actually, for me, this is pretty light for concerts/shows travel plans in March... March tends to be my Irish/Scottish/Celtic season because St. Patrick's Day month is when they can make bank touring the states.  Fucking ridiculous....I'm really going to have to rethink about calling myself a sociable introvert at this rate. Because that is NOT the schedule of an introvert.... 

That said, we have ice glaze followed by wet slushy snow coming in late tonight/tomorrow morning -- so depending on how well the roads get cleared my plan for tomorrow DAY is introvert recharge time cozy at home and if the roads are bad in the evening I may not head to work until some point on Weds and just give myself a cozy at home day. I'd rather have well below freezing and snow then right around freezing sloppy ice mix as far as driving goes because other drivers don't know how/when to react to swerves/fish tails/under or over correcting on slush stuck in their tire grooves reducing traction and ice slides coming at you fast...  Like, it's all weather that's cold enough you bundle up regardless and whatever the hard pack black ice traction situation IS, it ain't changing when it's under about 18F. But slushy/icy mix/wet sloppy gets in your tires and the road conditions vary rapidly between sun and shade and salt or no salt and the roads are just a fucking mess before you add in the hazard of unpredictable other drivers.... I prefer snow/ice hard pack with sand at under 15F over a sloppy mixed precipitation hovering in the 5 degrees either side of 30F.... So I may just stay at home cozy with a fire all day/night tomorrow if the roads/drivers are slippery-stupid. On verra. 

Also, today Waffles had SUCH Spring Fever full speed on the snow/ice zoomies because it was 30F instead of -3F (or lower) like it's been the last week since the 2ft of snow arrived. She still has minor chillblains/frostbite on her belly and inner thighs (she has standard dachshund bare belly/inner legs... I'm going to look into getting her a belly bib and/or the full leg length suspender style booties for next winter as well as her sweater/puffer coats.... Because anywhere her bare skin touches snow for her to squat to pee, she's got painful red rash like patches where her bare skin touched the snow. She's just, as a standard dachshund-beagle-Jack Russel terrier mix born in Texas raised in Seattle area, she's NOT physically designed for the super cold with snow touching her naked mole rat level of fur bare skinned tummy/chest/inner thighs.... So for now I'm putting paw guard wax/lotion on the areas at risk and before next winter I will buy her more layers than her winter coats to better protect her belly/legs/paws.)

But also. How can an introvert bookworm who doesn't go out to bars/clubs unless there's a concert I want to see and without internet except on my phone at home (social media is like junk food to me, I mindlessly consume if I have it around but if I don't have it at home I never miss it) or any dating app distractions be THIS bad at introverting?! Like this is some sort of weird gift to be this over committed when you're an introvert bibliophile writer not currently involved in any productions or classes, even if you're a sociable introvert not a misanthropic introvert, who generally prefers spending her time with trees and flowers and the stars and snow and water and wild animals than humans.... I mean HOW have I managed this many "tickets purchased level of commitment" shows in my calendar during me "not very busy" winter hygge months?! How did that even happen though?!

P. S. This is completely unrelated to the above. But it's a bright happy with me tonight so I thought I would share.

There's a really beautiful melody in my head tonight and I don't recognize it as being any song I can place.... It's definitely a song of love that's gentle but clear strong and something that's not quite a waltz rhythm or a Brahms lullaby but has that FEEL without the rhythmic signature. And something that is reminiscent of All I Ask of You from Phantom of the Opera -- but not musically like that song because it isn't the same progressions or melody or rhythm at all at all, it just FEELS a similar sense to the lyrics/flow/meaning of that song. But the main feeling that comes through it is light and love and brightness and clarity. But just via the music of the melody in it. Annoyingly, it feels like the melody I'm hearing is the melody for the words in it not the instrumental parts and that there ARE words that go with this flow of music I keep hearing/humming but the words themselves are just out of my reach to hear/know so right now I only have the melodic line of  what the words are singing playing through my head. It's really gorgeous! I just feel like I'm missing the message/meaning and much of the beauty of this song playing inside me by hearing only the music part of it and not (yet) knowing the words to it. But it's absolutely gorgeous!  And I can't place it as anything I've ever heard with my ears before. Just heard echoing inside me tonight. I've been humming/singing it out loud to myself while working and playing with the dog and while making dinner/cleaning up the dishes after eating some dinner at work. It's very stubbornly playing inside me and wants to be sung not just heard.

But whatever the song is stuck on repeat inside me tonight, this melody is so beautiful!!!! It deserves a form to be remembered rather than just me singing it while it's echoing so loudly inside me.

 Ahh no, I didn't have any REASON to expect that he'd ever wish me ill or be angry AT me or want to harm me in vision dream space. I just meant that anger/frustration is a natural reaction most people have at different times, especially when you can't have something you want/need and there can be no lying or hiding your inner truth and real emotions in vision dream space. Not even the fée can lie there, they just have multiple layers of meaning and you really have to pay attention to the precises things they say because they won't lie, but that's not the same thing as being completely honest in their case. So it wouldn't have been outside the normal realms of expected human reactions if he ever HAD been angry/frustrated with me in spirit dream form. 

But he never has been.

I've seen him furious in the vision dreams, at the dripping ice block covering that had formed across the entrance to the cave and the path I was on, but it was specifically the block itself that he was angry at and using his whole force and claws and teeth to try to break through it. Before the frustration and sorrow hit him that he couldn't just force his way through to reach me. And he stopped angrily attacking the ice when I approached it from my side to talk to him say goodbye and to hope he could find another path to find me. There was no anger in him at the point we raised our hands/forepaw palm to palm even with the ice wall between us and the light that formed between our palms spiraled out to crack then shattered the ice so he could barrel through before any ice reformed. And then in the longer dreams, once I had seen the ice would be broken through eventually, but only after I had given up turned to walk away, the first thing he did in the dream once past the shattered ice barrier was make sure I hadn't been hurt with the shattered/melted ice and then just wrapped his arms around me and hugged me and held me. 

And that's just such a beautiful thing. And I hadn't realized until this morning. Because like I said, it's a lot easier for the way brains seek patterns to notice what DOES happen than to think about what DOESN'T happen. And when I realized, it just sort of shook me profoundly way down deep and made me feel so soft and warm fuzzy glow inside full of so much love for him. Because like I said, you can't lie in vision dream space... And never once has he been angry or upset AT me or in any fashion offered a threat to me no matter what is going on. His truest truth at a highest self soul level, in every single shared dream space vision dream with him has always been steadfast love and joy in being together and the complex of emotions to try to bridge whatever is separating us so he can find his way back to reaching me. And I was so busy focusing on what DOES happen in the dreams, like him getting distracted/ignoring me until I decide I have to move on continue on my path even if it is without him, that I never even noticed what DIDN'T happen in the dreams. That no matter how deeply upset he was that he couldn't reach and rejoin me, he never got upset with ME or would intentionally do anything to harm me. 

And there's just something so beautiful and pure and steadfast and true to me in that realization, you know? That of all the things he felt the times he couldn't reach me, angry AT me or a desire to force me to come back was never any part of his reactions.... Angry at himself he showed, but never upset with ME. And there's just something so steady and good and unwavering and beautiful about that.... (I did TELL you that he's more stubborn than me.)

And realizing it just filled me with so much love and such a strong desire to wrap my arms around him and not let go and just surround him and fill him with how much I love him and that he exists. And how much I always have. And an inner realization that I never want him to feel unloved, unmissed, ever again -- that it's important to me he know that no amount of distance or separation or any damn third party or distraction, no matter the reasons for it, has ever dimmed or ever could dim my love for him even the least little bit. That it's always there shining bright and warm inside me waiting for the very next possible chance to wrap him up in the sunshine of it once again. And that it's always been that way with me, even in the hardest moments of trying to make me walk away give him up, when I have gotten to thinking it necessary for his sake, still all I feel is the intensity and warmth of the love I have for him.

And I want him to know and feel it, singing in every corner of his soul and feel the truth of it in every fibre of his being. Especially at his lowest loneliest all alone emo times. Because I always thought he knew that, but also maybe he didn't. Especially when there's distance or separation or he didn't think he deserved that sort of love from me or when he couldn't reach me no matter what he tried doing.... because how could he know that was the truth of how I felt to him even when I was making me give him up thinking he wanted he separation for the sake of his own happiness he sought? especially if I never told him... from his side, I was just gone somehow beyond reach no longer on his path -- why would he assume that all the love in me was still there WANTING to surround him and fill him up just the same no matter what? How could he know that was my shiniest inner truth at every moment throughout no matter what was going on or the reasons for it when from his side all he knew was that he couldn't hear me or find me or reach me at those times?

But now, after realizing never once was anger or upset with me ever in his reactions -- just the relief of finding/reaching me again, I just want to be CERTAIN that he KNOWS that about the undying flame of my love for him. Always and always and always. And it's important to me that I make certain he knows that. Regardless any damn thing else because lives get complicated, it's important to me he hold onto the simplicity of that truth that shines through all the messiness, that he always know that regardless of what comes between or how hard it is for him to find/reach me, my love's still just as bright and warm and WANTING to enfold him in that love and fill him up with it just as soon as the next chance I get. And that there will only be love joy and delight and wonder inside me waiting to greet him whenever I next get to see him be with him again. Whether it's in 3d quotidien or dream space, whether I know to expect I will see him or it's a complete surprise to me. There will only be love and joy and delight and wonder every time I get to see him again, especially when I look in his eyes.

And I want him to know that. I don't want him to feel completely alone and unloved. Especially when all he's ever reacted from his souls truth is joy in being with me once more no longer blocked from walking the path with me wherever we head next.

 So I was thinking this early morning sitting near the fire sipping my Santorini Sunrise tea and watching first light turn to dawn. Of all the vision dreams I have ever had with the polar bear in them, never once has he intentionally hurt me or threatened me in dream space. Never even shown anger with me. Plenty of other entities have threatened me or wished me harm in dream space, but he never has.... The worst he ever does toward me is not listen to me or forget about me because he gets distracted by someone else. And that's when I reach a point of hunger or need to get somewhere safer in the spirit realm or just move on since I can do no good sticking around so I regretfully have to leave him to follow my own path and hope eventually he will find a path that leads to me again whenever he's ready to move on or realizes my absence. But never once has he ever in any way hurt or threatened or even gotten angry at me in spirit dream. I've seen him threaten or get angry at other spirit beings, I've seen him self harm his spirit form when he won't listen to me, and I've seen him attack with intense ferocity whatever barriers are between him and me making it he can't reach me.... But never has he ever even once shown me anger or a potential to hurt me in spirit dreams, not even when he's in his biggest fiercest polar bear form. It's only ever been love and protection from him toward me. Well, that or forgetting about me ignoring me while distracted by other things. But even at his most sad or desperate or trying to claw and smash through everything between us, he's never once tried to use force or harm my spirit form in the spirit dreams. Not once. Not ever. 

And I think that's an important realization. Because it's not the norm in spirit dreams. There's a lot of testing and pain within the spirit dream realms and you have to be very cautious whom you trust and how far you extend it. But never has he tried to use force or even the potential of hurting me or even gotten angry at me. (Angry upset at any barriers between us, yes, but not angry or upset at me.) And I think that's really important..... All the hurt or sorrow I've ever had from him in spirit dreams come from him ignoring me while infatuated with other entities and me reaching the point of having to go on without him no matter how far or blocked the easy path to reach me got for him. All my hurts or sorrows from him were in him ignoring not listening to me and/or in me having to make me move on without him as a result. never once was it pain or sorrow he ever INTENTIONALLY caused me and never has he threatened me, not in anger or frustration or any emotion, in spirit dream space.

 Not once. Not in all these years. 

And that is something worth knowing and acknowledging. That except when he's ignoring/forgetting me because he's distracted, all he ever wants in spirit dream space is to find his way to be with me and keep me close and walk the paths of spirit dream space with me, taking on whatever adventures or dangers or delights together.

I mean, that's actually really fucking sweet.... And a very powerful realization about what his vision quest self wants and how we interact at stripped to soul deep selves. And also, when I realized that about how he shows up in spirit dreams, it definitely made me feel all soft inside warm fuzzies weak kneed at the realization. Because that's actually a really beautiful and rare and patient and humble way to show up in vision dreams where everything is truth, though sometimes it's a symbolic form of truth.

I'm not sure how I never noticed that before about how he shows up toward me in vision dreams spirit form.... But maybe it's harder sometimes to notice what a person doesn't do than what they do, if that makes sense. But there's just such a deeply steadfast beautiful love and patience in showing up so often but never even once showing up in anger or frustration AT me or in any way threatening me.... Just love and joy and a desire to be with me share the journey together whichever paths we're walking in spirit form. And it just makes me feel so shiny eyed without words because my emotions are bigger more powerful than words can contain to realize that consistent truth in how he shows up for me in vision dreams.... 

It made me wish he was here so I could wrap my arms around him and hug him and just pour my own warmth of love into him and my joy that he IS. 

Only I wasn't sleeping so I couldn't even do that in spirit dream form, best I could do was trying to flood the bond with those feelings and hope it reached him and he recognized the depth and intensity of feeling in it.

And I thought that worth sharing now that I'm sitting on the couch reading and watching the fire burn down, snuggling the sleeping dog curled up next to me and the purring cat curled up by my head, and finishing up the rest of the coffee from breakfast. (When I was wide awake in the early morning, I decided to lay a fire since it was like -3F outside and the cathedral ceilings in the living room get chilly when wind chills get that cold and a fire in the hearth is way more effective with the high ceilings than turning up the heat.) I'm currently waiting on the coals to burn down so I can close the flue safely. My plan for today is to get hours in at work since I was unable to get my car out of the garage from last Thurs night til Tues evening due to how bad the failure at snow removal or ice removal was after the second foot or so of snow. Let's just say part of the problem was they did no plowing of the steep graded driveways into the underground garages so there was over a foot of snow with tire track ice runnels and black ice at the base by the drains so it looked like a ski jump into a garage door..... The number of cars and 4 wheel drive SUVs I watched fail getting out  and/or nearly slamming into the garage doors that scraped up the tops of their vehicles because they couldn't stop before the doors got open enough..... I opted to leave my car in the garage til they at least came back to put some sane down for traction.... Which they did on Tuesday. I actually had Crissy come pick up and drop off me and the dog last Sat for Beetlejuice musical and I had my da come pick up and drop off me and the dog for me to watch the football game with my mum last Sun..which means I couldn't start getting any hours in til Tues and Fri I had symphony tickets. So I need to get hours in today before going to watch the game with my mum or I'll have to use ptso time this week. And I don't want to. I could also finished getting hours in tomorrow, but I'd rather have tomorrow to get a jump on hours in for next week, lol. Especially since the 27 I'm heading to Milwaukee for an Emma Langford concert at ICHC.

But for now, slow morning fur baby snuggles and coffee and reading waiting for the last of the shimmery sparkle sounding coals to die down before I get ready to head to work and then dinner with my parents before my mom and the dogs and I watch the Packers playoff game tonight. 

Also. I can't explain it in words very well, but my realization in the predawn staring at the fire about the steadfast nature of his soul and the ways his polar bear spirit form has and hasn't shown up in vision dream space, that realization made me light up so bright and joyous and full of just the shiniest love light for him and the goodness in him toward me. 

 Okay. Last post of overthinking due to wanting to act but not knowing how to do so thus trying to figure it out. (Moon in Aries much?) After this thought/reflection, I'll turn the lights off go to sleep. Promise. I'll even leave my book in the other room so I have to get up out of bed before I can read any more of it. 

I think. A lot of my miscues and wrong headed actions regarding him come from listening to what I THINK or ASSUME he wants for himself rather than listening to my own heart or finding out from him what he DOES want.  I think finding out what he ACTUALLY wants for himself and his happiness he seeks would go further than anything else to curtail me running away with a conclusion built of good logic from a very faulty bad premise. Knowing what he ACTUALLY wants for himself and his happiness would give me much better foundations and premises to build upon. I think, more than anything else, learning from him what he wants for himself and his happiness is the one thing I need more than anything else right now. 

And my head can't think my way into that knowledge as a certainty, only hypothèses of varying degrees of accuracy. And my heart can't feel it's way to that truth as a certainty because it has no evidence for it's insistence, "he wants you and your love just as intensely and deeply as you want him and his love. Things would be much simpler if you both stopped rationalizing other possible paths and just chose to find a way to each other no matter any damn thing else." The only way I can know what he wants with any evidence basis for certainty is to listen to him and what he actually says he wants, in his own ways and his own time. And that is for him to choose and decide how and when and if he wants to share that information about his truths.

I'm not very good at patience though....I try to be, but I'm not very patient. Not really. I only seem like I am because the ADHD makes me super curious and easily distracted. It's not really patience so much as the distractions intersection where object impermanence meets time blindness.

But. I think. I can't think my way into knowing what he wants for himself and his happiness and to build his life around. I'll have to wait for him to let me know in his own time and way. But I can think and consider ways I can actively help, now and in the future, to tell the fears to go fuck themselves and to create new memories to override the old ones created by fears and other strong (negative) emotions. I can think how I can be better from my end of things so old patterns don't repeat again. That's a worthy task to put my overthinking into while I await more concrete knowledge from him about his happiness and what he wants for his life.

 O, I don't NEED to extend where I put the perimeters of my spiritual defenses/protections that keep out anyone/anything of malevolent intent or energy feeding to create bonds or hooks to reach me without permission. It's A solution but it doesn't need to be THE solution. It's just the easiest way for me to be able to promise that I would never do that again because the shared bond allows it so he'd be inside my own protections against those hooks to feed on or through him. But maybe that's not a solution that would be of interest to him to try or maybe it might have other unexpected consequences. (In which case I'd default back to how it is now, where nothing gets through my protections without my knowledge or permission EXCEPT anything that uses the passage of the opened floodgates flowing between us of the bond.) It's my BEST idea I have for me to be able to make that most complete promise never to do that again because it would negate the concern of ethics and vulnerability of what could come in via the channel if it can hook into him, but just because it's my BEST answer I have doesn't mean it's the best answer for him or something he would want.... And that's why I'd not act upon the idea without it being his free will choice to have him within my spiritual defenses/protections as opposed to able to get past them as long as he can reach me via the bond. It wouldn't be right of me to try it without his permission and desire that I do it. I just know that if I did it, I would enable me to make that promise and keep it. 

But it may not be necessary, there may be other ways or he may not let that happen again of a connection to someone else allowing him to be a conduit for energy feeding via him and thus making me feel cornered into having to make that choice to protect myself.

I can promise right this moment now that I won't block him from reaching me via the bond by blocking third party attachments to him UNLESS he lets in any attachments or hooks that feed through him as a conduit to prey on others (including me) or anyone who doesn't have adequate defenses due to their connections to him and it using him as conduit. It would be a very niche narrow UNLESS, but  since it came up once within the last year, I can't say if it would come into play again in the future... I honestly don't KNOW what sort of defenses, if any, he has about spiritual attachments or hooks for energy feeding on him or through him.... I don't KNOW if he's found his own ways to keep that from happening again or if he just removed attachments and hooks into him until he found he'd removed everything in the way until he found the path was no longer blocked so he could reach me again via the bond. I don't know if he has natural subconscious spiritual defenses and this was one case of him letting someone in without realizing her nature and how it would affect him or if he's open enough that it could be a problem again in the future with other connections he chooses to form. I don't KNOW. 

There's a lot that I don't know about his spiritual gifts and how he uses them or doesn't. I know he's more tenaciously stubborn than me when he's single minded not distracted, he's stronger in endurance than me at least when it comes to the free flow between us via the bond. Although if the situation were reversed, if for some reason he were trying to shut me out from reaching him via the bond and I was insisting on reconnecting no matter what, I might be the stronger in endurance -- because to fight to open and allow the flow of bond is to work with the natural state of things and what our truest highest selves want and to try to make it sleep or block it in any way is to be working against our own natures/desires no matter the reasons of ethics or rationalizations for why either of us might do it. But honestly, I'd rather not pit our spiritual strengths AGAINST each other, I'd rather use them in support of each other defending/protecting each other from outside things rather than against each other.

But anyway, I could extend my defenses/protections to include him within the sphere of it BECAUSE of the bond between us which is the exception to bypass any generalized defenses/protections I could create. I could do it and it would be easy, but that doesn't mean it's an idea worth pursuing or even necessary. perhaps the promise with the unless clause is enough. Or perhaps he's done enough spiritual growth for the unless clause not to come up again after this time it did.... I dunno. And it's not something that needs to be considered immediately, it's a possibility that exists IF he ever WANTS to take me up on it.

But I mean, I don't actually HAVE any defenses/protections against him (and thus anything that attached onto him to use him as a conduit) you know. No more than he does against me. Even physical distance makes no difference with the bond. I can't actually sever or damage it or in anyway protect against it no more than he can..... The Seelie king agreed for my sake to put the bond to sleep so I wouldn't get inappropriate overlays from his strong emotions with his then girlfriend the scorpion chick. (I don't know that she was a Scorpio or anything, I only know that in dream space she showed up as a scorpion crawling all over his spirit dream polar bear form and hiding in his fur threatening anyone who tried to be close to him. Thus why I refer to her as the scorpion chick. Same as I refer to his girlfriend of a year or year and a half ago who was the source of the negative attachments using him as a conduit to find new energies to feed on as the lamprey woman -- because in spirit dream form she showed up as a lamprey sucking on his life force blood twined all around him fattening up on his energy.) And I learned from observation what it felt like having it dormant put to sleep and so I tried to do the same to force it to stay in that state when my ethics required it of me because I saw no place open/welcome for me in anything he had built his life and happiness around.  That second time was the time he refused to accept it being dormant and threw so much psychic energy into waking it up bringing it back to vibrant aliveness between us.... And after he succeeded at forcing the bond back wide open, I swore I'd not try to put it to sleep again or do anything to damage it or make it dormant because I recognize that it is OUR bond not MY bond and so I need to take his desires about it into consideration. it's not right to do anything to the bond itself (besides nurture it) unless we both want to alter it somehow. And it's BECAUSE of the lack of any defenses or protections against anything reaching me via him, that's why when the perverted Erinyes being attacked down via the bond while I slept until I had dealt with it and traced it back to the lamprey and blocked her energy and anyone with her energy attached in or through it from reaching me at nay time... Which made it so the bond was wide open allowed flow between our souls but he couldn't reach me or the shared space for as long as he had her energy attached or connected to him. 

But I have no defenses or protections against the bond or against him, the bond between my soul and his soul simply IS and the energies and love just flows between unless the bond is blocked by being made dormant/asleep or either of us can't see/walk the open bond itself. It's just like having a passage tunnel right in to my inmost self that goes only to his inmost self. To extend my spiritual defenses/protections along the bond the close it around him is just to close it so the entire channel and both ends of what it connects is within the protections. If that makes sense.It's just to close the protective sphere rather than having a channel into the sphere where anything that gets in past his defenses would have conduit to me via him if it so desired.

I'm probably over thinking it. It's just, I can't make the promise it won't happen again that I block a malevolent energy feeding entity and it affects his ability to reach me via the bond, I can only promise the bond won't be blocked by me UNLESS I am threatened in that way again by something reaching me via the bond using him as conduit through him to reach me..

So I've been thinking a lot lately. Between all the things and the snow removal fiasco at my condo (which I never wrote about here; it is as resolved as it is possible for it to be) and the cozy hygge and the reading I've been thinking, maybe not writing or putting into words but still thinking, about the things I had to say about fear. And the importance of us choosing not to react from fears but to have the courage to act from our truest desires and intuitive inner knowing. The other night, when I was finishing up my book about crow neurobiology (it's called Gifts of the Crow by John Marzluff & Tony Angell; it was published about a decade or so ago but I only got around to reading it now; I treat my book collection like a wine cellar and when I find books I'm interested in reading I'll pick them up, especially used or from little library exchanges, and then save them for when the timing is exactly right for where my head and heart space is that they call to me.) Anyway, towards the end of the book, was the line: 

"Emotionally charged memories are rapidly acquired and longstanding. Fear tends to be especially persistent and is not forgotten, but it can be overcome by forming new memories." (p. 190)

And I realize that seems rather banal when you think about how you deal with previously abused animals adopted as pets or how psychology uses behavioral exposure techniques to deal with phobias etc. But I was thinking about how powerful that can be as an acknowledgement for anyone's personal journey, especially when you're in the stages of unlearning so you can learn to be better than you were.  Because it acknowledges that memories created by all strong emotions but especially fear (and behavior patterns as reactionary due to memories) are perniciously strong and difficult to root out -- which makes sense from an evolutionary survival perspective that creatures NEED to remember things that have caused them pain so they can learn to avoid such potentially lethal situations in the future. At a basic survival level, you have to learn and learn fast and remember the lessons from pain or the next time you could die. I mean, the amygdala was one of the earliest portions of the brain and it deals with strong emotions especially fear but it also deals with other emotions.  But I like that the author acknowledges that while living beings learn from fear fast and long term sometimes our amygdala draws the wrong conclusions or doesn't recognize that circumstances are similar but not the same. It's like, a kid who burns their hand learns to be afraid of fires or stove tops or candles or pans or sparklers or whatever cause the burn and pain -- but the lesson isn't to avoid all heat sources under all circumstances, the lesson is SUPPOSED to be that you need to be cautious while using hot things so you can get the good from it without the pain if you're not careful enough. So like with kids, if they get burned by something hot, then you're supposed to actually work with them in the kitchen and teach them how not to get burned but also to create the associations of good food and comfort from the heat and the confidence how to deal with it without being hurt. You're overwriting that first fear and pain filled memory with tools for better associations and how to engage with the source of potential pain in ways to get the good from it without being hurt by it.

And I was thinking about how powerful that is as a technique when you're talking about emotional fears/pains rather than physical pain/fear memories. To actively engage in rewriting your fear created knee jerk responses by acknowledging WHY that memory has been the way it is and why it was so powerful a response while actively finding ways of replacing it with new memories to create better models for engagement in the future. 

That if we want to move beyond the fear created memories/reactions/behaviors from the past, it's not only important to acknowledge the fear and how/why the reactionary strong memories came into being but to also actively engage in the forming of new memories without the fear/pain or how to acknowledge the possibility of pain if caution isn't used but as long as you are aware of the risk of pain you can get the good that can only be created from the potential sort of pain if you don't respect what happens when you ignore the risk s of misuse/negligence. 

The importance of acknowledging WHY it's hard to forget but also that we can be an active participant in engaging in the ways we can overwrite the old fear/pain memory with newly formed memories of strong positive emotions. 

It's one of those things that is obvious when you look at how you soothe and tame and teach children and animals to trust you or a situation that has brought them fear/pain in the past, but is not necessarily a gentleness that adults give themselves or each other in how they approach each other. But I think it's actually MORE important with adults than children to consciously work on your fear/pain memories from acknowledgement followed by a conscious desire to replace the old memories because the mental plasticity is reduced in adults and because the longer you live, the more fear/pain encounters you've accumulated.  Adults are told by society pressure to repress it or just keep moving forward as if it didn't do as much damage as it did, even when you're talking of grief after deep loss, and that just leaves those fear/pain created memories to ossify into behaviors to avoid the pain. You never sat with them and acknowledge them and then figured out how to overwrite the old with new memories of why this is different than the previous pain/fear. 

When you're trying to unlearn from the past modes of interactions, especially if they're fear or pain created patterns, it's important not just to avoid situations that would reinforce the fear created memory, it's also important to find the ways to create deeply emotional NEW memories that overwrite the older fear based memory responses.

I have also been thinking about the three times that I have blocked or put the bond to sleep. The first time I asked for assistance from an ally because it's not something I could ever have done on my own and I was warned that it was a one time assist and if I chose to reopen the bond I couldn't come back to ask again. The second time I did it the way I had observed and learned but it took a major energetic toll on me because the second time he constantly and stubbornly fought back refused to accept it happening until I came to understand that he had a point and it wasn't fair or right of me given it's a shared bond as much his as mine. And so I promised I wouldn't ever do that again, because it was wrong of me to consider as mine what is in truth both of ours.  The third and most recent time I did it, last Spring/Summer while I was in the hollows of grieving over the death of Audrey Pupburn my dog I had raised from a puppy who died at nearly 15 years old, I didn't do it the same way I had before of completely trying to block the bond flowing by putting it to sleep, I blocked out the third party energy he had allowed to become twined all around and through him over the previous year. The connection between us itself wasn't blocked in any way, he just couldn't reach me until that energy was no longer mixed with or wrapped through his -- he wasn't blocked qua himself, just that energy attachment required I  protect myself against it reaching me through him. I was genuinely surprised when he reached me again in the fall, I reacted by checking through all my spiritual protections and defenses to find where they were breached because it had never even crossed my mind at that point that he had separated from her and he had done the work to strip out all the energetic attachments and hooks from her. It took a chthonic goddess telling me in dream space that I was being a neurotic idiot, all my spiritual protections were still strong as ever including my ban on that energy or anyone with that energy attached into them from reaching me -- and if I couldn't figure out what was happening from that information I didn't deserve the good in his return to reaching me. The Morrigan is very very bluntly honest, always.

Would I ever try to find a way to block him out from reaching me via the inner bond again? I, I don't know. I don't want to. I never wanted to the three times I've done it this life...I just reached a breaking point I felt I had to. It has only ever been a matter of ethics in response to his choices or choices made by other people in his name that he allowed. I swore I wouldn't put the bond to sleep again or try to block HIM out again because I respect that the bond is OURS not mine. So I can promise not to do that again unless it's something we both agreed we wanted the bond dormant/asleep/gone for some reason. I don't know why we would do that, but only if it was a mutual choice we were both certain about would I do anything to the bond at this point other than to strengthen it. But, I can't promise I will never raise a protection against a third party energy that is dangerous or seeks to feed via attachments through other people -- and that includes through him. Because the thing with the bond is, it's something in our souls that binds us to each other that is deeper and stronger than any other cords/bonds I've ever encountered... And it's at a root level deeper than any other defenses or protections I could have -- he will always and forever be the weakest place in my defenses. Any energy or anything that works through him can reach me as if I have no defenses at all because against him I don't. There's no barrier there between us. So I can't promise that if he allows any energy to hook into his own work through him that I wouldn't have to protectively block that energy AND anyone it is hooked into from reaching me for as long as it is attached -- but the bond itself between us would remain the same as ever and as soon as he removed the energy from being attached into him then we would reach each other again. I can't promise I won't protect my own self from anything that attaches or tries to reach me through him -- but I can promise that as long as he protects his own self from malevolent energies attaching into him and using him as a conduit for them to feed, then he has nothing to worry about being blocked from reaching me via the inner bond again. 

It would only be as a reaction to something like that it could happen again. And it's in his power not to allow that scenario to happen again. And I suppose it's within my power to remove from him such attachments hooked into him rather than blocking those energies and anyone they're hooked into from reaching me -- but I would need to be certain that's what he wants and his free will choice before I would be willing to intercede and cut those cords remove those hooks and protect him from having attachments like that hook into him. It's a free will thing for me. He would have to free will choose to want that reactive cutting of energy draining cords or like proactive protect him as I protect my own self for me to extend the protection to include him inside it with me so the attachments couldn't hook into him or use him that way. so he wouldn't be a weak point in my spiritual protections but rather would be inside them with me. I could certainly do it, I often do it for any physical space I'm living or sleeping in no matter who else is within that space, but it would have to be because he wants it chooses it of his own free will, not because I selfishly want it so he can still reach me keep the bond flowing strongly between us. Does that make sense? I wouldn't do it for my own selfishness or safety even with knowing the weak spot in my defenses that bond creates just by existing if protecting myself/the bond wasn't his free will choice -- but if it IS his free will choice to want to be included within my protections rather than left outside them from reaching me, then especially with the bond between us, it would be easy for me to extend my own protections right around to include him within them. It would be easier to have him within my protections than without them tbh, even when we are physically a distance from each other rather than within the same space, because of the nature of the bond and how it works. 

But that's about his choices if he wanted me to be doing my protections against malevolent/vampiric  energies and attachments to include him inside mine along with me. But it would be easier for me to just bring him right on inside my protections against malevolent spirits or energy feeding connections than the way I've been doing it without him free will choosing to want to be within the protections rather than outside them. It would be much easier for me, but he'd have to choose it for himself. Just because it would be easier for me and safer for me and I would be happier with it doesn't make it ethically right. That said, without that potential weak spot getting exploited (even without him realizing) I wouldn't have any reason for keeping him from reaching me via the bond at his core inner self soul level and so I could honestly say it would never happen again.

It would feel more whole, more complete, a closed sphere of protection, to have him and I within the same set of defenses. We would both be better protected for a whole sphere without each of us having our defense only as strong as the other's defenses allow in through them.  But he would have to want it and choose it for himself, in his free will. I know exactly how to do it, like I said it would be easier energetically, but it would have to be by his choice that I would act on knowing how to do it. Because the limits I have placed on my wyrd gifts is that I won't use them against another soul's free will choices except as those choices affect others who ARE under my protections. It's why my gifts are as strong as they are and yet so curiously constrained -- respecting the sanctity of free will is right at the heart of my ethical code. 

But yeah, I could safety proof the fear in me of what could reach me via him AND the fear in him of me ever keeping him from reaching me via the bond in that way by putting him within the bubble sphere of my own protections -- nothing malevolent or energy feeding could attach to either of us unless we BOTH chose to allow it in past the defenses. I don't THINK it would affect us choosing to pour energy through us or using energy to heal or other gifts, only about those that would steal and feed upon energy without permission. It would just have us both within the protection and nobody could attach cords to feed upon spirit energy of either of us unless we both allowed it. Like I said, we'd both be safer for it and it would be easier with the way the bond functions (I don't think I could do it the same way without the shared strength in the bond, tbh.) Like I said, he would just have to CHOOSE of his own free will to want that. Though, I don't know that he'd ever even think of it on his own.... But yeah, if he chose it, I could easily do that instead put us within a shared sphere of protections and then he'd never be excluded if I felt the need to do that, the attachments just wouldn't hook into him either. It would also mean that I would always be inside within his defenses and protections as well, whatever those might be or however they might manifest.

The greatest potential negative consequence I can see would be that the blending of the shared space of the bond could create codependency type control issues instead of individuated selves.... But it would be a spiritual level shared protections, what either of us did within our 3d physical selves would be as separated lives as we chose for it to be. It could cause more overlays of strong emotions as a side effect, just because ANYTHING that strengthens the bond causes overlays and mirroring in the other person, especially strong emotions echoing down the bond can create more overlays and more of us both quirkily loving the same things having the same random interests without any good reason other than "it makes me happy and my soul feel warm from the inside" But I think that would happen if we chose to strengthen and nurture the bond even without having our spiritual protections include the other person within our own.  Because every time the bond is made stronger/affirmed instead of weakened/denied, the overlays of strong emotions increase between us. (And no, I don't know how strong the overlays and the mirroring will grow between us, especially with strong emotions, by us both choosing to cherish and nurture the bond. That's something we can only find out by doing because there's no other bond or cord that I've ever experienced that is like this one. if other people have ones like this, I've never been on the receiving end of it. This is a just him thing for me. So how strong the overlays and mirrored strong emotions will become as we both choose to feed it rather than deny it, well, I'll know as soon as he does, lol. I've got nothing else to compare it to for me, in any life except lives we've found each other which has been quite some time, for me to be able to answer that at this time.)

But to return to my earlier point about replacing emotionally charged fear memories by overcoming them with the creation of new emotional memories and to do so with intentional engagement -- yes, I can take the fear of that happening again and make sure it won't by just including us both within the same spiritual shields/protections/defenses always. there are others that I can't find a way to overcome the fear created past memory at this time or on my own, but this one I can do. I can use this solution to bypass this fear created memory happening again so we can overwrite it with better new memories. I just need to know we both choose it and he would free will choose to have us inside the same protections rather than being blocked from reaching me via the bond as a result of protections against third party attachments reaching me through him. And then I can promise it won't happen again that we can't reach each other via the bond, at least without us both wanting it, not even as a matter of ethics. And I don't make promises unless I can keep them. So yeah, there is an answer to this to not have the bond blocked by blocking out a third party attachment, and it's actually easier than me trying to repeat what I did before if I just include him within my own protections/defenses all the time.

Does that make sense?