For the record, I actually disagree with the logic of how/why I'm getting my covid vaccine this week.  I'm going to do it as there are limited timespans for employer allocated vaccinations and my employer was given their class 1c assignment, federal vaccination program ID/number, and chosen to schedule this week at the federal vaccination site.  But I disagree with the logic of risk management that says tech support and cyber security services for health and government entities should be prioritized ahead of restaurant/bartending/barista servers.  I know we culturally look down on them as servers (only one step above servants) even when people work in the industry, but their job literally requires them to be in a building and in close proximity to unmasked people producing aerosolized particles.  Patrons have a choice,  employees don't while that job pays the bills.  So people working in environments others are unmasked are put at risk not by personal choice but by economic necessity.  The very nature of their job puts them in a position of increased risk.  Mine doesn't - people are properly masked in our office, we have curbside assistance only to the public in our buildings, and I can mitigate my own exposure risks even further by choosing to work weekends/nights so literally it's just me and my dog present. People deciding to eat at restaurants/bars is a personal choice - but people working there isn't a choice, it's their job in a scarce job market.   And it's their job, not their current entitled choices,  that opens them up to risk.  It's wrong to say "take this risk or lose your job" while vaccinating white people living in their own homes,  not at risk at work, with their own transportation. 

It's systemic injustice not proper risk management procedure - before we even get into influence peddling or lying by other white people to jump the queue for their own selfish reasons. 

I don't make policy and I understand the logistics nightmare of opening up seats to servers based on numbers - but their jobs put them at risk so they ought to get priority over people I've seen already getting vaccinated. Even people who are properly in their place in queue according to the governmental group rollouts are waiting for notification to schedule - and yet I've seen out of work musicians who live at home getting priority over older people or those with medical risk factors because they know the right people to get them a spot. People are leveraging nepotism out of selfishness and fear instead of waiting their legitimate place in queue.   In Florida, there is a direct correlation between household wealth and vaccination availability in over 75% of counties.  In California and Tennessee,  especially Los Angeles and Nashville areas, the correlation is based on racial lines and proximity to entertainment industry money/social power for access.  In Chicago and NYC,  even though vaccines are allocated to neighborhoods of color, people from wealthier whiter neighborhoods are buying their way into those spots, sometimes paying people to keep trying to schedule them as spots are released, and then driving to other neighborhoods to get the vaccines so the maps of neighborhood vaccines is exactly inverse to city maps of race,  wealth, or covid deaths. People in counties that are overbooked demand v supply are going to rural counties they don't live or work in so they can get it early. 

Basically,  if you're white under 50 and you used social leverage to jump queue to get your vaccine ahead of your age,  work,  or underlying health concerns then I'm not impressed by you playing the system.  I'm disgusted at your narcissism taking doses that other people's work,  housing, transportation, or medical conditions put them in greater need of due to unavoidable risks.  Obviously if you were supposed to be allocated by employment/age/medical conditions you waited your turn didn't play the system so I don't mean you.  Same if you have taken a job volunteering or working at a vaccination center, your work puts you in the priority group and I take no issue.  But if you used your friends network or influence to get you a vaccine before your official time to do so,  your narcissism and selfishness and use of white privilege is disgusting and I think less of you as a person with your performative on social media vaccination. 

Ultimately everyone can/should get it - but we're not yet at a point that it's okay to leave people with greater risks they can't mitigate unvaccinated while using your own social networks to take care of yourself first.  (especially if you're still in the recovery period after getting covid and so your body's own antibody production weakens the efficacy if mRNA or adenovirus mediated immune response training - leave those doses for people who need it NOW to protect them and wait  til you're a month out from having had symptoms rather than selfishly jumping queue to steal a spit now for performative social media presence.....but that's another issue entirely.)

If your job,  housing,  or transportation situation puts you at risk then you should get priority over a hypothetical 30 year old white chick who is unemployed or works from home and selfishly leveraged her "it's not what you know but who you know" white privilege to jump queue. 

And I'm going to get my shot this week because of my employer allocated spot, but what I feel is more guilt than relief as the allocation process isn't based on scientific assessment of risk in life factors beyond a person's control - it's based on protecting government and pharmaceutical company resources and people who abuse their own influence to jump queue.  Meaning young white people who have the luxury they can just sit at home waiting this out are getting vaccinated rather than those who are genuinely at risk due to their job conditions or living in resource deprived communities of poorer blacks and latinos. And that's not right.... It just isn't.  I understand the realpolitik of it and that in several months it won't be an issue - but selfish narcissism of white people jumping queue to get vaccinated for peace of mind or social media performance means poor people of color ARE dying because they can't get access to the vaccine but work/housing/transportation/incarceration needs put them at risk. 

And I can't fix those inequities and it's legitimately my turn in queue due to my employer to get vaccinated this week and bureaucracy being what it is I would make more work by not signing up once a spot was officially allocated to me in the state/federal processing system - but all I feel is guilt and shame that there are others who need it more than me who I think should have priority over my actual risk factors.... Maybe that's not how I should feel,  because I didn't try to play the system or jump the queue based on who I knew or lie to selfishly change my own chances, it's legitimately my turn by the official designations of the roll out phasing. But still I feel guilty that others have greater need than me at this time but due to inequities in the system they're not getting allocated vaccines but I am.... I can't fix the system, and me delaying/refusing my place in queue just makes things more difficult for the bureaucratic end and I know my spot would likely be taken by another young healthy white person and in no way benefit the people genuinely at risk who deserve the vaccination... But still I feel guilt,  not relief, given risk management life factors. At least I will get our county one more person closer to those whose risks  mean they need it and help keep the bureaucratic side moving smoothly to keep things easier for them down the line. Still,  I disagree with the logic of risk management that said this is my proper place in queue.... 

Because I think there are others who need it more than me. Which makes me feel guilt,  not relief, even though I personally did nothing wrong. 

I am glad that mine is the one jab Janssen vaccine though - I'm only taking one dose not two from people with unavoidable risk factors and the mRNA vaccines are more efficacious for elderly or medically at risk than the adenoviruses for their demographic groups.  Whereas adenovirus is just as effective in younger, healthy, not overweight populations such as myself.  

As of this morning, I'm scheduled for my covid vax (Johnson & Johnson, so no followup jabs) this Friday at 9am.  I actually could have scheduled tomorrow at 3pm as an option and just been done with it, but on Wed I have plans to go to the zoo and hang out with my Celtic Sisterhood coven at the zoo and if I'm feverish or having a reaction I didn't want to cancel on them. Especially since some of them had to request off work and/or block out their calendars as out of office so we could spend St. Patrick's Day together. AND they're bringing me some fresh Jameson Custard from Gilles!!!!!!  We've had this planned for months now, and I'm leaving it up to their discretion if they want to have dinner together or not given Mikaela is back in hybrid school (half the classes in person, half online) and Crissy just had her mom over visiting from Iowa all weekend. So no clue how late we're going to go on Weds....

Curiously enough, Maddie (who has lupus) was ALSO able to schedule her vaccine today and had the option to go in tomorrow and used the same logic I did to schedule hers for Thursday instead. My work got approved and pretty much everyone else here is going on Saturday -- but I set my own hours and I'd just as soon get it done. It's not that I'm anxious to get it, but I know I'll need to at some point and since I was selected that it's my turn I'd rather get it done than procrastinate it. I'll have to find one of my off the shoulder/cold shoulder shirts for it. It's the drive thru vaccination clinic in town, so I don't need to wear extra layers to sit in my own car in car queues.

Also today was a wonderful day for LOTS of other reasons!!! Lots and lots and lots of snow!!!! Got to spend the entire day with Mikaela! Accomplished my Target run and stocked up on Starburst jellybeans while they're available in season AND they had 2 boxes of extra strength Tylenol dissolve packets so I now have 24 doses of headache meds! AND I finally did an Aveda run while picking up Sarku and Steak Escape orders for the office at the mall -- I was COMPLETELY out of Be Curly Control Cream and Hand Repair lotion. AND my obsidian scrying mirror came in today as well as my Mossy Apothecary order with obsidian dagger for cleansing work AND my Queen of Swords ritual pillar with obsidian dagger for personal/friends/family cord cutting cleansing rituals. AND Mikaela and I went afternoon book shopping at Barnes & Noble and I got a whole bunch of titles I'd been wanting but not committed to buying full price on a "buy one get one 50% off select titles" sale scattered throughout the store so I bought 12 new books for $110. And then got a caramel macchiato and 2 cookies (also buy one get one 50% off sale price) from the B&N cafe area. And I placed my order for fresh Jameson custard from Gilles that Alana and Maddie offered to bring me on Wednesday if I placed the order they could pick it up for me on their way leaving Milwaukee so I'll be all stocked up with fresh Jameson custard to get me through the summer!! 

But as exciting as Starburst jellybeans and fresh falling snow globe afternoons and books and Jameson custard are, honestly getting scheduled for my covid vax this week is probably the most important thing of all today!!!!!  It will means that traveling and concerts and theatre can all be brought back into my life that much sooner!  Alrighty, I'm going to pack up my things now and go work til whenever I head home. But YAY for all the good things that arrived into my life today for my Ides of March!

P.S. Today's Libra reading for April from Nicholas Ashbaugh.... I mean, damn....

 *sigh* 

I loathe having the bond so attenuated as this.  It feels like I'm severed from some intrinsic part of me,  of my own energy,  my own inner strength.  I feel weaker for the absence, like something critical to my esse was lobotomized. I get tired more easily,  just soul weary.  

And sometimes it's worse than others.  Like tonight, quite literally all I want is to curl up into the warmth of the love in the bond and cuddle into it knowing that even if it's only soul snuggle right now,  it won't always be.  At some point it will be tangibly in our lives again,  not just between our souls.  And I can't do that.  Trying is coming bang up against the wall where no amount of pummeling does a damn thing except scrape up your hands. 

And I hate that.  

And I hate having to fight myself.  I hate having to rein in my every instinct that draws me back to him and remind myself that while we can't change the past,  those who refuse to even acknowledge it can't learn from it.  And if you won't learn from the mistakes of the past,  you doom yourself to keep repeating the same damn patterns until you're ready to learn from them to find a better way.... But it all starts with a willingness to acknowledge what happened instead of trying to defensively hide it or rationalize it.  There's no starting point for healing without that.

But still.  Even knowing that,  knowing why and how things got us to this point.  Still all I want tonight is to be able to hold each other in the love between us til we both feel surrounded in it. 

 And I can't.  

So now I'm back inside from taking the dog out, I'm gonna re-light some candles and pour me some more Irish whiskey and read some more escapist pulp fiction vintage fantasy novels. Until whenever I feel exhausted enough to fall into bed. 

P. S.  I hit post on this, and my beeswax hexagonal taper suddenly sent up a giant spark,  straight up from the wick.  Curious. In all my years of burning candles,  I've never seen that happen.

This level of calm upright strong tall flames except for that one straight up into the air spark just when I chose to release the message of this post from inside me by clicking to post it here...  

 O I still want exactly what I wanted last night and for so many many nights before that.  I'm not the least bit fickle or changeable in my tastes - qualities that attract me will always attract me and qualities that repel me will always repel me. I have never learned the art of falling out of love with anyone or anything I love,  not in all these lifetimes.  So I still want to wrap my arms around Eric and refuse to let him go til we figure out how to fix this because I'm terrified we'll somehow find a way to fuck things up even worse somehow otherwise.  That's still what I want.  

And I hate every single fucking moment of my lives that I have to doubt that and question that and deny myself what I want and try to live with believing for even a second that letting go and giving up that dream and desire is for the best.  I fucking hate it! And it never gets easier.  I never hate it any fucking less.....  Never.  Not for a moment. 

But I mean. Harsh light of day means asking,  if nothing has changed in the situation that keeps putting the distance and wedge between us,  why would I expect the recurring cycle to do anything else besides play out exactly the same way it has for 2.5 years? 

If you don't do anything to fix what broke,  why the fuck would you expect it to do anything but break worse every time you try to use it?!?!  It doesn't work for pipes, it doesn't work for cracked window, it doesn't work for frayed cables,  it doesn't work for a split board.... And it doesn't fucking work with people either! You have to fix and glue/weld back together where the flaw is that it broke along.  

And that hasn't been done.  There doesn't even seem to be any desire to try to start the process.....  

Ufgh....  

In brighter news,  Merrick Garland was sworn in today.  So I epoxied Justice back together tonight! 

Yay!!!! 

 24 hours to set,  72 hours to fully cure - so I can't put the scales back on the balance yet.  They're too heavy for the scale to hold and it causes her arm to fall forward from the weight before the adhesive cures.  But if everything cures properly,  I can bring her home on Sunday night!  

Hopefully neither arm falls off overnight,  but I'm not staying here all night to hold them in place.  I am extraordinarily tired all of a sudden. I didn't sleep at all last night as I didn't trust my subconscious in dream state not to find a way to reach him.... Because even right now this exhausted and having spent all day yelling at myself not to let me hope or trust in him,  still all I want to do is curl up into him and feel safe and loved and exactly where I belong.  And yet I can't even let me reach out to him energetically. It would be a terrible idea. For both of us.  To feed us full of false hope.  Honest?  Right now I just desperately want to go home stumble into bed and sleep a nice long sleep. But first I need to drive home without hitting any deer or coyotes or wolf.... I've seen all of them on my short drives home in the witching hours since Pisces season began.  I should be able to do that though.  

Right.  So ehrm.  I'm just gonna finish this cuppa green tea first and wake myself up a bit before I head home. 

P. S.  Safely home now.  In my pjs with a cuppa Pukka Love tea (rose,  chamomile,  and lavender) to send me to sleep in just a short while here. Promise.  

See?  Home now in pjs.  With tea in hand.  Well, technically the tea is in snowy polar bear under the stars mug which is in hand.  

That is genuinely my mug - polar bear on one side,  snow covered pines on the other side.  It's before Spring Equinox and it's supposed to snow again on Monday here - I still have another entire week to use my wintry mugs! (full disclosure: my pj pants are also dark blue flannel with snowflakes embroidered all over.)

And my book is on the table on the other side of the phone and purring cat curled up in my lap. I is home for the night and safe - no deer or coyote or wolf encounters tonight. 

 So my thoughts since last night are that it was an oversight for me not to remember my facebook newsfeed from the page (I don't have them set to send notifications or show at the top - so it's algorithmic roulette that I might see anything there.  Still a higher chance than other socials though given the block from their official account in response to my honesty that the country music at shows would stop me going to future show - which the system of injustice via ostracism created by that block followed by putting things exclusively on the insta and taunting at shows to "find us on instagram" while not being willing to respond about it is what caused me to unfollow the band on twitter and unfollow all members personal accounts on all platforms.  So algorithmic roulette is your best social media chance to reach me now.)  But, I'm not going to change that now and un-like on facebook.  I care about addressing and fixing the injustice issue, not vengeance or guilt. G-d and karma can deal out any vengeance/guilt as earned,  I keep my hands clean of such things.  I do care about complicity in created systems of injustice and the perpetuation of them.  But there is no chance of such systems being acknowledged, let alone corrected,  if there is a complete refusal on either side to communicate. So even though it cause as much or more hurt as joy and makes me feel conflicted, I'd rather leave that channel of communication open as an opportunity to right the wrongs they have done and continue to do -if they ever choose to take it. 

And I shouldn't be surprised that the video was in my facebook feed just as the sun was conjunct Neptune in Pisces... And I shouldn't be surprised that as we approach the moon-Neptune-Venus conjunction with this new moon that I feel myself pulled so strongly toward unconditional love and forgiveness and healing.... I can't help wanting what i want and I can't help being pulled where I'm pulled and I can't help any of that.... It's why I had decided that since nothing was changing and nobody was even willing to acknowledge any of this, the best course for me was to cut contacts everywhere so I couldn't see anything form him. because objectively, that IS the least damaging option available if there's a refusal to address this or even acknowledge it exists. Genuinely, what do you expect other than recurring this damaging pattern of the past 2.5 years if nothing is altered about the elephant in the room of the band's created and perpetuated system of injustice on their band Instagram account which is what sets off the same cycle every time I allow any reconciliation to creep in without accountability from them of what they have done and continue to do on their official band Instagram account?  

(and this isn't just about me.  It upsets me for every fan/former fan who was blocked there for honesty about the country music keeping them from shows.  And I know I'm not the only one on their blocked accounts list for that petty defensive reason - the public diehard fan responses may have been victim blaming me for me being blocked,  but in private dms others who saw my posts about it have told me how it also happened to them and the heartache it caused including an inability to listen to the band's music after that,  even songs they formerly loved.  Which is where I'm at - I still haven't listened to The Light and have no desire/intentions of listening to The Dark when my Kickstarter CD arrives and the songs I once loved so deeply I have not been able to listen to since the Minneapolis show in Nov 2019 that I had bought the tickets to before the gaslighting episode in late August of them ignoring all my attempts to get this addressed before the band's planned "live on Instagram with all our fans" to celebrate the end of the Kickstarter.)

This isn't about vengeance or guilt or assigning blame.  It's about taking part in a system of injustice and second class fans and intentional cruelty inflicted by the choices made surrounding the band's social media accounts, particularly their official Instagram account.  And systems of injustice don't disappear by ignoring them pretending they were never created and don't exist.  Refusal to acknowledge a created system of injustice is complicity in perpetuating it.  Always.  

And no amount of me being drawn to any individual member nor me WANTING to fix things will help anyone without dealing with the elephant in the room. Love alone can't fix systems of injustice if the people doing the power tripping insist on gaslighting and refusing to ever respond or acknowledge that the injustice exists.  And I can't force them to face what they have done and continue to do - they have to choose to do it. 

So I don't intend to close the remaining few lines of communication open via socials, but there's nothing will draw me any closer to give any of them my trust, no matter the temptation, while the same cycles of cruelty and gaslighting due to the system of injustice created on the band's insta account continues to exist. What's the point of trusting or opening up again to give another chance if you'll just get smacked down the same ways all over again? 

You can't expect me to get excited or happy for anything from you if I'm constantly flinching away waiting for your your next acts of cruelty to land and hurt me. There ain't nothing healthy you can create with that sort of unhealed brutality from a system of injustice you consistently perpetuate by your micro-aggressions and petty bullying power trips. Even last night,  I flinched away from it when I first saw it and kept scrolling before my curiosity got the better of me,  enjoyed almost all of it except his repeated mentions of how he's been doing this every week for the last year - ea h mention of that was a smack and salt in the wounds.  And immediately afterward I began the inner conflict of,  "when is the renewed pain this opens me up to going to land?" which in itself caused me emotional distress even without any new instances of the salt in the wounds of the renewed system of injustice being perpetuated.... The expectation of the micro aggressions and bullying power trip bullshit is itself a form of micro-aggression in systems of injustice. 

I may WANT to fix this more than I want anything else - but there's nothing I can do to fix it until this system of injustice in their instagram account is acknowledged and corrected.  There is no fixing the personal without first fixing the systemic in the name of the entire band. There just isn't. 

And no amount of desire and wishful thinking will get me to lie to myself about this or lead on anyone else with that lie.... 

I mean what else is a girl to do in this situation if you can't even get the bare minimum of acknowledging facts about their own account and how it's perpetuated and still perpetuating a system of inequality in the name of the entire band? 

What can you do in the face of such an intransigent refusal to communicate or even acknowledge the reality of how your past/current actions are sabotaging your present/future endeavors? 

Exactly.  And since there's nothing I can do about it, I'm going back to drinking tea and reading Pablo Neruda poems and listening to Billy Joel until my parents and Sarah are ready for drinks o'clock at 5. And then eventually I'll punch in to get the last of my hours in for this week. 

P. S.  Remember when I was talking about songs haunting me? And how the Melissa Etheridge song I'm the Only One song haunted me for like 10 weeks in autumn 2020 until I accepted the message and then I stopped hearing it on the radio completely? Welp.  Today I heard it twice in the car.  Of the two times I was in the car today....  Once on the drive to work and then on the short jaunt to move my car from one parking spot to right in front of the building.  (literally backing up then driving in a circle around the garden it was the song on the radio.) 😂 Okay then.  Bit heavy handed today, and I hear you but I don't know that I believe you... I desperately WANT to believe you - but I don't. I just don't have reasons to  believe... I don't even have reasons enough to hope.  Only reasons to wish it were the truth...  But it did make me laugh at that timing when I turned on the car and there it was playing for the second time today, on a completely different radio station from lunch o'clock first time I heard it today. 

 *sigh* On the scale from 1 to "ability to resist temptation" I'm genuinely only good at "avoiding the temptation entirely so I don't see it"  style resistance - and I know that about me.  I only avoid unhealthy things by not having them around and then I don't miss it because I get distracted by other things.  I mean, I can get distracted and I have absolutely no sense of the passage of time when I'm in flow, but that isn't the same thing as seeing something you want and denying it.  It's just not allowing yourself to see it.

Also though. I forgot about emails and facebook when I unfollowed everywhere back in January when I hit my, "No, you're still not listening and this is genuinely still a problem. So if you refuse to acknowledge this, I'm leaving" wall.  

The "if I don't see him, I can't be tempted" logic genuinely only works if I then make it so that later when I'm not so angry I can't break down and give in to the temptation.  It certainly doesn't work when I'm scrolling through my facebook feed and it's rigt there staring at me in my facebook feed.

Definitely was not a fool proof plan.

And definitely effed that up tonight....Because what was I supposed to do, see it and not click on it and watch?  As if that was in my nature.... 

And his song choices were good.  Definitely tugged at my heart strings with those choices.... Pulled me right back toward him, wishing I could reach along that bond to reassure him that I love him and it would come out right somehow. Like I always used to...

And now I'm conflicted and want what I always have wanted and now that emptiness hurts instead of just ignoring it.  And I just want a way to make things right. To fix this instead of having it so fucked up and broken.....

And now I've had Saved The Best For Last stuck in my head for like 2 hours. Even though he messed it up. Actually probably because he did -- when you don't finish a song, it's more likely to end up stuck in your head. And the whole thing about middle school dances and Mike asking Atay to slow dance during it but Atay said no so now they were sitting across the room from each other made me laugh so hard... And laughter is my emotional reset switch.  Always has been. I can lose my temper easily (especially if you keep pushing the same button or any time over an ethics/justice issue, ethics/justice issues are my shortest fuse) but I'm really terrible at staying angry.... Like, if you don't push the same button that upset me in the first place, it's impossible for me to stay mad at anyone for even an entire day. And then if you make me laugh, you can always get from me a chance to make things right.... Doesn't matter how angry or upset I was, as soon as you can make me laugh I reset back to my normal happy logical intuitive af solution finding self. It's my weak point in any argument or any situation -- make me laugh and you can immediately bypass my anger. Doesn't matter why I was upset, get me to laugh and we're good and we can work anything out.  The day my sister learned this, which wasn't until she was in college, she started by always approaching me with something completely ridiculous to make me laugh and set my mood rather than dealing with whatever mood she found me in. And it COMPLETELY changed our patterns of interaction and made our relationship less eggshell walking. (My sister is a Virgo sun with a Pisces moon -- she is very meticulous detail oriented highly emotional remembers EVERYTHING that ever upset or hurt her and has always been baffled by how quickly/easily I forget and forgive and move on if given space to emotionally reset after a fight is over.  It was not the easiest childhood pairing with my Libra sun and Capricorn moon.)  The day that she understood that it wasn't personal and that she could set my mood every time she had to interact with me instead of having to deal with whatever she found and her getting reactionary made everything better. basically, if I look at a text and start laughing, it's probably my sister sending me something random af to say hi to me before actually letting me know what's up. And I KNOW what she's doing, but after making me laugh, I don't even care about her having manipulated me to get me in a better mood. (You can also fix my bad moods if I'm in a bad mood because I'm hangry. Mostly what happens when I'm hangry is I just get easily irritated by everything and it goes away as soon as I eat something.  And if you give me a snack and THEN make me laugh, you can get just about anything you want from me. Unless it crosses an ethical line.)  It actually is the best hack I can give you with me, is just to make me laugh after I get upset/angry and have had time to cool down -- you just have to get me to laugh and it will reset me and be okay.

And now I just want to hug him and ask him while holding him, "Okay love, so how do we fix this now? Because we have to fix it. We do." 

Which doesn't actually fix anything. It just means I want it fixed....and now I'm conflicted again about it all.

Wasn't expecting that tonight. Was expecting the thunderstorm tonight, first one since November. Wasn't expecting the inner storm shift. (But we do have to fix this, y'know.)

I'm going back to rewatching Silicon Valley while scanning/inputting at work and listening to the storm.

Magic is everywhere and in everything, same as energy and same as spirit. It binds together all things and all beings, like strong nuclear force in quarks. It's why you can tug on it find any bit of energy/spirit if you know its particular individual signature pattern. And it's really that straightforward. There are no gate keepers -- only the limits your own ego accepts from yourself or others telling you there are gatekeepers. It's always there. Always. In every age, in every life. You just have to remember how to reach it. You just have to get quiet and still enough to hear its singing pulling you.

 O yes. I thought of something while I was untangling/winding up on poster tubes the icicle lights Ian and I took down at work today. (Jane didn't help with taking down the lights, but his wife showed up with their car and a smoothie while we were taking down the lights and sat in the sun joking/heckling us while waiting to take him home, lol)  I realized something that might be completely baffling you.... 

How am I Jewish and yet talk about past lives and karma and vision dreams and old gods/goddesses? And then I talk about cleansing/healing spaces and sending stuck unincarnated spirits back into the cycle of souls and doing battle to send malicious unincarnated vampiric energies back to the light so they can't feed on the living?  How the fuck is any of that JEWISH you might be asking -- how can I claim such things and also state that I'm Jewish?!  I mean, other than by birth, because I mean obviously genetics are genetics and Judaism is both religion and racial. And my da is like 90% Jewish between the Ashkenazi and Sephardic Jewish (although the French don't allow any genetic cataloguing so if  you're actually French it won't show up, the only French shows up in your DNA history is if it's French Canadian -- but that's another thing) and he bears on his x and y chromosome the Cohenim marker (the side that the prophecies/precogs come down is my father's father's side of the family, both my da and I knew of flashes my grandfather saw to change the future or save lives)  according to 23andme and all that. So I mean, genetically, yeah, obvious. But other than genetically, how can I claim these things and still call me Jewish you may ask.

Well. To me, it's actually quite straight forward and not a contradiction at all. And for that I'm going to have to do a bit talking about Judaism in the non-Orthodox accretion of Ashkenazi traditions but in actual historical Judaism AND my own syncretic Universalism and how it works. But you're going to have to throw out all your Paullene Christianity derived ideas defining Judeo-Christian traditions to understand it.

Just seriously, everything you think you know about Judaism through a "growing up Christian indoctrinated" lens -- just throw it out the fucking window now.  We're not going to get very far if you cling to original sin and bodily resurrection and all other deities are lies from the Devil and predestination is totally a thing that an omniscient all powerful loving God would do.... So just discard everything you think you already know about Judaism that you learned through a Christian lens. Just throw it the fuck out.

So firstly, past lives. Obviously I remember my past lives (or claim to have always remembered, if you're skeptical about such things) so there's that. It's hard to argue with memories and flashbacks. Just straight out.  And many of my past lives were NOT born into a Judaic or Christian world -- by the time I was born Christian I'd spent so many more lives in other spiritual traditions that I didn't even think it might get me burned at the stake to be a  woman claiming that angels/saints spoke to me and advised me. But here's the thing with Judaism.  There are a lot of things in Judaism that were deliberately cut out and/or deliberately removed from the texts because there were concerns about how it might make people stray from rabbinically mediated Judaism. And multiple lives is one of those things. Rabbis don't talk about it much (and they don't talk about it to women at all) because Judaism puts the emphasis on THIS particular life.  But if you push a rabbi on it repeatedly, they will admit that the tradition of gilgul (the cycle of souls) IS a part of the Halakhic and Kabbalic traditions within Judaism BUT it was removed textually by rabbis because people were living bad lives saying they'd "make up for it next life" and so the rabbis decided to remove it from the general traditions and to sidestep the issue of afterlife and to put the focus of Judaism squarely on living THIS life the best you can. Which isn't wrong, just blindered. However, certain of the mitzviot are male gendered and certain mitzviot are female gendered and if you belivee in the mitzviots as a guide to ascension, you'd HAVE to have at least one female and one male life to achieve them all.  But, even more important, beyond that, in Hebrew and ancient Aramaic there is no singular for life as a noun. There is only the plural, chaim -- lives. (When you toast l'chaim in Hebrew with a drink, you are toasting "to lives" even though we commonly and famously in Fiddler on the Roof, translate it as "to life" even though technically it's the plural form.) In Hebrew, -im is a pluralizing suffix. The only word for life or lives in ancient Hebrew is chaim, the plural form. there is no singular in the written for the noun. The chai symbol that is popular as a symbol of Judaica is the verb/adjective form, it technically means alive/living.   Everywhere in the Tanakh or in the words of Jesus himself, you need to read lives not life unless it is explicitly alive/living.  It is the breath of lives, it is what you should do with your lives, it is the lives you will walk again among your sons and daughters. Always and always and always in Hebrew, the word for "life" as a noun only exists as a plural "lives" at a linguistics level. The removal of gilgul from core teachings of Judaism was actually one of the central issues that Essenes had with the Pharisees and Hassidim and why they splintered off. They also had weird misogynist ideas about women and men intermixing being unpure that they felt the Pharisees/Hassidim weren't strict enough about, but that's another issue entirely. .

Also. What is the point of life (of any life?) if it isn't to become better as you learn better? And what sort of omniscient all-powerful loving deity would decide to judge you on one test before you  could possibly be ready? What's the point of incarnating lives if not to learn to be better than you have been and to learn it in a way that you chose needed to be lived out on this level as opposed to being a part of the sea of Essence or an unincarnated spirit?  And what's the point of anything if you aren't free to learn by failure as much as you can learn by success - learning from your choice can be either a positive or negative experience but learn from them you will eventually.

I tend to look at the Judaic G-d as the creative expression of Spirit -- sort of a Daoist transcenentalist sea of essence Big Bang all of this Creation weaving existence by the insertion of spirit/soul/essence throughout the warp of space/time and the weft of matter/energy. (How I cleanse and realign spaces is actually by the visualization of the tripartite grid of these three "strands" (and a grid of 3 axes forms the Star of David/Solomon's Seal in the interstices -- try it and see) and I connect up to the white light pouring into me while holding that vision of the grid and then I use the energy light pouring into me to push the grid outward into the entire space I wish cleansed/blessed/healed -- nothing of unincarnated spirit (not woven into matter/energy and space/time) can remain within a realigned grid.  Unless it's a higher being with direct access to the light/energy of Creation, but that is another paragraph.)  So for me, G-d is closer to Great Spirit or Tao that is a part of all things in Creation rather than an angry vengeful micro-manager of daily existence.

As for other deities or fée or what verbiage you choose. The commandment is "Thou shalt have no other gods before me" meaning you shall not worship anyone else as greater than G-d the Creator -- not that you can't acknowledge the powers of unincarnated beings.  I do not bend my knee to any of them, though I respect their powers and limits and rules. You don't worship graven images or statues symbolizing gods because the things are just empty bits of matter and don't embody a deity -- and so you shouldn't worship the physical idols.  All mention of angels by name was actually removed from the Jewish Tanakh following the return from Babylonian enslavement (except Daniel mentions Gabriel by name; which is why before I was born my da insisted his first born be named for Daniel though he allowed my mum to choose the form of it and to pick my middle name -- and Gabriel IS my guardian angel when i make pretty serious fuckups need a lot of intense healing fast or questions answered or  lessons explicated. Or at least, my guardian angel who comes to me at such times self-identifies as Gabriel.)  And the reason the Sanhedrin did that is that people were praying to the angels and worshiping angels in the Babylonian ways of sacrificing life force to their deities.... 

Now I don't personally distinguish between angels, fae, gods/goddesses, avatars, djinns, devas, etc other than the cultural origins of them.  I don't separate based on levels of power, all the names are just different sounds meaning the same things.  They're all just unincarnated spirits.  Now, what I DO distinguish between are unincarnated spirits that can conduit direct to the core light of Creation and those unincarnated spirits that feed off of the energy of the living.  Those that derive their energies direct from Source are those that I tend to consider of the light, Seelie, seaphic, etc -- they are working to help the Creation unfold. These are the ONLY unincarnated spirit that I personally choose to ally myself with and who I turn to for protection or assistance. They're the only ones I will choose to have anything to do with -- those who are here to assist in Creation unfolding and who can directly tap into the light of Source. There are also those who are vampiric feed on VOLUNTARY energetic exchanges/promises (like Odin and certain forms of ancestor worship and the Unseelie) where exchanges are transactional between a living incarnated being and an unincarnated spirit -- they will do things for you and you will give them of your life source energy in exchange. I distrust them and won't have to do with them but they can act beneficially or maliciously depending on their natures.  The last group, who are the truly demonic sort are those unincarnated spirit that are unable or not allowed to tap into the Source of Creation itself and can exist ONLY in parasitic relations of feeding on the living -- this is your typical demonic or hungry ghost or certain blood vengeance "deities" who demand blood sacrifices of life force -- and I don't believe ANYONE should have anything to do with them or strengthen them and I fight them when they feed on innocents and I either sic deities/beings of Light on them and/or channel it directly though me to force them to face judgement in front of the light of the source.

I do have very strict rules about what sort of energetic unincarnated beings I will associate with and their alignment to Source -- and to none of them do I EVER feed my own personal life force or allow them to feed on the Source through my connection to it. I don't divide them up by names or cultures or power -- I align them based on their ability to tap directly into Source or their feeding off of life force without choosing to be a part of the cycle of lives/deaths. I have VERY strict unbending rules about this -- but they're not aligned to Orthodoxy in current religions.

Does that make more sense of my syncretic Universalist pantheist talking like equals with ancient deities across my lifetimes variety of Judaism?  I mean, it doesn't seem to make any sense if you're trying to understand it by forcing it in a monotheism versus polytheism "my dogma on God is the one and only truth" box. And it never will. But it does if you understand the spiritual and philosophic and historical reasons behind how I arrived at my understanding of it and why my understandings throw out the basic premises of Christianity (primarily because i do not believe there is any justice in any transferal of sins) but not the basic premises of how I understand Judaism or Taoism.  (I also don't self-identify as Jewish to other Jews other than to say, "I'm Jewish but not religious, I don't attend synagogue and I'm definitely neither Orthodox nor Reform Judaism in how I interpret it."  Pantheism isn't how most Jews understand monotheism any more than Christians do, lol.)

I would also say that, as a general rule, when people ask me to explain my pantheist Universalist view of how I can accept the premises of an omniscient all powerful eutheistic Divinity of Creation, I have a metaphor i came up with in the summer between 5th/6th grade to explain my idea of it.  (I know that's precisely when it's from as I first came up with the metaphor talking deep spiritual talk to a friend at Camp Shalom, first year of Noar. the summer I put the hole in my leg that should have killed me in a bike accident.  (Camp Shalom is a "Jewish" summer camp open to anyone of any faith but run by the Jewish Federation of Madison -- so like we did Shabbat blessings every Friday and skits from the Tanakh and age groups were based on Hebrew letters and some of our camp song singalongs were Davidic psalms as well as Peter Paul & Mary songs and a lot of things were known by their Hebrew/Yiddish names -- but other than that it was normal camp stuff like tie-dying and candle making  and dodgeball and swimming/fishing and lanyards and such.) I went to Camp Shalom for 3-6 weeks of every summer from about six years old until I was too old for Camp Shalom Noar because i was entering high school. But it was the first of my 3 years at Noar that I came up with the metaphor of religions as lenses.) I view ALL religions as lenses to try to explain a light too bright for mortal eyes to stare at without being blinded (like burning magnesium or staring directly into a solar eclipse) and obviously some let more direct light through and some dim/refract it in bizarre ways -- but all religions contain some of the truth/light and all contain blindspots/cracks for how they alter the light in its passage through them. (And obviously pagan religions are prismatic lenses that separate the white light into its constituent wavelengths.) But they all have truths and they all have flaws but choosing spirituality instead of blind faith in dogma is like seeking out a prescription for eyeglasses instead of just seeing through the eyes you were born into. It's all about what lens helps you see the best you are capable of right NOW and makes you the best version of you that you are capable of being that you should use for religious/spiritual beliefs for you.  We just don't (currently) have spiritual optometrists to help you correct your vision back as good as it can be so you have to muddle through it yourself with what you're born with and then figure out what makes things clearer/brighter and what makes it dimmer and blurrier.  And spiritual lens fitting is as personal as lens prescriptions for misplaced focal length of your own cornea..... It's all about what fits you personally right now. And like eyeglasses/contacts prescriptions, your vision and what lens will help best correct it will change over time.  Not what lenses your siblings or parents or best friends wear -- theirs might give you horrible headaches and make your vision worse than what you were born with or than the lenses that correct yours. 

Also, I've had glasses since the 3rd grade and I've been obsessed with optics, specifically with refraction/diffraction and prisms since I was a really small child. As long as I can remember in this life I've been obsessed with the way light plays on the surface of or through the center of things, lol. So to me it was an obvious metaphor, but it kinda blew his mind a little. Which is why it was a memorable conversation.  

Alright. Back to watering all my 100+ indoor plants at work now!!  Before doing some scanning/inputting work tonight until I get home.

P.S. Also, Senate confirmed Merrick Garland for Attorney General to move forward to a vote! Once he's sworn in, I can fix my broken Justice statue. (From when I broke it after I knocked it off the piano while moving/hanging a MASSIVE tapestry that used to belong to my grandparents. Honestly, i really shouldn't have decided to move that on my own -- it's about as tall as I am, lol.) I decided that the election wasn't enough, the inauguration wasn't enough for Justice to be fixed -- since we can't go back to fix the republican hijacking of Supreme Court seats, I would only consider Justice as mended or in the process of mending once Merrick Garland was put in the seat of best able to achieve Justice in this fucked up fractured society of America as it is now.  That was the standard I set for the date/time of mending my broken statue of Justice. if his nomination never went through, then i was going to leave my statue of justice broken armed forever as an art statement.

 So I was thinking in the shower earlier this morning.  

And it wasn't always in his nature to choose to follow others rather than listen to himself. That started after the first life I chose that I'd rather let everything be destroyed if I could stay with him just a little longer.  Which wasn't always part of my nature - most of my lifetimes I spend working to salvage what can be salvaged from disasters natural or man-made and be certain that the important things get remembered and passed on.  I got upset over the old soul consensus to try the Roman colonialist expansionist model of human evolution and once Paullene Christianity dominated it,  my soul abandoned the Mediterranean and fled to save as much as possible across the ocean where I'd have time to figure out how to fight the cancer I saw Rome to be. And I didn't choose to incarnate again back in Eurasia or Africa til he literally crossed oceans in viking to find me. 

But what I was thinking about in the shower was... He didn't used to value outside opinions more than his own ethics until AFTER the life I decided that everything could be destroyed if I could finish that life with him.  And the thing about twinned mirrored souls (which is what the bond is) that can be confusing is that they mirror and balance each other even if their karmic paths keep them apart.  It means that my willingness to say,  "fuck it" and sacrifice nations and civilizations instead of salvaging what is important in them had to be balanced by his soul and that has manifested in him choosing to prioritize what he is told by others is the right course rather than what he knows internally to be the right course. My valuing society too little was balanced by him choosing to value it too much. And the many lives of separation were because he was a danger to me with that tendency in him but I was a danger to everything else if I'd choose him rather than saving what could be saved.  And I knew that when we agreed to keep our distance across incarnations until we fixed the imbalances in both of us,  I just didn't think the yearning would hurt so bad. 

Anyway,  since the French Revolution, I recognized that I had been wrong and that if I ever wanted us to be together again,  I needed to stop being ready to sacrifice everything else for our life paths to be together.  So I chose to change.  I've been spending my lifetimes since then working and learning and reintegrating and planting more seeds for the time of fixing what the Roman model broke. 

But we still can't be together so long as he is a danger to me and others by allowing his ethics to be externally controlled rather than internally mediated.  He needs to unlearn/relearn that doing the right thing is a matter of justice and truth not about peer pressure social conformity before he won't be a danger to me any longer.  

So I understand how/why it happened. And I'm as much to blame as he is - after all I abandoned my raison d'être of incarnating and in Europe I didn't save the important teachings just abandoned it to the unfolding Roman cancer - and now I'm atoning by my self-appointed task of cleaning up trapped vampiric unincarnated souls and energetic scarring because there aren't enough people who remember how to do it. I should be teaching others who once knew and forgot or have the gifts want to learn to do what I do. And I will. After the old seeds bear even more fruit in the current spiritual regeneration.  I just don't like putting others in harms way,  and certain gifts/teachings make you a target...especially when things have slipped through that shouldn't have and been allowed to fester and grow where they don't belong....sometimes it's even a danger to me to exist with the abilities to do some of the things I still remember how to do. I've had myself targeted by nephilim who wanted to take me out right away when they got here -- and it's put others at risk. It's why I won't sleep anywhere that isn't properly protected and I now have several old deities who watch over me pretty much all the time. There have been close calls this life -- truncate my life and you have all the time of my between incarnations and til I'm of age to harness my gifts to consolidate power unless someone else with the gifts takes care of it. And very few can.... And I don't want to put that target on anyone else's back just yet.  But also, there are very few ready/able to face some of these things to help me in this self-appointed task of fixing what my negligence allowed to happen.  

And I know I'm right acknowledging that we shouldn't be together til he learns how to heal this in him that allows him to be controlled by the manipulations of others even when it hurts him. But maybe I also had to be willing to choose the world instead of him and return to fighting to save and pass on the important teachings before he's ready to learn his lesson to listen to himself not others influence on issues of justice and truth.  He'll have to do that in his own time and way,  for his own reasons. 

Still I'm not the most patient and would rather he got on that NOW so our life paths could come together again asap.  I would very much like to once again be physically held by him and wrap my arms around him and have that inner certainty of being exactly where we belong. It's the same part of me that responds to seeing him hurting or faking smiles that don't reach his eyes wants to kiss him til the corners of his mouth turn up and do whatever is necessary to see his eyes shining from the soul again.  I don't even know if he wants me this life, but I have complete faith I could do that if he chose me.  And just because I understand the reasons we can't/don't have that now doesn't mean I'm not full of impatience to get to a time when we can/do.... 

Because while we can be happy with other people (especially with the bond as quiet undemanding as possible like this) we'll both always feel something is missing and a yearning to go find it.  Doesn't matter how much we love another person or the life we build with them,  it doesn't replace the twinned mirror soul that has pieces of us in them and them in us.  And that pull becomes even stronger in lives we cross paths know the other exists - because nobody else can cross the barriers of protective ego as if they don't exist.  Because to each other they don't exist. We can be happy with other people,  but it will never feel enough,  it will always feel like something is lacking, and we will never be able to be in such relationships whole-heartedly.  

Only by choosing to be with each other and to stay there and to solve the things that would keep us apart is there an antidote to that.  Only where there are no barriers between souls is there healing and whole-hearted love.  And we both know it.  It's what pulls us toward each other makes everything else disappear when we see each other and also heightens the fears of rejection between us til we can't speak and can hardly move in case we shatter everything.  Because the closer we get,  the stronger the bond tying us together, the greater the possibility of pain if the other rejects us.  (even though rejecting each other is the same as rejecting oneself between us.)

My French press of coffee I made with breakfast is gone now and I'm between books.  I feel at loose ends unsure what to do with myself right now. I need to decide if I'm going to make some tea and if so what kind, if I'm going to clean/organize or start a new book, and what time I want to head into work.... 

 O, and I SAY all that, but fuck damn if I wouldn't choose him in a heartbeat if he were right in front of me -- and let the karmic lessons figure themselves out.without my say so acceptance like they do for every damn other soul.  I can genuinely say there's a 0% chance that if he were in front of me I'd be able to stand by my "this is the longterm right thing to do and accept for karmic reasons" stance.  I might not be able to find a damn word to say, but I know me and I know that my determination would absolutely crumble and all I'd want would be to hug him tight until I believed he was really truly there in my arms where I so desperately WANT him to be. 

So I mean, that's part of why not following, not seeing, hurts less right now even though the intensity of desire is just as strong as ever.  Because seeing him makes me waver and crumble and fall back to that internal insistence that the way to make things right is to do it together and not to let anything come between us.

And I know that.

I know it in every fibre of my being. As surely as I know the rising of the sun and the phases of the moon and that if I try to hold my breath too long my body will pass out and draw in air.  It's precisely that sort of cause/effect that IF I saw him and he were right in front of me, all those reasons would crumble and all I'd feel is that need and pull and magnetism that I find so hard not to give into....

And yeah. I know that.

But he's not here, I'm not there, I don't follow him anywhere on socials now to soften me up remind me, and I have zero intention of tempting myself again by buying tickets to shows once concerts are a thing. It's not something I can maintain if I let me look at him and truly see him -- especially when I see the hurt that is in him over me not being willing to even look his way. 

I completely crumble when I see his hurt and desire and need and the rawness of it all in him. *shrugs* And that's as much a part of my truth as my rigid ethical code and anything else. I'd let all my kingdom burn just to have what remained of my lifetime with him. I know because I have. More than once. 

And I know it about me.

So wouldn't be right if you didn't know that too.  In the name of fidelity to truth.

(this public service announcement brought to you by snoring happy doggos and a Dani consuming 2 beers and half a bottle of white wine and pizza while watching TiVoed figure skating with my maman tonight. We're finishing the last of the short programs at Nationals from mid-January and then on to long programs. And then nothing more until world championships the last week of March. We actually don't have as much as usual this year because covid.  My maman and I watch figure skating religiously. RELIGIOUSLY. We have since I was a little girl, lol.  Yeah I know, my deep dark secret is that behind the pagan warrioress "I can kill you with my mind" exterior I'm secretly ACTUALLY the horse loving figure skating watching tree hugging flowy skirts surrounded by puppies and wild critters real life Disney princess girl next door.  It's scandalous, I know.) 

Okay, back to the score for Chock & Bates (last pair in the short of ice dance before moving on to mens short) and my last half glass of this weirdly skunky in the mid-palette 2018 Italian sauv blanc.

 Also.  I have not had any further future that may be precogs or dreams.  All precog flashes and vision dreams of the kids and my someday house and the gardens in it ceased the day that Eric chose gaslighting and ignoring rather than acknowledging and trying to fix me telling him directly in August 2019 about what happened on the band's official instagram account in October 2018 and why it made going live there or posting anything exclusively on the band's account an act of injustice and bullying by ostracism.  I've been mourning the future we would have had and my ability to precog them ever since.  They're just gone now...  And those glimpses of the future that was to be started when I was a kid.... First time I had precogs with the kids in them was when I was 12. It hurts with a loss like deaths to accept they will likely never be now.  I don't know what those souls will choose for their paths now.  Same as I don't know if those futures can, by conscious choices to take a different path than this one, be brought back into potential fatelines before passage of time renders them impossible.... 

Those futures were closed to us since he made his choice to side with injustice because it was done by people he loves/trusts rather than doing the harder but ethically correct thing of making right the wrong done in his name.  Those futures were closed long before I accepted the deeper truths about it as shown in the vision dreams in January and I chose to follow the Morrigan out and seal the door that now separates the soul bond from full unimpaired flow between us.  

And.  Also.  With that door sealed, not only is there that uncrossable distance between our souls that never used to be there,  but I will no longer receive precogs about him and his bloodkin.  It means I cannot rearrange timing of things to save them from their own choices like when Ian and Adam were marked to die at the Las Vegas country fest with Mike and Grant in hospital.  I couldn't stop the shooting I precogged,  but the precogs started about a year before the event I saw.  I had 2 months of the recurring contingent precog to find the way to shift it so that 9.5 months before it was to happen I could shift timelines and do some very energy intensive healing at a distance (there was scarring,  she was never expected to have kids, the scarring miraculously disappeared once I ask a favor of a soul friend not currently incarnating to choose to incarnate) and got permission from the Great Spirit for this to be manifested into the Creation and to shift the timelines enough for them to choose to be unable to attend that festival in Vegas. It was a lot of work to get the agreements to shift that fate,  and I couldn't even warn the persons it involved whose lives were to be ended as they wouldn't have listened to me - but once it was done the recurring contingent precogs of those deaths/hospitalizations ceased.  

That was highly unusual. I typically only get recurring contingent precogs and vision dreams for my own family members.  That's the only time it's happened for someone who isn't in my family or will be in my family once they are married in.  But given I can't see his or his family's future fate lines now with that door sealed, I cannot shift the pebbles that change fatelines to save them from choices that would otherwise mean their death...  I can't change what I don't see. 

But these are things I cannot change within my own sets of choices.  I can't get those futures back nor will I see precogs about him or his family with that door sealed while he's choosing the cowardice of deferring to the judgement of others he trusts rather than listening to his own ethical core to do the right thing. I can't have those things until his choices change.  But I can't make his choices for him - if I did,  I'd be disrespecting the sanctity of free will AND enabling the very wrong he's committing and the karmic lesson he's avoiding when he follows others instead of listening to his own soul about what is right versus wrong... And I won't be guilty of that.  Not even to have him again and the future that was to be.... 

I'm going to make a cuppa green tea now and watch the sunrise and read some more.   Then I'll make some coffee and breakfast. 

 O yes.  Something I assumed was obvious,  but maybe wasn't.  

I will never stop desiring the polar bear and I will choose him every chance I can.  Always.  In every life I can.  I didn't seal that door because of a lack of desire on my side.  I sealed it because I accepted that I can't free him from chains of his choosing and that he has to truly learn how not to allow the control of others to dictate his actions when it will cause hurt to him or to me via him. It's been 600 years of him not getting that lesson and I've paid for it with my life in the past and in long separations of our souls across lifetimes.  I had to accept that it will be toxic between us until he learns it,  that I can't ignore or bypass this lesson he needs to learn.  Until he learns that, the unlearned karmic lesson will poison everything for him and me.  Same as it has in lifetimes before this one when he refused to learn it. I had to choose to let him go to learn this because having me around was just causing more harm to him as he became the willing instrument under others control to cause me hurt and thus hurt himself.  As much as my absence hurts,  it does less damage than my presence does with him not learning this important karmic lesson.  I realize and accept that now - but accepting it doesn't mean I don't still want him... Doesn't mean I don't wish there had been another way rather than sealing that door,  doesn't mean I don't wish he had made different choices these last years...  Leaving was my choice,  but I only made it once I accepted that trying to stay was only causing us both pain and not helping him to learn his karmic lesson he refuses to learn.  I let him go because nothing I did was helping,  this is his karmic cycle to break and I'm at risk of being hurt by him and his choices until he does.  If he ever does.  And I'll wait on my side of the door until I can wait no more,  and if/when I move on because I accept that he's not choosing that path with his life choices, then I'll leave him something to track me by once he unseals and opens the Morrigan's door on his own.  Whenever he does it. 

I have complete and unwavering faith that he CAN do what is required to unseal the door - my doubts are that he will choose to do it.  He is incredibly stubborn and determined and when he sets his heart or his mind that he's going to do something,  there's nothing that can stop him.  But knowing that about his character doesn't mean I know or believe he's that stubborn about reaching me again.  I know that IF he were,  no power in all of Creation could stop him from finding a way through to right this.  But I don't know that he has any desire or determination to reach me and to heal this by learning the karmic lesson he keeps avoiding.  So far,  I have seen no evidence of it.  The sensible thing is to conclude it's not something he wants,  not something he chooses.  And that's why I have no expectation he will unseal the door....  I have complete faith in him being able to do it if he chose to - I just lack any evidence to make me believe he will choose that.  

And those are important distinctions I want to be clear about. That I still desire him same as always and that I fully believe he can find a way to unseal that door and make things right and change the fatelines here to a happy ending - IF that's what he wants. I just don't believe I'm part of anything he wants for his life.... That's why I have no expectations the door will be unsealed,  because I know he can but I don't expect he wants to.  

But for now I'm still waiting because I don't desire anything more than I desire to see that door unsealed and to be reunited have things healed made right between us.  I choose to wait since there's nothing I desire more than that.  

This life I asked for my reward life that I always be surrounded by love and that any soul seeking me be able to find me - which bypassed the Universe having kept us separate til he learns this karmic lesson he's been avoiding.  Me setting the geas was me acknowledging that I can't help him or free him until he learns this and he passes the test on it when he faces it. I can't get impatient and find a loophole instead of him learning the karmic lesson he keeps avoiding - even if impatience and finding unexpected loophole solutions are strengths of mine.  I can't force things to happen and have it turn out good until he learns the karmic lesson he's been avoiding about responsibility of his own choices rather than deferring his ethics to the whims of others. Following another's lead (be it liege lord or sibling or friends) doesn't diminish the guilt of one's own choices or the pain those choices inflict. You can't excuse cruel and hurtful behaviors you took part in because you were only following others lead.  That's ethical bypassing and it's not okay. 

Only once he learns this fully and frees himself to start acting upon his own ethical choices rather than following another's lead will the geas be met and the door unsealed.  And for now,  I'm choosing to wait to see if he will. I'm not choosing to follow him or see anything he shares on social or he creates, that would only hurt me now, but I am still keeping my soul in the spirit realms waiting and watching that door so if I see it unsealed I can open it immediately to try to find him to reunite again. 

Ninety-nine dreams I have had, In every one, a red balloon. It's all over and I'm standin' pretty, In this dust that was a city. If I could find a souvenir, Just to prove the world was here. And here is a red balloon -- I think of you, and let it go...

 Sooo, I just looked at my card and realized that by the time I leave tonight, I'll have my 40 hours in for the week. By Wednesday night. And I did it all still getting 8 hours per day/night of sleep and without seeing any of my coworkers this week, lol. I don't even have any upcoming concerts or travel for me to have stacked all my hours front of the week (I will often stack my hours front of a week, then end of the next week so I can go gallivanting off for shows or travel for a week without using up my paid time off. I decided in college when i realized that I couldn't do what i wanted to do by going to med school to be a doctor under the American health care system (I desired to fix people when they broke and to teach them how not to break in the future -- between the pharmaceutical and insurance industries, that's not what medicine is in the US would have allowed me to do) that if I couldn't figure out a career I was passionate about to make my life, then I wanted a career to pay the bills that was as flexible as possible for my life path's wandering while i allowed the Universe to move me wherever needed rather than making plans for myself.)

No idea why I did that this week... Probably  my Capricorn moon (work to repress difficult emotions)is showing, lol. I think that it was a subconscious panic of, "AH! It's March! it's Irish month and all my Irish musician friends are going to be in the Wisconsin area and drivably close so I'll have to maximize hours into work." (All the Irish musicians come tour in Wisconsin in March because it's their largest market, unless somewhere else offers them a shit ton of money for actual St. Patrick's Day.  But mostly, if you're looking for Irish musicians in March, they're most likely in Wisconsin partying and drinking and playing gigs.  It makes the last week of February and the following month crazy busy for me. In the best possible way.  So late February and most of March is crazy busy for me since I was like 17 -- so I think it was an automatic reaction to my brain thinking we're entering typical February/March and if I'm not mega productive on top of my hours then I'll use up my PTSO right at the start of the year and then I end up screwed once we hit music festival and theatre ticket season, lol.

Last year I had been to 16 Irish music concerts between my return from visiting my sister in Seattle in February until the world shut down and concerts stopped. (The last concert I attended was  the We Banjo 3 concert in Green Bay on March 13, 2020. Rather than a St.  Patrick's Day show, they're doing a "1 year since our last show" livestream. )  And I mean, I have about half a dozen or so online concerts between now and St. Patrick's Day -- but I can and do watch/rewatch livestream concerts while working. So they're not mutually exclusive the way that concerts/traveling and my work that pays the bills. 

So why I worked 40 hours before the end of Wednesday is just a baffling life choice. That I made.  I have no idea why I did that. But apparently I did?...

Not actually sure what my end goal there with those life choices to stack all my hours front of week and see nobody and then have absolutely no plans for the rest of the week.... 

I guess I'll just spend the next 3-4 days or so chilling at home reading and cooking and reorganizing/cleaning and resting. Maybe do some writing or sketching or painting.  And starting Sunday, we have high temperatures above mid-50s and sunshine up into the low 60s for the high on Weds which at the rate of melt means that the snow mounds may be mostly gone by end of next week. And then maybe snow again on March 13th and for much of the following week. Unless that forecast changes.  Because March in Wisconsin, lol.  Eventually we'll get our snowdrops and crocuses and early flowers and then the daffodils and tulips and eventually even irises and hardy magnolias -- just not yet. It's actually snowing small flurries right now that weren't in any of the weather predictions. So pretty!

Also in travel that I'm not going to do news... Southwest has a $29 fare sale and while Milwaukee deals are never that good and the cheapest ones ($50 right now) are almost always to places I can just drive  cheaper (like Minneapolis, Chicago, Cincinnati, Detroit) this time around they have $50 fares to St. Louis and Nashville. Not that I have any reason to go to St. Louis or Nashville (and I'd probably still just drive to St. Louis so i can buy beer and tea and bring it home easily -- because even with 2 free checked bags, I wouldn't want to check 4 Handz beer. And then, I actively dislike Nashville "culture" because it's mostly all sell outs faking friendship to people they don't give a damn about so they can try to use them to get ahead -- it's the fakest "bless your heart" soulless bullshit of any music scene I've ever visited. At least Hollywood is honest about how they want to use you.  If I'm going to visit Tennessee, I prefer Memphis and the Smoky Mountains over Nashville. Any day of the week. Though I'd still rather not be in Tennessee at all.)  But, I mean, that said. $50 each way flight on this sale is a damn good deal. If I had reasons to buy flights on Southwest from Milwaukee to St. Louis or Nashville.

But anyway, at least I'm over 40 hours for this week. Even if it is only Wednesday....and I don't know what I plan to do with myself the rest of the week now. 

[Post Title: Lyrics from the English version of 99 Red Balloons by Nena.]

 Do you ever just get haunted by a song and EVERY time you turn the radio on or switch stations it's on?  And not even current a list songs that stations play every hour.  I mean older songs,  songs that it makes absolutely no sense to hear across multiple stations let alone somewhere in your 7mins drive EVERY time you turn your car on... And it doesn't matter what time of day or night it is,  you WILL hear that song.  It's like you're not hearing the message the Universe or spirit guides want you to hear,  so they're just going to keep bludgeoning you with the obvious until you fucking listen to the message you keep not hearing. 

For about 9 maybe 10 weeks or so,  from mid-September until early December, the song that was haunting me Melissa Etheridge's song I'm The Only One. And it only FINALLY stopped haunting me when one time it came on just after I started my car but before I put it into drive to head home at like 3:30 in the morning. And finally I just chose to accept the message so I closed my eyes,  took a deep breath to focus and just beamed,  "Yes I hear you, bear.  I know.  You're the only one who feels that intensely about me and you need me to acknowledge the depths of tour emotions in this connection.  I know love,  I know."  And I haven't heard the song on the radio since then.  

I'm currently around 6 weeks of being haunted by the Adele song Water Under the Bridge.  It was quite literally the only song I heard on the drive home from work a little after 5am and is currently looping in my head. (I live by myself with my dog and cat and plants and I have my own key set my own hours for my job - so I can go in any time I damn well please unless there's a meeting or a need for me to be in at a specific set time. And I get more done if I'm not distracted by other people's thoughts/emotions/noise, and while I tend to bring everyone's mood up I can be distracting of other people's productivity by chattiness. I was at work long enough today that I already have close to 13 of the 40 hours in for this coming week. Not because I have any plans or concerts or travel later this week,  just because I felt like getting a jump on the week this week.) 

Anyway.  6 weeks now I've been haunted by the Adele song - it started on the drive home right before the first time I had the recurring dream with the polar bear in the inward spiked choke collar and the lioness hurting him in her efforts to control him with her leash of skulls. And the song is still haunting me even after the recurring dream was ended by me recognizing that nothing I did to try to free the bear was helping and I hated that he was being hurt by me and so the Morrigan offered to create the door so I could leave and allowed me to speak the geas of what must be done for the door to be unsealed.  And I feel like it will stop haunting me once I accept the message - but for now the song brings me comfort (not irritation) at the repetitions of it.  So I'm not yet ready to let it go.  Just as I know that whenever I have returned to that vision space dream,  I find myself staring at that sealed and raven guarded door waiting for it to open,  sometimes by myself and sometimes the Goddess in one of her forms will come to me while I'm waiting there and she will sit with me,  braiding and unbraiding my hair and singing to me.  I'm not yet ready to stop waiting and watching the door for any changes - even though I'm completely free on my side of it to go out from the caves in the hill or to explore elsewhere within the caves if I choose to.  The only thing keeping me in the cave is my own desire to wait in case the door is unsealed so I can open it immediately if ever the conditions are met to unseal it. I don't expect it to be unsealed,  but just in case it is I want to be there watching so I can open it....  I don't claim that's rational,  to have no faith or expectations something will happen but to stay stubbornly in case of an improbable "what if" - I'm just acknowledging it's what I'm currently doing. 

Time works differently in that vision dream fairy realm - so I really don't know how long my own soul is/will be waiting and watching that sealed door...  But I know I still am.  And that's probably why being haunted by Adele's song Water Under the Bridge is a comfort to me now,  not a nuisance or an,  "Again?!" reaction. 

"If you're not the one for me, 

Then how come I can bring you to your knees?

If you're not the one for me

Why do I hate the idea of being free?

And if I'm not the one for you

You've gotta stop holding me the way you do

Oh honey if I'm not the one for you

Why have we been through what we have been through?

It's so cold out here in your wilderness

I want you to be my keeper

But not if you are so reckless

If you're gonna let me down

Let me down gently don't pretend

That you don't want me

Our love ain't water under the bridge

If you're gonna let me down

Let me down gently don't pretend

That you don't want me

Our love ain't water under the bridge

Woaah, woaaah

Say that our love ain't water under the bridge

What are you waiting for?

You never seem to make it through the door

And who are you hiding from?

It ain't no life to live like you're on the run

Have I ever asked for much?

The only thing that I want is your love

If you're gonna let me down

Let me down gently don't pretend

That you don't want me

Our love ain't water under the bridge

If you're gonna let me down

Let me down gently don't pretend

That you don't want me

Our love ain't water under the bridge

Woaah, woaaah

Say that our love ain't water under the bridge

It's so cold out here in your wilderness

I want you to be my keeper

But not if you are so reckless

If you're gonna let me down

Let me down gently don't pretend

That you don't want me

Our love ain't water under the bridge

If you're gonna let me down

Let me down gently don't pretend

That you don't want me

Our love ain't water under the bridge

Say it ain't so, say it ain't so

Say it ain't so, say it ain't so

Say that our love ain't water under the bridge

Say it ain't so, say it ain't so

Say it ain't so, say it ain't so

Say it ain't so, say it ain't so

Say that our love ain't water under the bridge

Say it ain't so, say it ain't so

Say that our love ain't water under the bridge."

I mean.  Lyrically,  it's pretty damn obvious why I'm being haunted by it, lol.  I'm gonna go back to drinking my Hojicha green tea and reading Liebniz til the sunrise.  (This is the first time I've bothered to read Leibniz - mostly I know him from calculus and from where on the continuum of Enlightenment thinkers/writers he falls.  I don't think I like Liebniz - he basically constantly admits,  "questioning this idea about God and free will creates a paradox,  but if you just accept the Christian rules of God the Creator than the paradox is solved" and I dislike that sort of thing.  You can't try to prove your premise is true by saying it makes a paradox that disappears if you accept your premise is true...that's circular logic "if I accept this idea is true than I have proven that the arguments contradicting it aren't true because my idea is presumed true." It's the same issue I have with Kierkegaard and most Christian "rationalists" - as soon as logic concludes that tenets of their version of Christianity must be incorrect,  they fall back on how God as understood by Christianity is the exception and the proof is that the only way out of the paradox is by accepting their theology.  I prefer the honesty of "this is something you accept on faith" from religious people than rhetorical fallacies and exceptions to the logic you just proved to try to rationalize opposing paradoxical premises/conclusions... Reading Leibniz is reminding me of reading Kierkegaard, and not in a good way....I'd much rather be rereading Spinoza tbh. )

After I finish Discourse on Metaphysics,  I plan to start the first book of Octavia Butler's trilogy Lilith's Brood - and I intend to read the other three essays in this copy of Leibniz essays between each of the books between each book.  Or all at the end if I don't want the mental pause between each book in the series... Some series you just want to inhale unbroken and some you want to digest each book before starting the next.  I'm currently ready with my short collection of Leibniz essays either way,  lol.