This is the song where I listen. This is the song where I sit still. Until our heartbeats drown out the clock ticking. And the song is just I love you and always will. Good luck, good luck, good luck. These are tough times. But we'll get by. Good luck. These are tough times. But we'll get by. Good luck

 Hi hi! Missing me yet? Maybe not. Well, I missed the full moon on Sat, so happy full harvest moon!! She was gorgeous that night if you got to see her!! And the Lady Aurora did dance over parts of Wisco that night, but not as far south as Madison where I am. 

Ehrm, I actually haven't been doing much since last I posted here. I mean, actually, that's not true. I've been doing quite a lot with recent shows and family stuff, but it's all just living my life with the people in it things not anything super transformative or big exciting travel or anything, y'know? Not anything big or deep or transformative. Just time with family and friends who are chosen family when I've not been working or being an absolute hermit with my animals and my books and my music and my plants and my tea/coffee/wine/whiskey as the mood moves me.  Lots of AMAZING concerts/fests and theatre these last couple weeks! 

Also, I've been going a bit too nutters on the book buying shopping sprees.... Even for me. It's like... Something inside me just sort of flipped an internal intuitive switch said, "Must acquire all the books now because prices are going to skyrocket and better a little debt NOW then paying significantly more for them later even used. If you're ever going to want that paperback in the series, get it now or it will be way more pricey later, even used." It's very illogical but there it is. I told myself "Dani! STAHP! This is ridiculous, even for you! No more book stores! No more book shopping until your birthday! Seriously girly, Just STOP for right now!" My birthday is Friday. So it's not THAT long. And I have two preordered books that release on Sept 29 coming in tomorrow AND in the near future two more Lllewelyn titles (one on Greek cults about Hades and one on Morrigan related practices) to get my order of next year's astrological calendars during their 35% off sale over the free shipping line. So like, telling myself "No more book buying until your birthday!! Seriously girleen! Seriously!" And yet... And yet... I spent the last HOUR or more going through all the books available at Target (we're supposed to be boycotting them after their DEI stance shift. but also, it's been so long since I bought they might close my Target Red Card which would hurt my credit score AND I also need to buy more tampons before my next period. yeah I know, but also, I'm female. It's a thing we do and it's just part of life in a female body. I mean, I do have a moon cup, but with the ADHD, I always forget to boil it to sterilize it before my period starts and once it starts, it's just time to deal with it until it's done. I've never had painful periods or long ones -- like if it goes beyond three days, that's long for me. Been that was since I started menstruating. Short not painful periods with minimal PMS symptoms other than some bloating and chocolate cravings. So I'm rather spoiled by it, but also I do still need to get more organic cotton tampons before the moon enters Sag.) My excuse is a price check, to see if they are cheaper there than used prices right now (several are actually!) or cheaper there than ordering through my open cart I've been filling at bookshop.org (which my indie bookstore is currently set to Ink & Ivy) because I have plenty of other books to order from them... I also currently have an open cart for Arcadia in Spring Green as an excuse to go back (I was just there last week Weds) for some that I regret not buying that day AND so I can go through their bargain baskets because didn't have time before they closed when i was there on Weds....

So yeah. Books man. Books. Books and music and tea and travel and live shows (concerts/theatre/musicals) and plants and art. Those are the budget busters. Those are the "if you leave me unattended, there is no budget I will respect because choices are hard."  Those are the things that if left to my own devices, I will spend all my money on these instead of food or clothes because a girl can survive on meals mostly built around rice and beans potatoes and secondhand stores exist but damnit THIS girl cannot live without her books and music and tea and shows and plants!  Just like. Seriously. Books. Everyone comes with baggage. And my baggage numbers in the thousands of books. If you want me, plan on bookcases. So many bookcases. Also though, all my bookshelves are stacked double/triple thick (no joke) and so like if you ever wanted to make me the happiest ever, surprise me with booksheleves giving all my books a home. Especially if they're solid well build wooden bookcases to house my library collection.

I mean, at least i was honest about it with myself (and my fur babies and everyone I encountered at the bookstores I visited today -- I didn't actually see any humans tho except at the bookstores) when I got dressed today before heading over to Ink & Ivy, right? 

 

 

 Seriously though, I'm not sure what I'm not dealing with with all my book buying itch recently... But I've been really REALLY bad lately (even for me) and I've told myself no more books until my birthday but also that's literally this coming Friday and I have so much book buying I'm looking forward to that I promised myself I can do for my birthday. it's. It's maybe a problem....

Also, my bestie and I decided that for Cranberry Fest season (we still didn't make it this year to Warrens -- but her dad needed an ultrasound so she had a 4hr drive each way and didn't get back til late Sat night was sore/aching and didn't think she was ready for a "leave at 8am 2hr drive to go traipse through cranberry bogs and shop lots of art/flea markets/food vendors and see a small town parade, lol)  Anyway, we bought this back on Indie Bookstore Day with the promise to read it during cranberry harvest season. She read it all today because she had free time today indulged herself in that. I've also started it today, but had some plant stuff to do at work and went book shopping today (Whoops! Yeah, I failed to mention that, didn't I? I went to Ink & Ivy in person because they had a weekend discount spinner and I like them and then I stopped at Half Price Books because they were still open and I was driving past....Also though, at Ink & Ivy there was a deep overpowering sorrow in there when I went in.... Not sure if the bookstore is failing or the mom's breast cancer is back from remission, but she was having such a hard time... It brightened when we were talking for a bit, especially about books and cozy witchy things. I had bought a special edition of my favorite lip balm, Poppy & Pout, that was Practical Magic 2 themed. And she had seen it by herself since her daughter didn't want to go see it in theatre and I have plans to see it on Tuesday (the cheap theatre day) but also it meant we could talk familial witch things and she brightened up while I was chatting with her and with my sale -- 4 books and the two lip balms pack.)  So Crissy has already finished The Bog Wife  book and I've barely started this evening. We had plans to start it today though, I'm just not used to being the one behind when it comes to reading. She said it wasn't at all what she expected but she enjoyed reading it straight through today. It's southern gothic eco-horror family drama. But also, her taste in reading lately has been fall cozy romances whereas I'm already all in on the witchy Gothic supernatural horror spooky season reads. And that was VERY obvious when we were at Arcadia Bookstore last Weds ahead of seeing Casey and Diana (which was absolutely fantastic!!) Anyway, about a third of the way through, this is DEFINITELY much more my version of autumnal reading than Crissy's idea of fall reading. Definitely very much firmly in the Gothic horror supernatural (though not witchy) realm. 

Also, this is going to be my third Weds in a row with shows. Which is weird, because who has Weds plans?! But two weeks ago was the Bailen concert (which was fantastic!!! They're so good!!) and then last Weds was Casey & Diana (INCREDIBLE play!! I wasn't keen on it from their description, but after I read the script it was so good I insisted we had to see it even if we paid Touchstone full price for it. And we saw it the second to last night right before closing and it was so good that the closing monologue still had three of his fellow actors crying at curtain call.  It was my favorite APT production this year, maybe my favorite play/musical I've seen this year. It's a tear jerker though and a heavy subject even when it makes you laugh and better understand the humanness of a recent history era you may not have lived to know the truth about. Highly recommend! At least read the script, but also try to see a production if anyone near you ever does it!) And then this coming Weds, Sept 30, Gadan are playing in town at Atwood Music Hall so yet another concert on a Weds. It's just funny is all because it's so unusual to have three Wednesdays in a row busy (but nothing else this week other than Tues night and Weds night this week.)  

Luckily, I will have a lot of free time once we start next month!! (More time to buy books? HA! Maybe time to read them as well tho!) I have literally nothing Oct 1-16 other than Packers games, the Draconids meteor shower, and house sitting while my parents are out west at their Montana cabin (but they are taking Sophie with them since they are driving so I won't be having to be at two homes simultaneously. Second half of the month gets busy again though. Oct 17 is a Madison Forward soccer match; Oct 18 is the first symphony weekend of the new season; Oct 24 is Arcadian Wild at Stoughton Opera House; and Oct 28-Nov 1 my aunts Kath and Geeta will be in town. (Also somewhen in there I will have SVD assignments, I think the week between symphony and Arcadian Wild. I have my 6am til close for election official on Nov 3, but my Special Voting Deputy assignments to help assist voters in long term facilities cast their votes have not yet been assigned.)

Also also. Astro Poets horoscopes have been so beautiful full of promises! But also, I don't (yet?) see it reflected in my quotidian which has had no dating or anything romantic or moving the needle with anyone. I mean, they're gorgeous promises, but I've just been living my life with those in it and not really had any sort of epiphanies or changes in my love life. Not even anything tangible of the promise of shifting fate lines these recent weeks despite the promises in the Libra & Pisces horoscopes dancing together again. They're really lovely and bright and full of hope and definitely back in dialogue (especially compared to all the other signs) but as for manifesting in my daily lived life.... I mean maybe in dreams? Maybe in the 5d and down the bond? Maybe in the hope of a promise not yet fulfilled? But it's not yet been manifested in my daily lived life. Although, I guess that's rather included in last week's Libra horoscope isn't it?

Astro Poets Horoscopes: 

 "Week of 9/13 in Libra: You have found the right place to rest your heart. With blue cups filled you share everything spilling over. The stars are there and purple. There’s an emotion that holds. Hold it, too."

"Week of 9/13 in Pisces: The forever fruit of dreams. Do you eat it? You sing into the distance. You have a mind for this. You can see the best parts begin again."

"Week of 9/20 in Libra: What could be is not always there. But what is is. That’s you with your beloved. Sing the songs you know are there. It’s not all gone, ever."

"Week of 9/20 in Pisces: The light is amber. And it shines through this part. What you know is the best part. And so it rings like a light. Like an opening." 

 "Week of 9/27 in Libra: Love is what remains always. You put the hats within the place they reside. Some water that goes around its opening. Curved and forgotten. And gold."

"Week of 9/27 in Pisces: You found another thing that shone in the light. Bright yellow dreams. And green things that are not remaining. If love is there, then it should be. Be within the love you are."

 

 [Post title: lyrics to the Punch Brothers song This is the Song (Good Luck) which has been stuck in my head tonight. I've been listening to Punch Brothers pretty constantly these recent weeks especially since seeing them live at the Pabst last Sunday. Not the only thing I've been listening to. But it is yet again a very frequent choice for me when I put music on at home.]

She rings like a bell through the night And wouldn't you love to love her? She rules her life like a bird in flight And who will be her lover? All your life you've never seen Woman taken by the wind Would you stay if she promised you heaven? Will you ever win?

Happy dark of the moon! I mean, actual new moon is tomorrow (well today now I guess, but still not til tonight) to plant the new seeds you want in your life now the eclipse window is past but we are entered into the dark of the moon and the moon is in the sign the new moon will occur. We're not quite there, don't plant your seeds of the wishes you want to grow in your life during the dark of the moon before the new moon, do it right at the new moon or just past when the first sliver of light (still not visible to the naked eye) is starting to grow. I know people who prefer to set their wishes and intentions before the new moon exacts and they compare it to the seed in the dark seeking the light, but I still say that you want the moment when the seed cracks open for your wishes/intentions and that is the exact new moon or just after (even if the plant itself doesn't rise above the soil level quite yet, not until the light is visible to the naked eye in the thin little crescent moon.) But if you've been feeling stuck and know what you want but not yet moving toward it, then the new moon on the 10 at 10:27pm (central) is your time to make the wish and take the step(s) to start it growing into reality. No matter what it is. You're right about at the time for choosing the change and the new you want to see growing into your life.

There's also a lot of other things happening right during the dark of the moon between now and the new moon tonight to line this one up astrologically -- Mercury moving into Libra, Venus into Scorpio, Uranus starting it's retrograde... So anything to do with harmonious peace/justice building communication, soul deep transformations or rebirth in love/beauty/money, and reevaluating revolutionary shifts or fixing mistakes caused by the wordy rapid communication/reacting/overthinking of Gemini. Those are the areas that get an extra oomph for change in the 18 hours or so before this new moon setting the environment of the dark of the moon for the new seeds to be sown. And then Fri sundown starts Rosh Hashanah to celebrate the apples and honey and sweet new things coming into your life for the new year to come AND Yom Kippur for asking forgiveness making atonement and righting any wrongs you recognize that the past versions of you did is next Sun at sundown, just like 48 hours before the equinox point which is the evening of the 22 this time.  I'm just saying that, even if you don't typically set yourself to wishing and intentions for what you want to make real for your future self EVERY new moon, this one right after the eclipse window of fated changes/realizations and then with all these powerful shifts in the dark moon is a pretty powerful one. It's a good one if your heart or your head knows what you want to bring into the light be born into your future.

 Um, I don't actually have much to say right now?... I just sort of felt pulled and called and wanted my words and presence focusing here like a tide shift calling me -- but I didn't actually have anything I needed or wanted to say. Just called as a wanting for my words here. Which is why I opened with a happy greeting and the timestamp of this astrological moment we're in the doorway about to enter.  But I don't actually have anything in my head or heart demanding I speak it out.

Crissy and Denis were supposed to come for cocktails this evening because it's been a while but then Crissy didn't feel good today left work early so we decided to reschedule. Only then we realized that remaining Sept is somehow crazy busy and we have only 1 maybe 2 workday evenings to consider for it across multiple schedules, lol. Me personally, I have a lot of music coming up actually and I'm super excited for all of it!!! This Sun is a Punch Brothers show in Milwaukee (will watch the Packers game dvred by my mum later in the week with her and the doggos), Weds is the Bailen show in Madison and it's at Bur Oak so it's going to be very small intimate show which will be a fantastic way to see them, and then Fri and Sat (18/19) is Fox Cities Irishfest up in Appleton which I'm excited for, then Sept 20 is the Skerryvore show in Madison (they are also at Fox Cities, but also I haven' seen the Skerry lads since the Spring so I'll take all three opportunities thanks), and then the Equinox, and then the full moon and planning to FINALLY check out Cranberry Fest in Warrens (I've somehow never been even though Wisconsin is like the biggest cranberry producing state), and then on the 30th Gadan are playing in Madison as well -- and also I want to see Practical Magic 2 in the theatre but don't yet have tickets/set plans for it. So as I said. Lots of music and the changing of the seasons through it. Oct slows down for me though. Very significantly slows down in Oct. My parents are headed out west to their Montana cabin start of the month and then I have nothing written in my calendar except the meteor showers and Packers games until my aunts will be in town Oct 28-Nov 1 (I will have SVD in there at some point ahead of the Nov. 3 midterm election official work, but I don't have my assignments yet for it just them wanting to know which days I expect to be available for it.) 

 So anyway. Somehow my Sept is busy but it's busy with music and with musicians who make me happy whenever I get a chance to see them and my very last Irish fest until next year. And getting to see musicians who make me happy and whose songs make my heart sing is forever and always one of my favorite things!! (Fun fact about me: Did you know that when I was 19, I accidentally cursed myself by claiming to a singer-songwriter friend of mine that I wasn't the sort of girl that musicians date and he told me I assume too much and ever since then, EVERY single man I've dated has been a musician or singer or composer or songwriter even if that is not at all the context in which I met them? As curses go, it's not a bad one as far as I'm concerned. Just curious that I stated an assumption, more about my nature and the sorts of sorority girl chicks musicians typically date than anything else, and the Universe has been shoving my nose in it ever since that somehow I don't fit the stereotype but I am apparently the sort of girl that only musicians date. 😆💀 And I don't mean that in a "Martin and I have a long standing flirtation way" (he has a girlfriend back in Glasgow and has for maybe 6 months or so? He and Aimée are very cute together she's a good gym rat buddy for him which is very important to him, and he shares her socials posts about him and they seem very cute and happy. I've told you, I don't love people in a jealous way and if you don't choose me then I have no problem letting you go have whatever/whoever you do choose for your own happiness -- I'm happy he has found such a great match for him and I have no desire to push for anything else because him dating her has flipped the mental switch inside me so I still find him hot but not sexually attractive.) So like I don't bring this up in a long term flirtation that led nowhere, I mean all my actual ex boyfriends have been musicians/singers since I told JP (who I never dated) at 19 that I'm not the sort of girl a musician dates and he told me I assume too much....  Every single ex since I said that at 19, every single person I've dated since then...  Varying levels of music as hobby vs music as career  and nobody has ever heard of them vs incredibly famous awkward to hear certain songs on the radio knowing they were writ about me and we're not together any longer. So anyway. yeah. Accidentally cursed myself at 19 but at least I love music deeply and I don't actually mind at all having a dating history of only musicians and signer-songwriters without trying it just sort of has happened that way.)

 Ummm, I'm just rambling now and none of it really is important, just aimless chatter whatever pops into my head. Which is maybe a waste of time and words. Or maybe it's not. I still don't know what the tidal pull saying I had to put words here was coming from so I have no idea if I've helped fill that need I was feeling but not understanding or having a plan or a need in me to write about. So maybe it's time for me to end this and go make some tea and munch some midnight apples (oooh but it's apple season and I love apple season best of all for harvest/food type seasonality -- waaaaay too much of my diet gets converted to eating many many pounds of apples every single week whenever I can get local organic heirloom orchard apple varieties!  Actually, eating apples while reading, best of all climbing a tree to find a good perch in the tree in which to read and eat apples, is one of my forever favorite things!  Honestly, if I could live where I had an orchard and flower/herb gardens and bees and near the woods and fur babies/feather babies and plenty of wooden shelves of a library for alllll my books and music woven through it all, it's all I've ever wanted in my someday house since elementary school when I first started imagining what sort of place I wanted someday for a house.  I never imagined my own wedding because that always seemed to me like it's about the two coming together so imagining it without the other person involved didn't seem right to me even as a kid -- but imagining what would matter to me in my someday house, that I've often thought about it. And all the iterations of it I have imagine, no matter what else shifted, I gave always seen it full of lots of natural light and apple trees and flowers and herbs and bees and the woods nearby and animals and books and music)

 O! And here is Sunday's Astro Poets horoscope.  They do seem to dialogue. but what's funny is that for well over a year allllll the Libra ones have been about being beloved, and yet this week these are the only two signs that explicitly didn't use the word love anywhere in them. (I have no idea about these orange frogs tho... Poison Dart Frogs? Am I supposed to go visit the herpetarium at the zoo then? I could go see our three polar bears I suppose if I do that!! Yes, Henry Vilas Zoo in Madison now has THREE polar bears after the Grizzly bear sisters moved to Lincoln Park Zoo in Chicago so we could have two separate enclosures for our polar bears in hopes of cubs and they have been mating so it's a very real probability we will have polar bear cubs right here for me to visit for free in the not toooo distant future, though between delayed implantation and first round of cubs not usually being viable in polar bears, might be another year entirely before we see Nora exhibiting denning behaviors. How I got from orange frogs to polar bear cubs is rather a stretch.... but our zoo in town has poison dart frogs and three polar bears (with hopes for future cubs) so it's not too big a stretch even if they don't ever belong in the same buildings/enclosures, lol)

Astro Poets Horoscopes:

"Week of 9/6 in Libra: There is true feeling here. But the best part is that you get to choose where to put it. So many orange frogs. You gather strength. You know where to go."

"Week of 9/6 in Pisces: In the middle you see it. A chartreuse awakening. A bright pink holding. Go sink into a hand. Take a nap with someone." 

P. S. I'm way too full of power again and need to dissipate it through my gifts in a healthy way.... I had written all this and posted it and then I was trying to decide if I wanted to go home or munch an apple get some more work done when a horse fly that was trapped inside started buzzing me again. (I know I know, many see flies as spiritual protectors/messengers or fair folk, but they get to be annoying when they flow too near your head. Especially if it is going to rain so there's a real risk of them biting. I've never yet been stung by any type of bee, but I have been bit by horse flies and deer flies and they HURT.) I got angry at the fly buzzing around near me, just a flash of irritation really more than deep anger, and at the surge of my temper at the fly not leaving me alone I heard a pop from behind my computers setup and then my UPS started shrieking and the light on it was flashing red. Everything still worked but the noise was maddening made me more upset and I didn't trust if the ups was compromised now (left a note so it can be assessed in the morning, perks of working at your family owned computer repair store) and shut everything down. No amount of holding down the button to reset was turning it off of baneful shrieking eel mode, so I unplugged everything just in case for overnight. And then before climbing under/behind my desk to find where it plugs into the wall, I told the ups, "Look. I'm just going to go home now. I will leave everything unplugged and go home. But I need you to stop screaming when I hold the button to reset you because your noise has me too agitated to be allowed to touch the security pad and neither of us want me messing that up again while irritated...." It reset for me that time after having a talk with it telling it what I needed from it so I could go home, but no idea if we should trust that ups again or not so I just left everything unplugged... (None of the others in the building went off, just mine.) When I lose control of my temper, electronics fail or give weird error codes that supposedly don't exist and nobody can reset until I calm down. It's why I can't wear watches, not even "dumb" watches and why cell phones and wifi don't work around me and why an all electric car would be a bad idea especially after seeing how Priuses malfunction every time I get frazzled and don't recenter while trying to turn one on or off.... I get truly angry and the Internet or electricity goes out, and not just in the building I'm in.... Even me just getting annoyed at someone talking really loudly during a concert so they are louder than the vocals or instruments can cause speakers to crackle or blow a channel and mics/amps to feedback if I'm too close to them... I can't control it, it's just like wildfire solar flares whenever I lose the reins on my temper and get angry or even mildly irritated. I've had to spend my whole life studying philosophy and trying to rein in my temper before I break conductive electronic things that can't be repaired or replaced. It can actually be really REALLY bad if I'm not careful to get my temper and my chi back under my control. Luckily I tend to have a quick burning temper that flares but disappears entirely once the event is past.  More like solar flares than smoldering pressure building tectonic anger types. (My Mars is Sag so my anger/fighting style is a fire sign and my Mercury is Libra so my communication style is air. So that actually makes sense for my birth chart as well as how I am when I lose my temper that it's a quick burst that travels far is high energy and then it's done burns itself out. My sorrows/hurt and deeper emotions are like oceans with tsunamis and storms, but my Venus is Scorpio so it still makes sense why my anger and sadness are so different in expression.)   Wood and stone are always safe (though fluorite too near me always cracks or shatters with my strong emotions, even positive ones), metal and glass can be iffy one because it conducts and the other because it is brittle breaks easily, living beings feel it like sharp stabby prickly but it doesn't seem to do harm, anything electric/electronic or signals through the air (like radio, wifi, cell, or blue tooth) are too sensitive for me having any sort of negative emotions anywhere near them but especially if I happen to touch them or be within several feet of them..... Light bulbs especially have a hard time, but it's not just light bulbs can't take me losing control of my temper energy spikes.... Even if it's just mild annoyance/irritation. Trust me, you will always know if I'm angry at you -- doesn't matter what I try to control in my face or voice, if I lose control of my temper it's palpable and effects everything electronic nearby.

[Post Title: lyrics from the Fleetwood Mac song Rhiannon.]

 I had another polar bear dream last night/early this morning. I remember it better than the one I had when I was that exhausted running on too little sleep on early Weds morning. It wasn't really a plot driven dream, more an emotional driven dream. He seemed... sad is the wrong word... weight upon him?.... Like trying to move forward and determined to keep going for your goal but with weight upon your limbs like severe anemia or being shackled with chains so everything is harder than it would be if not anemic or without weights strapped upon you - but still determined to keep moving toward the goal despite the difficulty of it.  If there were a word for that state as an emotion, that's where he was at in the dream. Feeling that sort of way because I was so low on belief in his love existing outside of dream space and faith there is a path for us of being together in the real world. And I can understand that. It hurts and is hard to go on when weighed down by the disbelief and doubts of others expectations of you.

But, when something never plays out in someone's real world choices, it's hard to carry faith or belief in it. And the more years that pass the harder that grows because the more years of evidence against it have accumulated. That doesn't change what I want, what I would choose if I could, or how I would react if I saw him right in front of me -- I have a very stubborn heart as well as a very optimistic soul especially when I view things from the long view -- it means doubt in any expectation I can have what i would choose will become real or that our paths will cross again in the quotidian of this lifetime. But also, when the bond is this loud and vibrant, I also fall asleep and wake up and randomly throughout a day will pour love for him down the bond to make sure he feels it as well to know it IS. I can't help it when it's so alive and loud and vibrant a Clarion bell inside me. I will embrace it and love it while I have it, but I don't have any expectations it will stay this time (since it never has before.) If I'm wrong in that assumption and way of seeing it, I look forward to proving me wrong.

It rather confuses me a bit to have had two polar bear dream space connections in under a week.  Not because that's too frequent -- it used to be a lot more frequent then that and would happen every night or nearly every night during some of the peak months/years in the past.  What confuses me is "why now?" After so long with the bond quiet and no dreams, we got close to half a year without me having any dreams or 5d contact with him, I don't understand why it would wake up and be so active again right now. There's nothing in my own life or choices or anything I did that woke it up -- I just welcomed it when the connection opened wide  again. but I don't understand the why of it being like this again right now. I just know it's not due to anything in me or my life or my choices... Which is why I'm currently a bit confused by it. Not confused enough to reject it or anything stupid like that. Just me being confused but happy confused about it existing this way at this time. And me enjoying it while I have it because I don't understand why it's there or for how long I will have it before it disappears again and nothing to show for it in my lived life if/when the dreaming goes away again and the connection doesn't feel so alive and real, especially not in my everyday waking life.

I may be confused and not certain what to conclude from it or what I ought to do other than appreciate it while I have it, but I do know that no amount of thinking or head guidance is going to answer anything for me on this. So I'm going to go make myself some dinner now -- because somehow it's already after 8 and I haven't even started the dinner making process yet. So I'm going to set this aside until I (hopefully, eventually) have some better answers or understanding and for right now at least I'll go put my focus on sustaining this body by making me some dinner.

P.S. In case you were wondering what dinner meant tonight, the answer is Italian three cheese tortellini with veggies (caramelized Vidalia onions, fresh picked Cajun belle and cayenne peppers for some sweet heat (but not overwhelming like my Carolina reapers and trinidad Scorpions and ghost peppers provide), carrots, sweet red pepper, frozen green beans, and fresh basil added right at the end before plating) and a home made arrabbiata style tomato-pepper sauce that I froze after making waaaaay too much of it at that time. It was tasty. Would have been even better with garlic cheese bread or even just a nice crusty bread to appreciate the sauce flavors better and then with the bread it would have been a solid two meals instead of overeating because not enough to save, but alas I did not go to Farmer's Market today so I'm currently completely out of bread until I bake some or go buy some more. I did pair it with a rosé that had been brought up to APT but not drunk because time ran out before the play was to start so then sat in a black car for hours before making it back into a fridge -- so needed to be drunk asap before the oxidizing got worse from the excess heat during its storage.

I know a place where no one's lost. I know a place where no one cries. Crying at all is not allowed, Not in my castle on a cloud.

 I make no claims or promises from that last post about any major emotional tectonic shifts inside me or how I'm seeing anything from how I've been seeing it these many long months of this year. A dream is a dream and lived life is how one chooses to live it. A dream can be beautiful and cozy and feel like coming home for the first time in a long time and still be just a dream with nothing to show for it in the real world of lived choices. A dream is only a vehicle for a tectonic emotional/mental shift if it changes your understanding or perceptions of things or if it drives a person to make changes in how they choose to live their life. 

And as far as I can see in my lived life, Weds was just another Weds with no obvious reason I can see for the dream I had -- and the choices anyone in the dreams live by in their daily lives haven't changed. and dreaming about someone (even in shared dream space) doesn't mean they want you in their lived life or there's a space for you there. A dream may be a wish your heart makes, but Disney tropes don't shape the choices anybody else makes or change the quotidian.

I'm sorry if that seems overly cynical, but I'm trying to be realistic about the distance between castles we build in the air of our dreaming and the realities in which we live. Yes, the dream was beautiful and emotional and heart healing -- but is there anything I have to show it was more than my own heart's longing? Do I have anything I could hold onto believe it reflected to me what is in his own heart? No, I know only what it showed me is still my own truths and inside my own heart despite everything gone awry creating such a distance and letting go between us. And my own longing has never been a factor in whether I am or am not part of the life he chooses to build for himself. 

As Henry David Thoreau said, "If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them." But there are no foundations I can build from this castle in the air of my dreaming, not even my vision dreams or shared dream space, when the foundations are about who or what another person decides to have in their own life. And that makes it just a dream. A beautiful dream that promises of a healing that could be. But also, it's still a dream and only in dreams did it shift anything as far as I can tell....

With my Pisces rising and eighth house Scorpio stellium, I live too much already in the realms of dreams and prophecies and what I glimpse slipping through the veils between worlds and time. I can't be letting my dreams revive false hopes in me for a future built on choices nobody else is going to make because those choices/future paths matter only to me at this point. I need something more concrete before I will let me believe that he shared my dream space and it reflected to me his truths as well as revealing to him my own. I need reasons to think the dreams could translate into real world choices of the lives we live. Otherwise why get my hopes up again only to watch them be destroyed once more by the light of reality as it is and his choices for what he wants his life built around this lifetime? Why make myself cry again over what I long for thought could be real but never was chosen by anyone but me? Better to keep telling myself it isn't what he wants isn't what he has chosen for his life thus far or shown any signs he would choose for his future than to open up again old wounds inside me trying to heal. 

It was a dream. A beautiful castle in the air of a dream that made me happy brought a glow to my heart. But still it was only a dream I had. No part of anyone's lived experiences or choices at this time. Not even of my own lived experiences, for all I would choose it if my longing were enough to build the foundations that would make it real. But sometimes, even my wishing and dreaming and visions aren't enough to make the improbable real. At least, not on the strength of just my longing when the freewill choices of others are involved.

[Post title: lyrics from Castle On a Cloud from the musical Les Misérables]

Who knows how much further we'll go on? Maybe I'll be sorry when you're gone. I'll take my chances I forgot how nice romance is. I haven't been there for the longest time

So earlier in the evening, my head was so busy and it had so many thoughts zipping about and words I wanted to get out of it that I had all sorts of things I wanted to write out here just to get them out of my head. Only I had some work things to get done and somewhere around 8 or 9ish, my overthinking just sort of all settled out of me and cleared without getting it into word forms  And now I really can't remember what all it was I wanted to write about. I mean, I could bullet point list the subjects, but not the story telling narrative flow or what in them seemed like it mattered enough to need me telling it out. Most of it probably wasn't important, just writing out about recent things going on in my life on my mind and/or heart to get a better view of it or to release it. I guess if it matters, it will bubble up again and I can write about it at that point.

One of the things I wanted to mention though is still there and it's brighter and clearer now than it was earlier with all those other things swirling about so noisy in my head.  So I'll tell that now as best I can. 

So yesterday (well, Tues so two days ago now) I had to leave home at like 3:30am (also couldn't sleep before that) to drop off my dog and pickup people for the drive to be sure we could be in downtown Chicago by 7:45a for a work event (hosted by HP at the Aon Center, it was about the expectations of ai within the industry and included presentations and a chance to round table  ask questions of reps from Microsoft, Nvidia, and of course HP) which then included a food/drink included  event at the Cubs v. Brewers game so didn't get home again until nearly 2am. So it was just a very very long day and I was doing all the driving (yay for ADHD and intermittent migraines since I was 12 meaning no discernible Circadian rhythm or jet lag so I can stay awake for long periods of time and can sleep any time of day or night except the liminal gloaming hours of dusk and dawn so I can do that easily.) which meant that i went to sleep almost right away once home in the wee hours of Weds and slept til sunrise then slept most of the day on Weds until getting up to head in to work to water my outdoor plants. Which is all very banal lifey update quotidian blah blah blah. I know. but that's just the setup of what I wanted to write about that's quite bright inside my head after all the rest of the over wordiness settled out into an inner luminous calm/hope/brightness around 8ish or 9ish tonight. I have no idea the why of that, just the isness of it. And I'm not certain of the time because it was closer to 9 that I looked at the clock, but it had been a while like that before I looked at a clock.

Anyway. The only thing that remained inside me of all the things I had wanted to write about when the rest of the agitating thoughts all settled out into the calming brightness around 8 or 9ish. And that was that in the early hours before sunrise, for the first time in a very long while I had polar bear dreams again. I remembered them and was thinking on it while watching the sunrise before going back to sleep -- but I didn't write them down and the clarity of them faded after I went back to sleep. I remember the feeling of them, the coziness and sense of coming home and joy. And I remember him saying he'd been sad and scared I'd forgotten him or didn't want him anymore and that was why he hadn't been reaching me for so long and I told him that wasn't it at all -- that I didn't see a place for me where I was wanted welcomed in his life so I had given up trying/believing reaching for him could get me anything real but I still and always very much did want him even if I could only have it in shared dream space and that there was only joy inside me whenever the connection flared alive. And I remember that it was like a weight lifting off him when I told him that truth of mine and how there was brightness shining through him after that which had been missing at the start.... And I remember the way it felt like being wrapped in a big hug and cherished after that and waking up with that feeling still flowing through me and surrounding me for the sunrise. And I know that as I drifted back to sleep I sent strong as I could my own love down the bond to be sure he felt it whether waking or sleeping at that point.  But then after sleeping again and not writing it down at all, the clarity of the dream had faded so I couldn't tell you where we were or anything else other than that set of messages communicated between us during the shared dream space.  And that since then, the bond has been very vibrantly awake and alive and full of light and love all day while I slept and across the hours since I got up.... 

 I don't know why though. I just know the is of what I can remember from the dream I awoke from at sunrise and how it's felt inside my inner space since then...  

 Anyway, past time I should pack up head home from work. I'm not tired now though, which isn't great as tomorrow evening I have plans to go to APT in Spring Green for a picnic and to see Sueño (severe weather risk allowing) so hopefully after I get home and get into my pyjamas and make me some chamomile tea and read for a bit I can get some sleep so I'll not be toooo sleepy for the play or the drive there and back again.

If/when I have the excess of words that need out over the other things, I guess maybe I'll write up again. But for now, this was the only one still bright and shiny and needing to be written out so it's all you get.  O and here's the most recent astro poets horoscope from Sunday if you want it. (and if you don't want it, it's still going to be included and you can just skim or skip it as you desire.)

 

Astro Poets Horoscopes: 

"Week of 8/30 in Libra: Love is there for you. The sweetest emotion and a night. The number 8 that repeats. Do you know what it could be? It is."

"Week of 8/30 in Pisces: The light is bright with orange. It could be a new beginning. It sees itself as it was. There are ways into the future. This is that way." 

 

 [Post title: lyrics from the Billy Joel song For the Longest Time. Yesterday I wore my Billy Joel at Wrigley Field Cubbies tee. So maybe that's why this song is in my head tonight after the words all settled out and again as I wrote this. Or maybe it's for reasons unknown to me but that make sense in some cosmic cause and effect transcendent way. Also though, it suits what I did write about, so maybe it's just subconscious associations]

 Two posts within a couple days? Enjoy it because no promises when next I'll be writing here. This is more just a follow up addendum on the last post. Some thoughts and things I felt incomplete or that I wanted to talk more about it or that are just floating about in my head so i want to get into word form so i can better release them. 

I just wanted to say (and I think I've written about this before but it always bears repeating when I choose to talk about my precogs instead of just bearing them inside me) that it's not a gift you can make money from or use within the modern society. It's just flashes up to me from the long time in which immortal beings reside not the linear time in which mortal beings tend to live -- and usually there's some sort of emotional tie to it. But what it doesn't have is context, there's no temporal-spatio geo-location points to it. I can't tell you where it's going to happen unless there's context clues I recognize in the flash of images I get and I can't tell you WHEN it's going to happen relative to when i experience it, only that it WILL happen. And a lot of times, it's echoes of a collective pain or terror that are the emotions that send it to me in the larger term global tragedy scale.... And not just human pain or terror, also the pain/suffering/terror of the animals and plants I've always been connected to. Bears, horses, deer, canines, felines, crows, eagles/hawks, vultures, swans, trees (especially very old trees or species of trees I have strong ties/bonds with, but the screaming of trees generally is some of the loudest to me both across time and space -- these global fires have been horrific upon me...and they get worse before they get better. Honestly, it may have been a subconscious shutting down of my own gifts because it was too much pain overload for me to bear for a while there hearing the trees and the dying wild ones in this time. It's possible that was the source of the disconnect between my present self and my future selves.)  Most of the time, what I see and carry aren't things you could use to stop the events from happening or somehow cash in on it with these stupid polymarket scams. (Seriously though, if you have prior knowledge then bet on it before acting it's not a bet it's fraud and if you hold the power you can make it real when/if something will happen, then those aren't bets they're frauds/scams.) Anyway. You can't make money from it and you can't save the world from it. If I'm lucky, and it happens very rarely compared to the immutable precogs but it DOES happen, what I get is a personalized contingent precog (usually touching on someone or something tied to me at a soul level) where my foreknowledge gives me enough free will choice options that I can influence the future path and avert the bad fate I saw. Those usually make me panicky with an immediacy of, "we need to do this now because I only have a finite time to shift fate lines" especially if I can't get the person to listen to me or trust me so they do what needs to be done.  But it does happen. Sometimes. Only with those tied to my own soul, not just my heart. And it makes it worth it when I can save somebody who matters to me from a bad fate in exchange for me carrying all the terrible immutable precogs of intense terror/grief/death from everywhere/anywhere in the world fate lines. But as a general rule, you can't use it to make something happen or stop something happening or make a profit from the gift of playing Cassandra. It's not for that. It's not for success in the modern society. It's for bearing witnesses and chronicling what it is to live in this part of the timeline on this planet and sometimes, rarely but still it happens, it's for saving the continued existence of someone who matters to me so they stay here longer in their current life. 

 And it's important to remember that about these types of precogs. It's a wild gift/curse. It can't be controlled and it can't be used to profit in this society. And the other quotidian "little" personal precogs are just... helpful when I can't decide or reassurance I still have a future in this body or just something that touches my emotions deeply further down the timeline.

 Does that make sense? Maybe?... It's a wyrd thing. I know. Part of why I have spent so much of this life single is that it's very hard to explain or talk about my gifts and to know when to come out of the broom closet. I don't like the fear reaction or the putting me on a pedestal reaction or the betrayal reaction that I didn't tell them sooner -- but it's very hard to know when and how to share about these aspects of my isness. Most men don't understand or don't believe it until they witness it and then it typically freaks them out or they put me on a pedestal which I've never liked (but especially after my last life I can't stand it and anybody who tries to do that, I react by dragging my own self down into the mud to remind them I'm human, merely human, same as them and everyone else as long as I'm embodied in a mortal form.) But it's not a thing most people have to deal with in dating, but I always have. It goes beyond just "I'm a witch and a pagan" and into the realm of "I have powerful gifts to know and do impossible things that defy modern science." And when in dating are you supposed to have THAT conversation?!?! Hell if I know. 

 Anyway. Also. the benadryl IS helping Waffles with her allergy symptoms (which I'm like 99.5% certain now are grass related -- especially since even on benadryl, her feet get red and swollen and itchy when she goes outside in the grass. The untreated grass -- my mum won't use it now because I get migraines from the chemical ones but also I get very upset when the pesticides/herbicides are used and it kills my bees and fireflies and butterflies and dragonflies and bird friends and the toads.)

Speaking of allergies.... My own petrol products related allergies (especially to polyester fibres) have been AWFUL since my most recent sunburn.... I got burned badly at Twin Cities Irishfest (not one of my 20 worst sunburns, probably not even my 50 worst -- but everyone tells me that is worse and it was a burn bad enough to blister and took over two weeks to heal the redness/warmth/peeling.) Ever since then I've been breaking out in terrible hives EVERY time I wear or brush against polyester again. It's really fucking miserable. i hope it settles so I don't have to purge all polyester from my wardrobe. I mostly wear natural fibres because I prefer the feel and my skin doesn't react to it, but I also own things that are poly or poly blends, especially band shirts. And it would make me sad to have to stop wearing them... It's also why I don't wear sun shirts -- the more heat/sun the faster the hive reaction to polyester happens with me. So I can't wear polyester sun shirts so I don't get sunburned (and I'm fair skinned enough I get 7.5 minutes cumulative of sun per day before the stabbing  needles in every cell feeling of start of burning begins.) And natural fibre sunshirts are REALLY spendy for my budget....So I just burn when I forget to reapply my sunscreen. Which, given ADHD time blindness, happens more often than not if I'm in direct sun can't find shade. Like on Harriet Island for Twin Cities Irishfest. Anyway, right now, I can't wear ANYTHING with polyester in it without breaking out in itchy hives wherever it contacts my skin. Except my shoes, but that's mostly because my feet are calloused and calluses don't get hives. Most of my allergy reactions are petro chemical reactions or food related (pork is a gi protein lack but I do get hives if it touches my skin, certain West Coast hops but not European hops in beer make my throat/Eustachian tubes itch so no IPA beers for me. And sometimes coconut also makes my throat/inner ears itch. Also, for reasons nobody understands, all beers/drinks bottled in Colorado Springs and all coconut/pistachio products from Starbucks specifically (but not anywhere else) cause a throat closing anaphylactic reaction which is scary so I just avoid them now.) Petro chemical derived products also tend to give me bad migraines or causs me syncope spells, and as they poison Mama Gaia more and more, my reactions to them seem to be getting worse.... So anywhere, I'm currently not allowed to wear or have touch against my skin except on the soles of my feet any synthetic polyester or my skin is breaking out in bad hives (even where I didn't get sunburned so badly more than two weeks ago now in Minne/St. Paul.)

Also. My mum gave me a birthday gift today that she'd ordered for me because it came in from the Kickstarter even though my birthday isn't until Oct 2. But she wanted me to be able to use it sooner, though I'll still wait for cleansing it the next full or new moon once we're beyond the eclipse portal. It's a gorgeous tarot deck hand painted by a South Korean artist called The Cat's tarot of Wondrous Journeys. And it's absolutely stunning!!! I did look through the entire deck, but I haven't shuffled it or worked with it yet. And I won't until after the eclipse energy is past and I can meet it at the right time of the moon in the right head/heart space for introducing myself to a new tarot deck. But she's a gorgeous deck!!! I'll have to try to remember to take pictures and share it here!

 

 Um, in case you want them, here are alllllll the Libra and Pisces astro poet horoscopes since last I shared them. I lost the thread of them dancing together like they were for so long. But I had an intuitive hunch that maybe it's still there and I just didn't see it. So I continued collecting them. Just in case they're there and I want to come back to them to find them or anyone else can find the thread I lost binding the two of them together like it had been doing for over a year before I lost the dance of the two signs with each other. But. Maybe it's still there and i just didn't see it across the intervening months. Looking back through them now tonight after collecting them week upon week, I see it again though it got more distance in it and sometimes it danced between weeks like reactionary not so much dialoguing in the same week or subsequent weeks. But tonight now, I can see the dialogue and the dance between them again after like 4 months of thinking it gone and lost and maybe was never there except in my own mind pattern seeking. So here they are. In case maybe anyone else can see the pattern more clearly than I have recently.

 

Astro Poets Horoscope:

"Week of 4/26 in Libra: Nothing is dread. In fact joy is here. Curling up it could be. A party or more. Holding a sweet forgiveness."

"Week of 4/26 in Pisces: The ocean. Will you go there. You do not need to see any of it. You hold the parts in. Sing it again." 

"Week of 5/3 in Libra: The sun was bright and yellow. You bit it and out glowed these words. Love is what calls to you. It is a book. It is a beginning."

"Week of 5/3 in Pisces: Nothing was the difference. And yet you remained. Because you could. Because you didn’t want to do anything differently. Be there now."

"Week of 5/10 in Libra: Love echoes. It sings with words that are shown. It can’t be again. Green everywhere. A sight of love."

"Week of 5/10 in Pisces: Not a parody. Not a replication. But a new day. A new evening. Go walking in it."

"Week of 5/17 in Libra: There was nothing. And for that you knew it. Something held. A pink light. A friend off in the distance."

"Week of 5/17 in Pisces: Nothing so much. As the aqua-green glass. And a book. Lined with papers. That you had forgotten you wrote." 

"Week of 5/24 in Libra: Love holds on. To a yellow dream. That makes an imprint upon itself. You don’t need to focus. You know already. To dream the dream is the thing."

"Week of 5/24 in Pisces: There wasn’t a holding piece. And yet you assumed so. You held it with your own hands. And you landed gracefully. And you knew the divine."

"Week of 5/31 in Libra: Many of two. But are they one? As well as well. The number 8. Infinite love. Infinite relationships."

"Week of 5/31 in Pisces: It truly was not it. But that doesn’t mean it wasn’t worth something. In the dark you knew. Could hear the humming. Your name." 

"Week of 6/7 in Libra: Love will flow to you. In the positive bath of it you will grow. Power is in the orange light. You are powerful within the blue. Within the neon pink."

"Week of 6/7 in Pisces: Something into infinity. And what you saw were stars. A beginning. Blue and gold velvet. A friend."

"Week of 6/14 in Libra: There doesn’t have to an ending. In fact there isn’t at all. Images that reflect. A mirror the distance. A mirror as a book."

"Week of 6/14 in Pisces: The place was closed. And yet you could get in. A key is round and large. You can go in it. You can see through it."

 "Week of 6/21 in Libra: Nothing can leave. You remember that in green. You hold onto the best parts. And with fervor. With a blue fever."

"Week of 6/21 in Pisces: The music of it all. Played in front of you. Do not find yourself there. Find yourself everywhere. With lemons and figs." 

"Week of 6/28 in Libra: A very light romantic air entered the scene. You for one did not stop it! Bluebells sat in repose. Then there it was. A light!"

"Week of 6/28 in Pisces: Cooling into emotion. Not that anything was cool. Instead there was a passionate light. A cup of roses. A sweet and tender silence." 

 "Week of 7/5 in Libra: If anything it all flows. That’s what poetry is. A violet. A flower! Be that one"

"Week of 7/5 in Pisces: It could be. That friendship is all of it. But what about love? You can’t forget about that. You won’t." 

"Week of 7/12 in Libra: In a dream you saw it. But it was not as it was. Instead the brightest part. Loving incessantly with green. Doing everything incessantly."

"Week of 7/12 in Pisces: Always a way into the thing. But you don’t want to go. You want to see it all as you wish. Grey-green. The landscape with plants and openings." 

"Week of 7/19 in Libra: Love is there. It is endless. Go forth with luck. Sing the flowers. Sing the words."

"Week of 7/19 in Pisces: In the middle of the trees you will see. A most real awakening. Bright pink and with laughter. You know the best part. You see the best part." 

 "Week of 7/26 in Libra: You have found exactly what you are looking for. So much that the teal birds have flown away. Don’t go after them. See into the celadon and spruce. Go into the trees like you need to."

"Week of 7/26 in Pisces: In the ocean the blue-green whirl. Do you hear the sounds it makes? Not water sounds the orange dots. The number 9. An opening." 

 "Week of 8/2 in Libra: Take a break from the blue painting. Go into the room with force. See it as if you imagined it there. In many ways you did. In many ways you knew this would happen."

"Week of 8/2 in Pisces: So it remains. A best friend. You’ve known that. You’ve said that so why not. And in the eve they are again." 

 "Week of 8/9 in Libra: So much luck abounds. Can it go again as it should. There’s nothing not to say so. Candy apple blue. Let loose the good parts."

"Week of 8/9 in Pisces: A rainbow again. Exited the stars. Did you see the stream? Be one again. Be one with everything." 

 "Week of 8/16 in Libra: Luck found you. And when you went looking, you found it again. Every magical part. Every part that found you. So true as it was again."

 "Week of 8/16 in Pisces: Green and blue. The sun wasn’t anything. And every lost match. And every bright thing. The very match as it was and as it could be."

 "Week of 8/23 in Libra: Some brightest light. Did go into itself. The snake and the emotion. With butterflies the sun is clear. With a sort of song there is everything to do with love."

"Week of 8/23 in Pisces: If infinity was this part. Then it could settle itself. Then it could be as it would be. Lying down in the turquoise stream. Blue and green and the parts that can be.' 

 Right. So it's been a minute...Ok, much more than a minute. Been rather busy recently. But also, I've just sort of checked out of social media because all the ai slop and the terrible algos have rendered them of increasingly low interest to me, so it's not just here I've been rather more silent than sharing of myself online. It's been a general trend with me. Like, if you're not in my physical life or not in my texts, you're probably not hearing anything at all from me. And that's just my current era is to be checked out from any desire or need to share about myself online or even to be checking in on socials other than using it as a means for checking in on very specific individuals (including things like my cousin's updates on her cancer journey -- not because I don't talk to her, but because having to tell multiple people multiple times is stressful and a lot of energy hard to do for people going through it, so it's easier for her to update in one place and if I stay informed there then when I text with her or we hang out, she doesn't have to start with repeating the same hard news she's already shared so many times. And, with something like that, it's about whatever is best/easiest//least source of extra weight/demands on her and nothing to do with anyone else or how they "ought" to expect to get the information as some sort of ego driven metric of their relationship. At least, that's how I see it. So checking in on her is a reason I go on socials and for other very niche specific things where it's the best way to get the information I seek, but otherwise I'm really not on there much these days.

Anyway. I had the smoothest 6a til close election official shift in years, everything went as close to perfectly as possible (hopefully that doesn't jinx me for Nov) and now Irish season is past (except for Fox Cities Irishfest in mid to late Sept, third weekend i think) and my sister and her family flew back to Seattle area today. O, and my precogs started up again, at least the little personal ones stopped being opaque, about a week or so ago. And I'm back to feeling that sense of anticipation that something bright and beautiful is just over the horizon waiting to surprise me (which I've not felt in a while actually) so that's good. I'm not sure what shifted, if it was in me, in the world timelines, in someone else's choices I don't (yet) know, in something galactic/astral that interrupts or facilitates my time/precog related gifts. I just don't know the why of it, only the isness of it. But it's rather a relief for me -- I always feel a bit...cautious?... trepidation?.. uncertainty?... when I disconnect from hearing my future self (even if it's just the little things like what I will wear or what I will eat on a future day or something I need to watch out for coming up that I can change or need to accept. I always wonder the why of the disconnect and if maybe there isn't a future path for me and that's why I can't connect to it.... So it's been a relief to me to have that back again. I've also had more of the large scale global tragic immutable precogs to carry. But that just is what it is any life you're stuck playing Cassandra amongst your gifts.

 It was nice to have my sister's family visit and the trip up to the Dells was fun -- as was them springing for the condo rental at Wilderness to have more options for people staying over (though we still had to take turns coming back to take care of the dogs.)  I got hardly any work done during the week though with them here, 15 hours total before coming back home on Sat so I've been at work since noon today and will be back at work tomorrow -- despite my cat Griffin freaking out lonely wondering where I am.... (I haven't been home since Thurs midday and on Fri there was some intense rain and tornadoes relatively near Madison and my cat is TERRIFIED of bad storms, this is the first since I adopted him that i didn't stay home with him to be able to take him to the basement for safety with me and the dog.) I really want to get home to him, but also, I do need to get hours in unless I want to use some pto this week which will make later in the year harder. 

There was some family drama, some where I expected it but one I didn't see coming (either via precog or  just logic of interpersonal behavior patterns playing out.) Basically, before she went to college, my sister left a box of her old Palm OS devices with my parents at work and she had sealed it taped it up left notes on it on every side withe her name saying not to open or use, all VERY clearly.  I had no idea that box was still here, hadn't seen it in literal decades and assumed my sister had taken it back ages ago. Well, at some point in the last 20 years, that box was opened and her palm devices were taken apart, some stripped for parts, and some including the hardest to replace is just completely missing.  My sister is devastated and gone through a massive series of emotions over it. I mean, every form of grieving over it: sorrow, anger, deep mourning, acceptance, buying replacement devices on ebay and she will have to decide if she's going ot carefully replace them with her old cases.... Just, a lot of feelings form her. My sister is a Virgo with a Pisces moon (yes born at a full moon) and Pisces rising -- she is very type A and where she cares she cares deeply and it can be VERY hard from the outside to know what she cherishes feels sentimental about but otherwise she frequently purges things gets rid of them when she's done with them (and sometimes she will get nostalgic about something she decided ages ago to get rid of.)  So I can understand assuming across 20 years that she may not care anymore, though given how pivotal and defining her early love of Palm devices and how it helped her get her first job hired at Microsoft, I can't believe my parents would have opened that box without consulting her.... My parents don't remember claim they don't know who did it and there are two past employees they think it could have been (both sold an stripped dead old parts to sell on ebay) BUT my sister says one of hers that had been disassembled had a note on it in my mum's handwriting saying it was MEL's old device, now belonged to the store and something with the initials of one of the two techs they expect harvested through her old palms for parts to sell. It's a fucking mess.... My sister is completely devastated, sees it as a huge trust fail, that she had entrusted a box of some of her most important things and my parents didn't protect it so she doesn't feel like she can ever again trust them with anything that matters deeply to her -- and I don't think my parents understand how deeply hurt and upset she is by this. And I don't even know what they could possibly do to make this right start healing this unless they can find her an Acer s10 palm OS that was an import and not many made back in the day but was the first palm os in another language (specifically Chinese, which my sister studied in high school -- she was so excited about it and of course this is the one device completely missing and that she can't find on ebay or anywhere else to replace hers that is just gone....) But if my parents can find it to replace it, I'm sure my sister and Jon can -- they' had already spent several hundreds of dollars to order replacements online from the moment she received the box back like that -- opened and with things missing and town apart missing critical parts of them. This is a huge fucking mess, and my sister does NOT forgive and forget, she dwells and ossifies and remembers what hurt her long past the point everyone else forgot something ever happened.... I mean, there are several on my mum's side of the family who hold lengthy grudges about ways people have hurt them and my sister is among those who hold onto it the longest. And this was a huge thing for her... Absolute. Fucking. Mess.

Anyway. So that happened. And is happening. And I have no idea how it can be healed or made better. Genuinely no idea. And I'm a Libra sun and Mercury with a Pisces rising, even with my Scorpio stellium and Sag stellium you have to try REALLY fucking hard to corner me into an interpersonal relations where I can't see a way to improve or heal things. Like, the worst I can think of before this is that I don't see a way to change or heal it UNLESS specific other parties apologize or act to make right where they did wrong -- I can usually figure out HOW it could be healed and repaired even if I can't force others to choose the path that leads to that. This is the first outside of people needing to leave abusive situations that is so broken I can't find any way or thing my parents could do to heal it if they ever even realized how much damage they did to my sister and her ability to trust them with anything she cares about in the future. And that's just heartbreaking, especially since I don't even know how or when this happened, only when my sister discovered it and how it affected her.... It would almost have been better if the box had completely disappeared or been accidentally taken by the electronics recycling people than for my sister to get the box back in the completely broken condition her palms were in when she received them back....

*le sigh*

Is what it is. And I know I can't fix and heal everything and people have to make their own choices on their own journey of growth and I hold free will sacrosanct as the source of meaning to anything that matters... But this one hurts me to feel like I don't know what to do or how to make it better. 

 And this one is incredibly devastating and I don't know that my parents realize how deeply my sister took it....

Anyway. Other than lots of working this weekend and spending time with my cat reassuring him, this coming week is a little busy but nothing like recently busy with plans. Tues I will be taking my grandma to an appointment, Thurs I have APT tickets with a big group (Two Gentlemen of Verona), and then Fri I have plans to meet up and catch up with one of my best friends from high school/university but who I haven't seen in years. Between my time blindness and her being busy (high school art teacher with two kids living on a farm) and her being a very early bird no longer interested in concerts or theatre late nights, it's just been years since we last actually got together. But apparently she was having lots of dreams about me (interestingly, just over a half dozen people have told me directly that I have been appearing in their dreams over the last month or so) and she was hoping we'd just naturally cross paths but we didn't so she reached out to make plans and Fri was the only time that worked with my busy August and her school schedule starting up again.  I'm actually very excited to see Michelle again after so long! I've missed her and didn't realize how long it's been since we really connected until she reached out and I realized, 'O shit! it's been sooo long..."

 Anyway, that's this week. And then the week after that, on Tues I will have a work event in Chi with my mum and Sarah that includes tickets to a Cubs v. Brewers game and then also tickets to see Sueno at APT that Thurs. And the week after that tickets to a brewers v. Cubs game in Milwaukee on Labor Day and tickets for a Punch Brothers show the following weekend. And then the week after that is a midweek Bailen show in town, then Fox Cities irishfest followed by a Skerryvore concert in Madison (and I need to clean everything, but especially Spare Oom, by Sept 20 since I told Keito she could stay over after that show so she doesn't have to drive back to Milwaukee between working merch for the Skerry lads in Madison and their next show in Galva IL that she's working merch for them.) And that's about it in the calendar coming up for me in Virgo season other than Packers games started back up and fitting my work hours in wherever I can/choose to fit them in.

 So a little busy but not "OMG busy" to overwhelm my introvert recharge time and completely derail my work and sleep schedule in ways I can't do anything about other than waiting until I have time for disappearing into some much needed hermitting.

 I'm going to finish up soon and head home to my cat. He must be so very worried.... Crissy was maybe going to stop in on Fri but with the storms she didn't make it and I knew I'd be coming back on Sat I just didn't intend for it to be so late until I came in to unpack some things and water my plants but then I added up my time card and went, "O fuck! I played hooky WAY too much this week and now need to do my best to get 25 hours in across the weekend?! Shit shit shit!" 

 Anyway. So there's a bit of a life update from me now my life is slowing down again for a bit. Currently still single again, still living just me and my fur baby familiars, still spending most of my time with my books and tea or out hiking with the trees and flowers when I'm not working or taking care of my own plants or at cocncerts/theatre or watching sports I care about. Still an impulsive magical af fée elf witch who knows things she shouldn't possibly know and whose ADHD and spiritual gifts combine to make me a sociable introvert.

O also. I think Waffles is allergic to grass (my dog Waffles Fionnuala O'Whoofigans, not the kind of waffles you put syrup on)  She's always shown mild allergy symptoms seasonally, but this year she's been really bad every time grass pollen gets high.... Watery eyes, super itchy skin (especially her feet after she goes outside to potty) that she licks/bites the itchy feet so bad they're irritated and inflamed red swelling when it gets bad... We've been trying Benadryl doses for her when it gets bad because it's dog safe before trying vet prescriptions for her since the canine allergy relief drugs can have some not great side effects.

 Mreow. This is probably not long, more proof of life than anything else.  Yes, I'm still alive. Just not been writing here.

Irish fest season starts this weekend and I have tickets for a midweek show of the Broadway tour of Great Gatsby. I finished SVD dates last week but the partisan primary election official date is the Tues (for which I am scheduled to work 6a-close) after La Crosse/Minneapolis Irishfests, right before my sister's family flies into the area on Weds night and are in town during Milwaukee irishfest. So I have 

Madison is right now at the heart of a police shooting of a black-Hispanic man (the third in that area of the city since 2012) and the city is being supportive of the protests and vigils and closing down the street and not getting cops involved in the demonstrators shutting down roads and keeping people out of businesses -- but the cost as i see it is 1) you're not furthering their ends or have anything they're asking for other than expressing outrage and power over anyone who isn't outwardly stating they're with you giving way 2) they're losing their allies and harming those they wish to serve (particularly BIPOC and LGBTQ+ who make up a large percentage of the service industry) because they are going to cause all the line cooks and staff at the restaurants/bars they are blockading people entering to be out of work because managers can't have staff coming in if they have no customers and if those jobs are lost, restaurants/bars are barely hanging on rn and those staff won't be able to get into another job quickly or easily 3) right now is NOT the time to have a left leaning city seeming like the local government isn't in control in a way that will draw national attention to provide test case "proof" of reasons to institute national guard or martial law in a progressive sanctuary city literally 2 weeks before a state wide primary election as test case for what certain people would want to institute in Nov.  That third potential consequence RIGHT NOW is very real and very close to happening, every day that passes and the actions continue and actually shut down more and more of the city the closer I can feel that reality coming into focus among the fatelines. 

It was also very interesting being at the Concerts on the Square event that was interrupted by the protestors marching to the capitol the day that the shooting occurred and the difference between how it was being there for the event that was interrupted versus the media portrayal.  The shooting happened at 1:30 that afternoon, while most people were at work, and the police statement happened at 5 after the point everyone was already downtown -- and it's not an event where many people are on their phones, you're more likely to see someone with a physical book than on their phone. Most people are having a picnic, talking to the people they are with or reading a book waiting for friends/family to arrive, before the chamber orchestra live concert. So most people who were there had no idea. Then when they marched in, you couldn't hear them on their megaphones to understand what was happening until the conductor handed over the microphone to one of the march members who is actually a community organizer who explained what had happened and then asked for 2mins moment of silence which everyone there was ready to take part in and her moment of silence was interrupted by protestors getting in the face of the people attending the event. Then they were upset that people were leaving as it became clear the event was being handed over to the protestors -- but you had families with young children and elderly people from Capitol Lakes retirement center caught in the middle of it AND everyone who was there was burdened with all their picnic reality gear/bags, they had been drinking (the event has an open intoxicant permit on the capitol lawn tl 10p BUT if the event gets cancelled, so does that permit) and many still had open wine bottles and other glass objects with them AND they had kitchen knives for slicing cheese and meats and veggies and such -- none of which are a problem at a picnic but none of which belong at a political protest event. So literally everyone who had been drinking, who had open glass beverages, who had knives, or who had small children/elderly with them and who had their picnic blankets/baskets were trying to get out of there immediately EVEN IF they planned to come back once they no longer had open alcohol  or knives or carrying bulky items with glass and breakables involved. And at the same time, the vendors and food carts were all being ordered to pack up and get out of there since the event had ended to make sure that the propane and knives and potential dangerous items were being removed before any potential escalation. I didn't disagree with the way it was handled and ceding the space for the rawness of that evening, but I also understood the necessity of getting the people and items (including the dangerous to have if arrests happen as well as the instruments including the rented for outdoor use grand piano, the sound system, etc) out of there because certain things don't belong at any protest/demonstration for everyone's safety. So it was very interesting to see the difference between the chaos of the reasons for people not to stay if they could even understand what was going on and the way the media portrayed it that the people who couldn't clearly hear what was being said weren't responding in solidarity and that the bulk of people who were set out for a picnic (including having glass bottles, alcohol, and knives on them) were taking their families and leaving.  And I'm not saying that anything about what happened that day was right or shouldn't have been protested or the event canceled and the space ceded -- I'm just saying that the way media covered those who were there for the weekly concert picnic and didn't stay for the protest was very different than the experience on the ground of being there as the events unfolded, especially given the number of picnickers who had been drinking wine/beer for several hours, had open bottles of wine on them, and had knives and glassware and all their picnicking items with them as well as kids and elderly. (And the kids actually had a hard time with it, especially those who were older than kindergarten age and were terrified it was going to turn into a shooting and having fight or flight "need to get out of the crowd get somewhere safe" reactions including some of them hyperventilating freaking out worrying the baby people were coming for them as they were hearing the constant angry protestors talking about someone being shot and then not hearing anything else due to the faulty megaphones being used.)

 Anyway, that's a local thing that is ongoing but it's reaching international press like The Independent and not just people who pay attention to BLM and civil rights related events/demonstrations, and there have been a lot of big/expensive local events cancelled (most of them music or community coming together related) and the area of the street where it happened just shut down for ongoing vigil and other large groups of protestors shutting down roads and not letting people into restaurants/bars in other areas of downtown that may lead to businesses shuttering and national attention to send in federal level attempts to get the city "back under control" right during a state wide election. 

 Also. My cousin who said back when we were both in our 20s that she didn't want to live through the burning world watch everything fall apart and who has spent the last year and a half battling with stage 3 triple negative breast cancer that has never fully gone into remission got bad news recently and while she's still fighting it is unclear for how long as it continues to seem a losing battle. Also also. my grandmother feels frail and her soul light guttering like Audrey Pupburn over her last six months and I'm not convinced she will make it to her next appointments I am supposed to take her to later in the autumn. On verra. But my death sight doesn't currently see either of them making it another year. I could be wrong so I'm keeping what I see for their paths to myself, and I would very much like to be, but both their soul lights are burning low and sputtering out and with both I've been experiencing "last times we do this together" sparks of knowing all year long...

Um, beyond that, we are now past the World Cup and as far as I can connect to my future self with my preocgs and have entered what I've called "the burning times" since my prophetic nightmares about what was coming back when I was in university before there was made a stepping stone path through it. Right now, we are only entering into the burning times and you won't like ANY of the immutable precogs I've seen of what's happening and what's coming. It's the time when the whole world is on fire (literally) and the politicians/techbros are burning the knowledge of ages and the average person may or may not survive the tumult of what is coming in that time.... I'm making plans with people and have tickets, but I can't see any of my own small time loop immutable precogs right now -- not even what I will wear or eat or seeing me at an event/plan (though many of these events I planned to be at keep getting randomly cancelled or moved due to unexpected circumstances.) I can see potential fatelines, but I can only weigh their likelihood, none of them are contingent precogs where anything I say or do could shift them. And the only things I can see are the continuing/upcoming tragedies. Now I'm not sure if this is because of the chaos in the fatelines (personal and global) so only the really big things are reaching me through the chaos of them OR if it's a personal subconscious block because I have a really hard time bearing my gifts when the earth is burning and the tree and animals are all screaming and dying in drought and fires and the floods... Like, I always have to shut down my gifts during drought times or when I am too near wildfires because otherwise the pain of the trees and wild animals are so overwhelming I can't function. So I can't speak to which of those are the reason I can't reach my future self or if maybe I'm nearing the end of my life in this body due to something I've not yet foreseen but which approaches. I've worried my own life might be getting cut short before when it is my gifts being shut down due to the overload of drought/wildfire related pain/deaths and the hurting of the planet level. So i can't say which it is -- only that right now, I can't connect to my own future self for my small little quotidian precogs even as simple as glimpsing myself at a meal I enjoy or somewhere with people/animals I care abut doing things I enjoy. Even when I have plans for these things and the plans happen, I can't SEE them ahead of time like I normally do. Right now I'm only receiving the big awful immutable precogs that affect larger global concerns (but it does include the small little reliefs about what doesn't burn even amidst all that does and all the screaming trees and terror filled wild animal deaths) and involve lots of tragedy for many people are all I can precog as true precogs not sifting through potential fatelines before they happen and that's looking as close as later the same day and for as far forward as I can reach. 

 

Anyway. All of these are heavy things (locally, globally, and in what weighs heavy upon my soul with my gifts as so much of the world is burning/suffering/dying and yet more is still to burn before we reach the other side of what I've referred to since the prophetic dreams back in university as "the time of burnings that is coming and we cannot escape entirely") and the only sliver of hope I have to offer myself or anyone else is that the time of the burnings and all that is lost through it will clear the space for whatever new is to grow for humanity and communities and individuals and the world as a whole. 

I don't know how long the time of burnings lasts, not only do I process passage of time wyrdly as my general state of isness but visions and precogs are snapshots/vignettes of moments pulled out of the flow of time that can only be for into timelines by context or other time markers within them. I know there is still more to happen in the time of burnings that I have seen and I know we have already entered into it. And I know I cannot (yet) peek into beyond it -- but that may be because of the sheer volume and weight of the pain and the suffering and the dying and the trees/plants/animals screaming in their terror is too overwhelmingly loud for my gifts so I have closed my gifts down quiet as I can mute them (as much as I can) and turned inward as much as possible to keep going step by step through it. But I cannot tell you how long the time of burnings will last, only that we are now well and truly entered into it and that there is more I have seen that is not yet unfolded into the present.

But right now, it's hard and it hurts, and I can't see ahead anything but the most brutal/tragic of the things yet to come so I'm keeping all my Cassandra-ing to myself inside me and doing my best to bear that weight alone since it is hard enough as others have to live it without knowing it's coming and they can do nothing to alter it.... And there is worse to come, even now with so much of the world literally on fire this is not yet even the worst I've seen unfolding during the time of the burnings.... It is a heavy time to carry such gifts as I have that are meant to be used to heal and to help avoid the worst of the fatelines but for now can only help you bear witness to the horrors and the hurting as it all burns around you.... It just is. 

Which is why I said I couldn't face what I knew was coming while lying to myself about could bes that somehow never are. It's why I had to face the truth of the current isness and the past choices made and let go completely and without any bitterness or desire things were different ahead of entering the burning times following the end of the World Cup which was as far ahead as I could see my little personal precogs and beyond which I only felt the pain and the suffering and saw what was going to be lost and all the destruction still to come til those who survive it reach the other side of the time of the burnings..... I don't have room on my shoulders or strength to keep carrying empty hopes and promises of dreams that never became reality with me with the weight of everything I'm carrying of what is and still will be through this time of the fires and the floods. You wouldn't either if you'd seen the dreams and precogs I've been carrying inside me for so long that I've only given small warnings to those closest to me because it's too much and they need to hold on to some hope and create plans they can try to make real until things change so they make new plans -- or they won't reach the other side of all this that's here and all that is still to come.

 

Ugh. This is too dark a place to end this. I need to head home though. Happy Aquarius full moon -- focus on the humanitarian good aspects of Aquarius you want to see manifesting into the world. And. you can't stop the burnings or take from me the precogs that are mine to carry. So celebrate the full moon which is tomorrow (now it's past midnight) away from being exact and focus on the good and bright things you have in your life right now through this Leo season and that you can hug to you while you have it even through this time of burnings. 

April/May/June Book List

 

Books Read: 

~Neal Shusterman, Scythe (435 pgs) [I decided to reread the Arc of a Scythe trilogy because 1) it's really really good!! 2) it's been a while since I read it and 3) most importantly, I had picked up a collection of short stories set in this universe but they're more complex and across different eras so I wanted to reread the trilogy and then read the short stories. I figured Aries season was the right season for it]

~Neal Shusterman, Thunderhead (504 pgs)

~T. S. Eliot, Selected Poems (127 pgs) [This included my annual reading of The Wasteland in April because April is the cruelest month. Some of them were quite good that I'd never read before but knew lines from, but the later poems got VERY Jesurific, which I didn't expect of Eliot but I guess I don't know much of his later life.] 

~Neal Shusterman, The Toll (625 pgs)

~Neal Shusterman, Gleanings (423 pgs)

~Sappho (translated by Aaron Pochigian), Stung With Love: Poems and Fragments (148 pgs)

~Christopher Marlowe, The Jew of Malta (92 pgs)

~Diane Stanley, Bella at Midnight (278 pgs)

~Eugen Vodolazkin, Laurus (365 pgs)

~Molly O'Neill, Greenteeth (308 pgs) [This was absolutely fantastic! One of my favorite standalones I've read in a long while!]

~Walter Burkert, Greek Religion (493 pgs)

~Christopher Marlowe, Edward the Second (100 pgs)

~Atia Abawi, A Land of Permanent Goodbyes (285 pgs)

~Howard Muggamin, The Jewish Americans (125 pgs)

~John Steinbeck, The Acts of King Arthur and His Noble Knights (451 pgs)

~Richard Adams, Watership Down (478 pgs)

~Pascal, Pensées et Opuscules (105 pgs)

~Richard Adams, Tales from Watership Down (335 pgs)

~Michel de Montaigne, Essais extraits livre premier (129 pgs)

~Deborah Harkness, The Blackbird Oracle (444 pgs) [I picked this up in paperback but hadn't read it yet. I will typically re-read a series before reading the new one in it. But I saw her post on socials that you could read this one along the actual dates of the story real time read along across the summer if you started it end of May and that sounded fun and since she's writing I think at least two more in the world/series I figure I can reread this one after the trilogy and Time's Convert whenever I get around to reading them. And anyway, I feel like it wasn't THAT long ago that I read the other 4...So I thought I would give it a try see how I felt about doing a real time read along of it from late May through mid Aug while reading lots of other books throughout, lol. Yeah. I did fine with the first chapters but then when I was supposed to wait a week I got too impatient and decided to just read it all rather than having other stories and worlds interspersing it across 3.5 months. I always had a hard time with assigned readings at school waiting on the schedule for novels (except like in university when I had like 600-1200 pgs to read every week between all my courses on top of labs, lectures, essays, etc) and even then I would often just finish a good novel in one go and then focus on the other readings.]

~George Sand, Contes d'une Grand-mère (508 pgs) 

~Christopher Marlowe, The Massacre at Paris (50 pgs) [this is the last play in my 601 pg Penguin copy of The Complete Plays of Christopher Marlowe -- but I listed the others as I was reading them. This one is also significantly shorter than the others because the only copy of it seems to be edited/abridged missing key parts though some of the missing lines exist in shorter documents in personal collections. It's too bad really as I enjoyed what there was of it and the Duc de Guise had some fantastic evil villain monologues]

~Amy Tan, The Joy Luck Club (332 pgs)

~Michel de Montaigne, Essais extraits livre second (127 pgs)

~Cassandra Clare and Wesley Chu, The Eldest Curses 1: The Red Scroll of Magic (349 pgs) [I read this one a while ago and then didn't read it as part of my reread marathon last year because I have the second one but the third one the trilogy is not released. Only then she mentioned in her email newsletter that she was waiting to publish it until after the entirety of her NEXT trilogy she is currently writing is done as it involves things in those books. And this trilogy weaves through the other main series at different points in it, but from the perspective of Magnus and Alec once they're together -- making it a perfect choice for Pride month. And I don't want these sitting in my unread waiting for followup books stacks for literal years waiting on the other newest trilogy. And since I read all the rest just last year, I figured my brain remained immersed enough in the world/characters/storylines to finish these and put them away until the next reread which will be after the entire next trilogy and the last in this trilogy are released in paperbacks.]

~Cassandra Clare and Wesley Chu, The Eldest Curses 2: The Lost Book of the White (368 pgs) 

~Ruth Benedict, Morality is Relative (essay in the Louis P. Pojman book Philosophy: The Quest for Truth Sixth Edition -- I have been and still am reading this essays intermittently between other fiction and nonfiction books, generally taking a pause between each section to read some other nonfiction titles. I will include the entire book in the list whenever I happen to finish it, but I am listing the essays individually for context of my own reading/thinking habits of the time.)

~The Gnostic Bible (860 pgs) [I made my great-great-aunt a promise as a child that while I couldn't promise her to become a Catholic, since I am at best classified as a pantheist omnist universalist pagan, I would continue to read scriptures on the regular and consider it; I did not say WHICH scriptures though she made an assumption about that. So I keep in the kitchen scriptures from various eras and religions and even cults that I read while waiting for the timer on my tea to steep. Often I do pliés, relevés, and/or tendues while I'm standing there reading and waiting for hot water to work its magic on steeping tea, lol. So I do light chores tidying up while waiting for the kettle to boil then after I set the timer while waiting for the tea to steep I read scriptures from some world religion, modern or ancient or heretical, while doing ballet barre exercises. I read this one over a long while of short reads while waiting on tea to steep, so it wasn't all read in this interim, this is just when I finished it]

~James Rachels, Morality Is Not Relative (essay in the Louis P. Pojman book Philosophy: The Quest for Truth Sixth Edition -- I have been and still am reading this essays intermittently between other fiction and nonfiction books, generally taking a pause between each section to read some other nonfiction titles. I will include the entire book in the list whenever I happen to finish it, but I am listing the essays individually for context of my own reading/thinking habits of the time.)

~Jenny Moss, Shadow (377 pgs)

~Sarah Perry, The Essex Serpent (418 pgs)

~Sarah Lyddon Morrison, The Modern Witch's Spellbook (246 pgs) [this was published in 1971. Not very modern now. In fact, INCREDIBLY dated. Not very useful either. I don't think I'm going to keep it.]

~V. E. Schwab, The Near Witch (355 pgs) [this was fantastic! I really enjoyed it even if it did have some flaws she would have polished out with the help of an editor. It's the first book since Greenteeth that I had to binge read devour all in one late night/early morning, only pausing to make more te when my cuppa was empty and to make me use the bathroom while I was up to put the kettle on -- but also I was reading it while walking and while waiting on the kettle and the tea to steep instead of doing my normal "this is your productive/exercise race against the time it take for the water to boil" how I typically hack my ADHD while making tea/coffee. If you enjoy any of these tropes/genres: Gothic spooky wind and rain swept moors, witchy magic is real, Pied Piper retellings, strong defiant female characters, mob rule "us vs them" mentality is always blindly cruel while the liminal outsiders not accepted by the clique always see truly from the heart, and fantasy-love story-mystery all rolled into one...then you too will love reading this one.] 

~Malinda Lo, Last Night at the Telegraph Club (415 pgs) [this has been recommended so many times and it is on so many lists and banned so many places and so I decided that since it was Pride month and National Immigrant's Month and last month was Chinese American Heritage Month it made sense to read it now. I'd had it for a while, but I hadn't bought the companion novel to go with it so decided I'd wait until I found it in paperback. Anyway. I found this novel incredibly...banal... It was at least a quick read. But it reminded me of like a queer version of Sweet Valley High and Lurlene McDaniels books that some of the girls in middle school all read and when I tried I just found insipid with almost no plot to them. It was fine, and I could see where it would be deeply meaningful for people who had similar journeys of self discovery leading to coming out of the closet. But, I mean, I grew up with lesbian aunts in a very open minded eclectic progressive family that never viewed sexuality as anything more than a personal preference of likes/dislikes like some people liking beer and some people not liking it, so it was very hard for me to relate to why any of the feelings should be shameful or furtive or an act of discovery -- much the same as I felt about the stupid romance drama novels of soap operas for teens and tweens when I tried to read them. The feelings of love and attraction I understand, but not the furtive rebellious aspects of it. Lust and love and who you like is all personal tastes and rejection stings no matter who it's from or the reasons, but mostly I just found the start of this novel banal and insipid and didn't see what the fuss was about, either for or against it, and it was very hard for me not to DNF it. Once you get through the first section the novel improves as you get into the history of the era and the individual vs society stigma of being LGBTQ+ at that time, it just takes a solid 80-100pgs to get there. I can see where if you didn't grow up hearing these sorts of stories within your own family (my Aunt Katha and Aunt Geeta actually met out in San Francisco back in the late 70s or early 80s) this would be a transformative eye opening book as to what the repression and taboo and stigma and coded lifestyle was really like for most of the 20th century. I think it's a good documentation of what it would have been like living then for those who don't know the history when LGBTQ+ was less accepted and I can see where it would be healing/cathartic for teens who are closeted in more conservative families/communities. Once you're past the first 80-100pgs or so, it does become a beautiful book of a love story in a specific time and place within American history. You just have to get past the early teen soap opera sweet valley high intro to Lily's world. This was a purse book and I will read the companion book set much later pretty much contemporary -- but also as a purse book so it might take me a bit longer than my at home books to finish it.]

~Rebecca Thorne, Can't Spell Treason Without Tea (339 pgs) [this was a very adorable Sapphic cozy fantasy (first in a quartet) that I decided would be a good way to go or closing out pride month with the sun in Cancer. It's not particularly spicy, but it is full of puns and love stories and it's about a queen's guard running off with the greatest mage in the entire known world so they can open a bookshop and teashop together in the middle of nowhere. It is cozy and enjoyable and full of wit and community and love matches of all types spicing through the adventures. It's very sun in Cancer end of Pride month perfection and I look forward to drinking lots of cups of tea with my fur babies cuddled up nearby as I read the remaining three books in the quartet.]

 

Books Acquired:

~Joe Abercrombie, The Devils

~Michelle Collins Anderson, The Moonshine Women

~Leigh Bardugo, Ninth House

~Leigh Bardugo, Hell Bent

~Peter S. Beagle, The Way Home

~Jebediah Berry, The Naming Song

~Anne Birrell (trans.), New Songs From a Jade Terrace: An Anthology of Early Chinese Love Poetry

~Holly Black, The Poison Eaters and Other Stories

~Pierre Boulle, The Planet of the Apes

~Anna Bright, The Hedge Witch of Fox Hall

~C. J. Burright, Druid Cursed

~Debbie Cassidy, Wicked Onyx

~Ova Ceren, The Book of Heartbreak

~Kay Chronister, The Bog Wife

~Ernest Cline, Ready Player One

~Zoraida Córdova, The Inheritance of Orquídea Divina

~Julie Carrick Dalton, The Last Beekeeper

~Oliver Darkshire, Isabella Nagg and the Pot of Basil

~Charles Dickens (abridged by Mary Louise Aswell), The Dickens Digest: Contains David Copperfield, Pickwick Papers, Oliver Twist, Martin Chuzzlewit [I do own all 4 of these books unabridged. My mum picked this up for $2 while out west visiting familyand it's published in 1943 so going with older books]

~Grace Draven, Dragon Unleashed

~A. Rae Dunlap, The Resurrectionist

~Egyptology

~Jaymin Eve, Spellcaster

~Laurie Forest, The Black Witch 

~Jeffrey Gantz (translator), Early Irish Myths and Sagas

~Joanne M. Harris, The Gospel of Loki

~Taylor Hartley, Song of the Hell Witch

~Natalie Haynes, Divine Might: Goddesses in Greek Myth

~Horace, The Complete Works of Horace Translated By Many Hands (very cool old edition published in Great Britain in 1923)

~J. K. Huysmans, Against Nature

~Isabel Ibañez, Together We Burn 

~James Islington, The Shadow of What Was Lost

~M. R. James, Collected Ghost Stories

~Liu Jung-en (translator), Six Yüan Plays

~Yume Kitasei, The Stardust Grail

~Gabriela Romero La Cruz, The River and the Star

~Kim LaDow & Katie Ryan Donohue (illus), Henry and the Mermaid at the Vilas Zoo

~Mariely Lares, Sun of Blood and Ruin

~Judy I. Lin, A Magic Steeped in Poison

~Judy I. Lin, A Venom Dark and Sweet

~Malinda Lo, A Scatter of Light

~H. M. Long, Entwined

~Hannah Lynn, The Women of Artemis

~Robert MacFarlane & Jackie Morris, The Lost Spells

~J. D. McClatchy (editor), On Wings of Song: Poems About Birds

~Jean Menzies (editor), Fairies, Elves and Sprites Myths and Legends

~Jean Menzies (editor), Mermaids, Sirens and Selfies Myths and Legends

~Rieka Moonsong, Owl Magick

~Lucy Moore, Liberty: The Lives and Times of Six Women in Revolutionary France

~Silvia Moreno-Garcia, The Bewitching 

~Haruki Murakami, Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman

~Haruki Murakami, The Elephant Vanishes

~Haruki Murakami, First Person Singular

~Haruki Murakami, Hard-boiled Wonderland and The End of The World

~Haruki Murakami, South of the Border, West of the Sun

~Sosuke Natsukawa, The Cat Who Saved the Library

~Paul Negri (editor), English Victoria. Poetry 

~Claire North, Slow Gods

~Barack Obama, The Audacity of Hope

~Lauren Owen, The Quick

~Heather Pringle, The NorthWomen

~Ava Reid, The Wolf and the Woodsman

~Madeline Roux, House of Furies

~Caitlin Rozakis, Dreadful

~Katherine Rundell, Impossible Creatures

~O. O. Sangoyomi, Masquerade

~V. E. Schwab, A Darker Shade of Magic

~Michael Scott, The Secrets of The Immortal Nicholas Flamel 4: The Necromancer [I have been looking for this one for AGES so I could finish reading the series which I started back when the first one came out didn't come back to. And I always found all the other volumes or found this one in the wrong edition so it wouldn't match the rest I already owned. And ordering online, even used, was high likelihood of getting the wrong edition. I am so happy to have this one FINALLY!!!! I am missing two novellas that can be bought together as lost tales though that are much harder to find but I want before I read these.]

~Sydney Shields, An Arcane Study of Stars

~Sydney Shields, The Honey Witch

~Tore Skeie, The Wolf Age

~Mark Small & Jack Shoulder, Museum Bums 

~Betty Smith, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

~Susan Stokes-Chapman, The Shadow Key

~Greer Stothers, Apparently, Sir Cameron Needs To Dir

~Adrian Tchaikovsky, The Hyena and the Hawk

~Adrian Tchaikovsky, Days of Shattered Faith

~Cari Thomas, Shadowstitch

~Stuart Turton, The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle

~D. E. Weingand, Crystal Saga Series 3: 11 & 12: Explorer 1 & Explorer 2 [this is my grandma's multi series series she wrote and I went to reread them but found I was missing this one. I will do a reread later this year, I was thinking to read along with Mo. My mum got her the first book as she is the right age for how these are written and she's so social I though she might enjoy reading together more than just her experiencing the story]

~Azadeh Westergaard & Júlia Sardà (illustrator), A Life Electric: The Story of Nikola Tesla

~Maithree Wijesekara, The Prince Without Sorrow

~Maithree Wijesekara, The Witch Without Memory

~Benjamin Zephaniah & Melissa Castrillón (illustrator), Leave the Trees Please