So somehow, with my last post, I went in to edit a typo I noticed in another area of it and the entire paragraph disappeared about all my socials serving up so much Ilia Malinin content as well as othe rfigure skaters and especially Stars on ice related content. (I did not get to go see it. I couldn't go to the Chicago show as it was the same night as The Howleys show in Milwaukee I already had tickets to go see and then the Minneapolis show was on Mother's Day proper and my mum was back and forthing about to go or not given the number of hours in the car versus length of show/price point and I left it up to her because Mother's Day. And since I watch figure skating with her throughout the season, it felt wrong to give her the peace out on her day to go see it by myself.) And because I had saved the changes, not realizing i somehow did that on my phone, I couldn't even copy/paste put it back after saving the edit, lol.

Curiously, right when it happened, I was going through an emotional overthinking roller coaster ptsd type moment about Ilia Malinin's socials. Because, the next morning after I'd posted here and made a comment on a video on the supposedly official fb page (actually marked as his official and had thousands of followers on it so I just assumed it legit) disappeared for me. And I spiraled badly took it deeply personal thinking that like what Britt and Liz had done, someone had somehow taken offense at a statement I had thought honest innocuous and decided to block me and how could it have happened again and about that comment of all things and really I thought him so much  more chill mature than that not the type to play mean girls bullying head games. And I spiraled hard, took it deeply personal, went through a gamut of emotions of it -- and it was literally all just me reliving everything from when that happened with Britt surrounding the Delta Rae instagram account so many years ago. And I was like, 'Nope can't do that again. Should just cut ties and run and don't know what I will do next season or how I'll be able to watch him again and I had loved everything I observed about him and how he skates and his aesthetics as a performer/athlete. And luckily I had to take my gran to an eye appointment that day so I had to shelve my feelings, not do anything impulsive and give me time to think instead of overreact based on what had happened before to me with online bullying via ostracism. So I waited and I found a page with nothing much on it at alll that kept coming up that felt more like his somehow and I started thinking about the discrepencies between his insta which is definitely him and what the content the account had been sharing and questioning what I had previously assumed was pr or someone else handling fb for him but not having the accounts linked to automatically post his insta posts/stories to his fb account. So I was overthinking and feeling intense rsd over it but didn't let me reactionary do anything stupid made me wait a bit til calmer. And then I found other people asking where his fb went and then I found a reddit thread about his socials specifically the problems of the false account that kept zombie coming back claiming to be his account and a link to his X post about having to create an official x account and an actual fb page to stop the fakes and the x post went directly to that page with almost nothing on it so I decided to follow it. And then the very next morning he posted a story on his insta about having brought back his only official facebook page and the link on his profile and it went directly to that page. And I just laughed, in relief but also at myself for how much I spun out with the rsd took it personal due to the memory/past bullying from Britt/Liz on the Delta Rae socials and how I over-reacted thinking it was about me having done something wrong that I couldn't udnerstand how it was wrong what i did but ending up being blocked for it -- and this time it had absolutely NOTHING to do with me or any comments I made, just serendipitous timing I had made a comment on what was a fake account he finally got taken down from a social media platform he doesn't choose to use but also didn't want people thinking an account was him when it isn't him or even his team. Guess as much as I feel like I've healed and let it go from all that mess the girls made of what should have been easy and lost the band several longtime dedicated loyal fans over it (me and all my friends/family I introduced to their music and who loved them through me because of me and my enthusiasm sharing their music) but there's still a sore spot reactionary defensive thing in me on the subject of potentially being blocked after making a comment with no communication and no way to understand what I even had done wrong only that I'm not welcome to play with them anymore or sit at their lunch table because mean girls rules of ostracism. 

I hadn't realized there was something so rsd (rejection sensitive dysphoria) defensive and easily hurt and reactionary in me to anything that appeared to be repeating that pattern even if it was actually nothing at all like that or any similar thing. And I didn't need to follow him on fb if he's not there, I just wanted to boost his numbers because it does matter for metrics and was enjoying getting the videos of his performances and from posts he was tagged in or stories shared on insta -- I'm perfectly happy to have his insta and his youtube to follow (whenever he decides what he wants to start posting to his youtube.)  

And the funniest thing about it was that...i am enough years older than him that when I first saw him on the seniors competition circuit, my thought was awestruck wonder, "O, THIS KID IS INCREDIBLE!!" But also, that's how I saw him still, as a kid. Which eh was at that time being a teenager. But in my head I still always thought of him as a wonder kid even as the years have passed for both of us. Weirdly, what happened at the Olympics and how mature his handling of a situation that most people get to live out privately and he had to do in the most public way possible... It was seeing how he handled that situation and grew from it was when I saw his maturity and so I mentally switched to thinking of him as an amazing young man with a beautiful soul defying gravity and being real about coping with the emotional load of the pressure of expectations of perfection (both internal and external) as opposed to thinking of him as the boy who did mind blowing impossible things in competitions.  But it was directly following the Olympics and how he handled it that my internal perspective on him shifted from seeing him as a boy to recognizing him as a man as a direct reaction to the maturity he displayed in handling the worst nightmare scenarios he could have envisaged for himself. It was a decisive change inside me that happened recognizing the passage of years and the maturity in the man he has become and is becoming not just seeing the boy wonder kid he was as the quadgod of the niche figure skating world.

And it was a very definite switch inside me how I saw him and thought of him, which was probably why the seeming immaturity blindsided me so hard when I thought it a repeat of the bullying via ostracism behaviors of Britt/Liz my fault of an honest thing I had said. And it was such a relief to realize that I had completely misunderstood the situation not seen the bigger picture, and none of it had anything to do with me or anything I had said/doneor him being immature or anything like I'd been thinking when the rsd defensiveness hijacked my emotions.

Anyway. Everything I'd said in that paragraph that disappeared is still true and I can't remember all the things I wrote in that other paragraph, but my socials are SOOOO full of Ilia content and other skaters I follow content and Stars on Ice related content. It's a little weird because as much as I adore figure skating and have since I was a little girl, it's a sport spectator fan type of love and so I don't generally think about figure skaters at all between World Championships and grand Prix. Which is probably rather unfair, but also expected, of me not to think about the sport or the athletes at all during some of the grind of their career as they figure out their next season performances and start learning them practicing and designing costumes and doing all the creative process portion and the hard drill work of getting any choregraphy into the damn muscle memory. (Dancer (ballet, lyrical, Irish, belly dance, and dabbled in Luigi style jazz, ballroom, and modern -- but only was good at waltzes and the latin style dances of those I dabbled in; my style didn't suit jazz or modern well) and competitive sabre fencer and martial arts -- I fully understand the importance of drilling until your muscles know what to do and you could do it in your sleep. There are songs that are like sleeper codes kick me into choreographies I couldn't consciously have told you the steps at this point and I once nearly broke a man's arm at a High Kings concert when the martial arts muscle memory kicked in. But in all fairness, that was AFTER he intentionally reached out hit me in the back of the head after telling his pouty girlfriend who wanted to swing dance in the middle of crowded standing room pit area that he would make people move for her and he had no idea the girl he chose to intentionally hit in the head had Tae Kwon Doe related muscle memory dormant in her so she quickly pivot stepped under his arm into an outside lunge grabbed that extended arm in an elbow lock nearly snapped his arm like a chicken wing between her arms told him never to touch her again or I'd break something more than just his arm and if they wanted to swing dance THEY needed to go to the empty area behind everyone crowded together, preferably on the other side of the stage from me. I have never seen a man look that much like a bug eyed, feet trying to run but can't move cartoon character in my life -- and they slunk off immediately to go dance in the part of the floor that was empty of other people, plenty of space to swing dance if that's what you want to do without making yourself a nuisance to anyone else.  I didn't see them again the rest of the night. They had been obnoxious all night, him loudly singing off key and them both knocking into people to try to make them move so they could swing dance in the middle of the crowd but intentionally flicking his arm out to smack me in the head because his girlfriend was pouting people wouldn't make space for them was my last straw. It was actually hilarious. Especially since I know the guys in the band (Celtic music circles are small, everyone knows everyone at least by sight if not by name if you've been in the scene for years) and they absolutely LOST it from the stage started laughing staring at me and my friend who missed the whole thing because I was a bit to the side/behind her twirled to me and said, "WHAT did you DO?!" and I nonchalantly shrugged not sure what to say just as the High Kings dedicated to me a song saying, "You should never hit a lady, for any reason. Ever. Just never hit a lady. But especially not when she has glints of red in her hair andthe gleam of green in her eyes of a proper Irish temper. This one's for you Dani and all the other women here with an Irish temper." and then they played Star of the County Down.  Anyway, my point was, I fully understand the importance and the perils of drilling anything into muscle memory that you want to become automatic when it's needed.) So i understand the importance and mental difficulties of the "off season" between Worlds and Grand Prix (and also the regionals to work up the chain place for the larger competitions etc) working up new programs -- I just don't generally think about the sport or the athletes I adore within it during that gap of time. This much of them being top of mind and in my feeds is unusual but I am enjoying it.

I've been really enjoying the Stars on Ice videos from random audience members on my socials though because, as I said, I didn't go see the show in person so it meant I could at least see the choreography if not have the in person experience of it. I am NOT enjoying the amount of ai clickbait fake stories (most of them about who Ilia is dating (which is his business unless he makes it anyone else's business, which first and foremost should be about whoever he decided to date) mostly about female skaters they link him to and random health/injury/retirement rumors) about the skaters. I'm not super keen on the ai and the clickbait. But the live videos have been fantastic! And the content the skaters themselves have been sharing themselves I have loved getting to see very much!

 Anyway. I'm way over hours on work for this week now. Whoops. Not much going on -- lots of playing in the dirt and planting flowers and watering everything every evening. Also lots of reading. My parents go to their Montana cabin and to visit my sister's family at the weekend so I'll be dog sitting and trying to live two places at once with a the house I grew up in and my condo and two dogs and a cat and the cat can't be at the house I grew up in and their dog can't come to my place and she chases/hunts cats sooo yeah. So mostly just animals and plants and reading and working and some Farmer's Marketing on Saturdays until we get to FIFA World Cup season. Crissy came back from DI Globals this week so no longer checking in on her cat and back to having my bestie around for plans even if it's just meeting to go to Farmer's Market together.

That's it. And I'm so embarassed at how much my rsd defensiveness spun me out in all the feels over misunderstanding what I couldn't (yet) see the big picture of. But I'm grateful I had misunderstood and it wasn't repeating that mess at all and I hadn't done anything wrong other than thinking an official page to be a legit official page and him having fixed that. But I think I'm aslo grateful it happened like that because I had no idea how much it would hurt to think that was happening again to be cyber bullied via ostracism for something i said that was somehow wrong/upsetting but for the life of me I couldn't understand how/why it was and nobody would communicate about it and I lost a band that i really loved over it all and can't even appreciate any of their art or songs or anything they create and how much it hurt to think that was happening again over another artist (in a completely different performance art form, sport not music but still.)  Like, the hurting and the reactionary instinct overthinking didn't feel great, but this time it was literally all in my head not real or any part of what happened this time and it actually made me see how sore and easily bruised I am over that repeating. Not that I felt anything about when it happened before, but how deeply I felt about the pattern repeating it happening again me getting blocked over an honest seeming to me innocuous comment on a post. I hadn't realized I need to heal the risk of that pattern repeating and how it affects me if/when it does from anyone else whose art I enjoy and who I have admired from what I can see of them as a human and who they show themselves to be. Also though, I'm so happy that i was so completely delulu kept all that over reacting inside my own heart and soul and mind while I misunderstood and the relief I felt when I realized that nothing of the sort was happening and it had all been in my heart as real and deep as those feels about what I thought was going on had felt.

I should head home and go to bed, it got late on me because ADHD time blindness and I'm tired now and really don't need to still be here since I'm way over on hours for the week and I finished the things I HAD to do tonight, lol.

But yeah, if you are imagining me, imagine me always surrounded by flowers I'm tending and accompanied by both dogs or just my own dog/cat depending on if I'm at my parents house/work/my own home and reading a lot of books and drinking lots of tea and cooking lots of delicious meals from my weekly Farmer's Market early morning Saturday forays -- just filling my time with hermitty things that make me happy until we get to World Cup soccer season to doinate my life for a while before alllll the shows start up again in July (APT theatre tickets and Concerts on the Square picnics with the chamber orchestra on the capitol lawn every Weds) and then Aug is Irish fest season and my sister coming to visit during that as well -- and then summer fades into autumn as it always does and all my plants have to be harvested or brought inside or allowed to die as apple season begins and spooky season peek over the horizon at me!  I am very much a creature of the seasons, though some of my seasons are personal joys seasons not necessarily calendar seasons.

P.S. Here's a picture of Griffin using my shoes I forgot to put away as his pillow looking extra angelic making sure we can't leave him.

 

 

Those shoes get put away as he typically will vent his feelings about me leaving on my shoes by a) theft to go hide the shoes b) violence (especially against sandals or any shoes he wants to take out the inserts/insides of them c) violence followed by theft of whatever he stole from the shoes.  Thus why any lightweight shoes that aren't boots get put back in their cubbies and all sandals but especially teva style rubbery foam go in the cubbies in the coat closet when not on my feet because he's definitely destroyed some of my Teva sandals I had left out after wearing them.

 Also, here are some pictures of how cute my two wee jealous beasties 

 O!!! And Waffles and I saw a muskrat right next to us on the boardwalk at Tiedemann Pond on our morning walk. He just suddenly surfaced amongst the cattails not even 3ft from us! So cute!!

Not sure if you can find him in the picture amongst the cattails and mud and pond -- but I promise he's there and he was so adorable and we had a great conversation about territorial red wing blackbirds dive bombing us.!! I should crop that down to see him better lol.

 I haven't written here in a while and I don't know when I will next. Life has been good, just pretty much normal life things. I've read some good books, bought lots of books, been to the Farmers Market almost every Sat since it came back outside on the Square, saw a handful of good shows and caught up with friends at the concerts, almost ready to do some planting in the garden (already have some plants waiting, but need the nights to be above 45 first for the tomatoes. Hopefully Fri or Sat.) 

Im looking into a span of time coming up starting tomorrow where I won't have much in the calendar but I can't really go anywhere due to promises to watch animals and/or housesit while Crissy is out of town for DI and then my parents are out west for a bit. So I will be getting hours in at work and reading and spending time with plants in the garden and spending time with lonely animals and hermitting quite a bit -- but no concerts or shows or travel or anything. Then World Cup starts and all my plans are scheduled to revolve around me watching matches for a while there. (I have one show, the Broadway tour of Water for Elephants, that is during the group stage matches but not anyone I NEED to watch. And anyway, alllll the nights of the run here were during group stage matches, so we chose the night I'd be least upset if I can't watch.) July I start to have more shows between APT tickets and Concerts on the Square, but also the matches are out of the group stage and so not conflicting with the show times. And then Aug will be Irish season (technically Iowa is July 30-Aug 1 or something like that) and my sister's family is visiting right during/after Milwaukee Irishfest. 

O and over the weekend we nailed down the jello booked my flight to Seattle area for the holidays again -- so I need to be thinking about gifts for all five of my sisters family again. 

Really why I sat down to write is because one of the Spring cleaning tasks I've been doing is organizing chronologically and getting rid of duplicates through my doom piles of tickets accumulated over the years. Right now I just finished 2014 earlier this morning before taking a break to get some laundry going as my morning tasks while drinking tea and reading. And I realized going through these years I just finished.... I spent a lot of years and a lot of shows going to see Delta Rae and I realized today that even if I were gifted/won tickets and travel expenses were covered, I have absolutely zero desire to see them and wouldn't go with the way things are and the place of acceptance I came to over the last year or so. And if I saw Liz or Britt randomly on the street or in an unexpected situation, I wouldn't wave or recognize them, I'd just treat them as strangers who have no place in my life nor me in theirs and let them disappear back into the sea of humanity labelled "no part of my life." I feel like there should be something bittersweet in recognizing you couldn't get me to go to their band show now if it cost me nothing, you probably couldn't even pay me to go with the way things stand and the choices made in the past never cleaned up or acknowledged... But what I feel isn't bittersweet even, it's just an empty nothing. It's the space where you just don't care because "this is no part of my life nor am I any part of this" is all there is surrounding it now. 

In 2018, the girls asked that they and the band not exist to me. And I have done my damnedest to accept that despite my own desires and mostly succeeded outside of my denial phase in 2019 hoping it had all been a label induced mistake that could/would be fixed and the last time I went to go see them to be sure there were no hooks in the from a dark entity (now gone and dealt with no longer here in this plane of existence and time/space region) that had been hunting/tracking me from Minneapolis to a show of theirs at Luther College in Iowa. And now, now I have no desire to ever see or hear from them again have fully accepted the divergent paths of the girls and the band not existing to me. To the extent that seeing the old tickets from the past shows didn't even make me nostalgia twinge or wish things were different -- it just made me realize that even if it cost me nothing or someone paid me to go I have no desire to ever attend another Delta Rae show given the way things are and the choices the girls made on socials toward me. I just feel a blankness and a nothing about it and a desire not to let that sort of negative spin the girls created back into my life in any fashion. 

I also realized that I haven't thought or dreamt about Eric or my polar bear in months now. Not since early/mid March when I reached my inner deep acceptance of the truth, "there's no place I am welcome in the pillars his life are built around due to the choices his sister and Liz made back in 2018 and the ongoing choices not to acknowledge or heal what that did. And that means there is no future, for how could there be when I cannot be welcomed into important aspects of his life?" He's just... Not even on my radar or a desire in me and I don't even currently miss him or feel the absence of him since I finally accepted that truth. 

All there is inside me where that mess was for so long is just indifference of "this is no part of my life this lifetime" and a swift focus reframe back to everyone and everything that IS choosing me choosing to be in my life and curiosity about the happy surprise on my future horizon I can feel getting ever closer that just isn't here yet but will be.

I'm sorry if that's not what you wanted me to share. But it's my truth. In this case, my silence has just been, "I'm good, living my life, not bothering my pretty little head or over sensitive heart about anyone or anything chooses not to be in my life " 

Ope! There's the dryer chime! Time for me to go check if the dryer lies (the dryer always lies) needs a wrinkle release run or if it's telling me the truth time to move it along and go fold clean clothes. 

P. S. This week's astro poets horoscopes were super late and random and none of them in dialogue at all. Definitely not seeing any reason to keep sharing them.

 Saturday was indie bookstore day and we visited nine books and I bought books in the multiple at each store and spent way too much money. And also, I'm not even the least but sorry won't pretend I am.... At this point, I have no children and I live by myself with my fur babies -- I only affect myself by buying so many books going over budget I can't afford anything but basic variations on rice and beans with veggies for a while. 

Luckily, I have very little in my calendar between now and World Cup starting in mid-June (and none of those after Mother's Day except taking grandma to her optometry appointment) other than having to stay in town to pet sit while other people are out of town so I can hermit and be good and read to my heart's content around getting in work hours (including garden and platers setup work) and making sure to spend time with Crissy's cat Henry and then later dog sitting with Sophie while my parents are out of town. 

Also. If you don't have plans for a dedicated library for me, you don't have intentions to have me in your life -- the books stay or I won't. Non-negotiable.

Ack! There goes the dryer. Time to see if the blanket is actually dry on my "i am overdue to strip the bed and wash all the bedding" Monday and then move along the next part of the bedding from the wash. Griffin has decided he actually loves the days I wash the bedding because it guarantees him I will be home all day AND he can snuggle into each layer after I put it on while it's clean and cozy and warm. 

P. S. Ok, but also... I really REALLY did overdo it this year and spend way too much money on books especially given the perils of the *gestures broadly at everything in the world right now* 

This weekend was Art in Bloom again and it was good, but not as great as it has been sometimes in the past. Some of it was it felt people-y crowded and a lot of the people were very unaware and rude but also I felt they repeated pieces and the arrangements weren't as great as some of the times in the past those arrangements were chosen. It was still great fun and a fantastic day!! And the Gertrude Abercrombie special exhibit currently at Milwaukee Art Museum was pretty cool. She was definitely very into the witchy spiritual and it was definitely in her works and the pop up shop was very cool. Think Dali meets Tim Burton meets tarot type symbolism meets witchy black cats and moons and forked trees everywhere and you will understand her style. I would not look at her works and think 1930s-50s at all!!

 I don't have much else to write here still, my inner world is pretty quiet and sunny tbh. It's not overthinking or stormy, it's pretty calm and sunny and still feels like something bright unexpected is just over the horizon waiting for me where I can't see it because happy surprises are a blind spot on my precogs. And that's happening right alongside the dark heaviness of the world writ large and what all is (still) being dragged into the light to be faced and dealt with.

I think I'm going to stop sharing the Astro Poets horoscopes here, because the dance between Libra and Pisces in them seems to have disappeared. Which was happening  a bit most of this year, but seems to have been very strong end of March early April. In fact, I'd say it seems more like a dialogue between Libra and Sagittarius (my Mars sign so it's one I do check, I tend to check all my inner planets/rising) let me show you the Sag ones for the same month and you can compare them to the Libra ones below. I'm not going to go see how far back the twining started, just the same ones that I have for Libra and Pisces in this one

 "Week of 3/29 in Sagittarius: It was found. It was hurt but not by this. Bright pink. And lilac. Find love again.

 "Week of 4/5 in Sagittarius: Nothing as it seems. And that’s the best part. Something you might know. Let alone to be there. Love and all of its particulars."

"Week of 4/12 in Sagittarius: What words remain. Luck and love. It goes like green. With friends again. With love that remains."

"Week of 4/19 in Sagittarius: When it matters it is not there. And is that not without cause. A pretty night. Some purple streamers. You opened it up and there is the pink." 

Maybe it means nothing at all and maybe I'm seeing patterns where there aren't patterns and never were. I just find it interesting that Libra still seems to be in dialogue and dance with another sign, but it's no longer with my rising sign but with my Mars sign. (There aren't any Sag suns directly in my life right now so it's not that there's any obvious romance connection building there. I mean, I know Sag suns and get along well with them, probably because I have a Sag stellium in my chart as well as a Scorpio stellium, there's just none that I would say are close enough or have that attraction spark that I would expect it to be about that. Actually, almost every Sag sun I know even as acquaintances live far from me or are traveling right now, lol.) 

 

Astro Poets horoscopes:

 "Week of 3/29 in Libra: You have enjoyed this part. It can keep going. Eternal blue. Lots of leaves. Nothing is forgotten."

"Week of 3/29 in Pisces: Every heart was fed. The walls were there. Did you decorate with time? You can. You can do it now."

"Week of 4/5 in Libra: Some sweet wishes. They begin all in love. A holy time. With friends. With an opening that sings."

"Week of 4/5 in Pisces: There’s no time. And yet it must be. That it goes. It is there. The time passes like nothing." 

 "Week of 4/12 in Libra: It couldn’t be. It resisted a song. Two friends. Two twins. Let that be you."

"Week of 4/12 in Pisces: It found a kind of opening. Into the night with stars. Looking forth. Look forward. See existence." 

 "Week of 4/19 in Libra: The pink sunset where you can kiss. A dream of it all. Repeating numbers. Nothing like dread. These are happy days."

"Week of 4/19 in Pisces: There are ways inside. With the best kind of beauty. Something that is glittering blue. You make it make sense. You dance inside with it." 

 On the scale from 1 to "I was working as election official from 5:45a til 10:45p on the clockand after 17 hours straight poll working and being asked once more to consider becoming chief inspector I'm really fucking exhausted want to crawl into bed but also so fucking hungry because haven't eaten a proper meal since 4:30am and didn't even get to eat my second peanut butter sandwich or carrot cake cupcake but thankfully my mum loves me thought of me and had a chicken burrito from Laredo's ordered at her lunch for me to reheat to eat either when I got there or to take home so I have food for when I get home if I don't just collapse...." 

I'm so fucking exhausted and hungry right now..... But we found the error we were chasing that kept us there will 10:45 instead of being done by 9:30 as hoped. 

Also though, if I didn't know if wake up in just a few hours even more ravenous, I'm so tempted to just drive home collapse into bed after picking my dog up and chatting for a bit with my mama.... Lord I'm tired.......been awake and out of bed since 3am and actively poll working meticulous bookkeeping and putting on the smile humaning allllllll day for 17 fucking hours straight. Blarg. 

That's it. 

I've nothing else more cogent or deep or important to say.  Not til I'm on the other side of eating some real food and then sleeping for...as long as the animals hold me hostage, lol. 

So exhausted. So hungry. 17. Hours. Straight. And not even my longest election official shift.....  Can I just curl up and sleeps yet? But no, food first. 

Actually. No. Change of plans. My body wants to be done in the vertical more than it wants food... Like it desperately wonders "why are we still in the vertical tho?!" So food in the fridge, pyjamas, contacts out, collapse into bed..and I will eat whenever I wake up too ravenous to rest and sleep any longer, lol.

P. S. Also, only slept like 3-4 hours, punctuated by Griffin jumping up on me for snuggles then leaving for middle of the night cat chaos antics before my 3am "you still need to pack food and drinks and get ready and eat something and drink coffee before you can go drop the dog off and be at the polling place by 6am" wake up alarm. 

Ufgh. Horizontal. Horizontal life and sleeeeeeeeeps it is. Then good whenever the vertical next seems like a good idea, lol

January/February/March Book List

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

 

 Books Read: 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

~Andre Norton, Storm Over Warlock (201 pgs)

~Andre Norton, Ordeal in Otherwhere (191 pgs)

~Margot Lee Shetterly, Hidden Figures (349 pgs)

~Andre Norton, Forerunner ( pgs)

~ Andre Norton, Forerunner Foray ( pgs)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Books Acquired: 

~Frederick Atkinson, Sceadugenga

~James Baldwin, Go Tell It on the Mountain

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

~Anne Llewellyn Barstow, Witchcraze

~John Brought (translator), Poems From the Sanskrit

~A. S. Byatt, Babel Tower

~Joseph Campbell, Myths to Live By

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

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

~C. J. Cherryh, Foreigner

~Martha Cooley, The Archivist

~Zoraida Cordova, Incendiary

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

~Charles deLint, Into the Green

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

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

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

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

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

~Hester Fox, A Lullaby for Witches

~Antonia Fraser, The Wives of Henry VIII

~Adalyn Grace, Belladonna

~Ember Grant, Mythology For A Magical Life

~Philippa Gregory, The Boleyn Inheritance

~Philippa Gregory, The Other Boleyn Girl

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

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

~Lev Grossman, The Magician King

~Lev Grossman, The Magician's Land

~Alexis Henderson, The Year of the Witching

~Donna Barba Higuera, The Last Cuentista

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

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

~Kristoffer Hughes, Cerridwen: Celtic Goddess of Inspiration

~Mindy Hung, The Glowing Life of Leeann Wu

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

~Emily Lloyd-Jones, The Bone Houses

~Charlie Lovett, The Paradox Club

~James Macpherson, The Poems of Ossian

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

~Hilary Mantel, Wolf Hall

~Anne McCaffrey & Todd McCaffrey, Dragon's Kin

~Anne McCaffrey & Todd McCaffrey, Dragon's Fire

~Prosper Mérimée, La Vénus d'Ille

~Barbara Meillejohn-Free, Scottish Witchcraft

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

~Garth Nix, Terciel & Elinor

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

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

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

~Edith Pargeter, A Bloody Field By Shrewsbury

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

~Alwyn Rees & Brindley Rees, Celtic Heritage

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

~Jean-Paul Sartre, La Nausée

~Gertrude Stein, The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas

~Adrian Tchaikovsky, City of Last Chances 

~Jo Walker, A Witch's Guide to Wildcraft

~Alison Weird, Mistress of the Monarchy

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

~Paul O. Zelinsky, Rumplestiltskin

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Astro Poets Horoscopes: 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Astro Poets Horoscope:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The history/use of mesmerism/hypnosis and all the different people/places it has been used specifically in Christianity in America has been rather fascinating. It's specifically an American phenomenon as far as I can tell, which is also interesting to me... I actually got a little derailed pursuing the question about Deepak Chopra (whose teachings I've never actually read, he's always given me the icks even when people tell me how transformative and centering his works have been for them -- both his pictures and words always gave me the icks. In light of some of what has come out in the files released and watching the new age community squirm and try to come to terms or refuse to around it has been rather interesting. And, it also makes me question what exactly his teachings were and what they may have been gateways to -- but that's not something I intend to pursue at this time, just questions I'm asking. Like I said, he gave/gives me the visceral icks so I don't want to read his words, not even if I were gifted the book(s) or found them free.  I mean, i realize that sometimes for answers you have to wade into the minds/thoughts of people who give you the icks -- but I don't desire to engage in that research unless/until it seems absolutely necessary.) Curiously, Quimbyism (and thus Christian Science) has an early take on the concept that illness doesn't really exist, it's all created by the mind and you can cure yourself/others by faith and will alone. Which if it sounds New Age-y, it's definitely made it into modern spiritualist paths. 

My cat was most into the chapter on Cotton Mather of all the chapters in that book -- but also his picture in American Witches gave me the icks and so I don't want to search out or read Cotton Mather's diaries or anything any time soon. He also looked really familiar, but I can't quite place who in the regime he reminds me of looks like the reincarnation of his energy... It's been bothering me I can't place it. Griffin also pulled off the shelf with his teeth (tore the dust jacket but no damage to the book itself) a biography on Cleopatra that I hadn't read yet. So I promised him I would read it next buy told him no more trying to pull off in a way that damages the books and he is currently blocked from reaching the bottom shelves of that nonfiction bookcase just as he is blocked off from the lower reference books shelf. he's very excited for me to read the Cleopatra book, has been rubbing his cheek against it purring every time he can reach it and his head swivels around perks up every time you say the name Cleopatra. So far, all the books that he has damaged with claw or tooth have been hardcovers with dust jackets.... I still don't like it but also the two books he has pulled off 

I don't have much else to say right now. I'm very excited to see Skerryvore again tomorrow! (today now, lol) Not planning to see them Sunday in Milwaukee area because the Argo is like $46 per person tickets for gen ad and I have symphony tickets that day so wouldn't be able to head out toward Milwaukee until 4:30-5ish. I will be seeing them again though on Thurs the 26th in Green Lake and then again for the whiskey tasting at JJ's on Mar 1.  I'm excited to get to see all the Scottish Skerry lads again so soon! Especially since they won't be around here for irishfest season (they have shared other fests/shows they're playing in the UK right during that time period) so I don't know when next they will be back in the area. 

Um, I'm sure there are other things I have to write about or ought to say, but that's all I can think of for now so that's all you're going to get for now I guess.  

Wrote most of this before sunrise on Thurs morning, but didn't finish the last thoughts or hit post until early on Friday the 13th.

 So I've been doing a lot of thinking and researching this last month or so on the subject of egregores. It's not a term I had encountered until recently when it started showing up in many of my closed witchy groups as to why pouring energy into attacking those protected by an egregores just feeds the egregore and makes it more powerful. But basically, an egregore is like a gyre or whirlpool of energy portal created by the focused intent or belief of humans and if fed enough it can become sentient and powerful enough to try to use energy to protect itself and those whose existence feed it. 

Side note: There has also been a mass self outing of magat witches who have been removed from groups as they speak out about "since when has witchcraft been political" and forget about the hundreds of years of witch burnings/hangings... you know the type, those who took the anti vax far left turn so far they turn right but still call themselves spiritualists -- there's actually a disconcerting white spiritualism to trad wife magat pipeline and I haven't yet pinpointed what entity they opened up to that brainwashed them into the cult koolaid to serve that entity. But don't ever listen to the advice to just blindly open yourself up to whatever may enter when you're in yoga or meditation -- that's a white person version of the Indian practice and exceedingly dangerous! You never know what might be lurking waiting for a breach in your defenses to get it's hooks in you. Curiously, just as I typed up that question about not knowing what they opened up to, Griffin inexplicably lay down and started biting at this book pulling it off the shelf and destroying the dust jacket (yes those are cat bite marks). 

I yelled at him but took the book with me after he went back biting at it trying to pull it off the shelf a second time. This is the second book he has set claw or tooth to -- the first was using as a flat scratching post my dictionary of word origins (also hardcover with dust jacket) on my bottom shelf of reference books which I have since blocked him from reaching though he's still trying to figure out how to get to where it is. But I'm going to be very upset if this behavior continues destroying books and will definitely need to find a solution if it does... still this one seemed VERY book specific and it happened whenever I was thinking about that question of what they opened up to that creates that pipeline. So I peeked at the chapter headings and looked through the illustrations but nothing jumped out at me so just as I sat down to finish tapping out my thoughts about wondering what they opened up to to in that pipeline, he came over and sat next to me tail thrashing growling slightly staring at the book in my lap and when I presented it to him he bit at the spine of it AGAIN and I chastised him, "Griffin! We do no attack or destroy books in this household! I will read it to try to find what you're warning me is in this book but you're not to destroy my books if you want to live with me." He chirped then lay down on the carpet belly up purring and has been ignoring the book since. Also worth noting, he has been extra restless and protective tonight since I got home won't let me sleep keeps attacking things neither the dog nor I can see and trying to guard between me and my window and me and my doorways while I was laying in bed which involved a lot of hopping up on the bed and circling and laying down then batting at the air. Finally I gave up and played fetch with him for a bit then went to make tea and sit in my reading chair which means he only has one area to be restless protective chasing things I can't see.  Luckily, I wasn't sleepy because I had a bad migraine today from shifting fatelines/universes that was mad worse by ignoring trying to power through it yesterday evening/last night and ao I slept pretty much all day today until things settled when I went in to work after most everybody had left. (Curiously, being around other people tends to make the headaches worse and make me very irritable when the migraines are from timeline shifting -- the effects of the shifting are much more muted when I am not around humans and especially when at home. I think it's because other people who don't shift along with me in my bubble feel like anchors in the mud making it harder to move with the currents.) 

Anyway. Back to egregores. There's a debate right now in witchy circles about if spell casting the regime is working needs more energy poured into it or if it is feeding the egregore(s) making them more powerful. Which has had me thinking, "how do you defeat an egregores?" And the answer I found in magic circle is you create a mirror egregore that absorbs all the focused intent and uses it to starve the original egregore -- but now you have a new egregore even more powerful than the first and the only thing it has in its favor is that if it doesn't get too powerful, whoever created it can destroy it. So not (necessarily) useful. Robbing Peter to pay Paul. Which means, the only way I can see to defeat an egregore is to remove the source of its power, and that is the collective belief/faith in the idea that has spawned it. So that's where to focus the attack -- to take out it's sources of food/power. Now the egregore created and used as a shield by the entity that came here started causing these timelines fluctuations as it burrowed backward to build strength for right now, the egregore propping up the egregore gyre of this regime is the all father twisted concept of God that evangelicals all bend their knee to which as far as I can tell was a mirror egregore of Odin that got grafted into the medieval church to try to destroy the pagan viking worship of Odin. All worship of God the father feeds this mirror egregore I call and consider the all father mirror of Odin's egregore, at least as far as I have been able to track this. (I've been hunting/tracking this entity since I was in uni both forward and backward down the time stream trying to find a precise temporal marker for it to call in the larger powers that can safely excuse it back to where it belongs)

So anyway, at an energetic level, the egregore needs to be starved and dismantled to take down the regime trying to build itself into a 3d chess position of unassailable power grab.  Then the baneful magic hexing will break through to hit their targets. And the best way I can see that is to shine clarity onto those who believe in and feed it-- to pour energy into them seeing through the illusions. So that's where I've been directing energetic overflow because from what I have observed and been studying, dismantling and starving the egregore has to happen first, or from the start so that the other shots can land instead of feeding the egregore and its defenses/protections.

P.S. I did skim through the book, specifically the newer chapters before heading to bed after sunrise then read the first couple chapters after waking up. It's not very well written (but at least it reads fast is not particularly dense) and it's very New England focused history but it has some interesting historical accounts of early witch persecutions en route to the US and in the US. I'll probably keep the book for the new stories it has brought me, but it's not particularly well written. I didn't find in the initial chapters or my skimming of the more modern end chapters what was making Griffin bite it off the shelf insist I read it to answer my question... I do have some new leads to explore though just from the skimming and I need to look more into the turn of the century Quimbyism and the development/evolution of Christian Science (most of what I know about mesmerism/animal magnetism/early hypnosis studies is from the English side of the Victorian/Edwardian era not the American gilded age.) And the path through mesmerism and hypnotism and peer pressure of group think within both New Age white versions of spirituality and in Christianity.... Because there's definitely a pipeline that seems to take some people so far left they turn right in the witchy/spiritual/New Age to magat pipeline...  I think there's some breadcrumbs there for me to explore to unwind what has been hidden going on in the shadows. I know I've had to clean a lot of churches and a lot of attachments in people who go too deep into worship services and they've told me that they are told to open up let down all barriers. Which is terrible terrible advice as far as spiritual health goes.... 

Anyway. As far as I can see the tactical battlefield in spiritual/energy/magic fights at this time (which are separate but connected to the real world quotidian battles being fought in multiple fronts simultaneously right now) : Focus energy on creating clear sighted seeing past the illusions to the lie within to disempower and starve the egregore before pouring any energy into baneful or justice driven spells. Otherwise, all your anger is just feeding energy and belief into the egregore making it stronger.

It's funny, Friday evening it started to feel like something loosened broke through that weird head state I've been in and started untangling all the over thinking and defensive fatalistic spikiness I've been feeling recently and my head started to let go of all the ways it had wound itself round in judgemental fixed this is how it's been and I don't want that so I'll just go elsewhere because I can't think my way out of fixing the messes of the past so I'm just going to focus on where I can put my energy in the tangled present of the fixed air head space. And on Friday night, it was just like the wound tight overthinking just... melted into this calmer mental space of just floating in the the isness waiting for the right moment to get exactly where you're meant to be when you're meant to be there.  And then early this morning I felt all those overthinking thoughts wound round my heart just... unwind and let go... and it was like I could breathe again and feel my heart beating again after so long feeling detached couldn't hear from it or feel it and that everything was going to be alright  And as soon as all the overthinking tied too tight round loosened and untangled like that, it was like everything came flooding back into my inner quiet and it was just full of all that music that's always echoing through it and flooded with all the love I haven't heard/felt for weeks now and I just had this inner certainty, "All the knots and tangles of the past don't dictate the path of the future -- what is chosen in the present is what determines between all the open fatelines. Focusing so much on what's gone wrong in the past keeps you blinded to what is right now and what could be in the future. You know that. You just forgot these recent weeks. Now you remembered so now you can be better again." That's the best I can explain it.

And then I had to put my Histortea book club for tonight in my calendar (slowing reading Chernow's Washington a couple chapters a month with 3 of my close friends who also love history) because I'd forgotten about it and so I actually looked at a calendar for the first time since finishing out my SVD assignments (not the Olympics schedule which I've been spending a lot of time with recently, but my proper calendars which are both astrological planners/calendars; and because of all the Olympics programming for me to watch, I'm very behind on my normal weekly astrology reminders) and I saw that early this morning was when Venus (love/money/heart) moved into Pisces and I just started laughing at the perfection of the timing of when I felt that shattering/melting of those bonds of my own overthinking/fixed thinking into the opening expansiveness once more within the quiet spaces of my own heart. And then just out of curiosity I flipped back to last week and laughed even louder that Friday night when I first felt the shift in my head space loosening unraveling those recent bounds of overthinking was when Mercury (communication/technology/head) moved into Pisces. 

And it made me laugh at myself. For all my Capricorn moon skepticism about astrology, it definitely helps to make sense of my own inner tides sometimes and things line up much more closely than I'd ever realized until I started paying better attention to what sign the moon is in and where the inner planets are. And the thing is, you would think I'd be more comfortable in Aquarius than Pisces because Libra sun/Mercury and fellow air signs (all air placements are overthinking) but actually Aquarius is one of the signs I just don't get it doesn't click with me at all. And then, I have three planets in Scorpio (including my Venus) and my ascendant is Pisces so I'm actually perfectly balanced across all the elements and modality if you include north node and Chiron in the chart EXCEPT my rising sign being Pisces tips me ever so slightly more watery and mutable in the balance. I'm actually most comfortable in my skin with my inner head-heart-soul balance the more planets there are in Pisces, Libra, Scorpio, Taurus.  I feel the most all over the place unbalanced head-heart-soul the more planets/placements are in Aquarius, Cancer, Gemini. And I feel the most neutral toward having those parts of myself balanced instead just completely focused on my life as I'm living it the more planets are in Capricorn, Virgo, Sagittarius, Leo, Aries.

And it's just funny how intense that release felt inside my head and then my heart as first Mercury then Venus moved out of Aquarius into Pisces. 

I just found it interesting the timing. And also, in addition to giving me a laugh, I figured I should be clear about that internal tidal shift for anyone who doesn't feel the tug and pull of the seas inside my heart/soul and the storms my head sometimes builds inside me.

Anyway, have you been missing the Astro Poets horoscopes? The ones this week are particularly lovely and once again bring Libra and Pisces back into that very obvious dance/conversation with each other after a while of beautiful but a stretch to see how they might connect. 

 

Astro Poets Horoscopes:

"Week of 1/25 in Libra: Something is sparkling there with lilacs in bloom. As it were or as it will be. Every piece does not demand a core. And yet it suddenly was. And yet you want to stay as you should forever."

"Week of 1/25 in Pisces: Every sweet thing. Was said already. Say it again. Say with a kind heart. You are all kindness and light." 

"Week of 2/1 in Libra: Friendship remains. And that is what is said so sweetly. To rejoice in the right time. What reality that speaks. It is this one."

"Week of 2/1 in Pisces: Every piece that fell. Did so for a reason. Now pick up what you want. Make the thing. It’s yours anyway."

 "Week of 2/8 in Libra: Letting loose the birds and flying things. You let the light in, too. There was not a right way to say it. So you said it. So you dreamt exactly as you should have."

"Week of 2/8 in Pisces: Finally a dream. That was slept among the night. Truly a bright light. Greenish and pink. Lots of kisses because you love them." 

 

 

 

As someone who lives in the USA, it's a weird time to have the Olympics. I mean, I absolutely love the Olympics, winter and summer. I watch every moment of every figure skating (I watch the entire season of figure skating religiously, every year), snowboarding events (even qualis -- and I watch every x games I remember and realize the schedule), and ski aerials/halfpipe/acrobatic jumps and I watch the rest of it on prime time/late night highlights. I do really love speed skating as well, but not in a "watch every heat" the entire time way.  But watching the opening ceremony today, it's a really hard time to feel anything but shame to be American while this regime is in power with all the terrible things they do, no matter how much fierce pride and joy I have for the athletes themselves, especially those I have followed outside and beyond Olympic ice and snow. (And it's not lost on me that USA is supposed to hold the next summer Olympics in LA and the historic echoes with Hitler's Olympics and the mass incarceration sites called detention centers but the conditions currently known meet every textbook definition of concentration camps.... 

It's a hard weird time to be an American.... 

And I'm so proud and joyous for all the athletes! Especially those I follow throughout their competitive seasons in figure skating and snowboarding!  I just wish they had a country whose actions were worthy of the honor and pride in their home nation that they should feel during the Olympics ... I wish they lived in a version of this nation they should feel proud to represent and that I could feel like celebrating our country's medal wins. 

It's just a weird time to be an American, especially one living this close to Minne, watching the Olympics I love to watch and with so many athletes I watch throughout their competitive seasons. 

I dunno. 

(It's also weird to have Super Bowl during the Olympics. I'm rooting for Seahawks. And not just because I have family in the Seattle area and Monroe is a Seahawks fan (even though the rest of her family are Packers fans.) my parents are actually at the Super Bowl this weekend (so I am watching both dogs Thurs night til Mon night and only short times to spend with my cat during the weekend days) because the store sold enough Acers to be chosen as a vendor. So my parents are in San Fran, seeing the Killers and then in a suite for the game. I actually don't have any have tos this coming week (besides watching Olympics and work hours) other than the dog sitting this weekend until the 13 when my parents and Crissy and I have tickets to Kimberly Akimbo tour. And then on the 17 (Chinese New Year, new moon, eclipse, primary election, so much going on astrologically) I am an election official, but only assigned 1p-close not the full day because it's such a comparatively small election. And then after that some Skerryvore shows but I don't remember which days I'm seeing the Scottish lads. I actually wasn't expecting to see many of my international musician friends this year given all the everything, so I feel every chance a gift. Gadan last week and Skerryvore later this month. And we will see how the rest of the year plays out if I get to see any of them. On verra. )

anyway, it's just a weird hard time to be a  American watching the Olympics. (I do love the long toggle coats the America team have.) Which isn't helping at all my current 'nothing feels like it sits quite right in reality as it is right now' feeling of this Aquarius season..... 

Haven't written here in a while again. Was a bit busy with svd and then just sort of forgot about it until today when i wanted to write this down so I remember it don't forget it because it was so very wyrd. 

So ever since Mikaela arrived this morning to hang out and read and drink coffee/tea for the day, Griffin was being a bit of a demon cat this morning (as he does) but settled down once I realized I hadn't watered the plants like I meant to last night and promised the plants and him. (Plants "talk" to each other at a frequency cats hear and I genuinely think it gives them a headache when the plants get too loud -- both Spock and now Griffin bite at them to tell them to shut up if I go too long without watering them but then ignore them from the time they stop chirping joy in getting watered and the next time they get thirsty.)  Anyway, because he was being moody and attacking, I put Eric's playlist on for him and it helped but every time I got up, Griffin got feisty naughty attacking anyone who came near him and coming up to me feisty. That behavior stopped and he went back to his charming angel cat mode as soon as I finished watering the plants and they stopped chirping their joy. So I do think he just gets sick of that plants shouting and acting out is his way of saying, "can't you make them shut up?!"

The other thing that Griffin was doing today out of the norm is that EVERY time the first song on the extended version of Exactly What I Asked For would play (Griffin doesn't like his playlist randomized, only new songs added but never randomized), Griffin came over to my reading chair, hopped up on the back of it and then started walking across all the crystals and things on the shelf I keep my Tarot decks and Oracle decks. (Side note: I recently found at a used bookstore had to buy once I saw it a Nightmare Before Christmas tarot deck! It's used and I need to finish cleansing it, but I put it back in proper original order as part of cleansing each card and to check it has all the cards -- they're all there all in brand new condition and it doesn't feel like it was heavily used or connected to by whoever had it before me. It came in start of Jan per the price tag and so I think it was a holiday gift someone never used so brought in for some cash. Anyway, it's delightful! As an elf witch who adores Nightmare Before Christmas (everything about it except Oogie Boogie -- he is across the 'nope. That's an Unseelie darkness who won't keep his promises so we don't deal with' line for me) it's a wonderful mashup! I'm excited to cleanse it and use it the first time on a new or full moon on the other side of eclipse portal!) Anyway, Griffin kept jumping in my lap, climbing up to the back of my chair, then trying to climb on the book shelf where I keep my tarot/oracle decks, some of my crystals, my knife made from a railroad spike, and my horn handled magnifying glass (but not all my altar/witchy things, just the ones that I keep with my tarot/oracle decks and old astrological calendars from past years since I started saving them.  And it was EVERY time that intro song played and finally, I sighed in exasperation set my book down (in case of knocked over crystals I had to try to catch and/or pickup before they got lost) which jostled my phone which showing 1:11 as I set down my book and I asked him, "Did you want one of the decks consulted buddy?" And he put his paw on my Egyptian Art Nouveau tarot deck so I told him, "Alight, I will consult it. But come down off that shelf now. I can tell you're trying to be careful but you're going to knock off crystals it you keep this up." (Griffin likes to knock off and steal crystals and random rocks I've collected that I have all over the place -- he hoards them underneath my bed. So I have had to make sure that any could be toxic to him or are fragile or shouldn't get wet are stored in the glass bookcase.) 

So I  get the deck out and Griffin sprawls on the wood floor just past the edge of my oriental rug. So I take the cards out and I'm like, "Sir Griffin, did you want to pick cards? Or did you need me to consult it?" He meow-chirped at the second question and then I told him, "But I don't even know what you want me to ask it!" He just slow blinked love eyes at me then ostentatiously started licking his paw tail flicking waiting for me to begin. So I started shuffling and letting the deck flip out cards for me/him as I queried in my head and just continuously shuffled. 

This was what I got:

"What question does Griffin want me to ask this deck?"

3 of pentacles, 2 of swords reversed, 10 of pentacles

"Is there anything further Griffin and this deck are trying to tell me about?"

10 of pentacles, the lovers, the sun

At this point I was flummoxed. Like I got the message was about asking regarding lessons learned choices made and reaching legacy building contentment in life and the further info about the situation is a life that is a legacy full of goodness, love sanctioned by the divine (grab any classic deck and put the lovers card next to the devil card and look closely at the parallels and differences -- Lovers is divine sanctioned love freely chosen whereas devil is lust/temptation/chains we allow to bind us), and the childlike brightness of joy and success and celebration. But what exactly the subject matter to get to this or the context of what my cat and the cards wanted me to know, I had absolutely no idea just guesswork. It was at the point I was thinking "Ok, I understand the isness of the message -- but who or what the hell is this reading about?!" that Griffin got up went over and twined himself around the computer like cats twine around the legs of greeting people they love and rubbed his chin against the corners of the laptop, then came back to lay in the same spot and slow blinked at me again.

So I took that as Griffin's answer and I asked the deck: "Is Griffin trying to tell me something about Eric?" 

6 of cups, 10 of pentacles

"What is Griffin trying to make sure I know about Eric?"

6 of cups, the star, 10 of pentacles -- with 2 of cups on the bottom of the deck (when I went to set it down and the whole deck flipped itself in my lap between my legs from showing the backs to show me the bottom card -- I don't always check bottom cards, but this was very obviously a part of the spread)

Then I asked, "Is there anything else I should know right now before I put these away?"

And Griffin walked away curled up on his spooky cat tree for a nap and I shuffled the cars for an entire song focusing on that question and no cards popped out so I figured that was everything they had to say to me today. 

Honestly. I have never had 10 of pentacles come up like that EVER in a spread and I've never had the same card jump out like that for every single question asked/answered. Especially coming out upright EVERY. SINGLE. TIME. I know it happens for other people, but it doesn't usually happen for me.  Now I generally think of 10 of cups as the "happily ever after" card whereas 10 of pentacles is the multi generational long term wealth and well being and enjoying the shared goodness of life.  I've never really thought that hard about 10 of pentacles before nor have I often received it -- I tend to receive 10 of cups as the promise of future happiness when I work with tarot cards. I received the 10 of pentacles more times this afternoon than the cumulative times I've received it reading for myself or in connection with me in my entire life.... So here's one take on the basics of it if it's a card that, like me, you've never really considered that deeply.

 

It's just interesting because I've been in a rather stoic weird headspace recently (in part because of what's going on and what I've precogged and also what I did right before "putting the entire US under a freezer spell" after brokering a dream space deal with grey Unseelie I don't typically work with but who will abide by the letter of their word, a dream space meeting between me and the Cailleach as their broker/keeper and with a lot of the goddesses and Seelie I work with mediating to be sure I didn't overstep myself or misspeak the promise or miss a loophole. I got angry and I was very clearly told off made to promise over half a dozen goddesses I asked about it that I'm not to cross the Mississippi hand myself over, and when I'm angry feeling impotent I make questionable choices. In this case I made spiritual alliance with morally gray Unseelie type spiritual entities bound them to new rules that gave them open season on any who sign a contract or give/follow orders for the entity behind what is happening right now in the US. The wendigos have open season to hunt take off the board all who cannibalize their fellow humans and have signed contracts (physical or spiritual) with this entity to serve or profit by the harm to others. They cannot recruit or go after innocents, just those marked by having signed over to this entity. And their open season territory was to be "everywhere that the Cailleach extends her reach under the freezer spell across this nation within this Aquarius season." So I've been busy, at least in the spiritual warrior realms.) anyway, so in a weird head space, not completely writing him off but more my head space has basically been, "The world is a mess and there are things I can do at the energetic spiritual levels that most incarnating souls cannot do. So if you are not consciously consistently choosing me and choosing to prioritize having me fully in your life, there are much more urgent areas my energy is needed right now and you are getting triaged out of any attention or any focus from me until that truth shifts."

Anyway, I have been questioning for a while now how real the bond is for him and if I need to give up on the idea of him and the dream of it to better focus on what must be done in this time. And this morning I have been debating with myself if I've only just been setting myself up for heartache of my own making by hanging on to hope with no signs at all he cares or knows or chooses it, especially with him once again in late January sharing from the band account I'm still blocked from (which made me immediately react, "nope. Not playing this game. I don't want to see you telling me "this content not available for you" bullying via ostracism from the band page. If that's all you have to offer that I can't sit at your table then I don't want to follow you on my socials at all." and unfollow him again.) Mostly not letting him even cross my mind or be considered, but when I do think of him these recent weeks I have been silent here focusing on the freezer spell working that I entered into agreement with the Cailleach to create to counter the entity protecting and puppet directing the current regime, but when I have let me think of him it has been in that stoic cynical, "he doesn't act as if he wants me or values me anyway, I should let go of pretending he might" reading of his choices already made and the pattern they have made that I'm done repeating.

So then I was just thinking that way again while writing out about the cards and the cat jumped up onto the back of the chair again, annoyed with me not listening to him, to demand again the deck not realizing I had put it back in the box but still had the box in my lap and once I showed him he hopped back down from the shelf with such clumsy speed he  knocked over a moss agate and nearly knocked down a tall stack of tbr books went to lay down and after I fixed the stack of books, my phone told me it was 2:22 as I sat down by him told him, "Look Griffin, I don't know what you want to tell me. So I'm going to lay these out for you to choose your own message for me." He purr-chirped and rubbed his cheek against the bottom card (still 2 of cups) to tell me he was ready. 

So I spread them out in a line and said, "right. So what is it you need me to know then?" 

He put his paw down on a section that when I flipped them was: 

The devil, two of pentacles reversed, five of cups, king of swords, two of swords, two of wands 

So I asked him, "is this still about Eric?" (Cat chirp) "About his past choices? Or about his present choices?" When I said past choices he chirped tapped the first three cards I flipped over and when I said present choices, he started purring rubbed his chin and cheeks against the two of cups bottom last card while setting his paw on the last three of the cards. (Yes, I know that with the two of cups on the bottom, that's all the twos of the minors in play.)

So then after studying the cards I'd flipped over I asked if I could put them back in the deck and when he pulled his paw back slow blinked at me I decided that was a yes and put them all separately back in randomly through the rest. Then I said, "okay. What is it you need me to know about Eric's choices or desires at this time?" And this time after shuffling, I very carefully went through the deck card by card moving it from my left hand touching each one with my thumb into a stack beneath my right hand and removing flipping over each card I was on when he soft paw tapped my thumb on a card. And the reading that my cat chose for that question was: 

Four of wands, queen of swords, two of swords, six of wands all upright. 

Then I threw a toy for the dog who wanted to be in the middle of it all wanted my attention while I sat on the floor and Griffin became more interested in fetch was done with the cards so after playing fetch down the hall with both the dog and the cat, I took the cards back with me and went back to write down the new readings here before I forgot them. 

And while I was writing that last reading from the cat about what Eric is choosing/desiring  but with a mental cynical, "right, like he's choosing that [quick reading: 4 of wands is celebration/marriage card, queen of swords is the minor arcana for Libra similar to Justice meaning Libra in major arcana, 2 of swords is a crossroads choice, 6 of wands is victory] given him continuing to take part in the "you're not welcome" behavior patterns the girls created and doing nothing to solve that mess it made. How is that supposed to happen given that mess and nothing being done to right it? How do we get there without healing the mess that was made complicating what should have been simple?" As soon as I got cynical thinking that way yet again, the entire deck (except those 4 cards I'd kept out to write up after I finished playing with the fur baby familiars) fell off my lap to the floor without me or anyone moving or knocking into them, splayed put like a hand and four  (three side by side and the fourth above the first two in the line) had flipped over out of the deck lay themselves out in response to my cynical thoughts: 

Justice upright (Libra in majors), King of cups upright (Pisces man in court cards), Strength reversed (Leo in majors; but reversed means the worst shadow negative unenlightened traits of the Leo sign) and then centered directly above Justice and King of Cups was once AGAIN the 10 of Pentacles upright. And right at the bottom of the deck splayed out was flipped over that same two of cups despite my shuffling earlier. But also, if you don't read it for sign significators, the king of cups is the central figure with justice (obvious meaning) on one side mirrored by reversed strength (strength reversed is bullying and ego driven defensiveness dominating choices, to contrast it with justice is to say that you can only receive justice by confronting the negative traits of strength reversed) and the only way to the 10 of pentacles outcome above based on its position is to lean into consciously choosing justice over bullying/ego driven defensiveness.

So okay. Alright. Loud and clear. The through line promise of continuously getting 10 of pentacles upright that many time is the promise of partnership and legacy and abundance and everything a good life can offer for now and generations to come and that promise over and over and over. I just need to not doubt but instead build toward it. 

If you don't read tarot for all the other spreads, ask someone who does or look up the cards yourself ... I may come back to analyze it in words here but also I may get distracted and ADHD forget. So look it up or ask someone who speaks/reads tarot to interpret them. It's a hell of a set of cards to jump or be chosen by a cat or literally fall to the ground to get the message through to me.  I couldn't believe my eyes and definitely asked Mikaela (whose family raised her a Jehovah's witness yet her mom let her grow up with me being like her bonus older sister even knowing my wyrd and eclectic beliefs and spiritual gifts) to verify the cards I was seeing and that I kept getting the 10 of pentacles even when they all just slid off my lap for no reason other than my thinking/questioning. 

I told you, my cat Griffin has only been with me since late October but he is very VERY staunchly Team Eric no matter my questioning overthinking or considering if I should seek other options. He will occasionally let me listen to other music though eventually he will go over to my laptop start soft pawing at it to change the music to his favorite -- and at home he flat out won't let me listen to any other music by anyone I'm attracted to or have been considering pursuing something with and he will actually come up behind it and push closed my laptop screen then try to lay on it until I promise to play him the music he loves best. He will also go jump up on the piano bench and start tapping the piano keys or walking/standing on the piano to ask me to play Eric's music for him. Griffin is a very smitten kitten for never even having met the man or even seen his pictures or video....  Also, Spock would pull certain books off the shelves to open to random pages like he could read, particularly my multilingual Egyptian Book of the Dead and any of my history books on witch trials, and then sleep on top of those books he pulled off the shelves, but he never demanded I take out decks for him or picked cards though he would sometimes inspect whatever I pulled for my own questions  And of all my tarot decks (in order of acquiring: Thoth, wildwood, dali, cat tarot, light seers, Rackham fairytale, Egyptian art Nouveau, and now Nightmare Before Christmas) Griffin insisted on the Egyptian Art Nouveau cat worshiping ancient souled deck?! 

I don't know anyone else shit like this happens to. Even when I'm trying to be mundane have a cozy day at home with books and music and coffee and quiet, this is my life 😂

That said, I still don't see a way to get there given what is unhealed and unspoken and the mess that was made of what should have been simple. The brightening fatelines, my cat, and the cards can say all they damn well please -- I'm just not seeing any signs of any of that shifting or changing for the better and I've stopped expecting it ever will, just accepting it is what it is and it's what they've chosen and stood behind many times over for many years now. And I don't see any place for me in his life or any possibilities of rapprochement as long as I am ostracized and uninvited and unwanted in any central aspects to his life. I could be wrong, but then tell me how that's supposed to work now... Because I can't see the way to square that circle. (But to be on the safe side, I added the last bit here of my truth of how my head is wrapping around where we find ourselves after I was at work with my dog and well away from both my cat and the cards of that Egyptian Art Nouveau deck so neither could be trying to chastise me knock some sense into my overthinking circles.) Maybe I'll see my way to holding faith/hope again once things move into Pisces and/or Aries and it's all about the feels and the fiery will, but right now with everything piled up in fixed air? All I see since the sun moved out of Capricorn is the long term lack of communication, lack of movement, lack of basic caring/empathy to change, and the  immediacy of the need for me to focus my energies elsewhere it can be useful for the greater good. And none of that points to reasons to hold faith in Eric or to think he has any desires or intentions of choosing to have me in his life -- no matter what my cat or the cards seem to say about the matter....