Be the change you want to see.

My sister-in-law is in a pretty strapped situation right now. She's got a month old brand new baby. The father of the baby has turned out to be a pretty s***** person: untrustworthy and abusive enough that the cops actually put a Stay Away order on him. Her 18-year-old has moved out, and is now sending her abusive messages. She has depression and other issues that have put her on disability. And she's overwhelmed. Because of course her landlord wants to sell the house she's been living in, now in this covid-drenched pandemic hellscape.

*Measured breathing*

I want to help and don't know really sure how to. I know what I would do in her shoes. I actually DID a lot of the things I would recommend to her, when I was her age.

Our life experience is really similar on multiple axes, main difference being I didn't have kids (thank goodness, and no offense to anyone with kids or who wanted kids) Life is easier without having to wrangle, raise and educate kids... And my body being what it is, I'm even more glad that I didn't.

Okay.

Here's where I say the things I can't say elsewhere, and especially not to her.
I feel like she's been bullied all her life. By her birth family, by men she hoped to build a life with. Her mom was bullied by HER birth family. Her mom is COWED. Her dad is an *asshole*, to put it bluntly. (Yes it's personal. No I'm not getting into it, except to say that he fucked up, so it's on him to fix it, it's emphatically Not My Job.)

I wanna help. But I just fuckin' feel sorry for her (and for her mom) and wanna wave my magic wand and Fix It All. But I know she has to build it herself.

My focus is to A) hold my own boundaries. B) encourage her to make conscious choices. C) encourage her to discover healthy boundaries and healthy relationships and seek them out.

I haven't priested like this in a long time. I'm out of the habit (haha) and I'm going to need to practice balancing my own needs and not overextending myself, with offering the kinds of help I can afford to offer.

Not sure what I'm asking for, except maybe support and validation of any of y'all have worked before with women struggling in an abusive situation who feel overwhelmed and trapped.

At least she's not living with the current asshole. But she was still trying to propitiate him with her baby name choice, so ... *Throws hands up in the air*

Pantheacon weekend impressions:

1. Healing myself heals the ancestors, elevating the ancestors elevates the future. Consciously focusing on ancestor work is not only worthy but can have unexpectedly magnified effects. The networks you build give the deep roots necessary to survive the coming storm. (Both Luna and Orion talked on this theme)
2. Beauty is manufactured, Beauty is within, Beauty is how you live.
3. One water, all waters, flow to heal...
4. Selena Fox is amazing. Circle sanctuary makes sense to me now. Crossroads magic was amazing.
5. Temple of Inanna: I want to have their babies and also dance with them. Temple of Aphrodite (Oakland) ran Mirrors of Truth: powerful stuff, and I want to go to other events they do in future. (Jenn, I'm asking you if you want to come with)
6. We would all do better, as humans and as a society, if we followed the way of being that the speakers in Ask A Native described: reciprocally, in context, in community, humbly.
(Look up and insert the recommended reading references here)
7. Sharon Knight has some good history- badass ladies storytelling songs, check her out.
8. Podcasting? ME? it's more likely than you think. I am tentatively planning on calling it "I am a wypipo but I don't have to be a jerk" and after I get some good basics recorded I want to have conversations with friends, particularly friends of color.
9. Finding your friends randomly is kinda the best thing. you look up and People say your name and are so glad to see you.
10. Brigid loves me and I am Her child, and I don't have to try so fuckin hard all the time to earn Her love. I have it on good authority. (Thank you and bless you, Hufflepuff Bear.)

hi there brains!

(I've been watching a lot of How to ADHD on YouTube lately.)

funny you should ask, yes I have been learning more about adhd recently. Last week I asked my primary care physician about what kind of referral I would need to explore possible medication for adhd. she checked her email at around 10:30 pm, which I give her a lot of credit for, and told me she had set up a referral with psychiatry for adhd testing for me and an intake with one of the docs over there.

so today was testing in the morning. I had a chance to grab a slice of pumpkin pie and my emergency instant coffee on my way out the door.

i got there on time! v. excite!

had an intake form briefly asking how often I dealt with various symptoms. Losing possessions, failure to calendar things, I can't remember exactly what was on the list BUT I can add a photo of it to this post after I'm done.

*insert photo here*

The test itself was a click-the-mouse test. you were meant to hit the space bar anytime a letter flashed on the screen. except X, you were supposed to ignore X.

holy shit. once I knew what the test was I said "oh dear lord" I almost said, fucking kill me now. (and I never really say that)

I had to do that shit for fifteen minutes straight and it was fucking EVIL.

i'll get my results in a week to 10 days but I'm already working under the premise that I have this thing i have too many symptoms in the DSM-5 to NOT have it. I'm dang curious about the medication now though.

i just wanna take care of myself better, take care of Jeff and my house and the cats better. Wanna finish projects and hopefully focus better to finish my writing and other creative projects (I have some short sexy fic up on Archive of our Own that I'm pretty proud of, and more in the pipeline, it's just tough to finish.)

love and miss all yall, hopefully you are well and taking good care of yourselves.

I'll try to be back soon.

Rob Breszny's Free Will Astrology for Scorpios this week suggests that it would be a good idea to think about the parts of one's past that it would be good to protect and to carry forward into the future.

Ten things I have learned that I would like to carry forward:

1) Brainweasels are liars, and usually are due to low blood sugar or loneliness. CF: The Desiderata.
2) I am stronger, much more competent, and a lot more lovable than I believe I am by default.
3) despite 2) I am just as prone to fuck up my communication as the next person, or to fuck up period.
4) It is possible to apologize for a lot of things. Nobody really likes doing it, nobody's great at it.
5) I deserve self-care.
6) I am allowed to ask for help with my self care, and people will often say yes. (thanks to Eeyore42 and Wrenb for teaching me that)
7) Enjoy what you have, share with others, don't feel guilty for having more. Help as often as you can.
8) Life is short. Enjoy it while you can, and tell people you love them if you do. Kiss their faces too.
9) Tenderness, kindness, and warmheartedness are underrated in the world. Value them, teach them.
10) Feed yourself. Feed your people in whatever ways you can. It makes everyone happy.

I'm writing today because this subject is Relevant To My Interests at the moment. My house is cluttered and I need to put stuff away, throw stuff away, fold stuff up... Yeah. STUFF.

I'm sure most of us have heard the acronym KISS: it usually stands for Keep It Simple, Sweetie (if we are being kind to ourselves, which is something I DO strive to do)...

This is a good starting point for clutter clearing and house clearing. Keeping It Simple will look different to each one of us. It might mean making our bed every morning so we have one flat clear surface in our house to sit on. It might mean remember to recycle your food scraps out to the compost bin, because you want to keep food out of the landfills when it makes perfectly good dirt, if left alone long enough. =) It might mean OMG I HAVE TO CLEAR OFF MY DESK BECAUSE I CAN'T FIND THE BILLS!

Keep It Simple, to me, means build between one and three good habits at one time, no more than that. And don't kill yourself with guilt if you make a mistake, forget, or otherwise fuck up. Seriously. More good habits go down the toilet because we (the collective We of Puritannically-Inspired America or Western Civilization generally) kick ourselves so violently, and even quit trying when we make a mistake or fail to keep up with a particular habit, or else we spend time in self-castigation or self-loathing at our "inability" to Do Whatever It Is, Perfectly...

Especially if the Habit is a Should. (and THAT is another post, it deserves a detailed examination)

How do we teach children new skills? we encourage them to make mistakes and try again (unless we've got our ego involved in our kids being PERFECT, which I feel "should" be another dirty word, tbh...) How did I practice cross-country-skiing this weekend? I tried, failed, fell down, had to get help getting back up because I couldn't figure it out for myself.

We need to be forgiving of ourselves when we try something new. Be kind, and allow for errors, inconsistencies, and mistakes.

In service of that, let me offer another meaning for the acronym KISS, one that I find very useful in building my clutter-clearing habits:
Keep it Small and Significant.

To explain: OK y'all, I'm Pagan. *waves hello* I find it easier to do household tasks if I assign value or meaning to them beyond the "this has to get done" rationale. What I choose to do is to think of those tasks as service to something larger than myself. I sometimes dedicate tasks to the marriage (i.e. washing the dirty sheets or clearing off the bedroom bureau, which is what I did yesterday) or to my Patron Deity, Hestia (i.e. that's almost the only way you'll get me to wash the floors without someone else helping in the task.)

Keep it Small and Significant. Yesterday I cleared unnecessary things off the bureau, and selected a fresh tablecloth in springtime colors (Hey, I can anticipate!). Today I plan to take *everything* off the bureau, wipe down the surfaces and clean the dust off the candle and candle-plate, and re-make the bedroom "altar". Though, it's not really an altar, it's more like a meditation space.

returning to comment on clutter clearing: Over the weekend I went to visit family, and picked up a big mirror that used to be my grandmother's, and also a bag of smaller items that used to be hers. I know that my spouse doesn't really approve of me bringing more STUFF into the house, but I did it anyway. I have emotional clutter around her, my mom's mom, Inez. I feel the need to spend some time meditating on her and her life, and what she meant to me and to my mom, and by incorporating some of her former possessions into the new iteration of the meditation space, I hope to facilitate that work. This is SIGNIFICANT To Me. Which means that even taking more Things into my house? I'm okay with that, since the Things have a definite purpose.

So. Small and Significant. When my bedroom surfaces (and floor) are clear, I think better. Hell, when ALL my surfaces are clear I think MUCH better. But today I'm only going to hold myself accountable for the bedroom. Anything else I get done is gravy. (though I am fairly strongly motivated to clear off at least the kitchen table) (and that's what SMALL looks like to me.)

Small to me, means doable in a single session, usually between 15 minutes and an hour.
Significant can mean any of a number of things:
It will make Jeff happy. It will make me happy. I will enjoy looking at it. I will use the space if it is a) cleared, b) cleaned, c) empty, etc. We have friends coming over, and I want to be proud of my living space. We're coming up on a festival celebration and I want the whole house clean in honor of the festival.

You get the picture! Just remember: both Small and Significant will look different in how they want to manifest in YOUR life (as opposed to in MY life).

So this is my advice to you: Keep it Simple, Sweetie, and Keep it Small And Significant.

Next Post will be about Not Shoulding All Over Yourself.

ciao!

Once upon a time there was a little girl.
This little girl trustingly swallowed, hook, line, and sinker, the cultural meme that having more stuff will make you happier. She was not a happy little girl, and there were many hungers in her life that were never properly satisfied.

She started accumulating and collecting stuff. Meanwhile she was puzzled about why she seemed no happier, because she continued to hear the message that having enough stuff, will make you happy. She continued accumulating stuff.

Of course it wasn't really about the STUFF. It was about the unsatisfied hungers.
But it took her many many years to realize, that if you find out what the shape of the hunger is, and you feed yourself appropriately to satisfy all of your hungers, you don't need your "STUFF" as a pacifyer anymore.

and then you can get rid of the pacifyer.

Finding myself lately, looking at a lot of older people. I see people with white hair and wrinkles, in athletic shoes and support hose, walking confidently or with a walker or in a wheelchair, hand in hand with a companion - a sweetie, a daughter, a son (or so I assume), or a caregiver (again I assume)...

and I realize I am indeed at middle age.

42 is a good age to be at, but I will be exceptional for my family if I live to significantly past 80.
So now is a good time, especially since I HAVE the time right now, this year, this season, to think and plan out what I want middle age to look and feel like, and to think and plan and imagine what eldering will or may look and feel like for me.

I think I need to really re-examine what I think I know about getting older, and what it will feel like from the inside. I think I am learning that a lot of assumptions I used to have about how the world worked, drove COMPLETELY off the tracks after I discovered a pagan practice, after I discovered a polyamorous lifestyle, after I realized I don't, and I can't, fit tidily into the boxes that pop culture seems to want to put everyone into.

I overflow. I am large and abundant and have way too much love and hope and earnest curiosity and quirky interests. I am not nearly sarcastic or bitter enough for "what it feels like is expected of me". I'm an idealist. I'm inclusive. I'm passionate and frequently relaxed and forgiving. I like to make things myself, to find things out myself.

I don't think we have enough dialog about what it means to leave the Youth Culture behind and move into ... what? What does it *mean* to "get older" or to "become mature" or "adult"?

Who are the models of behavior? What do we need to do to move from here to ... wherever there is? What can, what MUST we shed and leave behind to make the journey?

If I think of this process in a pagan context, I can use the five-stage model, which goes Maiden-Mother-Teacher-Warrior-Crone. (the last four steps, I feel, interchange and interweave in women's lives as we grow older and more experienced and sure of ourselves, rather than being concrete, definable stages we progress through in an orderly fashion.)

I've been through Maiden, Mother/Teacher stage (my teaching and librarianing all had a deeply maternal caretaking quality), have spent some time in Teacher/Warrior stage and want to spend more there and gain in strength and confidence. I want to return to Mother/Teacher stage as an artist, birthing words and images and inspiration... since I can't birth my children, I will find children to mother and mentor and teach; I can't "lose myself" in childrearing, so I will strive toward finding myself in artistic and community endeavor. I will find my own teachers, and worry later about Being Teacher, if I choose to return to that. Teacher/Warrior needs community, and I've let my community drift away from me for too long. If I rebuild and regrow Community for myself, I think that over time, my other needs will gradually be met: needs for people time, needs for meaningful work, needs for playful and productive connection and belonging. And my need for FUN. =)

Have been living in "stuck" mode for too long. Been struggling to do *anything* productive. I've been homecaring, and taking care of my own body. The good part of that, is that for the first time in my life, taking care of my physical self is an unconflicted, unguilted, first priority. Too many "wake up" calls about my health in the last few years.

No more "shoulds": The change is here. I *am* moving my body. I *am* finding the foods and activities that help me feel strong and healthy and good. I *am* looking to the future, to 50, 60, and yes, to 80. I'm Off The Path. I have NO idea what these years are "supposed to look like" and you know what? I don't care. I can survive in the wilderness, I can feed myself and take care of others and make all my own tools.

Not getting any younger. (in some ways, thank Gods for that!) Therefore: NOW it is time to take stock/inventory, time to truly see where I am as I descend into the season of Dionysos, into the dark and the cold, into the introspective time and the Lesser Madness. Sink my Roots. Allow myself the time to make my Tools, talk with others about the Path Ahead, laugh and eat and drink wine around the fire, love hard and plan to Do Important Things before I die.

Ripples in the pond. Are my ripples from a big ol' PLONK or are they the cascade of light, sweet rings shimmering out from a single smooth stone skipped far across the pond? I'm hoping for a many-times multiple skip with a surprising dogleg hop at the end before the splash...

I'm about to embark on a three week intensive journey deep into the landscape of Waldorf.

I may or may not see and talk to y'all for the duration, I probably won't have time & energy to read LJ.

Here's the schedule: Oh, and did I mention my car needs a new radiator as of yesterday? BAH...

• This upcoming weekend: Still have classes in San Rafael, with its particular soul-quality and load of homework requirements
  
• Daily during the first week: Drive from Mountain View to Santa Cruz, and back.
  
• Spend most of the day intensely observing, and breathing in/living the culture of the 4th grade classroom and the whole school.
  
• First weekend: Still have classes in San Rafael, with its particular soul-quality and load of homework requirements
  
• Second week: Daily drive to Santa Cruz etc, except I should be actually assisting in the class
  
• Second weekend: I get the weekend off from my Waldorf classes to prep for my actually teaching a Waldorf class during the week. *inhale* *exhale* I can do this.
  
• Second weekend: Am currently planning a visit to the Nova Albion Steampunk event in Emeryville. Not sure I can pull this off; let's see how heavy the workload and prep time are.
  
• Third Week: Daily Drive to Santa Cruz etcetera, AND I'll be teaching the main lesson, on a totally new subject from what I've been observing. Whoa. AND it's something I only just learned myself, in my last Waldorf weekend class, AND I'll have to present it in a way that's appropriate for fourth grade Waldorf students, which I am not yet sure how I will do this.
  

Okay.

Short answer: I'ma be busy, and none of it, unfortunately, brings a paycheck. I'll be hermiting hard, practicing self care, and getting as much sleep and water as possible.

Still, I Love you all, send me an email if you wanna talk to me, or give me a phone call.