July/August/September Book List

As I said, I didn't actually have time to finish ANY books for like a solid month in there (most of leo season) between watching the Olympics and Paralympics, Irishfesting, work in the in between fests, 16.5 hours poll working for the primary, after parties of fests, and all the other things surrounding this year's Irish season. So even this is a three month summary, it's a woefully short list of books read, lol. It's been a very light reading load this third quarter because I really haven't had much time at all for reading. But don't worry, Oct and Nov look like they have time for hermitting and reading AND the first part of my three week visit to my sister's family in Seattle area I should be able to read at least a little during the weekdays before the kids are off school. So the next list should (hopefully) help make up for this one being so short)

Also, almost all the books acquired except the titles obviously bought at irishfests or plays from APT or my grandma's two newest books in her ongoing series or from Llewellyn when I ordered my 2025 astrological calendar & date book (namely the two books on Welsh folklore) are almost entirely from free little libraries.

Books Read:

~Marie Louise Von Franz, Interpretation of Fairytales (160 pgs)

~Marisela Treviño Orta, Wolf at the Door (57 pgs)

~William Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing (120 pgs) [this is the Bantam Classics copy I used once in a production since it was the easiest of the copies I own to grab right before we were seeing it without me having to move any other books of plays]

~edited by Ellen Datlow & Terri Windling, The Green Man: Tales from the Mythic Forest (384 pgs) [a collection of fantasy short stories by all different authors; I very much enjoyed it]

~J. T. Page Jr., The Kingdom Queen (95 pgs) [I picked this up in a little library somewhere, it's very simplistic middle grade reading level. Not bad, just very simplistic. But at least it was a quick read. It may end up back in a little library tbh]

~August Wilson, Ma Rainey's Black Bottom (122 pgs)

~Michael Faber, D: A Tale of Two Worlds (299 pgs)

~Jean Anouilh (adapted in English by Christopher Fry), Ring Round the Moon (87 pgs)

~Arundhati Roy, The God of Small Things (321 pgs)

~Mark Tompkins, The Last Days of Magic (384 pgs)

~Christina Rossetti, Selected Poems of Christina Rossetti (274 pgs)

~Brian Friel, Dancing at Lughnasa (86 pgs)

~The Penguin Book of Mermaids (330 pgs)

~Barbara Sjoholm, The Pirate Queen: In Search of Grace O'Malley and Other Legendary Women of the Sea (355 pgs) [this ended up being more of a travelogue about exploring the reality of the land and seas while learning the stories and histories of women who roamed them before her. I enjoyed it for what it was, but it wasn't at all what I rather expected it to be....]

~Eoin Colfer & P. J. Lynch, Three Tasks For A Dragon (107 pgs)

~Joseph Jacobs (collector), Celtic Fairy Tales (267 pgs)

~Nick Payne, Constellations (47 pgs)

~Edwin Arlington Robinson, Selected Poems (257 pgs)

~Stephen L. Antczak & James C. Bassett (editors), Clockwork Fairy Tales: A Collection of Steampunk Fables (323 pgs)

 

Books Acquired:

~Zoe Anderson, The Ballet Lover's Companion

~Jean Anouilh (adapted in English by Christopher Fry), Ring Round the Moon

~Caleb Carr, The Alienist

~Caleb Carr, The Angel of Darkness

~Eoin Colfer & P. J. Lynch, Three Tasks for a Dragon

~T. Crofton Crocker, Irish Fairy Legends

~Tony DiTetlizzi, Kenny & the Dragon

~Brian Friel, Dancing at Lughnasa

~Stephanie Garber, Once Upon a Broken Heart

~Anthony Horowitz, The Gatekeepers Book One: Raven's Gate

~Helen Hunt Jackson, Ramona

~M. A. Larson, Pennyroyal Academy

~Nuala O'Faolain, Are You Somebody?

~Mhara Starling, Welsh Fairies

~Mhara Starling, Welsh Witchcraft

~Clarence C. Strowbridge (ed.), 100 Favorite English & Irish Poems

~D. E. Weingand, Crystal Saga Series 4 -- Books 1 & 2: Defense = Offense & Interplanetary Conflict

~D. E. Weingand, Crystal Saga Series 4 -- Books 3 & 4: The New Order & Adapting to Change

~August Wilson, Ma Rainey's Black Bottom

~W. B. Yeats, The Celtic Twilight: Faerie and Folklore

I'm not going to continue considering what had me in such a panic the other day about the hurricane incoming when it didn't come anywhere near me and why it felt personal not identifiably someone I love -- I know who it couldn't be but i don't know who it was had me feeling that way. I recognize there is an obvious answer of who would feel like myself was threatened and for all I know he could have been somewhere on his tour that brought him into areas of N Carolina where the torrential flooding was bad. But I don't know and I'm not even going to try to pursue it by seeing where his tour had taken him -- I told you that I feel very firmly it's not worth my time or energy to pursue the bond any further so long as his sister keeps me ostracized from participation in the most important pillars of his life uses him as her tool of causing pain/hurt rather than doing it her own self -- most specifically ostracizing me from being included in his family life, his career, and his creative endeavors. *shrugs* What's the point of investing any further of myself in a relationship that can't grow healthy because it's poisoned by the consequences of choices made by a third party that is tied solely to him and his life? So even if he was in danger and that's what had the panic on me like that as if I myself were in the path of a titanic natural force I had to flee, it's past now and I'm not going to pursue it if that's the direction that it leads because I don't see anything of worth or anything healthy coming from pursuing the questions in that direction. It's done, my panic eased later that morning after I wrote about it and felt that everyone who mattered to me was safe and further than that is a closed door and not entirely by my choices but as a boundary to be respected. My choice in light of the truths that the consequences of other people's choices laid bare is that if it can't be made healthy, and as long as I'm the only one who cares about how/why it was made toxic it can't be made healthy, then it is best I let go of Eric and the bond and everything it could have been -- to let go of him and let us both pursue whatever paths we choose and whatever happiness they lead us to find. Because, you see, as long as these toxic patterns due to third party ostracism related boundaries are in play, well that's rather the end before the beginning, which by my own rules puts him beyond the bounds of any man I should consider romantically as it will only waste time/energy and cause heartache -- toxic cycles repeating don't change until the dynamic is changed. And if your available choices mean you can't change the dynamic, then walking away is how you break the cycle. Change the choices/options to break out of the toxic repeating patterns and I would reconsider, but without that? what good are we doing each other even trying when the same patterns repeat due to the same choices being open due to the constraints the consequences of his sister's choices in 2018 put on me being welcomed or wanted in the most important pillars of his life as he has built it this lifetime?

 I can't recall when I last posted astro poets horoscopes here, but I don't think it could have been since Irishfest season so I'll just start with including the first weekend of August thorugh the one that just came in for next week. Um, I will still include Libra and Pisces (both of which are my usn and rising) but I don't know if I ought to include Gemini (Diarmaid's sign) or not since from the time we actually met and talked to each other (starting in La Crosse Irishfest but didn't cross paths in Milwaukee but then talked most in Peoria and Chicago) it does seem to dialogue a bit with the Libra horoscopes since I met him though it never did before.

Week of 7/28:

"Week of 7/28 in Libra: You know the way. It’s clear and part of where you are. You can see the green light as much as anything. You are loved completely. You know exactly what is there for everything."

"Week of 7/28 in Pisces: You have coated the whole thing with feeling. That’s exactly as you want it. You have an opinion. You have a soul. You have it all."

Week of 8/4:

"Week of 8/4 in Libra: So much love. The pink birds are flying in the blue sky. They are soaring. You created everything. You are an artist."

"Week of 8/4 in Pisces: There’s a mystery awaiting. Only you can solve it. But you will ask for help. That’s because you love who you ask. You love to be one with everything."

Week of 8/11: 

"Week of 8/11 in Gemini: You may wish for the past. But that is not what you want. You want a future you haven’t imagined yet. You can be there. You can hold within you what you want."

"Week of 8/11 in Libra: There is a morning. Where you are not alone you are with everyone. There is one who pines for you. Let the trees emit their flower. Let the song begin with its real self."

"Week of 8/11 in Pisces: There’s nothing but love. You have known that a real thing. Now you must let it blend into the air. The hardest parts are over. Now you will be one in the moon."

 Week of 8/18: 

"Week of 8/18 in Gemini: You can hardly believe it. But that feeling is what drives you. You can sing as you want to. What motivates it all. Is the drive of the poem."

"Week of 8/18 in Libra: You are here. It’s a sweet reminder of a belief. That it holds true like blue and green. The earth of happiness. The embrace of everything."

"Week of 8/18 in Pisces: You will go around to the place where you started. And so it finds itself as it was. Something of a static morning or two. Where you can see the best parts of yourself. That’s the part that is necessary."

Week of 8/25:

 "Week of 8/25 in Gemini: So many kinds of music. It all plays in your head. Now you may see it in the open. No particularly pure reason. But a heart of it all that sings."

"Week of 8/25 in Libra: To be present in the song. To be present in a present. Your presence is everything that was desired. The longing for it all was a type of water. Now you can drink from pure love."

"Week of 8/25 in Pisces: Something has ended. That was a delight again. You can see a way through. Blue so truly. And a night vision."

Week of 9/1:

"Week of 9/1 in Gemini: You can see the past now and again. It’s not that you fear it. It’s that you assume it holds absolutely nothing. Take the little jewels out now. Look at them in the fading summer sun."

"Week of 9/1 in Libra: When you can be there, be in the room. Orange and red like emotions of love. You have a way to get the answer to whoever needs it most. Your love is deeper than anything. That will come back to you."

"Week of 9/1 in Pisces: Put the things you can’t forget in a box. Don’t put it away, hold it. Put in the front and center the way you can see into the sky. That’s the realm of everything. So do it."

Week of 9/8:

"Week of 9/8 in Gemini: You can feel a deep and abiding peace. But in the middle a caustic ribbon. Do you grab hold of either? A tale to tell now. There’s family here."

"Week of 9/8 in Libra: You have words to give. You know exactly what elements will help now. A sweet caress. Love and everything is your moment. You hold it as you are given it."

"Week of 9/8 in Pisces: Every last piece of it. That’s the heart of the reminder. Summer is in the heart. It reads like everything. Know your place in the heart of summer."

Week of 9/15:

"Week of 9/15 in Gemini: A life let loose with emotion. You know to be quiet in that. You reach around the bend until you can find it. A print of flowers and fruit. A life again."

"Week of 9/15 in Libra: You can see into the future. But know that even then love is an immensity. All of the songs will be written for you. They will be love songs. Full of good days in the blue."

"Week of 9/15 in Pisces: Green and blue have a forgiving nature to them. You know that only to be real with what was. You can hold it as close as you must. But only you can see it. Only you can deal with what is there for you."

Week of 9/22:

"Week of 9/22 in Gemini: Something in the middle. It’s not that it is boring. It’s that everything begins again. Let it. Let it all renew itself."

"Week of 9/22 in Libra: There is something immense. It’s the love that is held out to you. A green and yellow ball of joy. You near the bend of it. You hold everything that begins with positive feelings."

"Week of 9/22 in Pisces: You have a friend that is there for you. Instead of waiting it begins again. Finally a piece of it with love. Shells and crystal things. Instead of waiting love instead."

Week of 9/29:

"Week of 9/29 in Gemini: Some luck is all around you. It always is, but now it’s multiplied. You can begin with words. There’s a green and yellow thing. That’s the part of it that you like."

"Week of 9/29 in Libra: A blue is encased in more blue. That’s love. That’s what you feel and what is surrounding you. Something like an all-seeing piece of life. Love is everything and you are it."

"Week of 9/29 in Pisces: So it seems that you can see the center. But it’s not that exactly. You hold a very bright intention. That extends in time. Let time go."

It almost tells a story, but it doesn't quite. Like being in the middle of a story still unfolding.

But anyway, Diarmaid  is in Ireland on tour with shows nearly every week for the rest of the year so while I still follow and the band brings me joy I don't expect anything to come of it and Eric is on tour and I'm actively not letting myself reach down that bond or respond to it if he reaches for me or even consider the connection as viable as long as the only things that can grow from it are toxic due to third party choices and consequences of those choices. And that isn't going to change, not in this life so long as everything central to his life is affected by the toxicity of the choices made in his name that he allows to affect me having any place in the aspects most central to his life and his life choices. Anyway, neither of them are in my life right now and neither of them have chosen to weave me into the fabric of their lives, so I'm not really considering them other than the ways they bring joy into my life (any joy that they do add to my life, which is more Diarmaid than Eric at this point) and instead to focus on who is choosing to be in my life and what is good/beautiful within my own life as I am living it.

Not much in my upcoming plans other than hanging out with the dogs (and Spock when Sophie is at work on Monday or the dogs are at work by themselves for a bit tomorrow) until Tues morning when my parents return. Also Crissy is coming over on Sun to watch the Packers game with me and the dogs. And Mon I should get a call back about Spock's vet tests from his Fri appointment. He lost another 1.1lbs in the year since his last vet visit (and he had lost 1.1lbs between his vet visit the year before as well. He's down to about 12.5lbs from being around 15.5lbs back in 2021.  Which doesn't seem like a lot in human terms but it is as a percentage of his weight, especially for not having done anything to try to have him lose weight or restricting his food intake. (He's a free feeder, I replace his food as he needs it but I don't restrict his access to food and never have, he's a social eater and has never needed restriction due to over eating or weight gain.)  He's 15 years old and I'm not going to spend too much money pursuing this if the blood work and urinalysis is inconclusive -- but also if it's something relatively easy to address, I'd rather he not keep losing muscle mass before I do something about it because in older animals it's hard to regain lean muscle mass once it's lost.  I expect the answer is just that he's an old cat but if it's something that can be easily/cheaply addressed to increase his quality of life that remains to him I would like to know.

 That was a rather strange post after not writing here in a while, wasn't it? Sorry. Didn't mean to be weird. I mean, I can't help being wyrd, that's rather a state of being with me more than anything else I can't HELP the gifts, the way I use energy/spirit/magic/flow/chi/prana or whatever one wants to call it and how it manifests in me (and around me) is like breathing. In and out, constant cyclical flow but it's the same as breathing to me. I can intentionally focus on it and how I'm doing it, same as any intentional breathwork exercise, but it happens automatically without my control that I'm always channeling it in and shining it out through me like a filter. Like, I don't use rituals or spells or bother with moon water or crystals (other than I just have always had a thing for shiny crystals and cool rocks) or anything like that -- it's just raw will desire to shift something with a gift like reaching my hand out or it's just like any other sense be it sight or hearing or touch or taste or smell, you can deprive yourself of them but without some sort of physical damage or intentionally blocking them you can't turn off your sense and I can't turn off my clair- and intuitive gifts. So i can't help being wyrd, I don't mean to be I just sort of AM by my very nature isness. I don't desire to be a witch, I don't try to be, and I rarely even use that word for myself (even though the gifts do seem to come down bloodlines, some I only see on one side of the family and some only on the other) because I don't use rituals to try to make shit happen, I just AM therefore it DOES by either act of will or simply clairsentient sensory inputs. I've still never figured out at what point a girl is supposed to bring this up when dating, it's one of the reasons that I had paused on dating. The main reason was that it seems like a waste of time/energy and creates unnecessary heartache to date someone when you see the end before the beginning. Especially when it always plays out the way you precogged, no matter how hard you try to avoid that or to hide the wyrd gifts in you. So I told myself no more dating if/when I can see the end before the beginning. And, the thing about not bringing it up unless it comes up around them is that I don't like feeling like I'm lying by not being honest about my gifts -- how can you be intimate with anyone with a lie between you about your very nature and isness? I don't lie about it or hide it from any of my family or close friends -- couldn't hide it if I tried if you spend enough time around me. And not just because I tend to wake up gifts and shake to the surface past life memories that people are ready to integrate just as a catalyst by people being around me for too much time. 

So anyway. I didn't mean to make it weird, but I can't help the wyrd. And this morning was very much wyrd. I do think it was the feeling of such a massive hurricane heading northward, the desire to make sure not to be in its path at an instinctual level, in part due to old past life memories about tsunamis and volcanoes and the destructive power of such forces.  I'm actually better now that it's hit land so the variables of paths have narrowed down to a much narrower group of fatelines. Still destructive fatelines, but the "you need to get the fuck somewhere safe NOW" isn't in me like it was. I no longer have that screaming instinct inside me insisting to get the fuck to safety while you can because this is too big to stay where you are and it is deadly stronger than you. Normally that happens when I'm in physical peril by something like that or when somebody I love have a strong bond to is in imminent danger -- but in that later case I know who to call and to get them moving and my window of time to get them to safety which direction to send them. It felt like that, but I had no idea who was in the path of danger needed to get to greater safety and no way to reach them until it popped into my head to write it out here and it still took maybe an hour or two for it to calm but then it did the way it does when someone I love listens and gets themselves to safety outside the window of danger. This was just building horribly this morning even though I am nowhere near where any damage from it, or even weather affected by it could affect me. Sunny highs in the upper 70s up into 80s and not even a cold front moving in until Tuesday (I plan to get a lot of work done in the office garden bed prepping it for winter before my ground bees would be disturbed by what I'm doing.)

Could there be something else coming had me feeling that way? Possibly. I cannae swear it was or wasn't the monster beast of a hurricane or if it was geopolitical.... But for me it tends to be that this instinctive intuitive reaction tends to be about an overwhelming natural inescapable bigger than the human realm of power. If it's about human freewill choices, even serious geopolitical or political causes, it tends to be flashes of precogs, actually seeing or experiencing the fate lines that those freewill choices made THE future path. The instinctual animal brain need to flee is an intuitive reaction to physical natural world driven major events too big to stay put try to survive sheltered in place. 

Anyway. Sorry about the long silence (followed by such a weirdly wyrd sunrise post) but I just haven't had much I needed to get out of me in words until this morning overwhelmed. Lots of stories and lots of love and lots of music and theatre  -- as I said I've been focusing my energy and time being with people (and animals) who choose to be in my life and letting go, or at least letting be out of sight out of mind, those who don't desire or choose to be in my life. And I've just been in this really calm accepting zen place of gratitude for who and what IS in my life and not letting me worry my pretty little head or trouble my heart over anyone who doesn't want me or choose to be in my life. I'm also over halfway through living in two separate homes trying to balance two dogs and a cat watching Sophie while my parents are out of town. And then, last weekend I had plans with close friends Fri, Sat, and Sun (and a zoom watch party of the Packers game with family on the west coast) and then the weekend before that I had tickets to concerts or theatre every night Thurs through Sun. And introvert time with the dogs and/or at home with Spock as much as possible. (Mikaela has come over to spend time with me and the fur babies every week (and she has worn her Onoir shirt every time, she's been basically living in it since she picked it up in Milwaukee) while I've been silent here. Like I said, spending time with the people and animals choosing to be in my life, which is mostly family and friends who are like family -- and lots of shows still even through September. I have fewer shows in Oct, just a small handful, but family and friends who are family coming into town at the start and end of the month. Also my birthday is in there -- I don't really have plans (not even with my birthday twin) for my birthday and not even any shows near then. But also, the Universe seems to have fated plans for me having a solar eclipse to bring fated events in/out of ones life AND Rosh Hashonah to start a sweet new year by the Jewish calendar both happening ON my birthday this year and EVEN drawing in a short term second moon and all sorts of crazy astrological aspects. The heavens and the earth are doing plenty for my birthday this year, have you SEEN the aurora dancing over Wisconsin around this equinox window having the nodes on the Aries/Libra axis during a solar maximum?! Crazy gorgeous painted skies, nearly every night as the aurora dances visible even as far south in the state as I am many nights) so I feel like I don't need to make plans that will only be altered anyway to get me exactly when/where I'm meant to be. But yeah, my birthday IS next Weds, and no plans but damn the heavens and the earth have a lot going on for my birthday this year. 

No promises when (other than the booklist) I intend to post next here. I suppose I'm way behind on the astro poets, all of Aug and Sept behind now. But also, know that I am good and I'm not sitting in a place of overthinking or over feeling about what ISN'T choosing to be in my life or the people who make it clear they don't want to include me -- I'm just find the joy in dancing my way through the people and animals and music and magic and beauty of this world of all that are choosing to WANT to be in my life. (Even if from a distance.) The rest of this year is going to disappear fast, I realized at the Skerryvore show when I saw Maddie, Alan, and Keito for only like the second time of the entire fucking year that unless we prioritize making plans, I won't see any of them until next year. (In part because my sister and her family are stealing me out to Seattle area for three weeks of December to have Aunt Dani visit for Christmas. Two weeks always go by fast, but I don't know if they won't all be sick of me with it being three weeks this next visit -- but also my sister and brother-in-law bought the plane tickets for me soooo, yeah. Here we are then. Maybe I can find someone to steal me for a bit breakup the visit or something -- Cathy usually steals me for a short bit and sometimes J does but also I don't know if either of them will for the holidays. On verra. I'm going to miss the snow being in Kirkland though for three weeks of my Dec.... Maybe I should rent a car or hope someone wills teal me to take me to the mountains or something so I can have some snow time. Or maybe I'll just have to Elsa the greater Seattle area and sparkle that bitch up while I'm there, lol. My niece Monroe decided to skip right on over spooky season go directly to wearing all her winter time snowflake holiday Frozen  clothes because if she thinks like it's winter than it will sooner BE winter and sooner that she can hug me and have me back again. Even though I was out there in June as well as last Dec. But also, kids sense of time is different. But I expect even Mo bear will be sick of me after three weeks of Aunt Dani time, lol. Maybe not though.)

Anyway. Sunrise is up (didn't sleep last night, whoops!) so I'm going to make some coffee and breakfast quesadillas before I take both dogs to work at some point after 9am, whenever I can get my snuggle slugs moving, lol. And both dogs will go to work since Spock's annual vet visit is early in the afternoon today.

 This morning suddenly feels like something big, something major is coming. Like a tsunami just over the horizon. I don't know what it is, but it doesn't feel good -- it gives me the instinct to run like I've had when in the line of tropical storms/hurricanes or hiking on/near active volcanoes or when I've been too close to wildfires heading my direction. It's not like an incoming tornado which the instinct is to dig deep find a cave hunker down and hide, it's that whatever is coming there is no hiding from and you need to get out of the way before you can't.  

And I have no idea what it is in any sort of precise way.... Most likely is it's Hurricane Hélène, but that's crazy given I'm very far from the impacts of it reaching this far north into the Midwest and I've got the entire Appalachians between me and the force of it. But if it's not the physical warning even across this distance of Hurricane Hélène coming into land, then there's something. And I can't tell if it's natural or what it is, but there's a tsunami coming just over the edge of the horizon just past where my precog line of sight can see right now.... This is the instinctive gut wrench animal brain to flee and flee now before you can't and something bigger than you destroys and transforms everything in front of it. 

And whatever it is everything in me is saying to run and get out of the path because it's too big for any human sized fight and hiding won't save you -- you just have to get out of the path of what's coming. 

And I have no idea what it refers to... Only that whatever it is it's coming and all my instinctual lizard brain warning bells only started going off over it with the need to flee because I'm too close to whatever it is in the last 20-30mins or so but it's increasing not decreasing, the sense of a need to flee out of the line of incoming peril. 

And right now, I have no idea why. But it's bigger than anyone or anything in my life, it's a big tsunami. And I don't actually know what the target is, only the feeling you have to get to safety if you want to survive it. 

The dogs are both asleep, Waffles is twitching in her dreams right against me. (My parents are out of town til next Tues, so I am house sitting between two homes with two dogs and a cat and the cat can't come to the house and one of the dogs can't come to my condo.  Birds are shrieking outside this morning, but there's nothing I can pinpoint other than me and the birds are crazy on edge feeling the need to flee to somewhere safe from whatever is coming I can't even tell you if it's weather or geologic or solar or geopolitical. Only that whatever it is, it's coming and fast and it's too big and deadly to have any hope of fighting or surviving except by fleeing from its path.

Afternoon Addendum:

Still feeling that way, though now it's the learning to live with the restlessness of always having that animal urge you HAVE to flee the way I get once I'm staying more than a couple days on active fault lines and active volcanoes. I just get twitchy and feel the need to flee to where I will be safe when I can't trust the earth or the skies or a raging fire....

It's probably just Hurricane Hélène ramping up speed and power as she's coming into land and the impact it's going to have.... But also, I no longer have any family or friends still in Florida except great-uncle Bob (who lives in a retirement community near Orlando on the far side from the storm surge) and the nearest family besides that would be my aunts in Charlottesville (and who may not even be there right now given how much they travel and live abroad.) So it's weird that I'd be feeling for myself or empathic cord overlays hitting me this strongly the flight instinct of "get out, get out, you have to flee before you can't!" so strongly when I'm far enough north and west to be completely insulated from this absolute monster of a hurricane and nobody I love is in the line of the worst of it needing to be warned.

Looks like the birds agree with me according to Bird cast:

Whatever it is, the birds are responding exactly the way I'm feeling to Hurricane Hélène coming into land.... And this is the biggest swathe of emptiness I have ever seen from Bird Watch even with the most devastating hurricanes within my lifetime....

 I've not written here in a while, I know. I've just not had much to say here. It's not that life hasn't been happening and things haven't been moving forward, I just haven't felt much like writing about it here. I also forgot to share the book post for the last couple months and we're nearly 1/3 of the way through September, so I'll just do it as a three month post for the last months of the year. It'll be fine. And anyway, August was soooo busy that I really didn't read anything near as much as I usually do and didn't even finish any of my books I was in the middle of reading during Irish fest season. But more than that, I just haven't really wanted to write here all that much recently. Not angsting over it, not desiring, just sort of.... not feeling the desire or need for it.

If I'm honest (and I do always try to be honest after all, especially here, even if it takes me a while to get there) it's in part because I'm sitting in a place of.... Acceptance and joy for what IS in my life and hope and curiosity for what the Universe has in store for me next. You'd think it might be otherwise, y'know? But those are the emotions. Also a bit of money stress because the Universe provides but damn I've been shoe stringing and a prayer getting myself through this life because that's the only answer I found when I soul searched for how to survive the dying days of decadence while contributing the least to the worst time lines and keeping things on a path (even if it is a stepping stone path) to get the Universe onto brighter paths where humanity as a vehicle for reincarnation can learn without destroying itself and the planet it was born on. Perhaps one of these days I'll choose a path a little bit less close to the bone, but I'd have to have a good reason for it. For now I am still happy with my choice to wander among the best and brightest joys I can find and to spin the world lighter and brighter by my touch upon it. This is after all a reward lifetime for me, so long as the conditions I asked for are met, it cannot help but be a bright one even if  in the eyes of the world I monetarily cut things close to the bone in the wandering ways it happens.

Did you think I would be sorrowing or angry or trying to fight somehow instead of accepting? You clearly don't know me. And anyway, it's been centuries of fighting to give him the time/space to change to live under the aegis of responsibility for his own choices rather than hiding behind the choices others he trusts/feels loyalty toward dictate that he follow -- there comes a point when even I accept that abnegating his responsibility of his own free will so he does not set his own choices but instead allows the choices others make for him IS his choice. Didn't quite take me 600 years to accept it as his truth, but nearly 600 and in the scheme of all the lives we've lived thus far we can call 593 years is just a rounding error to be 600. It doesn't mean he CAN'T still learn the lesson, it just means that I choose now to free him and me from my EXPECTATION he will and release us both to pursue whatever paths we best choose until such time as he has learned it and learned it truly so we CAN actually learn new lessons together.  Because as long as I am holding onto the expectation he WILL learn it if I just hold faith in him, I make myself the price and collateral of every time he fails to learn it. And I deserve better than that -- to choose that is to chain us both to him choosing to allow others to make choices in his name and for him to stand behind them as his own choices. And he can stay chained to that unlearned lesson as long as he wants, but I do not wish to be chained to it and I free myself of it even if it means accepting the truth of his choices as they are and releasing all expectations of him to be better than he has shown himself to be. Nearly 6 years of fighting it this life to set free of nearly 600 years of the pattern.

I'm stubborn, but eventually even I can learn to stop fighting and to let go find another way because free will is ALWAYS sacrosanct. even if you don't like it. And if it's his free will to allow others to make/guide his choices based on what THEY choose rather than what he would choose or would consider ethical, then that IS his choice.

As I have said, I wish for him only the best and brightest of what he seeks and chooses for himself on the path he follows to his future self-- but I release us both from any expectation that will include me in this life or that he will choose not to let himself be used as a source of pain and hurt and harm to me by this unhealed unlearned lesson from his past lives. 

I don't ask you to like it, I don't like it myself. But liking doesn't change the facts that: neither his sister nor the band nor her choices touch my life in any way EXCEPT when I allow him to touch my life and he is used as the medium of her bullying. If he's not acting as her tool for her bullying via ostracism OR if he's not in my life THEN there's no capacity for her choices to affect me in any way let alone cause any hurt to me. It's really that simple. And since he either won't choose or won't act so as not to be the tool of the harm her choices created and continue to cause, then I will do what is within my power in this situation and simply let him go to his choices.*shrugs* Is what it is. What else do you want me to do? Get upset with him for sharing things he's done that he should be proud of that his sister's choices disclude me from being a part of? Just keep letting him (whether knowingly or unknowingly) be used as a cause of hurt to me no matter how toxic that dynamic becomes? Tell me how either of those options are better than me walking away from the only thing connecting me to any of the mess that his sister created and he allows to continue be perpetrated in his name. Letting him go is the best of the options available to me since he won't stand up against choices made in his name that he perpetuates. And every thing in the Universe is lining up to agree with that choice I made.

I can't say I haven't asked about him of my tarot decks or my oracle deck. But I will say that until Uranus went retrograde, my decks refused to let ANY cards fly regarding him or Keith or Dave -- they would only answer questions I posed them about Diarmaid. All cards pertaining to Diarmaid are only of joy and love and reunion and bright prosperous future and for me to trust in the path I can't see but that leads me to greater blessings from the Universe than I had imagined. Which isn't at all what I expected it to say, but didn't actually surprise me any time I was told so. And since they started answering about Eric when they do answer (and some decks still won't pop any cards if I try to ask them) they have said only that if I don't accept the truth of choices made thus far and choose a different path, the tower will force me to anyway, whether I do so gracefully or not is up to me. They wouldn't answer about Keith for those several weeks either and now they just tell me he's working and healing and that's all I can get from them about him so I accept that's his truth and I follow him but with no expectations or hopes or desires beyond "I like you as a human soul and I'm curious what you'll create and share and do next." Which is where I'm sitting regarding Keith right now because he's still healing from his last breakup so he's still kind of in that "not available" mental category for me.

Cards are cards, and I don't lay spreads for myself and my own questions (I lay spreads for other people's questions just not for me) instead I read the cards that high energy pop out while I'm shuffling. I also ask before I start that they give me insight into the objective truth, especially the hard truths as opposed to the cards telling me what I want to hear. I can't explain why the cards have spent so many weeks refusing to tell me anything about anyone other than Diarmaid and where I need to be putting my energy in any of the aspects of my life. (Including the energy work clearing and dark entity battling that I do, in my free time.) but that doesn't mean that the cards haven't spoken truths in their own way.

 I don't know for certain what will come of that path or choices -- it may lead nowhere at all. I do know that Diarmaid makes me feel bright and a light in the heart when I see him and reminds me of past lives we shared that I had forgotten about but which were only ever bright in the times we shared together and that right now I miss him when he's gone and it made me sad that I don't know when I'll be seeing him next. But of where that path leads? I see nothing. But then you know, I did ask to have my precogs blinded on only two things: 1) sports 2) happy surprises because knowing either of those two things ahead removed joy from my life about experiencing them unfolding in real time. I mean, my rule I made with myself was no more dating when I can see the end before the beginning -- and while I could see nothing because there is nothing to see, but also seeing nothing isn't the same as seeing an ending. It's just an unknown. A blank canvas of choices not yet made. That and the promise of brightness is all I see if I try to peek forward down fatelines connecting me to Diarmaid. (And anyway, it doesn't really much matter right now -- he's back in Ireland far from me and with a very full tour schedule for the next while and no idea when or how our paths will cross next. Besides. It's all just hypothetical unless/until he gets up the courage to make it something other than hypothetical.)

*shrugs* Apparently I don't know much right now and I'm running solely on intuition and the best I feel like I can choose in the moment, like most people without the gift of precog have to muddle their way through their life paths.

But I have chosen that regarding Eric, choosing the status quo rather than doing something about changing things so he's not being used in the middle to cause the hurt of his sister's choices in the band's name IS a choice on his part. And while he didn't choose to create the situation back in 2018, he hasn't chosen to do any damn thing to change it or not be used caught in the middle the way he has been -- and that's his choice and I accept it as such. And my choice in light of accepting that is his choice is simply to let him go and wish him well on whatever path it is he does choose for himself -- because without me holding on to the connection to him, his sister's choices in the band's name and his choices to let himself be used as the tool of her bullying via ostracism are all choices that don't affect me or touch me at all. Because at this point, both his sister and his band only exist in my life touch my life because they matter to him, because of their connection to him and trying to hang onto having him in my life.  They only have any power over hurting me so long as I hold onto the connection to him, let him go and nothing his sister does or the band does or the consequences of her choices have any effect on me whatsoever. And I choose to take my power back -- I never agreed to give it to her to hold over me and the only power she wields is her power over her brother and his ability to hurt me by acting as her proxy -- even that false chain of power hold over me is gone by me letting him go his chosen path wherever it takes him, to let him go hold no expectations to have him touching my life at all this lifetime where she is so entwined through all his choices making his choices for him because he won't choose not to let himself be used by other peoples choices to cause harm by taking part in bullying via ostracism.

And really, at this point, what is there that's healthy that I'm letting go of in letting go of him by accepting his choices of inaction as being his choices?  When you feel powerless to make any of the choices that might change the situation, than the way to take your power back is in the only choice remaining to you -- that you can always let go and leave the situation if you cannot make choices to improve and better it. So I am taking the choice that is open to me. If it is not the best way, then find me the better way -- because as I see it right now, my only choices are to stay holding on to the toxic that is not improving after six years of the same patterns or to let go of what his sister rendered toxic by her choices and what his choices have allowed to remain toxic. Because if those are my only options, I know that more of the same path will only get me more of the same toxic patterns -- so I will choose to let him go and to try something new if those are my only choices.

I'm more interested in discovering what good things there are coming down new paths opening than focusing on the ill things that past choices bred. Y'know?

 

Anyway, sorry about missing the book post, I just haven't much felt like writing here is all and lost track of time, and here we are now nearly a third of the way through September. I'll just finish appending September books in with July and August then do the last three of the year together as well.

P.S. These two things, regarding Eric and Diarmaid, are unrelated in any way other than dealing with matters of the heart (or lack thereof, since I just feel calm acceptance about letting go of Eric to release the toxicity from being able to reach me.)  I arrived at the decision to accept his choices (or lack thereof) and to let him go at least a month earlier in the summer before I ever even crossed paths with Diarmaid -- and he took me completely by surprise. I'd have noticed him anyway and been interested in him even if I hadn't come to my internal decision of acceptance of Eric's choices over the last nearly six years. Other than having listened to the harmonies of Onoir to know I wanted to prioritize seeing them when I saw they were scheduled to play at every Irishfest I was going to this summer, I actually didn't see anything at all of pictures or videos and so had no idea anything coming or about them other than how their voices sound together. But the two things are not necessarily linked beyond sitting in the place of acceptance may have made me more open to seeing what is and could be with both Keith and Diarmaid.