Do I like this solution to make me let him go under the premise he can then have whatever happiness he chooses for himself?  No.  Do I like making myself not look at him or anything he does so as not to be tempted?  No.  Is this whole thing more than a little self-destructive? Yes. Would I take a better way out if offered?  Yes.  Do I see a better way to navigate this given the choices other people have made?  No.  So will I keep doing that which I hate and causes me pain because it's the best answer I see for his sake to this mess?  Yes.  Is that stupid of me? Probably. But if I had a better answer,  I'd run with that instead! 

Find me a better way out and we'll try your way. But until then,  I'll keep on this path of self-denial and not letting him reach me and forcing myself to let him go.  Because I genuinely don't see a better course for me to choose here given the past choices and the mess they made and the options I seem to have open to me... 

 O, it's not that I want anyone else but Eric or even have the motivation/desire to look for anyone else. It wouldn't be fair to anyone else and for me it would just be a waste of time right now with my heart not in it. So it's not like I want or am looking anywhere else. I'm not considering anyone else or investing of my heart elsewhere.

I'm just refusing to allow me to look at anything related to Eric or his band that would make it harder on me to make me let him go to pursue the happiness he chooses for his life. And that's hard enough for me to do while not letting myself see him or be reminded of him -- it would be impossible for me if I allowed me to see him.  It's better if this isn't going to be acknowledged and healed that I just don't let me look at anything from him, that I not be reminded. That it be as if our paths hadn't crossed this life and this is just yet another life where that longing is there and no way to sate it since our lives paths aren't crossing. 

What did you think I was going to do when you chose to gaslight ignore bullying via ostracism done in your name and then chose to take active part in that form of bullying even after you were told directly that it existed and what you were doing was wrong and unfair to fans whose only guilt was being honest about truths that your sister didn't want to hear? Just because someone doesn't want to hear something doesn't make it any less true. And turning bully, getting defensive, and gaslighting people doesn't make the situation stop existing -- it only makes hard situations worse. 

I can't make the part in me that longs for him and loves him turn off -- souls don't work that way. All I can do is make me accept the difficult truths that these are the choices that he has made and that his sister and his band have no place in my life by her/their own free will choices and that therefore the kindest truest path I can take regarding him is not to let me look at him and instead force myself to let him go to pursue whatever happiness it is he's chosen for himself this life and to accept that I am no part in his choices or the happiness his choices are taking him toward. It's a bitter thing to do to my own heart -- but at least it's honest. It's the best I can do given the past and present choices made in the name of the band by first his sister then by him.

I am not yet able to see him without it causing me more pain than joy from these choices he and his sister made that brought us to this impasse. And if you're not going to address this to help to heal the poisons of her planting and his growing, then it's probably best to leave me alone rather than reopen wounds that haven't healed yet and make things worse by reminding me of how much joy/love there once was and how much hurt there is now.

What about me me has ever made you think that I would 1) lie to myself or anyone else about what happened 2) refuse to acknowledge the hard truths of other people's free will choices or 3) forget anything that I experienced that another person's choices caused pain to me? What in my nature would have led you to think that anything but honesty and communication could ever get you to a happy ending with me after what Britt did back in October of 2018?

 *sigh* Every time I open my facebook it's showing at the top of my news feed the post from Delta Rae about the pop up video version of Morning Comes. (Which I'm pretty sure I've seen before, and not in a déjà vu way, I thought they shared the full version of it at some point several years ago...Though I'm not sure if that makes sense -- I've just already read all those in the post at the same points in the video. Eidetic memory, I remember everything I see/hear/experience. But I don't remember a precise pinpoint of WHEN I saw the video -- that wasn't any part of the visual/audio replay.) And I mean don't get me wrong, I can't say it angered/upset me given it's how I discovered them and I have loved the song/video for many many years so it makes me smile -- since long before Britt imploded any relationship I could have with the band or any member of it by her blocking me on the band's official instagram account for being honest that the country music was causing me enough pain due to my synesthesia that I'd stop attending future Delta Rae shows over it and then defensively hiding what she did by refusing to even acknowledge what happened and instead gaslighting the entire situation. So it's not that I don't want to be reminded of the video, it used to always make me happy after all, it's just that at this time I don't want to be reminded of him or the things about him that made me happy.  It's much easier to try to shut down one's heart and pretend someone/something doesn't exist when you're not being reminded of its existence. And what else am I supposed to do with the mess his sister made in Oct 2018, and his refusal to acknowledge it, let alone clean it up, back in August 2019and to take active part in her bullying via ostracism and gaslighting for all of 2020 and the entire first half of 2021? She may have started things down this path, but she didn't make his choices for him or force him to take such an active role in the bullying done in the name of the entire band. Those were his choices, week after week it was his own choices. As far as I'm concerned, freely letting him go with an open hand to find the happiness he has chosen for his life with the people he has chosen to build his life around is the best thing I can do for him in this lifetime at this juncture. Which is what I remind myself, and him, every time I feel him reaching along the bond. And the best I can do to achieve me letting him go to pursue the happiness he seeks with the people actually in his life means me not letting me see him or anything that reminds me of him. Nothing that reminds me of him in this life or any past life. That's the best solution I have at this time. What else am I supposed to do with this mess of Britt's making? This decision to force myself to let go of any hope of reconnection or possibility of anything in our paths crossing in the future isn't any damn thing I want, just the best I can play with the hand I've been dealt by other people's choices....And it's something I struggle to do when I let me see him no matter how much I tell myself it's in his best interests given his choices -- so it's better if I just don't let me see him (or anything related to the band) anymore.

Aya! I can't do anything to fix this or make it stop showing up in my fb newsfeed tonight no matter how many times I refresh it, so I'll just wait it out and then go back to trying to pretend that we never found each other, reconnecting never an option in this lifetime.... For now, I'm going to go make another cuppa tea and then go back to the filing cabinets at work.

 That was the single worst production I've ever seen APT put on..... Like bad directorial choices that made incredible actresses wooden flat because knew it was bad, "bring a white shirt and leggings" , "old timey" costumes, cringey "fight" choreography scenes, I've seen better productions from elementary school summer camps and church nativity plays level of bad....  It was awful.  I genuinely have nothing good or even any constructive criticism to say about it.....  I can't currently think of any play production I've ever seen or been in that was worse than this production of Cymbeline was tonight...... 

So I'm thinking I'll take the advice from Thumper's mom. I'll just head to bed now instead of running my mouth off further.... Bonne nuit.  Sweet dreams.  

I'm actually really happy that at noon today our Madison & Dane County Health announced an indoor mask mandate order that goes into effect on Thursday at midnight and will last for a month before being considered for renewal. Back on July 29 they altered their recommendations that all indoor businesses ought to require people be masked and so at that point my work switched from "masks required for all unvaccinated visitors and appreciated for all" to "masks required for all visitors. We haven't gone back to curbside drop offs/pickups only, but we have gone back to having an in store mask mandate and that all employees (evreyone is vaccinated here) must wear masks when dealing with customers in person or going to anywhere outside the closed doors of admin/service center.  So our county (despite having a vaccination rate over 70% for the entire county and over 83% for 18+) was recommending masks for all indoor businesses to require masks but leaving it up to individual company policy until today.

The new mask mandate requires is for everyone over 2 years old, so it also applies to schools as they reopen -- so rather than kicking the question to the school districts they're just applying it to all indoor spaces where members of multiple household will be.  It doesn't actually affect me all that much personally as I'm an introvert medium bookworm artist who sets her own hours at work and spends far more time with trees and animals and flowers and ghosties and gods than living humans -- but it gives me peace of mind and I'm MORE likely to go out and run errands now that i won't feel guilty about seeing kids or people who have kids or nieces/nephews or may have contact with kids being forced into unsafe environments where they might put their kids at risk of the delta variant.

I'm actually incredibly happy about this decision at the county level where I live!

I'm sure Republican state legislators are going to have a conniption over it, especially with the state capital here. But it was the right decision that the county health board made.  And it will make it easier for me to go places other than home/work and run errands places other than a handful of places that require masks or taking my grandma to appointments (all requiring masks) and occasional picking up food to go/outdoor seating.  Even after everything prematurely opened up and concerts started returning I've not been allowing myself go to indoor places or places without proper distancing that are unmasked and allow under 12 year olds to be there -- and the only tickets I've allowed myself to buy for ANY performance are places that the venue requires all attendees wear masks. As an ethical stance. 

These are my ethics, I don't hold others to them. but I am holding myself to them.... because I don't really give a damn about society's morals or what a "majority" of people think is acceptable -- at the end of the day no matter what ANYONE else rationalizes or how collectively accepted something is, I must live with my own conscience, carry the weights upon my own soul. And for the sake of my own conscience, I cannot and will not support any place of business or artist or event that endangers children by allowing under 12 year olds to be there without requiring everyone wear masks (regardless of vaccination status.) The data on the delta variant means ANY vaccinated individual can pass it along to an unvaccinated child and so I cannot be complicit in fostering situations that increase that. There are times where community standards of a child's health/well-being matter more than the choices of the parents when the parents are making decisions that are harmful to a child's physical well-being. I consider the delta variant as a virus that is too transmissable and too deadly for the unvaccinated makinf this a time for groups and communities to hold each other accountable to protect the physical welfare of all children REGARDLESS if their parents are anti-maskers anti-vaxxers. And I will make my own personal choices based on that ethical stance.

So I'm happy that after tomorrow, my entire county will be once more under indoor mask mandate for at least the next month. it makes it easier for me to live with my own ethical choice(s) for the next month, y'know?

 On the scale from 1 to divinely protected ditziness: I thought to check for a Cubs game at Wrigley AND I knew that Packers first pre-season game is at 7pm tonight but never thought to check when/where the first pre-season Bears game is.... Yeah, it was definitely today, at Soldier Field, at noon. You know, the Soldier Field right down in Millenium Park near Chicago Art Institute.... Yeah. jacked up the weekend pricing like woah -- but we rolled in about 10:30am (opens to members at 10, general public at 11) and then got overwhelmed by the number of humans around 2ish and so went to late night Thai for mid-afternoon lunch/dinner which we ate in the car (still not allowing indoor dining there, only carryout/delivery) before heading home.   I loved getting to see the Obama portraits in person though!!! And seeing them on their national tour from the National Gallery was extra special to see them in Chicago where Barack and Michelle met and started their interwoven lives! So of all places to see them, seeing them in Chi-town was brilliant!!!

Hit a little traffic leaving Chicago til past O'Hare, but not unexpected or bad by Chi standards.  Stopped by the Belvidere-Genoa Starbucks right off the highway next to a petrol station and a Walmart, rather than the Belvidere Oasis.  Finally got to try the Kiwi-Starfruit Refresher (nearly every Starbucks is always out when I try to order it) and it was really good. It didn't really taste like kiwi or starfruit (though it had pieces of both in it) just sort of tasted like Sweet Tarts and sour green flavor. You know, "sour green" which isn't like a real apple, but sour green flavored... So if you like sweet tarts or sour green flavored things (and aren't allergic to kiwi or starfruit) you'll enjoy this refresher!

Then made it back into town with time to pick up my dog, talk to my parents a bit, drop off Crissy, water/harvest from my back planters at work before Packers kickoff at 7pm. So I'mma hang out at work with my pup til the end of the game (no internet or TV at home) and watch tonight's pre-season game. Even though I'm not wearing Packers gear (I have on one of my fav dresses that I only wear sometimes, it looks like water-color impressionist style flowers in poppy orange, olive green, turquoise on a white base with a long tie halter/belt top.  It moves really nicely too!!!  It's a summery maxi dress in autumn colors -- so I like it in late summer/early autumn harvest season -- and it's nice because I can widen the halter/top/ties to cover most of my back/shoulders if chilly OR I keep it tighter so it's mostly open back -- and I can put the back as high or low as I desire on my waist/back and wrap the ties how I want. It probably makes more sense from pictures, lol. And we just got a touchdown so I have a commercial break! WOOHOO!!!! TOUCHDOWN GREEN BAY!!!!!!!!!!

(Ignore the clear back strap on my bra that I didn't move in that last "lower open back" example. Or don't ignore it if you don't want to since it's there, lol.)

Also, even with my long arms (my height it just shy of 5'8, but my wingspan is 5'10, lol) trying to get pictures of my own back and/or my own entire body is not particulalry easy. Thus all the wonky angles and bemused ironic looks and finally laughing at myself resorting to the bathroom mirror and still having difficulties. 

But yeah, I do love this dress. It just has to be the right time of year, event, feelings about body image, and mood to wear it. It's super comfortable though -- it's not particularly restricting even with the halter/ties wrapped around multiple times before tying -- it's just flowy nice movement. But like, for sitting in the car, it's like being wrapped in a blankey toga not restrictive modern clothes like sitting that long in jeans.

P.S. 9:39pm addendum: 

Ooft this pre-season game is not going in our favor though.... 

Also though, my barette popped out when I bent over to pet the dog just now and I just started laughing as the curl beast cried, "FREEDOM!!!!"

Those with straight hair will never understand the forever battles with curly hair.... This isn't even a freshly washed floof -- I washed the main yesterday.  Honestly, you just have to laugh, no matter what the volume and curl patterns do. And sometimes, you just have to accept that their are stubborn things in this world that you have to let them be free to do as they please because attempts at control ain't gonna do jack shit except make things worse.

 *yawns* All my outdoor plants in planters that needed watering are watered/harvested so I'm heading home -- I'm tired and I have plenty of hours in to cover this week and the last 10.5 hours of work I missed a couple weeks ago when the carpets were re-steamed and then I couldn't be at work for like 8 days. 

Last of the articaine has FINALLY worn off from my filling at 2:30 this afternoon. (My dentist switched me to articaine in my chart when that became standardly available for coverage when I complained that the the lidocaine or anything with lidocaine I could feel burning all down the nerves and then traced the paths of the nerves for him.) The articaine definitely does the job better though and at the dose he uses for me (redhead gene = responds to pain/numbing agents differently=needs more to accomplish same amount of numbing) stays numb far longer than I'm used to. But it works and while the shot hurts/burns a bit still at the outset even with a numbing gel, the articaine keeps me numb enough to not be an issue of me regaining use of the nerve and thus feeling pain before he even finished. He still works quickly just in case the numbing starts to disappear and because sometimes the hygienist accidentally hits my gag reflex with the suction tube which is annoying for all of us. I scheduled for the one on the other side in a couple weeks. (he doesn't like to do articaine on the deep jaw nerve for back molars on both sides as it can affect the tongue for a while and if done on both sides can present a bit of a choking hazard. So two visits.)

Heading to Art Institute tomorrow. Maybe Farmer's Market beforehand, but maybe not, on verra.

Planning to spend Sunday in the garden at work frontloading hours just because I can.Wednesday headed back to Spring Green with Crissy, Sarah, and Mikaela to see their production of Cymbeline. 

But tomorrow is the Obama Portraits.

There was major family drama the last several days (can we say just a little Mercury in Virgo or what the what?!)  surrounding my grandma but it moved things to better take care of future paths based on little previously overlooked details. I think things will be improving now though. I hope. But with my da's siblings, who knows some days....

Also, my gladiolus stem bent form the storms and I cut it today and there were earwigs sleeping in it which gave me the icks til I shook them out despite their protests the sun was still up. But I don't have so many they're eating my plants -- they mostly help take care of the ants and whatever aphids I get and my birds will eat them rather than my fireflies or pollinators. O and I have so many green sweat bees in my bed this year!!!!They're super happy!

AND, I found a 5 legged old cicada today. (Wisconsin was not in brood X territory. we do have massive cicada years, this just wasn't one of ours.) He woke up this year but not really anyone else did. And he was grateful for the water I was giving the flowers and the leaky hose so he could get some. 

 

I definitely tried to make my parents come meet him on their way leaving and my mum told me that they were not going to walk all the way over to me to meet a cicada. And he was having a hard time hanging on (due to his missing front leg) so I knew if I tried to run over to them with himhe'd fall off -- plus I didn't trust their dog Sophie not to try to eat my cicada. So i shouted back, 'But he's a really cool looking cicada! Come see!" And my da was like, 'Dani, we've seen cicadas before." and my mum laughing said, "But Brian we haven't seen THIS cicada before." I lit up and said, "EXACTLY! Come meet him -- he's very nice and polite!" And my da said, "Dani, I'm not going to be late just to come see a bug. Not even a really cool bug. I've already met one of your garden toads and we've all met your swallows and the 4 new fledglings."  At least now I'm old enough to drive myself so even if they have somewhere to go they can't MAKE me stop visiting with a very cool bug til I'm good and ready to be done visiting with a cool bug. So mlehm!  

Definitely over tired reverting to my 3-5 year old self. Not tantrum-y yet. But that's why I'm headed to bed just as soon as sunset is over.

And planning to head to Chicago for the Art Institute tomorrow!!!! (Yes I know WI is now on their travel advisory list, but Crissy and i are both vaxxed, so we can still visit Chicago under their current guidelines. And since we'll not be stopping at Belvedere Oasis and the places we plan to be are "everybody must be masked even if vaxxed" I think it's safer than a lot of places locally....

P. S. 7:17 addendum: Awwww! I looked up to say hi to the waxing crescent nearly half moon and my local red tailed hawk friend flew above me came to say hi greet me before leaving! And all 8 of Jon Snow's brood descendants who live in an oak tree near work came to check in with me this afternoon/evening!

Given that the storms that ripped through Wisconsin bringing tornadoes on Tues and Weds and have been sitting over Michigan all day are continuing in Chicago through tomorrow afternoon with where the pressure zone fronts currently are, Crissy and I decided we are going to wait til the weekend to go see the Obama Portraits. I'd rather not drive through pressure fronts, thunderstorms with high winds, and potential tornadoes tomorrow if I don't have to. It's been an intense week of storms and tornadoes up here. So the thought of driving into even more such weather is not high on my list of desires just now.  

Especially since tomorrow is the last day of the Brewers games at Wrigley and Belvedere Oasis is already a questionable enough covid spreading hot spot imho that I'm thinking we should stop at the Starbucks off the highway instead of the oasis itself. We certainly don't need to go on a day when there will already be more traffic between Wisconsin and Chicago increasing the chances of covid delta spread.  The Bucks winning the NBA championships already was a super spreader event in Wisconsin right as delta was on the exponential upswing and this was the largest Sturgiss festival ever so it's going to quickly get ugly in the upper midwest as well as the south.  If Chicago Art Institute hadn't gone back to mask mandate last week, I was mentally/emotionally prepared to not go see the Obama Portraits exhibit at all...The removal of the mask mandate is why I didn't go earlier in the Obama Portraits exhibit -- granted I told Crissy that there would be a short overlap of the resurging virus to cause mask mandate and the end of the exhibit so I could goon my terms. But, I mean, I was prepared for if the timing didn't line up like what I'd foreseen.

I'd already decided back in May or June (whenever they announced they were for certain holding it in person this year) that I refuse to go to MKE Irishfest (or any all ages concerts/festivals) this year. It was a tough choice in that I want to support the organization and the people of the community, especially with how hard a year and a half it's been in the entertainment industry especially music related, but I can't live with myself supporting anywhere that has children under 12 AND allows other patrons to be unmasked. Masks protect others from you if you're contagious and don't know -- they don't do enough to protect you from others who are unmasked. Kids aren't safe where there are unmasked adults, especially indoors or in large crowds. And I can't support willfully putting kids under 12 years old at risk. Which means I can't support Milwaukee Irishfest this year... I just can't live with my own conscience if I did.  I won't be guilty of being complicit at places where children under 12 are allowed or even encouraged to be and masks aren't required for everyone. I won't be complicit or guilty in supporting policies that endanger the health and very lives of innocent children.  I won't even consider going anywhere that's "all ages" or allows children under 12 while the delta variant is spreading and they can't be vaccinated -- not unless it's masks required for everyone. Preferably masks required AND proof of vaccination/negative covid test from the last 3 days. But at least masks required for everyone if under 12 year olds who can't be vaccinated will be there. I refuse to be complicit in endangering children. I've said that since vaccines were extended to 12 and up, because while I'm happy that the 12-16 year olds can be protected (including selfishly in regards to Mikaela and my twin cousins who just turned 13),  there are still too many children who can't be, and I have no intentions of changing that anytime in the near future. I will not monetarily support unmasked no social distancing spaces open to kids who cannot be vaccinated. It's not ethically right to do. I haven't even let me go to the Dane County Farmer's Market, not even stupidly early, since it moved back downtown and stopped being masks required and no social distancing capacity... I tried once, the first week it was back on the square, and the death sight in the crowd freaked my shit out as the crowd got denser. Death sight in crowded spaces during a time of plague is useful gift but not particularly comfortable.  I can also see the flickering of the inner light when people are sick, even if they're not going to be dying in the next 6-18 months. 

Anyway. I'm gonna go split a midnight kohlrabi with my dog. Audrey Pupburn adores kohlrabi so much. Just say the word and she gets all excited tail wagging prancing about in excitement for it -- and then when she actually SEES the kohlrabi, she starts dancing around on her hind legs. She's still pretty spry and energetic for an arthritic 13 year old dog with cataracts and non-cancerous fatty tumors.....  And kohlrabi is one of her favorite snacks.

 Why will I bring my dog and my best friend along if I thin it will be dangerous when I dislike putting innocent people in danger because of my self-appointed wyrd cleansings?  Well. Firstly, my intention is to do it as safely as possible with the least potential threat to anyone -- me or them. Contrary to popular belief I don't ACTUALLY have a death wish (in this or any of my past lives) I just have an overpowering  ethical core and sense of "if not me then who?" And a more than minor self-martyring complex if I feel it's necessary -- but sometimes my sense of "necessary" misses solutions that others might think obvious or better than me sacrificing myself. Just be glad this life it's cleansing up areas of negative malevolent spirits harming people and not politics or love of country or stubbornness or hurt pride or thinking that the connection is one way and he's moved on. I've done WAY stupider things and died for all those reasons in past lives. But it's not so much a death wish as a "this needs to be done and if not me then who will do it?" And I've had enough close calls to know better than to rush in looking for a fight when I don't know what I'm up against and not prepared for it. I'm reckless with my own life, but I don't have a death wish. It's why I have a plan to go in daylight, keep my distance, an escape route that doesn't lead to me or anyone I care about, and I'm actually more than happy to have allies in the unincarnated spirits realm rather than channeling that much raw energy through this physical body unnecessarily. It's hard on a body, running that much power through it -- it's like running too high a voltage through an electronics device then it's designed for... That's how you ruin batteries and ac adapters and devices. It's also probably why when I release excess chi when I'm angry can't control my temper it fries electronics and light bulbs,  just like passing too much voltage through it.  Same principle -- physical bodies are composed of electronic signals in our nervous system and brain after all. so I'm much happier to trap and mark and allow others to fight for me -- I help those I can who got trapped and are ready to move on to return to source and the cycles of karma/reincarnation and I'll fight if cornered without backup, but I'm much happier leaving the problem powerful negative malevolent spirits to others who can connect to source run as much power through them as needed without any concern they'll stop their heart or cause an aneurysm or something like that. There are ways to form a support network to amplify the power so as not to burn out the one physical body, but that requires people with gifts you can rely on and who know what they're getting themselves into if something goes wrong. Much safer to have friends on call and to bend and change the rules for everyone by finding such a loophole. 

So firstly, I don't think I'll be putting either my friend or my dog in danger with my plans. Secondly, they've both been with me when wyrd things have happened and I've had to help or clean it up. So I don't mind letting them see how much power I can wield when I choose to. I try not to be too showy with it, though every energy reader and mystic I've ever known can read it crackling through me and feel what I do even when I think I'm being "quiet" and "subtle" with how I do it. But I don't like showing off with too many others around unless I feel like I have to. Because... Most people's reactions are either a) fear or b) putting me on a pedestal -- and I don't fucking want either.  I want to be loved or hated, admired or looked down on for being seen as me qua me. I don't WANT people to be fascinated by a surface glamour or who they THINK I am -- my last life healed me of any such desires. I just want to be seen and known for me as I am, bare-souled honesty about my best sides and my worst sides, and for whatever opinion a person holds to be about me qua me. So my gifts and what I do are not a part of me that I will lie about, but I won't rub people's faces in it either or talk about it unless the other person directly asks me or sees me deal with something and they're a sensitive. I can't help the amount of light energy that I work with, but it isn't my desire to be a "look at me" girl.  I could if I wanted to, I still know how to put on the shiny glamour facade that charms everyone while nobody sees me behind it -- but at least for this life I prefer me as an honest "lying is a breach of trust at a fundamental level" and "no makeup unless I feel like painting on my skin" take me as I am or not at all. I want people who appreciate my actual light (and the shadows it casts)  not just the gilded surface I choose to show them. Like I said, my last life cured me of any desire for anyone to like me for a glamour I created or their ideas of me rather than who I truly am.... "Loneliness was tough, The toughest role you ever played. Hollywood created a superstar, And pain was the price you paid" and all that. Even before living it, he got it right about what it's like to be someone the world loves their idea of you but never knows anything but the image .... So it's actually nice for me to not have to be careful about my "showy" gifts around people who know it about me and will still call me on my hangry bitchiness or acting like an overtired toddler or running with good logic on bad premises or just ditzy moments. Granted one of them is my dog, but you'll know you've earned my trust to move from acquaintance to "actual friend" or "actual friend" to "like family" when I don't mind talking with you about spiritual matters/my gifts or when I don't feel like I need to throttle back my own gifts or hide my light under a bushel sort of thing. But I don't need to be cautious about being too "showy" with my gifts around them.  I don't typically with animals and children anyway -- that's just futile anyway.  But anyway, I don't desire to be admired I desire to be honest, warts and all, while trying to be the best version of myself I can be. Luckily for me, my genuine love of music and live shows which are the brightest way to get the synesthesia colors gives me excuses to travel in a wandering way and to be absolutely lit up glowing on post-concert endorphins. You'd be surprised how many venues and fest grounds have vampiric malevolent entities that prey there -- next to houses of worship it's the most likely place to find them. They're either stuck where their greatest trauma happened (like all the dead children haunting the theatre district of Chicago from the Iroquois Theatre Fire; I've helped many of them, but not yet all of them) or they go where they can find easy mark victims who are opening themselves up to an energy exchange. Religious places and music concerts are where the easiest marks open up to let them in and they call it the spirit that moves them. If there are protective or benevolent spirits that wish to stay, I leave them after making my terms clear and make sure I greet them whenever I pass through again, but if there are malevolent vampiric ones then I force them on and I grid/realign/cleanse to protect the grounds so no unincaranted spirit that isn't of the light can cross into the space.  Concerts and fests are as good as anything else I've ever found for me to guide my wandering way of finding trapped spirits to help or cleanse from preying on innocents. I also like to visit houses of worship while I'm traveling to assess the energies of a place if they're a place of peace and/or what I need to do (if anything) to cleanse it -- and because the art/architecture/lighting in religious spaces is often beautiful from a purely aesthetic perspective.  But concerts provide me joy and help guide me to uncover places that I need to deal with -- because serendipity lives on my left shoulder and karma lives on my right shoulder. You get used to it if you know me long enough and well enough. And after all, there are only so many locations in my general area or places near where family/friends live -- you'd be surprised how cleansed places I live or frequent are.

And thirdly, it's my fault that Crissy's dormant gifts are awakened this life and that they awakened when and how they did. I had to crash course teach her and prise a vampiric entity that was lurking in a campus Catholic church out of her after she became a source to connect to the light. I'm the reason her gifts are awake -- but that vampiric entity and the way that her former "friends" abandoned her after I severed those cords (but before I dealt with it) are the main reasons she left Catholicism. It's my fault though that she had such a brutal all gifts she's capable of unlocking this life flooding into her. You see, in college other than concerts I never really went out and neither did my closest friends. Especially when we were under 21, we would often get in a car with music and just drive around if we had nowhere to hang out. I didn't worry about my roommate best friend -- she had incredibly strong natural defensive gifts. As did Sarebear, another close friend who now live in Tuscon. Both of them had incredibly strong spiritual gifts in defenses. And I avoided places where I'd expect to run across anything when Crissy was with us because she had potential and chose to befriend us (even after our mutual from my high school and who attended the same Catholic church went for a semester abroad) but I knew her gifts were all asleep and i didn't know where her spiritual/religious beliefs were and I feel that free will needs to be what guides such choices. What happened, however, is that we were unexpectedly ambushed by a very strong nephilim that came through "a window that is now safe has been breached" and while my father and I were both warned in those exact words, it came seeking me out while at its greatest power before going off to muck things up elsewhere. So it ambushed me. One night over by the Bishop O'Connor Center while all 3 of them were with me. And it is/was INCREDIBLY powerful -- the sort that can just consume most souls that aren't well defended/protected. Consume and destroy, not just control or lead astray from the light. And so it went after the weakest link of us 4 -- and that was Crissy. It tried to prise her soul out of her body and destroy her soul and in doing so she was absolutely terrified and all her gifts were woken up though untrained and she was shielded between Michelle's and Sarah's defensive gifts -- but I knew that my choices were to fight it by channeling too much power through this physical form for me to survive or to run while Crissy was protected by the other 2, before they weakened. I didn't know that I could defeat it before I died in the process and I knew that if that happened I could save my own soul from being consumed but it would get past all of them and while unincarnated I could do nothing to protect their souls unless they directly asked me and I doubted they would even consider that. So I blasted it with as much light energy as I could without harming this body and tore out all cords/bonds it tried to leave hooked into any of us as I hightailed it out of there. I hurt it deeply and after the amount of damage I did to it, it fled and I sometimes get vision dreams of where it is because it's still mine to deal with (spoiler alert: it hasn't been back anywhere near me, it's stayed half the world away even when I decide to spontaneously head to Europe; but it's caused a shit ton of trouble globally.)  Even if it's recovered and fed heavily on others, it's been avoiding me since before I had deities on call, since back when only the Goddess watched over me protecting me. And it's defintiely not up for tangling with the hawk god or raven deities sooooo I have no idea when/if it will come a-calling to face me rather than just stirring up trouble trying to change the course of mankind's future fatelines. And I haven't yet figured out how to tail it without it knowing -- because it seesme in all the vision dreams. And then I had to do clean up for the consequences and crash course teach Crissy how to have the most basic shields for her empath gifts (EVERY emotion of EVERY person EVERYWHERE she went overwhelmed her with the flood of their internal state) and walk her through floods of unprocessed past life memories (starting with those where her path and mine crossed in previous lives) and how to control all her gifts as far as they were then opened up at that point. So Crissy is trained by me and has experienced my gifts at full manifestation that a physical body can hold and I can never put her into worse danger than she was in that night I was ambushed.  So I always talk to her if I lay a plan (and allow her to call me on if she thinks it's dangerous) for dealing with things and let her come with if she chooses to so she can protect me from myself and over-extending my energy frivolously because I think I need to.

Which is why I allow Crissy to join me if she wants to on planned missions or if she's with me at shows when I need to deal with things and I see it as an opportunity to continue her training and strengthening her innate gifts.  But it's also because she'll call me on my not so good tendencies if my plan is too self-martyring endangers me and because it's good to have someone to watch your back and because she's been with me in dicey situations that are the worst case scenarios I could ever put her through and because I always warn her the risks and give her the free will choice to come along or not as needed. I always offer her an out, with no judgement, as well as my honest assessment of what I think I'm getting myself into.

I'm also training Mikaela, as far as she chooses to learn and as far as her personal spiritual path dictates -- but I didn't start that until she hit puberty (which was AFTER I had guardian deities on call keeping a constant eye on me by my permission) and thus far I've never allowed her anywhere near actual danger and I intentionally only spend time with her during daylight hours or when there are night time plans I make sure there are others with gifts strong enough to protect her (physically or spiritually) if I were ambushed at night so I can deal with the attack itself.

So I'd written up an entire post that blogger ate instead of saving. It was about my dog refusing to do anything in the early morning when I TRIED to get her to go potty but then insisted on heading straight inside after I told her, "Honey, it's going to be thunderstorming and downpouring all morning and it starts in 15mins -- if you don't go right NOW we'll have to go for a walk in the rain." I assumed she was hungry, or sleepy. But no. My dog had an ulterior motive. You see, my dog ADORES rainy days and snowy days and swim fetch and flopping into puddles, the muddier the better, basically anything that gets her soaked to the skin that doesn't involve a shower/bath -- she is after all a Pisces pup. So when I offered her the idea of going on a walk in a downpour, of COURSE my dog decided that was the best of all possible worlds. So first my dog starts to growl and bark at the thunder when there's a strike very close to us and I tried taking her for a bedtime snuggle to quiet her which often works.  Then the lightning and thunder went further east as the rain got even heavier, complete lashing monsoon style rain, and Audrey started whining and stamping her front feet and shaking like she does when she desperately needs to go and has waited too long and is afraid she might not make it outside so might go somewhere she's not supposed to. So I warned her that if I took her out right then, we were going to get completely soaked to the skin and she started tail wagging stamping her feet and whining. So I changed into a pair of cut offs and a dark red tee and took her outside (I left my phone inside though as well as my car key because that much water in electronics is a terrible idea.)  Within 2ft of steeping out from the doorway, I was thoroughly soaked to the skin. I mean, we're talking a midwest/southern style thunderstorm where you can't see to drive and need to pull under an overpass if you're in the middle of a long drive. This storm cell DID spawn another tornado south of Rockford after all -- there's a reason why in Wisconsin the tornado siren goes off every first Wednesday of the month to make sure it's working. And once already drenched, why not just keep going on our walk? So we went on a 2.5 hour walk in the lashing rain and my dog was so incredibly pleased (she didn't poop at all and she only stopped to pee twice.)  

Honestly I wasn't even the slightest bit mad she lied to me to get me to take her out to play and dance in the rain. I love me a good frolic in the rain!! Ask anyone who knows me. I find it incredibly invigorating and cleansing and healing to go on long walks and dance in the rain and get completely soaked to the skin and jump barefoot in puddles splashing everyone nearby. Always have. It's the same reason that even if it's a cold rain, I'll throw open the balcony door and windows for the calming joy of listening to the rhythms of the rain and the singing spiritual joyous gratitude of the plants and trees for the nourishment and the smells of a fresh new washed face on the world.  I try not to wear white (or any light colors) if rain is expected because no matter where I am or the situation, I'll want to take my shoes off and play in the rain and the mud and not give a damn how child-like I look to everyone who might see me. Also, both my hair and skin ADORE getting washed by raindrops -- my skin gets baby soft and my hair gets the prettiest shiny touchable ringlets! If I could, I would only shower/bathe in rainwater, never tap water or well water. Literally every cell of my body reacts with joy to playing in the rain.

As you can see, I came back thoroughly soaked to the skin like a drowned rat but absolutely glowing and recharged, lol. Spock took one look at us when we came in that spoke louder than words, "Aw hell no! How the fuck did you two get like THAT?! Superior species out!" and then took off with a massive tail running at his fastest speed to hide from us. I dried off the dog's feet with the hand towel I keep in a basket I wove with extra dog bags and her leash by the door (I insist on working with every dog , preferably from a puppy, to allow at least me to rub and touch their paws so I can wipe them off at the front door before they track water or mud into the house) and then rubbed her down with a towel before releasing her hyperactive zoomies on the hidden cat and the carpets and the upholstery. After that, I stripped myself down naked and threw the sopping clothes over the shower door (my bra I'd been wearing was STILL sodden when I left to go check on Sarah's cat while they were out of town then work.)  And then I put on the kettle to make myself a cuppa Echinacea Immune Support tea and ate 2 tablespoons of black locust honey (it's my fav type of honey, it's a very pale translucent honey that looks like sunbeams in a dusty room and tastes like starlight.) -- I may love playing in the rain til the rain soaks through me, but I do know better than to sit around in wet clothes get chilled and what I should do to protect me from depressing my immune system thus catching a summer cold or worse. Then I wrapped myself in a fluffy towel before opening the balcony door to the storm and putting on George Winston and curling up with my tea and a book and laughing at the antics of the wet pupkin.

Anyway. After I came into work, I randomly ran across this post tweeted from Atlas Obscura (they're super cool random interesting places all over the world that you'd not necessarily ever know existed, I follow them on all their social media accounts and their email list) and got goosebumps chills when I saw this one.  You see, there have been numerous times I'm driving back from the Milwaukee area and during the highway work accidentally ended up over in that area of Wauwautosa (Cafe Hollander in Tosa is one of the few places that won't give me pork poisoning like a greasy spoon diner heading back westward from downtown Milwaukee that serves food after like 10pm -- even fast food places close early. Cafe Hollander serves food til close, so along with the Qdoba downtown that's open til bar time, it's one of my 2 post-concert places I go for food in Milwaukee.  So, over by 41 there, near the Medical College of Wisconsin (which for a long time was the first on/off ramp to get back to 94 due to the construction) I found a very dark malevolent spirit actively seeking to hurt others as it was hurt. The first night I found it by accident, I was a bit overtired and not picking for a fight I didn't know what I was getting myself into AND I don't like dragging innocents without proper spiritual weapons into my battles. I choose to put to rest dark spirits (all accept native shamans/warriors -- they have the right to hunt those who came to their lands to commit genocide them without mercy) as a personal way of using my gifts to help heal this world since very few people can do that sort of thing except me -- but that doesn't give me a right to bring innocents along to get hurt or be a liability since I need to protect them and thus can't do what I need to do offensively. So I laid low and I tried to encircle it mark it for the hawk god or crow deities to deal with, but there wasn't a way and I didn't want to go closer try to pinpoint it and have to face it unprepared. I've only ever come across it at night, usually with Crissy or multiple other people in the car, and I've not been able to figure out exactly where it was to try to deal with it in the light of day.  

But now I've found it! (or perhaps them, it was a strong energy of hunting to  hurt others as it/they had been hurt.)  So I can deal with it. Before it gets stronger. I sent the link to Crissy and she said that just looking at the pictures gave her the same on edge feeling that she's had when we drove near there. I plan to go in broad daylight, under the sun, at the next full moon to trap it and mark it for the hawk god or the crow deities to deal with now that I have that arrangement with them on call for such cleansing work. (Don't ask, that's a rather long story and starts with me being stupid not sleeping enough before heading to a Minneapolis Delta Rae show and only strong enough to be able to block something that came hunting for me from entering our hotel room but not feeling I could allow me to sleep let down my guard and whatever was seeking me trailed me all the way down to their show in the middle of nowhere Iowa, on some college campus, and I had to invoke ask for help from the hawk god and the crow deities to hide me while it was following me... I was hidden and cloaked so thick even my brithday twin best friend Crissy seated right next to me couldn't feel my energy sitting right next to me without touching me (Eric was the only one who actually saw me without touching me while I was that shielded by other powers/energies, but that's because all he needs is the pull of the soul bond so it's different with him -- that's not something anyone else can do to find me; I can't actually ever hide from him finding me if he sets his soul on it) and when the girls came out to greet people, Britt didn't recognize me til she touched me in a hug then didn't want to let go and they both got confused once she let go because it was like I'd just disappeared. Took a weird route home, and the energy that was tracking me was dealt with at the Mississippi River in full flood by the hawk god and crow deities....  And after I thanked them, I was told that I should have called them sooner to assist rather than trying to always channel the energy through this physical form and I humbly said I hadn't realized how over my head I was in that situation and that I needed allies until I DID ask. Then I said, "Can't I just keep you always on call or something for the next time I do something stupid or to help me with my self-appointed task of cleaning up spiritual dark places?" And I DISTINCTLY remember the Morrigan winking at me saying, "That would be a very good idea for a loophole seeker like you, especially since you keep insisting on incarnating in a frail physical form til your task is undone. You know the rules though, the unincarnated can ONLY assist against other unincaranted spirit at the request of an incarnated mortal."  It took me less than 24 hours to figure out how to frame a request to keep them on hand guarding me and to rig a system in how I encircle to trap and mark what I find that would deplete my energy far too much for me to deal with in this physical form, run too high a voltage of energy through a physical body and you might burn out the body.)

I may be headstrong and reckless and despite my bookishness always sorted as a Griffyndor insistent on doing what's right -- but I do have a brain and I'll do the best tactical plan to deal with something rather than just rush in.  So I intend to go under the light of the sun, during the full moon weekend, and not even go exploring the park or poking around, just walk with my dog and my bff to encircle and mark/trap all unincarnated spirit within my circle. And then I want to go visit Lake Michigan as I haven't in nearly a year and I miss it and it will help cleanse my obsidian dagger and protect me if I do get into more trouble than I expect. And I intend to head northward to the lake, not down near Irishfest (which happens to be the same weekend) or southerly where people I know live -- if anything tries to tag along track me, I want to lead it away from people I know and choose my ground. So I plan for us to visit Lion's Den Gorge Nature Preserve -- I've never been, but it was one of the first parks that came up when I looked for Lake Michigan dog friendly parks in Wisconsin. And it seems fitting place to go for my purposes given that it will be the last day or so of Leo season. Also the park looks fucking amazing calls to me!!! I'm very excited to visit it!!!! And I found a recommended restaurant nearby in Grafton called Juice's Ghost Town Tavern and Restaurant right nearby that isn't pork-centric and has a LOT of things on the menu that I want to try! Lion's Den Gorge is half hour from Wauwautosa, hour 45mins from Madison -- so the park isn't actually too bad at all for a day trip. Don't yet know if we're going Saturday or Sunday (the full moon is at 7:02am on Sunday) but going to plan for whichever day is sunnier. I want as much light as possible for this -- it will keep in its lair whatever I'm trapping for the hawk god and crow deities to deal with. Unless very powerful energy workers, unincarnated spirits do tend to avoid the light and when people are awake/about. Under the sun is my best chance to not have it notice what I'm doing until after I'm done encircling it and marking it with energy....

After I found this and made my plans, I started to get a LOT of energy pouring into me through my third eye. Even for me. So I'm even more haloed and glowy than the cleansing soak in the fresh rain made me this morning.

See? I tried to get photos of my ridiculous ringlets, but, well, luminous crown chakra ALWAYS fucks up cameras, lol.  Even in the middle fo the night under fluorescent lighting... These were the best I could manage to dim the energy from appearing as crown chakra light beams - and it made my skin glow luminous.  Elf witch problems,  am I right? 

*yawns* Sunrise. I set my own hours and I'm trying to make up hours for the week I only got 13 hours in out of 40 because I wasn't told about re-shampooing the carpets -- and on Thursday I'm planning to drive to Chicago to see the Obama Portraits at The Art Institute before the exhibit closes on the 15th. If not Thursday, given the weather across Wisconsin and Illinois, then over the weekend. So now that it's sunrise, I should punch out and take my dog home to my lonely cat.  Unclear if I'm going to head to bed or make breakfast and read for a bit, lol. Guess we'll see when I get home, non?

 It's funny.  I nearly missed the exact moment of the new moon this morning,  except that while I was reading there came welling up from the deepest places in me the most intense longing need and waves of such sorrow-filled loss that I couldn't see through the unshed tears and I felt like I couldn't breathe. And when I looked up at the clock,  I saw that it was precisely the time of the new moon. 

It hits me like that.  I'm sure it always will,  for as long as there is distance and separation between Eric and me.  Doesn't much matter who either of us try to pretend we can be happy enough with or who other people in our lives throw at us to try to paper over the longing and loss.  Doesn't much matter if the reasons are fate or distance or fears or stubbornness or moral cowardice or ethical lines or rationalizations or necessity - good reasons or bad reasons, the separation instead of unity hurts inside us just the same.  Like the unhealing wounds of the fisher king....  

We can both try to move forward our separated lives and pretend it's not so bad but every once in a while the repressed emotions will surface like we'll drown in them.  And there's only one way out from that endlessness, one way to heal it.  

And I know that.  I've always known that.  

But I just think that one way out is actually a dead end, it's dead on arrival, if we attempt to rationalize a togetherness where there isn't honesty with each other and trust in each other woven through at the cornerstone foundational level....  And I won't lie to me or anyone else to try to hold onto a fantasy that would cause more harm than good.  That's not the way to create something real,  something to rest your faith upon. And only in a unity that's real that earns your faith placed in it  can there be healing. 

I know there's no way for healing the longing and the sorrow except in choosing to stay with each other,  to build lives together.  But I'll not bend or waver on my insistence that honesty and trust are integral to true reunion - without those at the center it's just shared space/time until we're next driven apart again.  So even when the truths are hard to hear and even harder to say,  I'll choose to cling to honesty because I don't know any better way to create new trust or mend a trust once broken.  

I'm faithful in my own way - even if my strict adherence to truth speaking doesn't look like your idea of loyalty or fidelity. 

I'm gonna go make brunch now.  Then starting Wandering Star (book 2 of Romina Russell's Zodiac quartet) while doing some laundry.  That's my plan for today: laundry, binge reading a YA sci-fi series, listening to Coeur de Pirate songs, drinking tea after finishing the coffee I make with brunch. Eventually I'll head to work.  Eventually.

 One of the things I hate about being a precog is when I see immutable precogs of fated things I don't want to become true and can do nothing to stop from occurring.... All I can do is prepare myself and those I love and warn people who will listen to me....  But as far as most people go,  I'm just playing Cassandra.  

Right now is the time it's hard for me, despite having had months of emotional/mental preparedness time in which I held my mourning and anger at fated cruelty since the time when I first had the precog,  as I watch everything I warned about happening in August and September begin unfolding.... I think most of it is watching the real time of everyone else's emotions as they get cold clocked by the blindsiding of what I knew to be inevitable but they thought impossible.  It's the short sightedness and/or refusal to heed the warnings that is hard with watching the majority of non-precogs exist in teleological linear time. 

When I was a kid,  I went through a phase of scientific approach to my precogs. I thought I could disprove my own intuition by force of numbers. So I kept a notebook data table of all my precogs/visions, even the randomest stupidest most trivial banal glimpses. My sister knew about it, nobody else did. The data table included date/time I had it, where I was/what I was doing when I saw it, the type of precog/vision, whether I sought it or it came to me unbidden, the content of the precog/vision, if it came true, and if so when it did.  It's from trying to quantify the precogs that I came up with the distinction of immutable versus contingent precogs. Based on the years I kept data, my immutable precogs come true 100% of the time without fail, my contingent precogs came true 100% of the times I didn't find/act on the ways to shift the fateline, I had about a 75% success rate of averting the contingent precog if I figured out what I needed to change and a way to alter the course before the opportunity disappeared and it became an immutable precog. I stopped keeping it when I was in high school because I was taking a ridiculous academic load of AP courses and I had made my statistical proofs a solid enough dataset for me to accept the improbable probabilities of my precog intuitive clairsentience. 

This is how I balance my strong witchy spiritual gifts and my scientific approach mind.  I can't dismiss observable data as objective facts just because it isn't in modern day physics/biology - even when it's inexplicable and illogical and defies science as we know it..... I also went through a phase of asking trapped ghosts their names/last remembered date before opening a door back into source and the cycle of souls for them and kept a different notebook of those data tables - so I could research if they had really lived and died and thus verify my gifts as medium.  I stopped when I was told it was morbid and weird. And by that point,  it was statistically verifiable in all but a handful of ghosts whose lives/deaths I couldn't find due to age or being on missing person's lists.... 

It's funny but the 3 people who pay the greatest credence to my precogs and accept them as truth are 1) Miche, my sister, an atheist Jew 2) Crissy, my best friend and birthday twin and a student of mine since her spiritual gifts were all dormant before meeting me, a recovering Catholic now pantheist/Wiccan 3) Mikaela, my 16 year old bonus sister baby witch, raised Jehovah's Witness and who I've told since she was small to seek her own spiritual truths that fit her but to pick her battles while living as a minor in their house to respect her family's religious obligations unless they directly contradict her ethics making her feel icky to follow it.  A Virgo,  a Libra,  and a Taurus. It's funny with my sister because she's an anti-religion observable phenomena quantifiable science type atheist but I've saved her life multiple times with my visions and mutable precogs so while she says my intuition makes no scientific sense she has to listen to it as an important data point because all her life she's never known it to be wrong. When she asked me in March for a best/safest travel window to bring the kids to see Gigi (I warned my sister after grandma's fall in 2019 that grandma's mental health was compromised going to decline markedly and she'd be lost in dementia fog by the end of 2021) and I told her mid June to mid July was safest but once we hit August it would not be safe to travel with unvaccinated kids and by the time we hit Packers pre season, even taking them masked shopping would be unsafe for the kids unless all adults were mask mandated once more.  She listened to me and as the info on delta variant has come out,  she reached out and thanked me asked how I knew.  I told her my subconscious  intuition told me but my logic and knowledge of viral mutation times, pressures, spread rates,  and human nature agreed with my assessment and the more analysis I threw at my intuitive answer, the less I could find fault or break it.  

Anyway.  This is a rough patch - and a lot of kids are going to be hospitalized and/or die before we see the other side of it.  If you are not treating yourself as unvaccinated immunocompromised and demanding it of everyone who is unmasked around your kids under 12 who can't get vaxxed, this is a matter of when not if. 2.5 minutes exposure time with someone who is unmasked and shedding delta variant is a high enough viral load to infect even the vaxxed. So if you're not being careful like you were during true lockdown of last year,  just assume you were the asymptomatic vaccinated vector that got the unvaxxed kid sick.... American adults who still willfully choose to be unvaxxed without a medically diagnosed reason deserve to die and be denied hospital resources imho - fuck them and their rationalizations, let them reap what they sowed.  But the kids who can't be vaccinated now at risk break my heart.... Because even when parents are vaxxed and being cautiously masked indoors but not outdoors but unmasked with other vaccinated adults when kids not present,  they're carrying it home to their kids who are being hospitalized. And that guts me.... Everyone is acting like life is back to normal, as if crowded bars and concerts and unmasked hugs and unmasked indoor gatherings if everyone's vaccinated are safe - and it's kids who are and will continue to die because the adults couldn't follow fucking simple rules of hygiene and social distancing etiquette.  

Also remember, the newest data from UK on their delta variant surge is that 55% who went in hospital are unvaxxed,  49% fully vaxxed,  and 6% one dose - though nearly all the deaths are among the unvaxxed.  

And this is going to get far worse before it gets better.... And there was literally nothing I could do to prevent it other than to warn everyone who would listen the timeline I saw and to stay vigilant, watch the numbers,  and do NOT host or attend unmasked super spreader events like concerts or festivals after Cancer season ended - especially if they are all ages events.... 

 O I'm doing alright. I mean,  as well as can be expected given 1) I haven't been able to be indoors at work since Thursday when they steam cleaned the carpets (I tried again today and when I took my mask off to consider eating lunch there and in addition to instant nausea,  headache, and pre-syncope dizziness,  I could taste the chemicals off gassing in the back of my throat and started to have an asthmatic/anaphylactic reaction which was terrifying - I really hate that my body started thinking swelling/closing of air waves is the proper response to things that make me sick....  It started with certain varieties of fresh hops about 5 years ago,  so I had to cut out IPA and dry hopped beers unless I'd had a lengthy talk with the brewer about which hops were used and when in the process they were used. but now it has started occurring from petrochemicals. I much preferred the days of me passing out or instantaneous vomiting/dry heaving....  Have you ever tried throwing up while your throat is closing up?  I 100% do not recommend. It is a horrifically awful experience.)  I have no idea when I'll be able to get back in to work - but I have end of last month's deposit to do as well as plants to water and paperwork stacking up.... and 2) I couldn't be outside at home or work over the weekend due to the air quality alert from Canadian wildfires over all of WI from 6pm Friday til noon on Sunday (just taking my dog out briefly while wearing my N95 mask outdoors caused my eyes to burn,  my Eustachian tubes to itch in my ears, instant headache,  and my skintone to turn a ghastly bluish grey that took several hours of being passed out for ne to start recovering a more normal complexion.)

So I've been sleeping a lot. I also cooked up a batch of lentils & rice with rainbow chard, black olive tapenade,  garlic, and za'atar seasoning.  Which I ate with fried eggs all weekend.  That was all I could bring myself to eat over the weekend though,  small servings of that lentils & rice dish served with a fried egg on top for some protein...  Today for lunch having Singapore Beef with broccoli instead of zucchini was the first I've eaten anything else since Friday morning. 

When not sleeping excessively in recent days, I've been reading and drinking hot tea.  I finished all 773 pages of Killing Commendatore between Friday morning sitting in the waiting room for grandma's MRI and early hours Monday. And today Mikaela was over so I re-read all of Calling on Dragons (she's nearly done) and tonight/tomorrow I'm finishing up the last book Talking to Dragons (which she doesn't yet own) so tomorrow when she gets dropped off here she can borrow my copy to finish it. We did stop by Half Price Books before lunch (ostensibly to check for Talking to Dragons for her,  actually because it's right next door and we hadn't gone in ages) and I found FIVE Loeb Classics Library books I didn't yet have!!! 

Loeb is the bilingual Harvard publication of the extant ancient Greek texts - so while I definitely had the Aristotle and Plato texts in translation, I hadn't yet acquired them in the original as dual language!  I aspire to own all the Loeb Classic Library texts,  but they're $25-40 new so I mostly just pick them up used when I find them.  And it's ALWAYS an exciting day for me when I find them! Before today when I found these 3 Aristotle and 2 Plato books, I only owned 12 and now I'm up to 17!!!

Anyway, petrochemical poisoning, Greek philosophy, and difficult princesses aside.  

The reason I admitted instinctive backsliding toa state of wanting to force a way to fix things whenever Eric is full of that deep sorrow and longing was because I didn't expect it from him.  It took me by surprise.  

Because you see, somewhere right after Cancer season turned to Leo season,  I decided that it was time for me to start doing what's necessary to open-handedly let him go and release all of my well-loved expectations, hope, and dreams attached to him that were chains of my ego binding him to me.  I can't release his chosen chains, but I can open my own from my side to let him go.  It doesn't mean he will, like all beings he has free will to go or stay as he choose - but it means not clinging to him from my own selfishness is what I feel to be the right thing to do by him. in case freedom from being connected to me is what he wants.  Do I know it to be what he wants? No. But it's still ethically the right thing to do by him to let him have the freedom tp choose that path is he so desires.  

Because,  you see, what his sister broke by her choices/actions in October 2018 of bullying and her defensiveness and manipulation to maintain systems of injustice/inequality in the band's name was: 1) my ability to find anything admirable in her or anything she is involved in 2) any belief there's authenticity in the band's claims of moral/ethical stances 3) my desire to have anything further to do with the band Delta Rae or anything they create. As far as I'm concerned, there is no start to healing the poisons of her creation nor any capacity in which I want her touching my life (this or any future life) until there is acknowledgement and ownership and atonement for what she did.  It's that straightforward. It's that simple. 

As far as accountability of my own past actions.  Could I have kept to myself the truth that the country music caused me enough physical pain due to my synesthesia that continuing to force me to be around/listen to country radio at their shows would stop me going to Delta Rae shows? Yes.  Would keeping that honesty to myself have stopped Britt's reactionary defensiveness ever occurring over being told that hard truth? Yes - one cannot react to a stimulus never experienced.  Would it stop her from getting reactionary/defensive over other hard to swallow truths?  No.  Would I have then still severed all ties to the band and thus to Eric without any warning or explanation given for why I was leaving? Yes.  

So really,  as far as accountability for my actions,  I could have chosen to prioritize the sensitivity of Britt and Liz's egos and their defensiveness over honesty and the truth.  But had I made that choice, the band and Eric would have lost me just as surely and completely as they currently have - they just wouldn't have known the reason why it happened at that time and they never would have had any opportunities to change my mind by fixing the issue  The cause and effect nature of those forces at play would have remained unknown and unknowable to them as to why I decided I couldn't stay - but the results would have been identical if I had kept to myself the bitter hard truths that caused Britt to react by turning bully and getting defensive. My silence would have had the same end result as Britt's choice(s) brought us to - communication about the difficult truth just gave us some probabilities and fatelines where a better fate than me leaving and him never knowing why. So I chose honesty,  even if the truth hurt.  And Britt chose reactionary bullying,  ostracism, creating and justifying a system of injustice in the name of the entire band,  defensiveness,  manipulation,  and gaslighting. We both made our choices - and even knowing definitely (not just my expected via precogs) what choices she'd make,  I'd still make my same choice to be honest about the physical nerve pain that country style vocalists and twanging pitchiness cause me due to my color-timbre synesthesia. 

That said,  I fully understand that in this life she is Eric's sister and that the band is completely interwoven through every aspect of his life and identity.  He has put every important facet of his life into this one basket that his sister chose to fill with poisons: his family, his dearest friends, his creative expression, his career, his sense of purpose/meaning in this society.  There is no aspect of his ego at this time that isn't bounded by his membership in Delta Rae.  In fact,  I highly doubt that there is any time he would ever self-identify who he is as an individual without it beginning with his membership in the collective of Delta Rae. I don't think he knows who he is outside his role(s) in the band.  I genuinely question if at this point he even HAS a self-identity outside of the band and his relationship to it. 

I don't say that in a judgemental way,  I say that in an objective statement of observed facts way. From a scientific approach to reality, reality doesn't ask of me what my subjective opinion or desired version of objective reality looks like - reality simply is whether I like it or judge it to be fair or desirable.  I can disbelieve Newton's first law of motion all I want and object to it on "but that's not what I want to be true" grounds - but my disbelief and whining "I wants" won't do me a damn bit of good if I hit a patch of black ice at 50mph and try to behave as if Newtonian laws of motion don't exist.....  My vehicle will continue in motion at the same vector and speed until it's acted upon by an outside force (usually an immovable/stationary object in this context) and the force of my object in motion causes a collision of intense energy resulting in extensive damage to my vehicle,  whatever object it smashed into, and potentially loss of life to me or others.  Black ice and the first law of motion don't give a fucking damn about my belief/disbelief in their properties or how I WANT the world to behave - they simply exist and will behave true unto their own natures regardless my subjective lies I could tell myself about them.  So,  from a scientific perspective, the most dangerous thing any person can do is allow their subjective desires affect their observations of objective reality and thus try to rationalize or lie to themselves about the nature of things. Sure science can fuck up by having insufficient or flawed data to analyze - but a scientific approach does not allow for an ethics of mental cowardice in how you assess the world and the dynamics of the situations you encounter. 

So whether I ever WANTED Britt to behave the way she did and has continued to behave or whether I want to give up on any future timeline where Eric and I are together or whether Eric WANTS me to let him go instead of fighting to bring our lives is immaterial - what matters are the facts of  1) Britt's choices/actions in the name of the entire band back in October 2018 2) the consequences of her actions and ongoing defensiveness/gaslighting surrounding her choice 3) the inextricable interconnectedness of Eric's ego and self-identity in the collective identity.  Those are the objective components of the situation as it is - my desires and emotions are not among them - and it is on these 3 factors alone that a scientific approach demands I make my own choices.  I cannot change Britt's ego,  bullying, or defensiveness; I cannot even begin any healing or repairing of what she poisoned or destroyed without acknowledgement and honest communication from the band;  I cannot expect of Eric to sacrifice ANY aspect of the life he has chosen to build for himself and his sense of esse and self-identity, let alone EVERY aspect of his self-identity and life.  None of those objective facts about the reality of this situation can I alter or lie to myself about. What is within my power is for me to release my own expectations and desires regarding the future given an acceptance of the nature these 3 components that are outside my control.  

So I've been letting go, from my side, of my attachments to Eric and my expectations of any future between our souls in this lifetime in which his identity is so bound up in a collective that his sister's ego has poisoned and continues to poison.  I won't say I like any damn thing about it and I won't say it's easy.... But it is the most honest and ethical thing I can do given the reality of the situation we're currently in. 

But still it does take me aback and make me second-guess what data I'm overlooking here when he has before him the promise of fulfillment in everything he has chosen to build his life/happiness around and yet in my inner stillness I can hear the depths of the longing and sorrow echoing in him..... 

But what else am I to do here if I refuse to knowingly lie to myself or others? Given the options available to me, I don't see a way to chart a different course under these stars.