When Mercury entered Scorpio, I started to feel myself inadvertently withdrawing and turning inward. When the sun joined Mercury in Scorpio, I felt myself distancing further, questioning, doubting, considering shutting this back to private.... Basically I've been in a bit of an "access denied to my inmost self unless you can make me believe I can trust you and that you won't use that access to hurt me." If or when or where such questions arise, when I get like this it's not unusual for me to want to delete the comment/communication if I can. It's like the way I get when the moon is in Scorpio, but more so because Mercury stays in a sign longer than the moon does. Just be grateful we not currently moon and Mercury (and sun) in Scorpio or I'd be setting private deleting every comment I overthink or might be misunderstood off of everywhere..... 9 out of 10 times, if something I commented disappears or something I wrote here disappears back to private draft, it happened when either the moon or Mercury were in Scorpio ...  

It's really not personal, it was a very abrupt inner shift inside me that took me by complete surprise of an internal reactionary questioning and closing off after a period of so much expanding trust. And then the most recent round of anti-Israeliand antisemitic things shared and their rationalized justifications of it from Irish musicians I had considered friends and who still claim to be my friend didn't help with the questioning and trust issues and second-guessing coming in on the horizon. 

Probably worth mentioning that I do have a Scorpio stellium with the only inner planet affected being my Venus (and a Sagittarius stellium, though the only inner planet of that is my Mars) and so sometimes transits through Scorpio and Sag hit me extra intense even though neither are among my aun, rising, or moon signs..... 

Don't take it personal. You probably didn't do anything wrong. I'm just hit hard this week in an introspection of second guessing questioning if I've been too open in access to my inner self and/or in my responsiveness. It will pass. Like the weather it will pass. (But also like the weather lately, probably feels a bit chaotic and crazy and you fucking can't wait for it to pass, lol )

Just being honest about it. And if I don't write here much for the next while, assume that is why. 

This week I have no further concrete plans except taking my gran to a dentist appointment on Thurs now her permanent custom crown replacement is in and work (and somewhere between Sunday night and tonight my work desktop decided it was pretty well done with existence. Not my favorite. And the workstation I tried to use tonight after I finished watering all the plants didn't have admin rights for me to move or edit files on the server which was what I needed to do so I just alphabetized a bit til I finished my tea. Next week is fairly chill too now that my parents rescheduled their early Nov Panama trip yet again to now be end of February -- just the last minute addition of seeing Madison Opera on Fri perform Tosca with Denis and Crissy (if Denis who is the one who is most keen on opera and asked if we had interest actually remembers to pickup tickets.)  So unless life has some curve balls for me, mostly some unexpectedly chill time coming up.

Telling myself I won't go there, Oh, but I know that I won't care, Tryna wash away all the blood I've spilt. This lust is a burden that we both share, Two sinners can't atone from a lone prayer. Souls tied, intertwined by our pride and guilt. There's darkness in the distance, From the way that I've been livin', But I know I can't resist it. Oh, I love it and I hate it at the same time. You and I drink the poison from the same vine. Oh, I love it and I hate it at the same time. Hidin' all of our sins from the daylight, From the daylight, runnin' from the daylight. From the daylight, runnin' from the daylight. Oh, I love it and I hate it at the same time. Tellin' myself it's the last time, Can you spare any mercy that you might find, If I'm down on my knees again? Deep down, way down, Lord, I try. Try to follow your light, but it's night time. Please, don't leave me in the end. There's darkness in the distance, I'm beggin' for forgiveness, But I know I might resist it. Oh, I love it and I hate it at the same time. You and I drink the poison from the same vine. Oh, I love it and I hate it at the same time. Hidin' all of our sins from the daylight. From the daylight, runnin' from the daylight. From the daylight, runnin' from the daylight. Oh, I love it and I hate it at the same time

 I've had to mute a lot of my Irish friends on social media and questioning if they can even be considered friends after some of the things they r posted/said and a couple conversations we've had these recent weeks and that's been hard on me. For historical reasons, there are a lot of Irish who are staunchly pro-Palestinian and anti-Israeli and who think any sort of violence is justified when fighting against a British created colony on a native population which is the only way they see Israel.  A lot of them see this as a way of getting to freedom fight for Irish independence without having to have the violence at home killing their own family members. And they have said and shared some of the most violently anti-Semitic, pro-Hamas in the name of anti-Zionism justifying the victim blaming of the horrific attacks. They justify it and that there "are no innocents amongst those who live complicit with state sanctioned violence" in the same way a percentage of Irish have historically justified IRA backed terror within Ireland and the UK in the name of their own Irish identity.

But it's hard to have someone who you have been friends with and cared about tell you that "if you had been there, which thankfully you weren't, you would have deserved what happened because you live as a holdover of British colonialist because there's no innocents amongst those who profit off a state of oppression." And it just hurts to be told that... Especially from people who supposedly claim they care about you.

It's had me extra argumentative looking for the smackdown and insult. And it's also made me feel a bit more reclusive.....

Those I have been closest to recently and care most about right now, Keith and Aoife (whose da just passed away suddenly this last week) and her family, have not been that way. But some people like Fergal have definitely been sharing things and saying things that cross that line....  And like, Keith hasn't been and has backed off doing rebel songs (as opposed to other classic Irish songs) for his series of reels hiking all over ruins of Ireland with his guitar to give history than sing a song in the space of it that he's been doing this year. But his cousin (who I've met, in August) and other people close to him have been crossing that line of victim blaming and saying you can't be a victim if you're a citizen of the nation oppressing a "native" occupied people. 

The rabbi in Boston who was stabbed on Thursday and the rabbi stabbed (and killed) outside her home in Detroit this Saturday during the sabbath have definitely added to the fear of being hated for nothing other than being Jewish...Especially because we're right around the anniversary of the tree of Life synagogue massacre which was the deadliest anti-Semitic attack in the US. And that's just stateside, it's been worse in the UK and EU nations with large Muslim populations. And yes, there has been violent attacks in the states against Muslims, including the six year old stabbed and killed in Chicago since this started... But there's a very real fear amongst Jews wondering, "But are we safe and supported here?" in the ways people are reacting to what their social media algorithms have been portraying the conflict and blaming Israel for all of it... Especially since both American and British policing authorities have decided that using the Hamas slogan at pro-Palestinian protests isn't hate speech unless you're saying it to a Jew or outside a synagogue as a threat.

And it just hurts and it's hard right now. And it makes a girl question who she can trust and be expecting a fight even when none was intended... I've been considering closing paths of communication and have been minimizing all social media usage because of it. If I've reached out or responded or communicated or spent time with you, it's because I trust that at a bare minimum you're not going to victim blame try to tell me that the dead who were attacked deserved it and if I had been there, like for the music festival, I would have deserved what was done.

Like I said right at the start of it, when you're a woman who was born in Jerusalem to American parents, it all hits home harder and the "there but for the grace of G-d go I" is even stronger in me than it is in the fear of most Jews right now. And these last 4-5 days have been extra hard.... because people I know and have trusted and welcomed me within the community have been the ones saying innocent civilians, even me had I been there, deserved what happened because freedom fighters can do whatever they want against British imposed colonialist oppressors.... because they see Israel-Gaza as the new modern day Irish fight for their independence against Irish genocide at the hands of the British....

And like I don't want to talk about it all the time, but honestly, most of this month has had me deeply questioning issues of trust and friendship and genuine goodness of people and where I should expect the next kick in the gut betrayal victim blaming of Jews.... because some of the people I've heard it from have hurt so badly, people I've known and called friends for over a decade and who have said that we are all like a family within the Irish music community, but apparently not if you're a Jew upset about anti-Semitic attacks on Jews by people who explicitly state in their charter that they seek the death and destruction of all Jews.

[Post Title: Lyrics to the David Kushner song Daylight. I very much adore this song, it's been on heavy rotation with me these last 6 months or so. But I DEFINITELY thought it a Hozier song for the first 50 times I heard it before I had it stuck in my head tried to look it up and did a, "Wait what?! That's NOT Hozier?! There voices are identically colored!"  Blew my mind the first time I learned it, lol.]

O, I never explained WHY that unstated premise is inside me that any disconnect in the bond I instigate is only temporary and why that matters, did I? And WHY, well, the answer to why questions is almost invariably the most important missing pieces of information. And I  drank too much whiskey (finished off the last of my bottle if Green Spot) while re-reading the end of the adventures of Sinbad from 1,001 Nights translated into French so I'll give you that why, even if you never did ask.  I'm feeling overly honest and I currently feel that this is a truth that speaking it doesn't make me vulnerable in my weaknesses to state, just honest in my soul's truth.

It's because the separation can only ever last for as long as he is choosing and valuing other people and things more than the value he places on choosing me. As long as that is finite, then the duration that the bond is muted can only ever be finite. Only until he wants again misses me enough to choose me. And why is that?

Well. I would just like to state, very clearly, for myself and for everyone else this enduring truth about me and my soul and my nature: 

If you ask me what I want, in any life, my answer always has been and always will be that I want Eric and the love between our souls thriving and shining and strengthening the both of us. In a million lifetimes, with any and everything on the table for me to choose between, I'd choose him. Every damn time.  The trick of it is, I only want him so long as he wants me and I'm what he would choose for himself -- otherwise there is no meaning to it if he doesn't want me same as I want him. Any and every time he chooses otherwise than to be with me (no matter what the reason) it is my nature to let him go until such a time as he would choose me again. Because I would rather he be happy than be mine, I won't selfishly hold onto him whenever what he wants for himself or his life lessons doesn't include having me in his life. But o, what I would rather most of all is for him to be happy AND be mine, for him to choose me as I would choose him. That's what I want most of anything, it's my greatest hope and the shining light of promise for me for any life to be truly a reward life. 

I don't expect it every lifetime, and I will always bow myself out when he chooses "not me" for his priorities and desires and I'll let him go as far from me as his heart and lessons take him. But I'll always hold onto the hope that one of these days he will learn whatever lessons he needed to learn without me and his own heart will pull him back to me and the homesickness of long absence will lead him back and maybe, just maybe, we will get the joy of another lifetime with each other and learning who we have become and how these new versions of us fit together complement one another in new ways the old lives versions of us didn't yet. 

He just has to choose me as what he wants and be certain of it and stick to that certainty. That's all he has ever had to do. And whatever shadows and phantoms got between us don't actually matter because fuck them, they are not strong enough to stand between us when we both choose each other. He just has to free will make that his choice and stand in that truth.

But you should know and always know, that no matter what has been said or done or chosen, no matter how many lifetimes it has been, I will always and always and always choose him so long as I am what he wants and he chooses me. In a million lifetimes and a million more, however many lifetimes I keep incarnating and even if I can choose to be with his soul beyond the incarnations, that truth of mine will never change. Everyone and everything else is me making the best of the hand I'm given and the options I have -- but any time he's one of my options and he wants me, I will choose him. Always. 

And you should know that. Because I know that. And while I've always been better at blunt honesty than vulnerability, still I'm not writing here to lie to myself or anyone else. So I gift you that truth, it's one I'd never deny if anyone ever bothered to ask me for it. 

Now that I've said that piece, I'm going to put the kettle on to make a second steep of this Chocolate Drizzle tea then while it cools to a drinkable temperature, I'm going to go shower so my hair has enough time to dry before I meet up with Crissy, Denis, and Karissa at Heritage for brunch before symphony before the Packers game today. 

 But know always, I will always want him and choose him as long as I'm what he wants and chooses for himself. Always and always and always. Nothing else can touch that. Nothing else ever has.

So. I was thinking.  And. I know that I SAY that when I try to give him up and mute the bond between our souls, it's because I genuinely believe it's what he wants and what he chooses for himself and the happiness he seeks and the lessons his life path must lead him down. And I mean it when I say it and I believe it in every fibre of my being and believe it down to the deepest depths of my soul because if I didn't, if in that moment I had any shadows of doubt or thought I might hurt him in taking the bond from him trying to make it dormant, I would be unable to see it through move forward to quiet the bond try to render it inaccessible. 

But. And. Now here's the part that's the fucking kicker and I never realized until just now tonight.... 

When I do that, I never believe it's forever. I never have. I always think it's an infatuation, a lesson to be learned, something he should pursue while he wants it more than he wants me so he doesn't come to resent me or the bond between our souls.... But the truth is, if I dig deep and deeper into the foundations of my unexamined premises, I always have an assumption somewhere inside me that it's a passing infatuation. That it's not something that lasts, just something to be endured for a time like a change of seasons until the weather changes again. I always assume that eventually, at some point, the infatuation will wear itself out and he will feel again the pull of the bond and the absence of me in his inner spaces and even if it takes all the rest of this lifetime we're stuck within for an infatuation to run it's course, they will all burn themselves out and the bond will remain to be picked up again when he's ready for it and recognizes his need of it. 

There is no time, in all the times I have tried to martyr myself to give it up in the name of his current happiness that I have believed that it would be a lasting separation, a forever severance between our souls. 

I have always in my deepest core truths believed that any time and every time that we both miss and yearn for each other, our souls will pull toward each other like magnets and no matter anything else going on our lives will rush back toward seeking each other until we are once more as close to one as two separate souls in two separate bodies can be. 

It's part of what has helped me endure the brutal nature of denying myself what I want and the hollows of grieving his absence in my life -- that I have always believed it to be temporary and that this too shall pass and on the other side we will find each other once again. Somehow. And no distractions and no powers on heaven or earth or any other realm can stop that force between our souls that pulls toward the other like a lodestone pointing north. 

It's funny. But I didn't realize til just now this early morning. That all my attempted "sacrifices" were built on the unshakeable belief that such a sacrifice was temporary and could be endured because it's not and could never be a permanent severing between our souls being drawn to seek each other across any physical distances and across lifetimes. 

I'm not entirely sure what to make of that truth. But as it is my truth, I felt it deserved to be your knowledge as well as mine. Because is it really even a sacrifice if deeper than  any pain over what you're giving up from your life you believe you will gain once more what you have lost once he sees through the hollow infatuation for the lack of true happiness it will always become? I don't know, I don't think so though. Waiting hardly counts as a sacrifice. Unless you're a Christian who believes in the literal resurrection gospel of the sacrificial lamb, where you never really sacrificed anything because you pulled a j/k do over for that whole dying to wash away your sins thang. And as I have said before, I am not and have never been a Christian soul....

But I've never doubted that in the end, they're always infatuations he's pursuing for what he believes will bring him happiness, and so I'm only giving up the bond to him for as long as it's ethically necessary. But not forever. Never for forever. 

I have never even considered giving up him or the connection or the bond forever. Only for now. And there's a world of difference between forever and for now.  Especially when you're talking about goodbyes... It's the difference between farewell and until the next time.  And I've never even in my darkest most self-sacrificing stoic ethics lost hope that somehow there WOULD be a next time, somewhen further down the path beyond my current line of sight. 

Does that make me less stoic? Less brave? Less of a martyr? Does it make the attempt to sacrifice him and the bond something hollow or a sham because there's no real sacrifice in it? To believe that somewhere down the line, when we are once again both ready to seek each other, there will be the hope and promise of a future chance to get the story right. Is that faith as small as a mustard seed to build miracles upon or is it a lie that destroys any nobility from the actions? Is it just pathetic to cling to such a frail hope that his longing/seeking/desire will outlast any infatuation, no matter what reality plays out? I don't know. I've never tried to judge it, because I never even questioned that foundational premise of how I understand the bond to function.

I don't know. Judge it how you think best. But I know that despite everything that has come before, that unspoken belief and faith has always stayed alive somewhere inside me. That if not now, then somewhere down the line we will find our paths to seek each other out and meet again and have another chance to get the story right. 

 The moon moved out of Scorpio into Sagittarius and I went from examining the deep feelings to telling myself, "Look, you're building castles in the air on the most tenuous of connections to suit the meaning you want to see. Stop it. Stop lying to yourself and confront the hard truths you have at your disposal. Doesn't much matter what you WANT what he said to be about you, you ain't got shit to tell you it is. Wanting a truth is as bad as lying to yourself. You know it is. So stop that. And go find something, someone, somewhere else to put your energy girleen. Somewhere it's reciprocated....." 

And right now, I can't say if that's right headed or wrong headed, I just know it's practical truth speaking of what is factually known and dismissive of what is inner knowing as being just what I want to be true..... So I neither accept nor reject that analysis, because the sparkly dancing brightness in me recently and the love rushing down the bond from him IS, no matter what the pragmatist fact seeking logic says. But the advice is sound at least to put my energy into something else rather than believing in blind hope fixating on a dream that may never come true and making meaning that I want to see instead of understanding what is/was actually said. The advice at least is good, good enough to get a girl through the day and the night, then the next day and the next night, then the next and the next and the next and so on, one day at a time.

So I'm going to drink the rest of my French press of black coffee and finally read The Invisible Life of Addie Larue by V. E. Schwab and not think about anyone or anything outside this set of moments I'm in. Because thinking about it won't change it, especially if the connections and meanings I've made are nothing but made up delusions of what I want to be true with no relation to what IS his truth. The book called to me even in hard cover every time I browsed a bookstore and I picked this book up when it first came out in paperback but hadn't been in the right headspace for it, I like to read books at just the right time. I can reread them as many times as I want, until they become old friends, but the first read of a new book happens only once. So I like to buy them and keep them as promises to my future self until the season and the hour and my inner space and everything feels just right aligned for the perfect first date with the book. The best book experiences are when you get it just exactly right for that first read.... anyway, I just started reading this book this morning after taking the dog out on a postprandial after brekkie walk so I'm only 50pgs in, but very much enjoying this novel so far!!!  I relate far far too well to this main character -- though in my case it's the memories of many lives that I remember and others don't always seem to remember me, not a curse and an ongoing single life after making a Faustian Dorian Gray deal with the old god of darkness. But still it's eerily close to how it feels to remember a shared past and yet nobody else ever seems to remember you from it.

"It is coming together now, words wrapped over melody. It is becoming his. It is like a tree, taking root. He will remember, on his own; not her, of course -- not her, but this. Their song....somewhere between the first sip and the third he sees her, and smiles, and for an instant Addie thinks -- hopes, even now --- that he remembers something, because he looks at her as if he knows her, but the truth is simply that he wants to; attraction can look an awful lot like recognition in the wrong light." (p. 56)

My purse books are both about hauntings because the veil is thinning and Samhain approaches. One is fictional ghost stories, the other is a book of local folktales about the ghosts/spirits/supernatural on Vancouver Island. 

Because it's spooky season, damnit! Last night I read the first story in Haunted Nights and very much enjoyed it, tonight at work I'll start the ghost stories from Vancouver Island book while I wait for the watering can to fill while taking care of the melodramatic plants that get water every 3-4 days rather than the 7-12 for the full watering of everyone My plan is to switch off between the two purse books in my pauses when most people pull out a phone for mindless scrolling, one story/chapter in each til they're both done.

P. S. Hawktail & Väsen last night was an incredible show!!!!!!! All instrumental compositions, but just brilliant brilliant musicianship and layers of melodies throughout!!!! I adored everything about it! They are each good separate, but together they were extra brilliant! And I loved how Hawktail geeked out over Väsen and Väsen geeked out over Hawktail.  Such a beautiful beautiful night of instrumental music and so many funny stories both bands shared last night!!! So good!!!! It made my soul sing for joy in being in those moments, getting to hear the music in person, right up front in the first row so the sound waves resonating directly from the instruments reached my ears clearly and my color-timbre synesthesia was it's most dazzlingly brilliant could catch all the glorious colors on all their stringed instruments!!!! Hawktail is fiddle, upright bass, nylon string guitar and Väsen is either bass viola or shoulder cello and a nyckelharpa (sp?) which is a bowed keyed Swedish instrument I've seen, and it's an ancient one been around since 1350 at least, but for the life of me no matter how many times I see/hear it played I just don't understand how exactly it produces the sounds it makes so it falls under the category of "spider finger magic" for how it produce the notes it makes, along with concertinas and button accordions, lol. I'm up to three instruments that are unfathomable to me the science of soundwave propagation for how the acoustics of them work so it must be spider fingers magic to play them. 😆

 For what it's worth, I genuinely don't think Eric has any intention of doing anything that makes me feel like the only ethical choice I have is finding some way of closing off the connection. I think it was complete sincerity and certainty and vulnerability that he said his work now is to stay open. And I believe him on that. There was no reason for him to say it all on his own apropos of nothing except what he wanted to communicate unless it was his truth, y'know? I get nothing but honesty and sincerity and certainty and love and determination from him right now. I mean crystal clear certainty and the brightest deepest love light burning inside him. Been many centuries, many lifetimes, since I remember him THIS certain and stubborn and determined and clear and shining full of love this clear and bright. It's really intense and heady down the bond, all the time, in a good way. In a really good way. Just also very strong and very constant. And it's the same on the inside via the bond as what he put into words t'other day.

I just mentioned it because it was incredibly painful for me to do, and just because I CAN do hard things doesn't mean I LIKE doing hard things when I feel like I have to choose between ethics and what my heart desires.

And also. It's also my truth that I really really don't want to end up in a situation where I have to try to  close off the bond again. I hate doing it, and every time I do there's an insidious part of me that questions why I let him back in and reopen the bond just to be hurt later when I have to cut myself off from it. And it gets louder every time experience proves it right.... That maybe I shouldn't have reopened the bond again, maybe all it can do is give false promises and disappointment and the pain of having to cut off the love and warmth and strength of it. 

I hate that part of me that asks those questions, but I lack anything solid to refute it. And the more times we repeat the same patterns and cycles, the harder it gets for me to tell that message to stfu on the subject of not reopening the bond....

In other news, not at my parents tonight and not doing the cider pairing dinner on Thursday -- my maman was sick feeling schmutzy yesterday then tested positive for covid last night. My da tested negative and has no symptoms, but my mum is sick. So I didn't go join her for dinner tonight while my da was playing cards with his friends (he also didn't go tonight, just in case.) I'll test myself regularly even without any symptoms since I picked them up from the airport on Saturday was in an enclosed car and then sat right next to my mum on Sun at Aladdin (and none of us wearing masks.) But I'm still planning to go to see Hawktail tomorrow night and to symphony on Sunday (unless I come back positive) but I'll probably mask just to be safe as both tend to have more old people (especially symphony.) I did let Crissy know and she told me not to worry about masking in the car unless I have symptoms or test positive and she still wants to do dinner tomorrow night before the show but she said she would also wear a mask at the show if I chose to just because old people. And I'm still planning to go to brunch at Heritage with our symphony group on Sunday beforehand (unless symptoms show up or I test positive.) But the thing is, even after known exposures, I've never yet had covid symptoms or tested positive no matter how many tests I take...thus why I'll be honest to my friends about known exposure before sitting down at the same table to eat a meal and I'll proactively mask to protect old people at the opera house and at symphony just in case. Because I don't know everyone's story and I'd feel real shitty if I were the reason that someone on chemo or immunocompromised or just old got incredibly sick or died because of me....it's why I always wear a mask whenever I take my grandma to her appointments (most of which are medical of some sort or dental) because even though she's had covid multiple times now and is more likely to get me sick than the reverse, I'd feel like a real shit person if I knew I was the person who had introduced it into her elder care place or got someone whose stories I don't know (and have no right to ask to know) sick from crossed paths in a random doctor's office/dentist office -- I mean, that's one of the places immune compromised vulnerable people HAVE to go, so why not do the easy thing to help protect them from me if I'm asymptomatic.

Sucks that my maman is sick though.... (My da just had covid a couple months ago when my grandma got covid bad, he picked it up from caregiving her through her bout of covid -- even though I was the one who went when she was the worst to get the covid test so we could get the paxlovid rx asap, I went in with minimal things (even left my purse in my car, just had my keys, my phone, and the covid test kit), masked, gloved, and with an easy to remove washable outer layer then stood outside in the wind for a long while after having thrown out the mask/gloves right outside the door and kept the windows open for air flow the whole drive back.) She has a hard time too with anything that goes into her lungs, but it may be too late to get her on paxlovid.

~*~*~*~

ALSO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

JUST ANNOUNCED TODAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

THE CORONAS ARE COMING BACK IN MARCH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

AND I GET TO SEE THEM TWICE!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I squeeed so hard started jumping up and down in excitement when I saw their insta post this afternoon! (which showed up way sooner than the same fb post because algorithms man....) And then after the initial delight, I got such a heavy dread on me over whether those were the same dates as the first week of March Aoife Scott show at ICHC until I checked the dates and saw that Aoife plays on the 3 and Thr Coronas shows are the 5 & 6. (which would have been highly ironic if they had overlapped given that Danny (lead singer/songwriter) and Roisin (who plays keys and sings harmonies with the band) are Aoife's cousins, lol. As in, Danny/Ro's mam and Aoife's mam are Mary and Frances Black from the famous Black Family and are basically like, the absolute most important royalty of Irish music.) 

But there is no overlap!!!!! They're different days!!! So I get to see Aoife and Danny and Ro!!!!! So by the time I told Crissy about it, I'd verified and was back in can't hold still my face hurts from grinning so huge excitement of my first reaction.

I'M SO EXCITED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 

The Coronas had been one of my absolute favorite of favorite rock bands since I first heard Heroes or Ghosts!!!! So many songs I love!!!! They have been an absolute "must see every time they are driveably near" band for the last 15 years, even when they rarely ever played stateside!! And the funniest thing is that I have adored them for so long since the first time I heard Heroes or Ghosts and I just stood completely still and time stopped moving listening to it for fear of breaking the beauty of the song and made people listen to them on repeat all through college after discovering them. But I had absolutely no idea that Aoife is Danny's cousin when we first became friends at Irishfests (and it was her first year touring, first album release after spending most of her life refusing to enter the family business of music even though it's what brought her greatest joy, and nobody really knew her at all at that point in the Irish music scene) until mentioning to her about heading to St. Louis to see The Coronas when she asked what gigs we were going to after seeing hers, and she just lit up so bright and squeeed, "THAT'S ME COUSIN!!!!" And then she ordered me and Crissy to tell Danny that Aoife said hi. So we saw The Coronas at the downstairs of the fmaous Blueberry Hill and there were like maybe 20 people, including their Uber driver and it was so tiny and so few people and then after the show, while saying hi told him, "O! Aoife says hi!" And he just beamed, "You know Aoife?!?! This is the most Irish thing to ever happen to me  stateside!" So you can directly blame Aoife Scott for Danny's fondness for me and always noticing me remembering me, not just my own bright shiny energy, lol. (Don't worry, he has a model/actress serious girlfriend who he met on the set of his band's 2019 music video, or at least they're still together last I knew. Danny is proper rockstar after all and this life I'm not at all the sort of rich bitch "look at me" girl that well known musicians/famous guys date. I should be careful with saying shit like that though -- last time I said something similar to a musician friend, back when I was 19, I accidentally cursed myself when he told me I assume too much and I have only ever dated musicians/singers/songwriters ever since.... But honestly, I'm not cheerleader/sorority chick/model/actress/anorexic skinny type at all and I have zero patience for the girl bullying catty bitch bullshit... I don't diet because food is fucking amazing and I only exercise if it's fun and I don't try hard enough to polish my surfaces to diamond bright refractions/reflections for that, lol. And I'm okay with that -- this life I want to be loved for me qua ME, not for the bright shiny surface glamour tricks. I've actually never dyed my hair other than wash out bright colors for fun and most days this life I don't even bother with any makeup if the truth be told, and when I do wear makeup it's like nail polish especially dark blacks/blues, sparkly eye shadows, maybe mascara, maybe eyeliner specifically black or a fun color eyeliner, maybe lipstick pop of color...But lord knows I haven't owned let alone worn any form of foundation or even tinted lotion since the last time i was on a stage acting, in the college production of Knock all in French which was my last time I acted. I don't even think I bothered with foundation or powder or blush for any of my dance performances after that because nobody made me, lol. That level of "what you see is what you get, love me as I am if you want to love me this life" vibe. Completely polar opposite pendulum swing from who I was and how I was last life, lol.)

Like, The Coronas are proper rockstars across the pond sell out fucking stadiums in Ireland/UK/Europe/Australia but they never had a US top 40 song so then they struggle to fill small clubs stateside and their sets were so sparse at Milwaukee Irishfest because they lack fiddle so they don't seem Irish enough to a lot of fest scene folks even though they're incredibly famous Irish rock artists, it's like calling U2 not Irish enough at Irishfest because they lack fiddle, lol... But Danny has multiple times said that playing shows in the states that are so small keeps him humble, keeps him hungry, and sometimes the shows with the smallest size audiences but the brightest energy excited to see them are some of his favorite shows he's ever played. I haven't seen Aoife since Iowa Irishfest (first weekend of August) and haven't seen Danny or Ro since Milwaukee Irishfest (third weekend of August; it's always third weekend of August -- never make plans with me third weekend of August unless it's to meet me at MKE Irishfest, lol) and closing out the Sunday night session room which was one of THE most magical talent packed rooms of musicians and singer you've ever been crammed into!! (Milwaukee Irishfest is the largest Irish music fest in the world and EVERYBODY comes, even some who aren't playing stages but just want to come to teach or experience or session or scattering -- and it's just some of the most class instrumental playing you'll ever hear with some of the most amazing vocalists singing a song on request and then the whole room singing together when that's what the musicians/soloist ask for on the traditional songs.)

 O BUT I'M SO EXCITED TO SEE AOIFE (AND ANDY, HER MAN) AND DANNY AND RO!!!!!!!! EEEEEEEEH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 

Why is March so far away?!

O but it doesn't matter -- this year I got none of my Irish music darlings around St. Paddy's Day but NEXT year, in 2024, I get three of my favorites just before it!!!!!! And O but it's early and so ain't nobody else really announced yet!!!!! 

And I mean, the largest venue I've ever seen them play (and they didn't even sell out) stateside is Lincoln Hall so whenever they come back here I feel so extra special knowing they sell out literally everywhere else on the fucking globe they play! And still they come back here and play both Chi and Milwaukee even though it's humbling!!! It makes me feel so spoiled!

Went to go see Aladdin tour at Overture Hall with my parents and Karissa tonight. It was mostly good, it felt a bit like a Disney parks show but expanded, but I enjoyed it for what it was. The dance choreography didn't make sense sometimes, like when they had the male dancers doing Russian dance steps (think Nutcracker Russian dance sequence) rather than male belly dance or banghra/Indian style dance but that's an upper level dancer critique/confusion not an average attendee critique of the choreography, lol.  The dancers executed the choreography very well and there were parts that were just great to watch and fun as a former dancer to see staged -- I'm very happy that post covid, the dancers on tours for shows have improved. They were getting REALLY bad for a while... There were definitely some vocalists that made me understand why Lestat would mark up a score in blood then correct every false note while playing with his food... Also. Overall. the added songs in Disney musicals vs the movies..... Proud of Your Boy was literally the phrasing of Part Of Your World (reprise) laid over the instrumental arrangements of the rejected songs from Frozen. It was just bad. There was an answer I really liked in one of the questions asked by an attendee at the first of the Orbit authors Q&A (it's hosted by the publisher, Hachette who now owns Orbit, and it's specifically fantasy/sci-fi/YA authors talking to/for other authors about their process and on specific subjects guiding a desire to publish within the genre. It's free and you can always rewatch, you just have to register for each separately and give them your email address.) Anyway, somebody asked about how to expand their idea to fit the trilogy form and almost unanimously, all the authors said DON'T. If anything, condense and make things tight within the duology framework because people get bored by fluff that's added just to try to add length. Don't try to expand beyond the length of the idea/story you're telling, keep it tight where everything MATTERS and nothing can be left on a chopping floor. Right. Well. The Disney musicals, they all suffer from the bloating of trying to add numbers that are "good enough" but aren't integral to the story and are just obviously inferior songwriting trying to stretch out the catchy great songs from the films to fill an entire two act musical. It's good advice. (And I know I say that here where everything is stream of consciousness, but in my real writing, my editing process is a paring knife whittling out the superfluous to keep things tight to suit the flow of the story.)

It was fun to go with them and I'm glad we went, but also, I'm good now that I've seen it once and don't ever need to see it again. The show just isn't that good as a musical, though the dance numbers might be worth seeing again.

 Also. I know not everyone gets Astro Poets horoscopes. They're a bit weird and they seem more intuitive than based on the astrology itself. And sometimes I definitely don't get them at all, lol. But this week's for my sun sign and my rising sign (yes I have always read Pisces as well as Libra, because rising sign) were spot on and made me laugh at myself. Especially the end bit about right now needing things to be obvious.

"Week of 10/15 in Libra: There’s a heart where you can find a sun. You can know exactly why and how this part is what you were looking for. Go to the secret light. That’s the light that makes it all obvious. And right now you need things to be obvious."

"Week of 10/15 in Pisces: Hardly a part of the day isn’t yours. Dress yourself in purple, lilac, and cream. Become one with whatever the flower can begin again. That’s the greatest part. The part where you become the song."

I mean, c'mon, that's  really fucking funny! It's basically like bopping the dog's nose of any overthinking, "yeah, you need things to be obvious right now, but you can trust this really is what you want -- listen where you find the inner light. Because it's fucking obvious." Which was definitely a nose bop I need when I overthink and doubt TOO far, in unhealthy/unproductive ways. Because, questions that break assumptions to help you find truth are good, but questions that reinforce assumptions that blind you to truth are bad. And you can ask questions that lead both ways, y'know? Then the rising sign is just like, "You got this. Focus on what is ready to grow anew because it's the best, it's where you and the song are the same thing." And like, okay yeah that's me reading into it what I want to hear, but it's also literally what it says -- it says to the ego (sun sign) the reassurance it's real with the warning against overthinking what's obvious and to what I put out into the world (ascendant/rising sign) is just affirmation and advice to dress yourself in the energy of the crown chakra (which is where the love light flows in for me with empath bonds, right through the crown chakra and third eye chakra) and embracing the regrowth and the music in that new flowering.

I mean, I think it's funny HOW on point it is for me. Especially the sun sign nose bop not to overthink/second guess just because I need things to be obvious. (My general views about astrology is skepticism but an open minded skepticism; sometimes things are obviously to appeal to literally everyone/anyone and are just vague af, but sometimes things are just precision aligned in ways that defy statistics for chance. I'm more astrology curious than an astrology believer -- but that curiosity means that I know a lot about it and there are astrologers as well as tarot readers who have a higher frequency of being right than chance statistics can account.)

My moon sign, which is emotional responses, is also a pretty brilliant one this week: "Week of 10/15 in Capricorn: Finding the night like a window is important. But that’s because you can see inside the heart of it all. Find a friend or two to go with you. Play the music you love. Love it because it’s there and real."  Which is pretty well right on for where my heart is right now actually. It's amazing to me how little it takes to turn me bright back toward hope instead of stoicism and how much healing there is of my heart and how quickly it happens when I let go of trying to make me accept that I'm no part of what Eric wants for himself this life and so best I can do by him is to release him from the bond between our souls. I mean, it's a really brutal toxic smackdown I do inside me telling me, "doesn't matter how much you want it, you can't have it this lifetime, he doesn't want or choose you" whenever I've tried this course. I don't like what it does to my heart to try to accept that premise and what the ethics then require of me... It hurts deeply of loss and grief until  go numb and don't really feel anything as brightly and intensely as I normally would. A girl does what she has to do, but it's hard. All three times I've tried it, it's been fucking brutal and hard and made me question things my soul had been sure about all through the earlier years of my life. It's not something I've tried to do lightly, only ever because it's the only right thing I can do in the situation I find myself in with his choices or choices others have made in his name. The first time was when he was dating the scorpion chick and I was getting overlays of his strong emotional moments and that was ethically wrong so I asked the fey king to put the bond to sleep which lasted until the fairy ride polar bears dream where I chose to reopen the connection with the polar bear who was so sad to have lost it, the second time was after his sister blocked me on her personal instagram AND on the band instagram for my honest statement that the country music at shows was too painful for my color-timbre synesthesia so was going to stop me coming to future shows and so I didn't see how I could fit into his life when such large portions of it don't want to exist to me for me having had the audacity to speak my truth with honesty/regret then he didn't respond at all when I informed him to give him the opportunity to fix that ostracism of me from all major aspects of his life so I used my own spiritual energy to keep the bond dormant now I had seen how to do it until he broke through, and the third time was recently when he fell in love/infatuation with the lamprey and I turned to leave him to that and this Spring I took the Morrigan's advice to block out anyone/anything with the lamprey's energy woven through it. It's hard and harrowing whenever I do it and it hardens my heart in ways I don't like to have to be so ruthless with my own desires.... I don't know that I can go through trying to find a way to close off the bond a fourth time and how much that absence and broken faith hurts... I'm grateful for the shift of emotions since it reopened with such a rush, especially once I understood that it was because he'd cleansed out the lamprey's energy so there was nothing in that shielding being there that affected him any longer -- but the truth is I don't think I could take having to face such harsh handling of my own heart to a) be placed in an ethics/choices situation I believe I NEED to do it and b) actually seeing through giving up the bond and the flow of love through it again. I don't know that I can do it again and I don't want to end up putting ourselves in a situation where I feel like I need to.....Please don't ask it of me again... Please?

More practically. The reason for the hour of this post is I'm staying at work til sunrise again (7ish right now) -- I didn't start watering my plants (and a lot have been moved inside now so it takes longer) at work til after getting back from the show and it was like just after 3am when I finished and Waffles was passed out asleep didn't wnat to get up to head home at such an ungodly hour. Which is definitely past closing time starting into rape o'clock... (I work late often, but once it gets into the statistically chanciest stupidest hours for me, or any woman, to leave (even with a dog with me) I just stay til sunrise to leave.) Probably for the best because while I got some work in over the weekend towards the coming week, I do have concert tickets on Weds night (Hawktail at Stoughton Opera House) and I think mum and I were going to at least do dinner even though we don't have any figure skating or football to watch because she ordered a brussel sprouts and cranberry chicken sausage stuffed squash recipe in their every plate box thinking of me but which she would like and da wouldn't, and last I knew, my parents were wanting to do a multi course fall harvest cider paired four course dinner at Craftsman on Thurs. Last I knew, my Aunt Geeta is now NOT coming into town for SEAC this year as planned because she's not giving any papers this year and she's not doing well exhausted from too many conferences in a row -- which means that we decided to keep symphony tickets for Sunday (and then I'll watch the Packers game afterward on DVR delay with my maman) rather than move them to Friday as I had originally requested when Sunday was likely to be my only day with my Aunt Geeta while she was in town. And hey, if I get all my hours in early, then I'll just get to stay at home and lay a fire in the hearth and get some chores done or read or write as I choose.

 So. I was thinking while I was in the shower earlier. And I know this is a part of my truth that I've said before but I think I've always buried it in a lot of words. (There's a Sherlock Holmes story I read as a kid when I was reading through all of them where he says the safest place to hide something is in plain sight. I don't remember which one, just that I took to heart the best hiding place is in plain sight.) But. I think. Right now. I want to try to say it again not hidden within pages of unrelated words. 

The only reason I have ever had for trying to close the bond is because at the time I genuinely completely believe that it's in Eric's best interests of what he wants and what he's choosing for his own happiness. There has never been a time I was motivated by any other reason. That's it. That's the entire motivating push inside me to do it. I always have to struggle against my own heart and my own desires to do it and the only reason ethics wins over my heart at such times is because in those moments I genuinely believe it's what he wants and has chosen for himself. That's it. I don't claim to have been in the right about his wants or the happiness he seeks when I acted in that way, I just claim that I BELIEVED it to be what he wanted and chose for himself: a present/future where the bond to me was somehow in the way or in the wrong for his happiness. 

Take away that belief, and closing off the bond is not something I have it in me to do.... I can't act against my own desires AND know that it's going to hurt him. I can only act against my own desires when I truly believe it to be giving him the freedom to pursue what he has set his heart on.

I only ever even try to find a way to do it when I truly believe it's in his best interests and what he wants. And all that was ever needed to diffuse that potential bomb was to make sure I know that losing the bond isn't any damn thing he wants, all it does is hurt him. 

I don't mean, and I have never intended to hurt him. I genuinely have believed at such times that he couldn't be hurt by it because I was giving him what he wanted and chose. But I recognize that doesn't mean I was right, and I'm afraid that me closing off access to the bond has hurt him deeply every time..... But hurting him was never my intention or anything I've ever wanted to be guilty of doing, and I always genuinely believed at those times that I was giving him what he wanted and chose for his life. 

All that was ever needed to get me to come back and re-open the bond was to shatter my belief that closing it off was giving him what he wanted. I never could have acted in such ways to shut him out without believing it gave him a clear path to the happiness he was pursuing for himself. It doesn't mean I was right, it just means I have truly believed that at such times. 

I can't promise I will never again believe that his happiness requires I let him go and that I close the bond so he can be free to pursue whatever else matters more to him. I can't promise that because I don't know what his choices and actions and values are going to be. But I can promise you that the entire set of my actions hang upon the belief that it is what he wants or for his happiness he's seeking. Destroy the belief and it stops me from acting in that way.

It means that if I ever again act that way, it's because I have come to believe that what he wants requires I let him go and try to close down the bond. And if you don't want me doing that then just.... Make sure I know what having that connection between us means to you and that there's no happiness you seek without it. Literally just tell me that and remind me. Certain knowledge weighs more than any belief. The worst things I'm ever guilty of are always good logic built on a bad premise. So if my premise is bad, like if I'm wrong in believing that the happiness he's choosing is one where there's no place for the bond between our souls, then correct that belief and premise before I head down a path neither of us wants where we both hurt and feel the emptiness... Correct me and call me back and show me where I have a bad premise before I go too far down the path it would lead.

I don't know if that helps at all. But I wanted to be clear about what has moved me to try to close off the bond and the flow between our souls, so that in the future my belief can be corrected if mistaken so such patterns can be stopped before it happens again. 

 I have a lot of thoughts and reactions swirling about inside me right now but I can't yet put most of them into words. I'm sorry but I just can't yet. That's how it is with me when my emotions get intense -- words get difficult. They're not bad, far from it. Just a lot. I guess uppermost of all is a WANTING to believe, wanting to believe in the sincerity and confidence and love and the flood of hope and joy that comes rushing in when I let myself believe in it. The sort of wanting that makes you scared of the little voice that says, "but what if it isn't what you think?" and how gutting that would be to have the bottom fall out just as you lean to put trust into it.... But every time I go back through, I just come away with the same flood of hope and joy and love and certainty "this is saying what I think it's saying, it's not just my WANTING, that IS what it's saying." Which then makes such a rush of intense emotions that words for them are hard to catch hold of.

So I can't really words all the thoughts/feelings in me right now around that. I just can't. I don't have the words for myself, so how could I give them to anyone else?

The bond has been an absolute flood state of love and promise and need, but mostly just love pouring in. Constantly. Day and night, just a very constant flow and a focused intentional strengthening of the connection.

And fatelines have been shifting fast these last couple days. Not the global ones, I mean they are but they're settling into more or less where they fall now; I mean my personal ones are shifting incredibly rapidly. I can't see very far ahead right now with my precogs, but not in a bottleneck truncating way, more in a.... like a waterfall around the curve in a different direction opening up unexpected new fatelines. But in a good way. Just in a hard to be present right now because right now feels a bit standing on sand waiting for the solid ground where it will make sense and I can see the new shape/pattern of the fatelines that are open from there. 

I don't know if any of that makes sense... Most of the emotions are bright and intense and strong and so beautiful (the ones that aren't are the doubting, the questioning, the "what ifs you're wrong -- this will hurt if you're wrong", and the "are you just hearing what you want to be truth not what actually is here") but it's the very intensity and brightness that makes the words impossible for them all. 

And also curiosity. A very intense curiosity for what is being prepared. Curiosity for what comes next and where the new path(s) lead. I do love me happy surprises. It's one of the only blind spots on my precogs, and one I asked for when I was a kid -- I like to experience the unexpected good things and happy surprises as they unfold. And this feels really good. Very happy surprise. And maybe a bit of, hindsight will ask how I didn't see it coming or believe in it until being there.... but mostly it feels like there's a promise it's really good but I'll just have to wait and see when I get there because happy surprises.

(My other blind spot on my precogs that I requested is sports events, I don't want to see or know any of the plays or final scores beforehand -- as a kid, watching sports were fucking boring like watching old games on replay until I asked for that block. Guess I missed the boat on the selfish betting advantages in the precogs, but the anticipation of not knowing til each play happens is worth it to be able to enjoy watching games.)

I don't know if any of that makes any damn sense. I told you, I'm having a hard time right now, still, trying to get the emotions and thoughts response into a words forming instead of just a feelings form. It's a thing with me. The stronger the emotions, the harder they are for me to put into words. Best I got is, "I believe you and I believe in you. And damn that's a flood of love and gratitude and hope and need and cherishing. So what now? What comes next?"

P.S. If you want words, I can tell you the story about the black and white lost cat that found me during the early morning witching hour of Friday 13 and followed me right into my work (despite the two dogs and Sophie NOT welcoming her) so I had to setup food and water for her to overnght in the work kitchen until I heard back from her owner. Her name is Sassy and she's back home now, but according to her owner (who I contacted and has her back now) I should expect future visits from Sassy because the kids keep letting her escape and where they used to live, she would keep showing up to the same neighbors she took a shine to. And yeah, that is the sort of wyrd you should expect in your life if you spend much time with me. because it's the sort of wyrd that happens all the time in my life, lol. 

I have plenty of words for story telling -- just not yet able to find the words I can put my emotions and thoughts and reactions into. They're too strong right now to settle down into word shapes. They're the sort much easier to shine and beam and share without words than to try to fit them into word forms. 

P.P.S. I'm very grateful for the words from the 12th, to have them to go back to. Something that aligns too well to just be serendipity and has more tangible form than just my wishing and wanting. Something outside me I can look to and say, "But see this here" when the fear of the hurt if I'm wrong starts to nibble away around the edges of the intensity of joy and hope and start me doubting.

 On the one hand, it's easier in many ways that my parents are out of town right now so I'm house sitting with both dogs splitting my time mostly by myself where I go home with Waffles to spend time with Spock after I drop off Sophie at work, then go into work at 5ish (when they close) for Sophie handoff and to see coworkers briefly, then I work into the wee hours with the dogs for company before going to my parents house with the dogs until after 9 the next morning when I go to drop off Sophie at work so I can go home spend time with my cat again. (Except on Tuesday for grandma's dentist appointment and on Friday taking Waffles to the vet.) It's easier because my parents are such hawks that they spent Saturday as I took them to the airport that they were saying how MSNBC was too sympathetic victim blaming Israel for the attack on them so they had switched my grandma from her normal MSNBC watching to CNN. (Which if you have been watching MSNBC at all, and I have watched it, they have been bending over backward to make sure they don't victim blame Israel in any of their analysis.) And I can only take so much of their level of hawkishness when they get defensive about any perceived critique of Israeli treatment of the refugees in Palestine.... Right now I'd be avoiding them if they were in town. 

But, also, it's hard to carry the "it could have been me" weight on my own. I'd very much like a hug to be held right now told I'm safe and loved and I'm here not there.  I would just very much like that. It's time like this that I am most discontented about being single because it would just be nice to be held in love. Dog snuggles and cat cuddles are great and all, but it's not the same. It just isn't. And I'd very much like to be held right now, preferably by Eric if he weren't in rebound healing mode after a karmic relationship turned out, well, the way all karmics do once the lesson one or the other was meant to learn has been taught. And I mean, I don't even think I believe anymore that he wants me in his life this life given he apparently can't even tell the difference between a karmic and the bond between us.... Still, the desire to be held in love by him, especially right now, is there all the same no matter what my head reminds me of known past/present choices of his. 

Ah well. I'll work with what I have for now and be grateful it isn't less.... Looking forward to lots of rainy autumnal gloom the next several days, if my schedule wasn't so messed up with the spending time with Sophie while my parents are out of town, I'd take a long while at home with a fire in the hearth and listening to piano music through it. (Piano music when it's raining or snowing has always been one of my favorite favorites.) Definitely going to spend some time with the fur babies with the windows open listening to the rain falling and George Winston! Then Saturday morning my parents get back from Vegas for their work convention so I'll be back .ore to my normal routines and home more for my first fireplace fire of this autumn.

 I said that my parents are hawks on the subject of Israel have been my entire life, and that is their truth. It's not mine. 

My opinion is significantly more nuanced. There are innocents caught in the middle in both places but some of how the Zionist settlers behave, especially during conservative militaristic regimes supporting them such as Netanyahu's governments, involves legitimately KKK level tactics of fear and intimidation and keeping the "other" in their place as second class citizens and I cannot abide when the bullied turns around and bullies others. Desperate people will do desperate things and everyone is complicit in keeping Gaza's 2 million citizens desperate -- but particularly the other Islamic nations and most of all Egypt.  Yes Hamas is the most to blame, but also everyone who sees Gaza as an apartheid living under siege needs to blame Egypt as fully as they blame Israel because Gaza has two borders (three if you count the Mediterranean Sea) and Egypt chooses not to want them in Egypt where they would radicalize within the Egyptian population and to limit what assistance they will provide.  The Muslim nations created and foment a situation to breed Islamists then point them towards Israel saying, "This is your enemy who keeps you this way." And the "proof" of who the "enemy" is that every citizen of Gaza knows someone who has died at the hands of Israel defending itself, every person who lives there has seen the funerary parades of those who died from the bombs or in the rubble, every person has experienced the daily harassment of being treated as presumed guilty til after the search is over because the guilty are hidden within the midst of the innocents. And also, over half the population of Gaza are children, under 18, because the life expectancy is low and because birth control is not allowed by Hamas who run the area claiming that the use of birth control is an attempt to exterminate their people. And children are irrational, they act out on emotions, a child in a temper will tell the most loving most consistent parent they hate them at some point when they don't get their will -- and that is a well-balanced child not one who has grown up experiencing continuous repeated extreme trauma of growing up in a war zone where beloved family members have been killed by "our enemy." And in that cocktail, hate breeds with resentment into something far more soul killing that will self justify any cruelty and barbarity to make the "enemy" feel the pain that you and everyone you know have suffered. 

I said I couldn't relate to wrap my head around living with so much hate that you could kill a stranger simply for the labels of how they were born rather than anything they as an individual ever did -- but that doesn't mean I can't intellectually see how these conditions breed the sort of hearts that can feel that way and get so soul sick they can justify any atrocity in the name of what they have endured.....Especially if you are young and death and trauma and the indoctrination of hate against your perceived "enemy" is all you have ever known....

But here's the thing. Why haven't other nations, especially Muslim nations, setup the systems to get those kids out -- get them into loving homes and get them the psychological help and therapy they need to try to heal from the traumas and hate? At least for while they're growing up, and they could have right of return once they're 18 and old enough to choose their own path in life. Over 1 million kids are a lot and there is damage that no amount of love can undo -- but they don't move the kids out. They wring their hands and claim it's a humanitarian disaster and war crimes that so many kids are trapped there -- but they do nothing to rehome the kids and give them a better life. Forget the adults, forget the teenagers, forget those whose trauma and hate indoctrination may be beyond the healing of experiencing love and your physical needs met. Moving out the innocent children isn't done, even Egypt didn't want Gaza and the Gazans back when Israel offered it to them -- the Islamic world benefits more from holding the children of Gaza hostage in a border state war zone to an impossibly traumatic situation that breeds pain/hatred and then they can point to the humanitarian crisis as war crimes. I see the blood of every innocent who dies in Gaza as laying on the hands of EVERY Islamic nation that doesn't move the kids out and adopt them into homes with better situations. At least as deeply dyed in blood as Israel who is trying to cope with having this mess of cptsd homicidal vengeance seekers who blame the Jews and the British creation of Israel for all the problems of their life. It is not impossible for them to get the children out of the war zone and help them grow up in situations they can do more than just try to survive -- and they don't because they WANT the optics of "murdered children without access to clean water or electricity."

As far as I'm concerned militant forms of all religions are evil, especially when you say "my religion is the one true religion." I am not a Zionist any more than I believe in the Caliphate or evangelical Christian or the Hindu militants in India or the extreme Buddhists who led the genocide against the Rohingya in Myanmar --  I don't believe that ANY nation should have any religion involved in their government whatsoever, fundamentalism and politics of ruling is a cancer everywhere in the world it has ever appeared. My soul is pagan and shamanic for many thousands of years before the monotheists claimed their way the only true way -- as far as I'm concerned, I'm a syncretic Alexander style Hellenistic pantheist. All your gods and forms of worship are equally valid if they work for you and harm nobody. All religions are to be treated as equally a part of the truth and as long as you're not harming/impairing the lives of others than whatever. Spirituality is between the individual and the Divine, mediumship is between the individual and unincarnated forms of spirit, and religion is about a community of shared beliefs/morality to support each other through hard times. None of those belong anywhere near how a country is ruled or what qualifies a person for citizenship rights.

So by my way of seeing it, there shouldn't need to be a need for a JEWISH nation because all the Islamic nations and Christian nations and Hindu nations and Buddhist nations should be abolished -- they should all just be nations  of equal citizenship where people can be members of whatever fucking club or group they find connection with. But the world is a long way from that and so in this world and with its history I understand wanting somewhere that the constitution allows it to be a safe haven for all Jews wherever in the world they are from, particularly given the history of pogroms and extermination and marking the Jewish people as the "other" or the "enemy." So I allow for the temporary need for allowing a Jewish nation for as long as there exist ANY religious nations. I think that Jerusalem itself has too many narrow minded  ego driven selfish people claiming in the name of their religion "Mine mine mine" not willing to share it EQUALLY and justifying it by their own ideas of the one true religion and G-d's will -- so it ought to be its own city-state, like some of the small city-states in Europe, that is run by an odd numbered council that has equal representation on it of Jews, Christians, Muslims, pagans, and atheists and that all holy sites are respected equally. So long as anybody holds it in the name of any given religion, shit is going to be a problem. As a holy city it should be self governing and a haven for all who can/will keep the peace with no religion holding more sway than any other.

The Gazans need to be separated and moved out into safer situations of where to live and there needs to be oversight of the claims that non-Jews are treated as second class citizens by conservative governments functioning as police states in Israel (just as any form of second class citizenship treatment needs to be eradicated everywhere in all nations in the entire world to my view) -- two state solution can't exist in overcrowded hiding behind innocents as hostage cptsd situation. it simply cannot. It requires good faith actors on both sides and militants within the population is not acts of good faith. Anyone who pretends a two state solution can exist in the world as it is, they are either acting in bad faith or delusional.

The death and terror and maimings and police state are all legitimately horrific -- but until there are no longer people trapped there and the innocent children are moved out of the overcrowded crumbling infrastructure with no means of supporting itself where they are encouraged to breed like rabbits to have victims for the hate fueled outrage cycle to feed on, there isn't a two state solution or way out. People need to be moved out and rehabilitated and the area should be razed of any citizenry (no settlers moved in of any religion either) and the place kept as a historical monument and museum and memory of the horrors of separating the world into "us" vs "them" mentality and ghettos. Where they get absorbed and how to do it is a difficult thing, how do you deprogram 2 million potentially radicalized by the traumatic situation they live in -- I understand why no Muslim nation wants to take them in beyond the fact they keep pressure on the goal of eradicating any Jewish state from the Middle East caliphate. But there is no way you can trap young people in such a horrific set of circumstances without this being the predictable result. You move the people out and rehome them where they can receive the mental/emotional help and physical assistance they need within cultures as close to theirs as possible and you turn all the miles of Gaza into a historical site and museum where nobody lives.Trying to make people live in an uninhabitable situation is cruelty and when you're doing it to children it's child abuse as well as an inhumanity. The children need to be rehomed and adopted out to better living conditions the same way child services does in any case of abuse or neglect where the biological parents cannot provide a safe, stable home environment for the child to grow up in. You don't get false pity points from me for the kids you hold captive to hide behind -- it's child abuse. By keeping them in unsafe situations, you are as guilty of whatever happens to them as anyone else, their blood is on your hands for keeping them there.

I am not a dove because I do not believe one side must show restraint when the other does not nor do I believe in peace at any cost to achieve the two state solution. And I am not a hawk because I do not believe that the ends justifies the means when it comes to justifying the deaths of innocent civilians even when they are being used as human shields -- but I also don't think keeping innocents as human shields within your rebel base and launching any form of attack from within a body of innocents citizenry can be justified.  I believe it is necessary to diffuse and dismantle the whole situation entirely. Violence begets violence but standing down when a bully or abuser tries to put pressure on you just increases the bullying and abuse tactics. You only de-escalate this situation by completely dismantling it and telling them they can't live there any longer, nobody can live there any longer, as it is all a piece of history to be preserved as a museum to teach about what happened and then rehoming the children as refugees to be adopted out and dealing with the adults or those actively guilty (even if minors) of causing physical harm to others on a case by case basis in the Hague. Anything else will just continue the unending cycles of violence breeding hate breeding death breeding violence etc etc.

But also, all that said. I recognize that if it weren't for a car bomb, I wouldn't know anyone or anything currently in my life and I'd be a very different version of myself as I would have grown up in Israel in the midst of living in the fear and the terror and the constant knowledge that there are people who want to destroy you and eradicate your life stuck in the old crusading colonizing spirit of "us" vs "them." As I said, every time there's violence in Israel-Palestine, I go through a bout of stoic hollows existential self-examination rooted in "there go I if not for the grace of G-d."

 I didn't say that last post to make it about me, because it very much isn't. It's about the terror campaign and all the souls who are dead, kidnapped, and missing. And all the souls who are still going to have their lives cut short or forever altered by this unfolding. I'm not even adjacent to it as none of my family or friends are among those so brutally murdered or kidnapped. It is right to call it a pogrom given that entire communities were razed and destroyed including burning down homes with people inside them to try to get hostages to leave safe rooms. It's fucking brutal and some of the stories that are known are harrowing and there are so many that are just not known whatsoever..... My grappling with the horror of the depths of cruelty in fear driven irrational hatred and recognizing that to those who see you as the Other there is nothing you can do to alter them from wanting to hurt you and my coming to terms with the "there but for the grace of G-d go I" aspect of everything that happens in Israel-Palestine (it was a car bomb across the street from my da's work that happened when I was an infant that made them decide to bring me back to the States so I wouldn't grow up far from all family speaking an entirely different language) is small change in comparison to the depths of sorrow and horror so many are living through right now -- many their first lifetime ever experiencing such horrors in person not just in history books.

I said it because it's a part of my truth in this life which hasn't been a truth in my past lives. And that means it's something you should take into consideration about who I am NOW and how I deal with things and how it differs from past iterations of my soul. You need to consider the ways in which I recognize what it is to be hated and persecuted and to know that there are those who would hurt or kill me for the accidents of birth, for who you are born into as opposed to who you ARE. That is something I have not experienced before this life but it is something I have had to grapple with coming to terms with as a woman born of American Jews whose place of birth is Jerusalem..... And trying to understand that level of irrational homicidal hatred that no actions I could ever do could in anyway lessen or temper or heal or move in any way shape or form.... It's a heavy burden to carry as an adult, it felt heavier trying to wrestle with understanding it as a child until reaching the point where all you could do is accept that it IS truth for some people ruled by fear of otherness and when you face it all you can do is recognize its ISNESS and that you will never UNDERSTAND it -- and that's probably something bright and good within your own soul when you run up against the wall of an evil/cruelty you can recognize exists in some souls on some paths of lessons they must learn/teach but you cannot relate to or understand. But still the blind hatred of the other that leads to the irrational homicidal cruelty where the cruelty is the point, that is harder to face than the acceptance that death is the price of life and a part of the cycle of all things mortal and the spiral path of incarnating soul's lessons. It is a heavy and a hard lesson to carry the acknowledgement of the great evil and fear that can exist in the hearts and souls of some people...It's heavy and it hurts and it never stops hurting, not really, that it's a wound in humanity to want to hurt the other you fear and it's a wound that can't ever be wholly healed.

Last life I converted to Judaism for my last marriage that life, back in the 1950s, and this life, for the first time in all my many many lifetimes incarnating I was born into a Jewish family. My da's side of the family is Jewish as Jewish can be and my mum converted before marrying because she wanted to have a proper Jewish wedding. Me, I have a hard time calling myself Jewish, though I am Jewish by birth, because I have spent more lives pagan tied to old gods/goddesses and working with the archangels and fey and animal spirits (even my "Christian" lives I was a pagan who talked to archangels more than a proper Christian who prayed to Christ) AND I firmly believe in the cycle of souls/transmigration of souls which exists in Judaism as gilgul and the fact that the Hebrew for life only exists in a plural form but also the Sanhedrin removed the concept to get people to focus on their one given lifetime soooo yeah AND if you take a very Universalist eutheist concept of the Divinity of the unfolding Creation then you can call my form of pantheism a form of "monotheism" but I do not bend my knee to any splintered fragment of Creation -- not even a desert god of light/sun who asks those who bend their knee to him to place him above all other gods.) And that makes it very hard to call myself religiously Jewish by the modern definitions of Judaism......I mean, obviously NOT Orthodox Jewish whatsoever but I don't really fit under even the most reform of Reform Judaism. But by blood and race and cultural identity of how I was raised through my formative years this life, I'm Jewish even if in a very eclectic accepting of the wyrd gifts that run in our bloodlines way. So I am Jewish born of Jewish descent and I carry a lot of baggage about what it means to BE Jewish and the persecutions of it past and present (and future) but to self-identify as Jewish or to classify my spiritual beliefs as falling under the umbrella of Judaism is something I'm uncertain is the right label for me. But then, I've never been particularly keen on labels....

Anyway. I recognize that my hurt is smaller than many others hurt right now. But this blog is not and has never been about me writing out the sorrows of the world -- it's about me writing out what I am processing or going through or just random thoughts and stories I don't want to keep carrying untold inside me. 

But my heart grieves enough my eyes are the blue of the October sky.... And that says a lot when your eyes are the colors of the sea, shifting between green-grey-blue-flashes of purple and amber, and one of the things that bring out the bluest blue color in my eyes is sorrow.

I learned today. The attacks happened on Putin's birthday as well as the anniversary of the Yom Kippur War. And in March, Lavrov met with leaders of Hamas and it was immediately after that they ramped up the rhetoric about the retribution they were bringing to Israel.... They ramped up their rhetoric after the March meeting with Lavrov which is when the plan began and executed the plan of the deadliest intentional pogrom against the Jewish people since the Holocaust on the birthday of the man who has the means and reaps the greatest rewards for this all happening NOW. I don't have the smoking gun yet, and I fully lack any sort of espionage or security clearance to ever have it -- but the pieces fit. I would not be surprised if the ayatollahs who thought they held power in Iran knew as little about it as the upper echelon leaders of Hamas itself who were outside the planning/coordination of Saturday's attacks that launched the next wave of the proxy wars between Russia trying to reclaim its Soviet glory days before Putin dies vs the US/EU/NATO alliance.

And quite literally, this war as it moves from the proxy fronts to the point that nobody can deny the identity of the spider moving the pieces could be the death of us all as well as throwing humanity back into witnessing (and on fucking TIkTok viral video form) genocidal atrocities the like of which barbarity were thought consigned to history and war criminals and drug cartels and true psychopaths.

And that fucking pisses me off. Who the hell is he to push humanity and this planet across that brink?! Who the fucking hell does he think he is to be the source of so much darkness and cruelty and barbaric atrocities born back into this world to pull it from any POSSIBLE path toward brighter futures for humanity and all life on the planet now that we understand how far we have fucked up this biosphere? What moves him, or moves through him, to think his incarnating soul has any fucking right to drag all of humanity through the fatelines his free will choices have created and forced the entire world down? 

I understand the reasons everybody needs their ducks in order before releasing the bombshell of who has masterminded the chess pieces because mutual annihilation is a very real threat -- but he has overplayed his hand. And while the newscasters won't say it (yet) and nobody in politics will say it (yet) -- from the MOMENT I identified him as behind it and spoke that truth bomb from my deep knowing EVERYONE in the witchy spiritual community has put the pieces together of who had the means and who benefits most by this happening NOW as opposed to the obvious suspects. And to wrap up as a birthday that gift of starting THE other proxy war he needed to distract his enemies from fighting the frontlines of the proxy war zones.... How fucking sick, all of them.Now they laugh all the way to the bank while they speak through one side of their mouth that they will work with the Arab League while using the other side of their mouth to encourage the same sorts of atrocities that the Russian army has been committing across Syria and Ukraine and every one of their proxy battlefields they tested these methods...

Unrelated to my anger over the fucking audacity of this chess game and the levels of inhumanity being unleashed back into the world.... This has been one of my favorite takes from those who grieved over the weekend rather than unraveling the realpolitik answers of who orchestrated bringing us down these fatelines now.

It is the way that a soul walking the Jew's path of the mitzviot reacts. It is not the way that an ancient soul walking a path allied to the old gods and archangels who serves as a Hand of Ma'at within the incarnation screaming defiance at those who would destroy the Creation unfolding reacts. But his is the "right" reaction of the Jewish path.

It was hard taking my sparrow grandma (my dad's mom, my very Jewish grandma) to her dentist appointment today because she's all consumed right now with what's happening in Israel..... And it happened right before my parents left town so she is limited who she can talk it over with who gets it (there being only two Jews in her entire retirement home....)

 

And.... Also. Know that the stoic "there are worse things that might be endured" aspect of me is a VERY strong streak right now. So be cautious of what you might push me to thinking I can stoically survive if I release it. But also, this stoic time is one tempered in equal measure by my wonder and joy of the goodness that IS despite the fucking carnage and wreckage, that awe and wonder in me at the sparks of defiant beauty and goodness that IS despite whatever the worst that is thrown at it.  They shine brightest the darker the surround fatelines. 

 Every time shit is going on in Israel, it always puts me in an existential state of "there but for the grace of G-d go I" given the whole being conceived on a kibbutz and born in the city of the most bloody fought over inches of land throughout history and every official government document I've ever had lists my place of birth differently depending on current politics of place names..... (and no, I have never visited the place I was born into this life -- to do so would have me detained to serve in the IDF and in this life I am not good at following anyone's commands if they go against my own code of ethics. And yes, I realize that the passport I travel on makes me a target that closes much of the world from me to ever traveling there. And yes, Iwas in Kindergarten when I first started wrestling with the existential crisis of being so hated that people who don't know me never met me would kill me for WHAT I am without knowing any damn thing about WHO I am and that not a damn thing I could ever do would change that hatred that others would see as a rationalization to hurt or kill me without any moral qualms for being an American woman born in Jerusalem to Jewish parents.....which is probably why no form of bullying but especially female bullying has ever phased me because what the hell do I care for your "can't sit with us" ostracism other than to think you're a shitty human who enjoys casual cruelty so I don't desire to interact with have in my life compared to "there are literally people in this world would kidnap and murder me just for the accident of where I was born." and yeah, both my parents but especially my da are complète Hawks on the subject of Israel...they were after all going to build their life there until a car bomb across the street from his work made then wonder if they wanted their daughter to grow up so far from.all her family speaking a different language from them.)

Also. The news keeps reporting that it's Hamas supported by Iran. But while the evidence is obvious it was Hamas there's no evidence given that this action/timing was supported by Iran, and for once they're keeping silent not claiming it. And actually, the timing doesn't make sense for them, it's actively bad given they were JUST negotiating to unfreeze some of their oil sale banking account desperately needed funds for humanitarian aid where the physical objects are sent them not even money. US intelligence and Israeli intelligence have actually very explicitly stated that what little Intel they have, they can find no linked or ties or comms to Iran about THIS attack. And here's the thing with realpolitik and any student of Machiavelli let alone the ancient world can tell you this -- you have to ask "who benefits?" and also "who has the means?" if you want to get to the true first causes moving the pieces on the board. And the most "who has the means" important question is the ability to satellite coordinate the attack AND hide/scramble the comms and the list is incredibly short: US, Israel, China, and Russia. That's it. Now, who has the geopolitical means to help move the arms and the money within the region? Not really China. So the list is now US, Israel, Russia (via Syria and North African mercenaries control.) Let's ask who benefits by this destabilization? US? Well, it does potentially break budgetary and appointment gridlock and take government shutdowns off the chess board, but it causes more problems than gains. Israel? It benefits Netanyahou with his desire to aggregate military control and reduce democratic norms within Israel. It's a high price to even allow this intelligence to go unacted upon and buried and would take more than the prime minister for that to happen -- but a ruthless power hungry grab by military might make the call to ALLOW it to happen to capitalize on it even though you wouldn't organize it. China? They only overtly gain by it if they had simultaneously launched attack to take back Taiwan, all they gain now in this timing is wealth building while others spend on military -- and that was already happening elsewhere notably in Ukraine.  And it's not China's style -- they crave knowledge via espionage and soft power building empires that last centuries and always play the long game. They gain the least. Now what about Russia? Russia gains 1) removal of the Syria military base attack deaths out of the media 2) the recent Ukraine attacks on civilians the UN is already investigating out of the news cycle because the dead in Israel is a bigger story 3) the staunchest intelligence and military allies of Ukraine now have to split military focus and monetary budgeting and Ukraine will lose support at a critical time by the destabilization of a major attack on Israel. Russia gains a hell of a lot strategically and tactically.

So. Who has the means at global comms level, means of moving the arms within the region, AND gains major benefits for their own geopolitical military needs/goals? There is one answer. And it's fucking obvious.  And the answer is Putin in Russia. Now you can't make that claim as an intelligence agency without proof, especially with how close we are to WW3 direct fighting not just by proxy battles... but basic logic of realpolitik tells you who has the means and the most to gain by this happening NOW. And no matter who funds/organizes attacks, everybody knows that Hamas/Hezbollah/Iran WILL ultimately take credit for any successful attack against Israel. So. Who was the one moving the chess pieces to organize this and was able to keep it hidden? Realpolitik tells you the answer is obvious.

Now. What level of responsibility do IDF/Netanyahou/American intelligence agencies have for ALLOWING this to happen after gaining intelligence it was in the works but perhaps not knowing how bad it is? Well. That could be argued many ways given lack of proof and able to see how there ARE some geopolitical benefits to allowing it even if you and nothing to do with creating/planning it. But you'd have to be ruthlessly cold and justifying more good comes of the chess gains than the lives lost -- and I don't think current heads of state us Israel/US are that cold blooded against their own citizenry so that is an ethics judgement I'm not willing to make about anyone without evidence. But I also won't rule it out. 

And if the realpolitik logic is true, well.... just remember that right before this, on Sept 22, it was announced that Biden had agreed to send Zelensky long range missiles to Ukraine capable of hitting major cities in Russia. Military is already setting up their pieces for if/when the behind the scenes string pulling of Russia goes to declared war not proxy wars....

Anyway. I'm not the only person able to ask the questions instead of assuming it's the "obvious enemies" who planned this and executed it all by themself.  Then again, very few people have even begun the beginners version of learning how to ask the right questions at the right time in the right way. And right now, the right questions here are "who has the means to have coordinated this happening without USA-Israeli intelligence knowing" and "who benefits most by this happening at this time" and the answer to both those vital questions is not the typical anti-Israel suspects that everyone else assumes is the source of this happening right NOW. It's not who is taking credit for starting up the proxy war on this front, it's who organized it, hid it, and chose this moment to launch it -- and WHY this was the time to spring it vis à vis the biggest battlegrounds of the proxy war going on in Ukraine..... 

My advice as a modern day student of Machiavelli, Sun Tzu, and Alexander the Great is to keep your eye on watching what gets lost or buried right now and how it helps Putin with his attempts to conquer Ukraine as a result of what's happening in Israel and everything it pushes out of the news cycle. That's where the important chess pieces are moving for the next battle(s).....  Things are moving faster than most Americans realize, and having next year be an election year (potentially THE election year of our lifetime given all the domestic posturing of the terrifying white nationalist Christians) and things are on the precipice of a scary nobody has been through within their current lifetime, if ever.....  shit is terrifyingly on the brink of no safe dateline s remaining to avoid a massive loss of life in battlefields on a scale of millions potentially billions when it interrupts global food supplies worse than taking the Ukraine bread basket offline has ALREADY disrupted global food supplies causing the current inflation in all foodstuffs.... and that's before the chaos patterns of climate change in the mix of the world geopolitical stage and evangelical christo-fascist fanatics in the states and all the other forms of fanaticism-fascism on the rise in so many places around the world.... 

P. S. Also. Yes I posted another post while the moon was in Cancer, but I set it back to private to authors a day or two after. It was a lot of emotions, mostly about why I was upset with me for letting Eric so easily back past my defenses raising my hopes in him/the bond with nothing concrete to make me believe he has changed at all or even WANTS me in his life this life.....it affects a very small circle of people and now moon is in Leo I'm too proud to have it public admitting my weaknesses in my defenses and doesn't need to be here for n'importe qui.