January/February/March Book List

I forgot to post this end of January then again end of February. Whoops! Guess I'll be doing these quarterly this year. Unless I remember to do it or decide to do it on a more frequent timeline. On verra.

 

 Books Read: 

~James Fenimore Cooper, The Pioneers (447 pgs) [this took me a while to read, though once there was snow on the ground I started making better headway. (It opens as set on Christmas Eve) It's not as overtly racist as the others since it is a critique of the civilizing evil of pioneer American colonialist expansionism and the laying down of rules destroying the wild natural goodness that had been. It's just very sententious and florid and it took 170 pgs to tell through one day in which nothing much happened, he just sets up the pieces for the plot and shows you why these seemingly "good" folk are mostly all hypocrites and cruel and rather foolish people. The plot of those 170 pgs could be told in one normal length chapter by most authors, two chapters by most novelists of the 18th or 19th century -- maybe three if it was Henry James.... The pacing also suffered from being too fast with too much happening in the last 100pgs or so to give the story a plot. I only have one more novel left after this to have read through all the Leatherstocking Tales though! Which is far more exciting than the books themselves, lol. I do wish I had the last one in the same edition to match the other though..... If you ever find the édition of The Prairie it would make me far more happy to have it to match the others than the actual reading of the text ever could.]

~Hannah Whitten, For the Wolf (465 pgs) [I enjoyed this very much for what it was. A dark fantasy Beauty and the Beast retelling with some strongly animist magic layering through it. And what it was was exactly what I needed at that time. It was definitely a retelling of Beauty and the Beast with the "the monsters are the heroes and the sacred are the villains" vibe but I liked where it was going with the return to wilding versus corruptions in the old religious/political hierarchies.]

~Hannah Whitten, For the Throne (483 pgs) [I didn't like this as much as the first book. I liked having the story completed because the first one ended in the middle of a new crisis and I liked the light-dark mirroring needing each other but the plot had a lot of holes. The mirroring was a cool concept, though it didn't feel to always be realized to the best of its potential. And I felt that the heart of the story, especially the love story in it, was trying to be mirrored shadows even our inner demons deserve to be loved to heal what others call monster in us but instead it read as trauma bonding Stockholm syndrome and calling it love. It didn't feel authentic and it felt like excusing/defining trauma bonding as love which I didn't like very well even with the tired sop of, "we need to go find ourselves before we can be together" because there was still no character arc growth other than, "you told me your story and it mirrors my own insecurities so I can see me in you calling that shadow work and we are going through desperately difficult death defying activities together where we rely on each other to survive it calling that trust building."   Which I just didn't like as well trying to force a love story happy ending for all the main characters. Not everyone needs or merits a redemption arc -- redemption arcs are things you earn with your choices not just as a plot point in the unfolding story....]

~Jack London, The Call of the Wild & White Fang (307 pgs) [this is a copy with both novels unabridged; I'm not actually sure why I decided to read these other than they are classics I never read unabridged. But like, I'm the girl who cries at any movie an animal dies or is injured... You can do anything you want to actors, my suspension of disbelief knows it's not real it's only acting. But even hunt at an animal being hurt or dying and I'm bawling... Old Yeller? Sobbed my heart out. Where the Red Fern Grows? Cried for hours. Homeward Bound? Started sobbing, "But. But. A dog wouldn't do that! They wouldn't just leave him..." until he comes over the hill then I was sobbing and laughing and my parents were trying to calm me. Marley and Me? Cried for a solid hour. So animals being hurt or dying even in fiction breaks my own heart every time.  So this was a choice I made, but also they were difficult reads for me emotionally even though reading level wise and thematically they shouldn't have been so difficult or taken as long as they did.  A lot of dogs die in both of the books... A lot of good dogs.] 

~Nilo Cruz, Anna in the Tropics (62 pgs) [script of a play that APT performed last summer. It was fantastic, but it made me want to reread Anna Karenina because it's been a while since I last reread it. And I have the Pevear translation still unread that I picked up. Pevear is the translator that professor Dolinin always said captured the Russian into English best back in my Dostoevsky class in university. Dolinin was a third generation Russian literature professor, his grandfather taught Tolstoy and Dostoevsky under the czar, his father taught it under Soviet rule until it was banned, and when they emigrated to the US when he was a kid he grew up to teach Russian literature in translation specializing in Tolstoï and Dostoevsky. Heavy reading list, but that Dostoevsky class is one of my favorites from college. And Prof Dolinin always swore by any Pevear translation being the most superior for reading Russian classics in English.]

~Sharon Blackie, The Enchanted Life (314 pgs) [I enjoyed this very much, but it didn't feel like anything éclatant -- it was just more of a pat on the head affirmation, "yes you're doing this embodied living correctly, good job never losing your sense of wonder and awe in the beauty of the world."]

~Andre Norton, Flight in Yiktor (251 pgs) [I had read some of these loosely connected series not consecutive from my dad's sci-fi/fantasy collection growing up. But I had never read Forerunner or Forerunner Foray so I wanted to read the other loosely set in this universe for some world building context. Mostly I read and reread her Witch World series as the one my dad told me I would love and should read handed me the books from his collection for me to read.]

~Andre Norton, Dare To Go A-Hunting (248 pgs)

~Susan Fair, American Witches (303 pgs) [this is the one my cat insisted I read. It was fascinating but very quick reading sensationalist history telling ]

~Andre Norton, Storm Over Warlock (201 pgs)

~Andre Norton, Ordeal in Otherwhere (191 pgs)

~Margot Lee Shetterly, Hidden Figures (349 pgs)

~Andre Norton, Forerunner ( pgs)

~ Andre Norton, Forerunner Foray ( pgs)

 ~Jean Menzies (ed.), Dragons, Wyverns, and Serpents (206 pgs) [this was a purse book specifically for working and and elections. Small and innocuous and full of myths/folktales.]

~Patrick Barlow, The 39 Steps (105 pgs) [script of a play that APT performed last fall]

~Lauren Oliver, Delirium Stories: Hana, Annabel, Raven & Alex (178 pgs) [I decided not to reread the Delirium trilogy since the YA plot and character were simple enough the short stories could take me right back to it ]

~Michael Grant, Cleopatra (301 pgs) [this was the other book Griffin pulled off the shelf for me to read after I finished the Witchcraft in America book. I actually read it while reading the Plutarch's Lives of Alexander and Caesar... Still slowly making my way through Volume 2 of the Dryden translation of those biographies, lol ]

~Frank Herbert, The Collected Stories of Frank Herbert (700 pgs) [I read these in between other books. Some of them were phenomenal, some were weird, some deserved more space and room to breathe than short story format.]

~Rudolf Erich Raspe (German author) & Théophile Gautier (translator), Aventures du baron de Münchausen (155 pgs) [the first I ever heard of these classic German folk tales surrounding the historic figure and the ridiculous stories/lies he would tell of his adventures that were popularized in the 18th century was watching parts of the 1988 film version of it back in high school art class. It's very surreal and inane as a film and part of that is because he's a folktale hero and he's sort of flung between one improbable story to the next with no continuity. Some of the folk tales have other older counterparts I've read, but I've never encountered a copy of the stories collected together until finding this French text at a used bookstore. I haven't looked that hard to be fair, but it's rather funny that I should be reading these German magazine stories (first published as a novel form in English) for the first time in a French translation, although they were popular across Europe. These are a collection of some of the retold stories with the famous Doré caricature illustrations, but it's in no way a complete collection. At some point, I should acquire a more complete set translated from the German into English (since reading german is not currently in my repertoire) but this is a good entryway into reading them then going back to rewatch the film at some point.]

~Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanac (295 pgs) [I had read selections of this in school but never all of it. And I made a promise to my 11th grade AP English teacher Ms. Vale to read it in full at some point. I wanted something beautiful and nature filled and real as a distraction from the state of the human created mess of things.]

Books Acquired: 

~Frederick Atkinson, Sceadugenga

~James Baldwin, Go Tell It on the Mountain

~W. R. J. Barron & S. C. Weinberg (editors and translators), Lazamon's Arthur : The Arthurian Section of Lazamon's Brut

~Anne Llewellyn Barstow, Witchcraze

~John Brought (translator), Poems From the Sanskrit

~A. S. Byatt, Babel Tower

~Joseph Campbell, Myths to Live By

~Lucy Cavendish, (illustrated by Jasmine Becket-Griffith), Magical Fairytales: An Enchanted Collection of Retold Tales

~Zu-Yan Chen (editor), Inspirational Chinese Voices Classical Poetry

~C. J. Cherryh, Foreigner

~Martha Cooley, The Archivist

~Zoraida Cordova, Incendiary

~Robert W. Corrigan, Masterpieces of the Modern German Theatre

~Charles deLint, Into the Green

~David & Leigh Eddings, The Dreamers 4: The Younger Gods [this was the last one I needed for the series! I also bought book 2 in paperback as I had it in hardcover for some reason but all the rest I had found in paperback]

~Shauna J. Edwards & Alyson Rich Man, The Thread Collectors

~Flametree (ed.), Scottish Folk & Fairy Tales

~Kate Forsyth, The Witches of Eileanan 2: The Pool of Two Moors (I already had the first book of this series and wanted to read it before discovering it's first in a quartet. After finding the second and third at Half Price Books East, I now only need to find the third so I can binge read the series at some point!)

~Kate Forsyth, The Witches of Eileanan 4: The Forbidden Land

~Hester Fox, A Lullaby for Witches

~Antonia Fraser, The Wives of Henry VIII

~Adalyn Grace, Belladonna

~Ember Grant, Mythology For A Magical Life

~Philippa Gregory, The Boleyn Inheritance

~Philippa Gregory, The Other Boleyn Girl

~Philippa Gregory & David Baldwin & Michael Jones, The Women of the Cousins' War

~Lev Grossman, The Magicians [I had previously acquired book 1 in hardcover for free from a little library, but want the series to match on the shelf; so when I found all of the trilogy used in good condition paperback, I decided to pick them up and the hard cover can find a new home]

~Lev Grossman, The Magician King

~Lev Grossman, The Magician's Land

~Alexis Henderson, The Year of the Witching

~Donna Barba Higuera, The Last Cuentista

~Russell Hoban, The Lion of Boaz-Jachin and Jachin-Boaz

~A. E. Housman, The Collected Poems of A. E. Housman

~Kristoffer Hughes, Cerridwen: Celtic Goddess of Inspiration

~Mindy Hung, The Glowing Life of Leeann Wu

~Jake Jackson & Imogen Corrigan (editors), Joan of Arc

~Emily Lloyd-Jones, The Bone Houses

~Charlie Lovett, The Paradox Club

~James Macpherson, The Poems of Ossian

~G. F. Main (ed), A Book of Scotland

~Hilary Mantel, Wolf Hall

~Anne McCaffrey & Todd McCaffrey, Dragon's Kin

~Anne McCaffrey & Todd McCaffrey, Dragon's Fire

~Prosper Mérimée, La Vénus d'Ille

~Barbara Meillejohn-Free, Scottish Witchcraft

~Sir Thomas More, Francis Bacon, & Henry Neville, Three Early Modern Utopias: Utopia, New Atlantis, and The Isle of Pines (quite excited for this find -- I already own and have read Sir Thomas More's Utopia, but I'd never found copies of the other two before!)

~Garth Nix, Terciel & Elinor

~Rev. Lora O'Brien, The Morrigan: Ireland's Goddess

~Barack Obama, Dreams from My Father (surprisingly, I never did get around to buying this so I was quite delighted to find it in a free Little Library in my neighborhood)

~Jacqueline Onassis (ed) & Boris Zvortkin (illus), The Firebird and Other Russian Fairy Tales

~Edith Pargeter, A Bloody Field By Shrewsbury

~Barbara Léonie Picard, French Legends, Tales and Fairy Stories

~Alwyn Rees & Brindley Rees, Celtic Heritage

~Frances Sakoian & Louis S. Acker, The Astrologers Handbook (no clue if I will like or agree with this one, it seems to focus a lot on where things are "in detriment" which is an outdated concept I've never agreed with. But the book was free in a little library and I decided it was worth grabbing because it can always go back to one if I disagree or don't find it useful.)

~Jean-Paul Sartre, La Nausée

~Gertrude Stein, The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas

~Adrian Tchaikovsky, City of Last Chances 

~Jo Walker, A Witch's Guide to Wildcraft

~Alison Weird, Mistress of the Monarchy

~Virginia Woolf, A Room of One's Own and Three Guineas

~Paul O. Zelinsky, Rumplestiltskin

 O, it's not that I'm giving up on the bond or trying to silence it back to dormancy or push it away or anything like that -- I still want it, but I hold no expectations or hope or lying to myself that it will become manifest real in this lifetime no matter how deep my wanting.  It's not even that I expect anything to happen with Martin -- he's not the sort of guy who lacks for options or shies away from taking them when offered and Sept is a long ways away still. It's just that even with that knowledge, so far his presence has only ever brought sunshine into my life even when he's actively man whoring with a hot needy girl on his arm throwing herself at him for his attention because he is physically a constant thirst trap, lol. Like, I'm not going to lie to myself about who he is or how he has been -- there's just a mutual attraction there and whenever he's around or nearby, everything is a bit sunshine brighter. I know when I know him from in his past lives and I know why that mutual attraction is there even when he has another girl fawning on him hanging off him. And I know there's no reason for me to expect him not to be with anyone else back home in Glasgow or while touring next. Just acknowledging it's there and palpable and just because it's never yet been acted in doesn't mean we never will.

It's more of.... Just a complete acceptance of the choices made that got us to where we are and the acknowledgement that as things stand based on the choices past and actions/inactions, there is no place for me in Eric's life and I am neither welcomed nor wanted by some of the most important people/groups to him due to those people's choices of bullying via ostracism and there have been no actions and no path toward changing that. And that just... It is what it is. And I need to accept that isness and make my own choices in a place of complete acceptance that those are their free will choices and for myself I must look elsewhere for what brings joy and love and brightness in my life -- to focus on those who choose me, choose to be in my life and my lived experience. 

It's not a giving up or lessening of love or desire. Just an acceptance of how it is in this time/place (and has been for so very long now since the events that set this trajectory of ripples into motion) and the choices that got us to where we are. It's a setting aside of the wanting as something I can't have in my lived life at this time with the way things are and the free will choices that got us to this isness of this moment in time.  A looking elsewhere into those who choose me, choose to be in my life, and not holding out for those who don't choose me and consistently tell me they don't want me I'm not welcome at their table. 

And a feeling of deep down to the cellular level acceptance of that truth of this isness in this moment and this trajectory of choices and events that got us to here. And in that complete acceptance about the truth of his life path choices, there was a recalibrating and refocusing of my own heart to invest it into those who choose me choose to show up be a part of my life as it is lived this lifetime. 

And that hasn't shifted. Doesn't much matter if I feel him reaching for me down the bond or all I feel is the empty spaces of other choices that could have been made, through it all is the acceptance of the isness of the choices/events that got us to this crossroads and the truth of its isness. 

And that has nothing to do with any choices Martin does or doesn't make back home in Glasgow or away on tour between now and Sept.  It's not even about him other than acknowledging the long standing mutual attraction and the past life karmic ties that promise healing good growth this life if we choose it and how it just feels like sunshine whenever we are together sharing moments of space/time. What this recent eclipse season brought me is just an inner place of accepting the isness of things and setting aside anything else I want it to be in the name of accepting it for what it is. 

It's not the way it has to be, it's just the way it is because of the choices others have made and the ripples of those choices. It's a deep acceptance of the isness and a personal choice to focus my attention and love elsewhere where it is wanted and welcomed because what else is a girl to do?

Different choices could make a different isness, like a pool shark completely change the trajectories of all the billiard balls still on the table. But it ain't my turn to take a shot and even if it was, I can't hit any of the balls without scratching to change things make me wanted/welcome by the people whose past/ongoing choices ostracized me created the reality where I'm not welcome in his life. It ain't my turn and I don't have any angle to change this isness by making different choices. And I have accepted that. Accepted the truth of it so deeply I can feel the acceptance of the truth of isness for this juncture in this life as it is lived, feel that acceptance of isness within every cell of my being.

It's not judgement of others choices that got us to this isness, it's just acceptance of them and their consequences and the realities they created. If you want me around, choose me to have me in your life. If you won't make that choice, why should you expect any of my attention, energy, or love? 

And I don't think it should be a particularly unexpected or weird take. The weirdest part about it is probably how long it took me to let go of stubborn hope and expectations of somehow getting a different outcome despite the evidence of the choices made when they were made and the ripples of them that created this isness.

It's not a change of heart, it's an acceptance of isness and the free will choices others made that got us to this isness. Things can be changed with intention and a shared will/desire to change things -- but that won't happen without honesty with oneself about how things are now and the clarity to truth speak about the events and choices that got us here.

You can find or create a path from where you are through anything, the important question is always "does this path lead me to anywhere I want to get to? Or do I need to make other choices to forge another path to get where I want to be?" And that's a personal question, not one I can answer for you. 

Astro Poets Horoscopes: 

"Week of 3/22 in Libra: You have found friendship. That is reason enough to sing. So let it be so. This special name. Where love can be the best of it." 

"Week of 3/22 in Pisces: Yellow and green. They leave themselves. So it is pink. Nothing is forgiven with words. It is language."

Somewhen in the recent while around the solar eclipse and Chinese New Year, I felt something inside me close chapter and release around the bond and Eric and all the mess the girls made of what should have been easy. Just this sense of finality and closure accepting, "I'm not welcome here, and that is what it is. Those weren't my choices or my boundaries, but that doesn't make them any less real. I'm not one to try to force my way in where I'm not wanted -- since every lifetime is finite it's time for me to let go forget the could have beens and to focus my energy and love and joy into the people and places I am welcomed and wanted. Those who chose me, especially those who continuously consistently choose me." And no emotions about it really, no anger or sorrow or regret or anything other than just the tranquility of complete acceptance at every level. Just acceptance of the isness and truth of where we are and how we got here and how I should be investing of my heart and energy during this time in the isness of things. 

And it hasn't really shifted at all since then, just a continuation of the inner peace of acceptance. I guess the only other shift I can think of was at the lunar eclipse on 3/3 the inner excitement for happy surprises approaching me, wondering what the Universe will bring to cross my path to fill in the void created by that acceptance. That's the closest I get to the precogging happy surprises, to feel the joy and brightness of them rising over the horizon of the future but no clear sighted glimpses not even a fuzzy knowing who/what it's about or where it's coming from. I asked to have put the block on me and my precog gifts when it comes to happy surprises, that's how the block works.

Look. I told you. What was coming is worse. And I'm going to tell you again: what IS coming, it's worse still.  

Be glad you don't have the precogs. Be glad you don't carry the weight of what will be you cannot change. The events already in motion because the one pebble of a choice was removed that sets the whole mountainside down an avalanche, the one choice that cracked the levy to flood everything built downstream that believed it was safe now the dam was built.  The future fatelines are like that. Every choice can be that little pebble, that little crack and most people never know what ones are the pebble and what ones are just handfuls of gravel or sand passing through your fingers. Most people don't get the flash of the sight of the now inevitable avalanche and flood that can't be stopped or stalled or slowed down or redirected now that one damn pebble, that one deep crack has been chosen. 

And some people have second sight gifts. And some of those gifts include precogs. And some of us hate having had to play Cassandra our whole fucking life, lifetime upon lifetime, because no matter the opportunities we CAN make a choice to shift if we act immediately there's still so many exponentially more that we can't do a damn thing to change course or fight fate and we can't change things and we can't convince anyone to listen to us and even if we could convince them it wouldn't be enough to change the course that past choice already made (or sometimes the future choice that rippled backward -- but that's something different but related and I don't want to get into it right now.) You can't not know the flashes of the things you see. Not when it's among your second sight gifts you were born into this body having.

So yeah. It gets worse. Globally. It gets worse. it gets a lot fucking worse before it gets better. It just does. 

You're probably smart enough seen the evidence unfolding now to see the patterns and the rhyming of history.  And you're not wrong. But it's not all of it. And it ain't at all the same as seeing it. You didn't have to carry the sight you saw in your minds eyes of the murders then waiting til the day everyone else catches up to what you already saw, already knew. The promises you made to the old gods and angels who protect you that you won't cross the great river again until they say it's safe for you to be there, no matter how mad what you've seen has made you, because if you don't make that promise they told you directly they will do what they have to do to keep you on the board, keep you alive, to save you from your own impulsivity when you get angry.

 You haven't seen what was coming until it got here. And you haven't seen what's still to come, the bad that's even down the best possible fatelines where every choice in the fight gets made and every battle that can be won is won....

I'm sorry if I can't sit in the moment. And that I can't sit in the hope and the daydream of could bes that are never chosen to be made real. I don't have the energy or emotional capacity for that. I don't have the capacity to lie to myself when the starkness of the precogs I must carry need to be integrated. And I haven't since the precogs got so dark and so frequent and the worlds burning got closer than they've felt since the time in university when that fork was nearly chosen.

What I have the strength for and where I am putting my energy is into who and what IS in my life and choosing to be in my life and the moments of joy that can be snatched like fireflies from the darkness closing in and the sparks we can make against the flint and the brimstone of it all. 

If you're not in my life, not choosing me not choosing to invite me in want me at the table, I don't have it in me to lie to myself pretend any longer that maybe you someday will wake up and see things clearly/honestly and decide actually I am what you want/need in your life. Fuck that. There ain't time for that no more. You had those chances, you had that time and you didn't choose it. Not one damn moment of all the years and all the time you've had and I can't give you more time because the events in motion don't allow for it. If you don't choose me to be in your life as you choose to live it right now, in the present which is the only time you ever have promised to you to live within, I release you and won't think on you and won't let you in or save you a space where I am or within my heart. You're out of time for that sort of grace and forgiveness your actions/inactions/choices didn't earn. Whatever you choose, that's what you get and not a damn thing more. Ain't time for that. And you don't want to know what I've seen that makes me say that, the things I carry inside me once the act of somebody's freewill choices move the pebble that had been holding back the flood and soon everyone will see and know and it won't be just me carrying it but damnit that doesn't make it any easier for us just because now everybody knows what until then only those with the precog second sight gifts like mine had seen.

 It's not easy to carry the gift of prophecy, the gift of curses, the gift of precogs, the gift of death sight, the gift of knowing every fucking "last times we will ever do this together" -- everybody who has ever shared that damn tumblr post meme about wishing there was a light lit up above someone to warn you of all your lasts... NO. YOU. FUCKING. DON'T. WANT. THAT. You might think you do, to add meaning into the moment, but ask anybody who has to live that way and you don't want it. You don't want to be mourning your losses and deaths while you're still living in the present moment of having the gift of who and what you have loved -- it doesn't make it more meaningful or magical to know and if you have even a shred of empathy you then carry that knowledge alone because you don't want to ruin the brightness of what they get to experience by telling them before they find out in the fulness of time. It's a weight of grieving ahead that you carry alone. Always.

Getting to see Skerryvore and get Martin hugs in February/March was a happy surprise from the Universe in the midst of it all.  (I don't precog the happy surprises -- as a child I asked to have my gift blinded for sports and happy surprises because life has more joy when you get to live the delights/emotions of it without ruining the happy surprises.) The next time they've got dates stateside is not a surprise to me -- Dan (Martin's brother) gave Keito the dates made sure she could ask off and she came right over to share and texted them to me because she knows my policy is, "Whoever gets me their dates first gets dibs on me holding it against other plans" so I have dates in September and dates in January carved out set aside for Skerryvore getting dibs on claiming those dates (if they can get their visas renewed and get here from Scotland as they plan) -- they got me dates before I could buy my summer/autumn APT tickets, before symphony season ordered (so we will not be adding on the Joshua Bell opening show add-on because they got me their dates first.) Working with Keito on trying to get some of the guys to do a portion of Bolero for me during their Fri Fox Cities Irishfest set after I  mentioned it's the piece in the programme I'm saddest to miss. I don't know how it happens, but I will get to see my favorite Scottish lads again still this life -- the best and brightest part for me of seeing Martin and all the rest of the guys in February/March was discovering that it wasn't a last time, there was no death sight dimming of "this will never happen again" for me when I saw them.  Not for any of the guys and not for any of my friends within the Celtic music community who are like chosen family -- none of them yet have the mark of the "last times" that can't be hidden from my death sight. And that is a bright light spark of hope to hold to as a promise -- I've been wrong before seen the last time death sight mark and someone has made active choices to say, "Fuck that path. Death ain't having me yet. And I'm not letting this connection fade out" and defy the fates by choosing consciously that is not how it will be even after I've seen it. It's rare, but it happens. Always by a strong force of will on the part of the person I saw the "last times" dimming and dimming more and more with them.  But I've never had a last time where I DIDN'T get the death sight "last times" dimming the time ahead -- not even freak accidents. I always know and the fact I didn't see it, didn't see it on any of them not even the very last night I was seeing them all before they flew back to Scotland after celebrating Martin's birthday here stateside and getting back so Dan could have his birthday a few days later with his family. And even more than getting the dates from Dan via Keito as a promise, it was what I didn't see, not getting the death sight "last time we will evers" dimming even on that last night before the guys were flying back that was the brightest shining beam of hope to me that I needed and didn't know I needed. 

 Anyway. I set this private for a long while because...  because what i saw coming was not a future where you want any ai scraper to know you've got the gift of precog or for your words to convince anyone that maybe, just maybe, such gifts could be real. And maybe just maybe they could be used, could be useful... I'm not a trained seal, I never will be. Ain't in my nature. And the things I see are mine to carry and mine to share only if i damn well choose to and only to those I trust who I think can help me carry it not be broken by the knowing and only if/when I believe me telling will somehow help and make things a bit brighter and easier. My prcogs ain't for sale, they ain't never been. not in any life. And you cannot force them from me unless I free will choose to share them. But there are those in this world who don't need to be tempted by the thought they could somehow force those truths from me. And we have been going through a time where I didn't want my truths and stories written here available to data miners and ai scrapers... And such a feeling will happen again, and sooner than you think. This is a brief reprieve and lull when it's safe for me to have it here for n'improte qui the truth that worse was coming. And worse is still coming. 

 But anyway. Winter Storm Elsa is barreling down toward me with a blizzard warning -- but I have St. Patrick's Day brunch plans with my parents and best friend tomorrow. And then holed up at home with my pets and my books and music as the lashing rain and freezing rain and ice and snow at the rate of over an inch an hour and not knowing until the morning if the roads will be clear enough for if I will have to courier SVD drive downtown in the mess over to the east side. And then later that day buying my share of the APT tickets. And after all the plans around St. Patrick's Day celebrating through Tues and then SVD (Special Voting Deputy) assignments across the week. And the rest of the month my calendar is quite empty for me to fill I don't yet know how. And I will keep carrying and seeing what my gifts show me and waiting for the world to catch up, waiting for the collective psyche to catch up so we can fight and build from that point something better closer to what the majority of us actually fucking want rather than all the events in motion I've seen we have to endure and remember the lessons repeating in them.  And I will keep focusing my time and my energy and my love and my dreams into those who choose me and choose to actually be IN my life, those who keep coming back to sharing time with me creating memory sparks together as a want to, not an ought to or forced to. You're not likely to cross my path again or find a window into my thoughts/feeling/soul  as this has been unless you choose m, choose me for you life as you live it. There isn't time for promising anything else right now. And it gets so much worse before it starts to get better.... If you're following along at the passing of the fleeting present moments, you've not even yet come to the worst parts of it all....

 Anyway, here's your catchup of astro poets horoscopes if you've been missing them. Maybe should have waited til tomorrow to post this set this all back from being private to authors to instead being public but unlisted. Maybe I'll put the most recent one for the upcoming week at the end of these as an edit if I think of it. Or maybe not. Qui sait?

Astro Poets Horoscope:

"Week of 2/15 in Libra: The feathers are soon. That doesn’t mean either. It means soon you will walk into the room. What will you say? Only you know that."

"Week of 2/15 in Pisces: Some light remains. And an orange single thread. Does it connect? Nothing does. Everything remains." 

"Week of 2/22 in Libra: It wasn’t what you expected. But it was better. And when you could wait, you did. Let it be in birds. Let it be in butterflies."

"Week of 2/22 in Pisces: Fruit and things. Enjoy the sweetness. It all circles back. It all blesses in silence. This is not the end." 

"Week of 3/1 in Libra: Some sun. Some love. Some green. Take it. Do it."

"Week of 3/1 in Pisces: Some treats. Could you have it. You talk with substance. To the gold. To the piece of gold in the breeze."

"Week of 3/8 in Libra: You moved a mountain. And then some. Sweet love. The sweetest cake. Eat it now."

"Week of 3/8 in Pisces: You don’t have to make an argument. It will be there as it is. Following from one to the other. Standing up in line. Saying it as it was in the beginning." 

"Week of 3/15 in Libra: A true green. Made its way into your future. Let loose an envelope. The bats endured. The meaning shifted." 

"Week of 3/15 in Pisces: Lyrical propulsion. And knowing an opening. Something residing within the mind. And it can be. And it must be."