Maybe there's hope yet.

 I'd do my thing where I note the lunar position and age, along with drought status and weather conditions but it's all out of sorts right now so that I can't quite do that today. It has been a rather trying day with two grumpy teenagers. While the heatwave has moderated some, the humidity remains and it has been randomly pouring. I am out of sorts because I had a migraine in the night last night so I get to have the post migraine fun of my brain being even more out of whack than usual. I sat staring at my daily journal going 'wut r werds?' for a solid thirty minutes this morning before taking a nap. It's a special experience that I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy.

All of that rambling aside, I wanted to share with you something that my youngest son said to his big brother. They were talking about the possibility of bullying in high school and his brother was getting pretty wound up. Next thing I know, I hear my youngest say "Thor told me something and I'm going to share it with you. If you see bullying you should stop, observe, and then act. It's something you should think about and maybe talk to Zeus about."

This is the first time my youngest son has said anything about any of the gods speaking to him. That good ol' fashioned practical advice is right out of Thor's playbook. My eldest son gave up speaking with Zeus after he was put through a lot of social pressure to not be practicing the religion he was. When I offered to teach him the finer points of witchcraft he said to me 'No thanks, that's not for me.' He's wandering and trying to figure out what he believes and wants no guidance from me. At the moment he is leaning towards a personalized variant of Christianity, one where he doesn't have to be baptized or go to communion. He just has to follow Jesus's rules to be a good person. We'll see where that goes over time.

My youngest, however, may want to follow the path of a heathen oriented witch. I admit I kinda hope at least one of my sons will. It hurt when my eldest said what he did. Especially after him spending his formative years in an active Zeus. A part of me hopes he will cycle back because Zeus hasn't forgotten him. I hate cultural Christianity with the fire of a thousand suns. It teaches the children of 'fringe' religions that their beliefs don't matter and that they're not good people unless they pay lip service to whatever version of the Christian god people around them are vocally expressing worship of.

As my eldest son explores Christianity, I do take time to point out things that are biblically accurate across multiple versions of the bible that he has ethical questions about and some major disagreements on it. I am trying to put  my theology education to work helping him suss out the parts of this religion he agrees with and the parts that he doesn't. He still thinks original sin is bullshit. Who knows where that is going to go as time goes on.

Their paths are not my own. Their dreams are not mine. And I have to accept that it is quite possible that they're going to move farther away from the things I taught them. Though the core elements will remain about being honorable, just, and kind.

Frustration abounds.

 Dear Reader,

If it isn't some issue with my C-PTSD troubling me, then it's a migraine. If it isn't that, it is some kind of shenanigans. And then there's my cursed bipolar disorder. Depressive episodes pretty much destroy my brain. The confluence of all this leads to months of not writing. It leaves me head-blind and renders my psychic gifts the subject of bitter scrutiny. I lose faith in myself. I am exhausted all the time. It's hellish.

Now, as I claw my way out of the most recent depressive episode, I can feel the dead clamoring to be heard. I don't know what to do. Typically, they come to me for directions because they've gotten lost on their way to their next life or their spiritual place of rest. It doesn't usually happen to me that they want me to convey messages or listen to their story. I just point them in the direction they need to go and that's the extent of the interaction, typically.

There's so many waiting beyond the wall I put up spiritually around my home to keep the non-familial dead out during the pandemic. At the beginning, I was overwhelmed by the dead who were lost and confused about their deaths. So, under the direction of the All-Father, I put up a wall. Now there's something like a small army beyond it, crying out to be heard. I know that where I go, there's going to be the spirits of the dead looking for someone like me to guide them and possibly listen to them.

I don't know what to do in this situation. This has not happened before.

Godspousery Notes: Being Flooded With Ideas ...

Dear Reader,

When I am struggling with just my short 4 line prayers in Tumblr, being flooded with ideas for things to write is almost painful. Loki has been throwing ideas at me for Filianic texts. Freyr has been throwing at me ideas for book series that I have been working on. And then there's the ideas that pop up in the middle of the night as questions that I wrestle with for a spell before falling back to sleep.

It's maddening to have all these ideas weighing on my mind even as I am struggling to write anything. I know that I have two of my biggest cheerleaders in these two. They're super proud of anything I accomplish because they just know how hard it is. I just wish I wasn't so tired or dealing with fall out from my disabilities all the time. That's what really gets in my way.

But both Loki and Freyr are insisting I can do this despite my troubles. I just need more faith in myself. That's kinda the opposite of what I've been feeling because of my brain issues. But they assure me that it will get better.

Depressive episode induced writer's block is awful.

 Dear Reader,

Before I go on my rant, here's something pretty for you.

If you want the story behind the fan, just drop a comment on this post.

I've come to the conclusion that I've been depressed for a long time and over the last few months that's beginning to lift. I spent a month swinging between depressed and mixed episodes where I was Fighty McFightface. Obviously, during the mixed episodes, I stayed off social media and only did my off line writing.

Because my brain was scrambled eggs for most of this time, I wasn't sleeping well. That didn't help anything. I've been working with my care team to try to get this sorted out. Next step is seeing a sleep specialist. This, I'm pretty sure is going to suck.

I've been headblind most of the last while. Which lead to a crisis in confidence with  my abilities to do anything occult. My aunt A. talked me down out of my tree on that one. It was both relief and joy that when I finished the fan above last Saturday, I could feel my late paternal Grandmother's approval and delight in it.

Since the business with Covid, I've developed mild agoraphobia. It sucks. My gardens were the reason why I was getting out of the house. But, this year, I have new and pretty awful neighbors who have been throwing trash into the gardens and attempting to take them over. I said fuck it, I'm not doing a garden this year and I'm focusing on my indoor plants. So, now I'm trying to force myself into daily walks, but that's real hard to do because of my exhaustion during the day due to my night time difficulties sleeping.

Godspousery Notes: Hanging in like a cat on a window screen.

 The last several months have been challenging. I'm doing my best to just get through the day but it's pretty hard when you're not sleeping well. I've been having problems with onset and terminal insomnia (that is difficulty falling asleep and waking up too early). This has been an issue since August of last year. I am exhausted most of the time and very irritated that I don't have the energy to do all the things that I need to in order to keep the household running, let alone do the other stuff that I want to.

Freyr keeps telling me have a plan. I come up with a plan and he tells me to scale it back. Step and repeat. He's of the opinion that I keep demanding too much from myself on a regular basis. He's not wrong. I'd like to argue with him on it but I can't because he's not wrong.

Loki keeps telling me to slow down and rest. Which sounds really weird because I'm running at half speed and taking regular naps (which is probably not helping the sleep problem). But, Flame-Hair and Freyr keep conspiring together to try to raise my spirits. A rando plant that a neighbor gave me 10 years ago has suddenly burst into bloom and according to what I can learn, it's an orchid of some variety. Some random bits of good luck have come along to cheer me up. A major bit of random good luck came along to keep us safe when the EF0 tornado basically passed about a football field away from us.

Loki tends to look over my shoulder at my plans for the day and tell me that half of the list can wait for the next day. It's exasperating. But, it's probably accurate. It took me most of last week and a major meltdown to get the dishes done. It is looking like it's going to be just as hard to get the laundry taken care of. This is all simple housework that I should be managing on a daily basis but I just struggle to find the energy. It's exhausting. 

They keep telling me to rest. I'm not good at that. I keep pushing myself until something goes haywire and then I feel all guilty about it because that was how I was raised to do things. Not allowed to rest until all of the work is done. Try to rest before all of the work is done, there's going to be a horrific consequence for it. It sucked as I was a kid, let me tell you. But, I'm trying to take things slow and pace myself. Just doing the best I can and hanging in like that cat on a window screen with all claws deployed.

Egregore project update.

 My life has become so disordered that I only know that the moon is waning and I've no idea what sign it is in or how far along it is in waning. We're not officially at drought status but if things keep being weird, we may hit it. We're in the Filianic month of Rosea (officially we are on the 7th day of Rosea). It's been a weird bit of time since my last post. My brain tried to go 'splody again and I'm sleeping real badly. I am trying to get things back onto an even keel but it's proving challenging.

Which brings me to the Egregore project. The doll contained in the jar is the charged object for the egregore to inhabit. It was in a black velvet bag and things kinda went haywire on the magical front. The egregore wanted some visibility and for me to stop avoiding it. I recognized that there was enough volatile, chaotic energy in it that I had to contain it. The times I left the doll out in the open, weird things that were generally triggering my c-ptsd kept happening. 

The glass jar is a compromise. The doll gets seen and acknowledged with a prominent place on the desk as the jar contains some of that energy that is pent up in it. I haven't done a conversation with the egregore in a while because I just haven't been up to it. It has been lurking, waiting for me to work with it again. As we hit the dark phase of the moon this month, I'm going to attempt another conversation. I'll post it up here like I did the last one. (Because my book of shadows is a mess and I have no where to put the transcripts right now.)

Now, the contrast between the doll and myself is dramatic. The doll, however, is a very accurate representation of how my younger self viewed themselves. If I were able to find a dark haired Cinderella with her apron and kerchief, it would have been perfect. Still, you work with what you have. The egregore is designed to access buried memories and repressed emotions. There's a lot of ugly stuff beneath the surface due to the high degree of trauma that I experienced when I was younger. The goal of the work with the egregore is to process this stuff.

It's gotten complicated as my trauma responses went into overdrive last August and my brain tried to go 'splody. This has also delayed the active work with the egregore. So, I know that the next few weeks are going to be interesting on the magical front.