:Cringe: Shock. Horror. Fam Drama

Yesterday, my cousin called to say her father died. I couldn't comprehend it. My uncle has just always been there. Even when things were difficult for him, he was still there. He was there for everybody; as I was telling Will the bad news he suddenly realized he did know my uncle. Then the shocked weighed down on him too. Other parts of the story began to make more sense to Will, and finally, he wondered how he could have known someone for so many years without realizing that was my family. You've got to understand, Will and I were high school sweethearts. He met Yogi after graduation and never once realized he was having a good time with his ex's uncle.

My cousin's sister is a drug addict. I've been suspecting this for a while. As my cousin began to talk about it all, it seemed she couldn't stop and she began to tell of other things. Somewhere between the fighting, the theft, and the screaming, I asked if Suze was on pain pills. She seemed to be relieved to actually say aloud what the real problem was and confirmed my suspicions. Now the sadness weighed heavily on the shock.

In January, our aunt died. That was a shocker too, not because we were close but because that was the aunt I am named after AND the aunt who had diabetes. People draw similarities between us all the time and firmly believe that I being diabetic myself will surely die the same way- sickly, weak, body slowly shutting down from sugar so high it has become toxic to the body. Even if I'm not on the path to slow misery people put me there automatically. We had the same name and same disease. Where else could I be heading?

But besides the shock of death, I had other horrible things to deal with in January. That is when I had a miscarriage. My first child and I lost her barely a month after I found out I was pregnant.

Besides the miscarriage, I was also trying to find a job. I was not getting the job I had been promised, the job I had been trying to get for three years. I was frustrated.

I was in shock, grieving the loss of my child, annoyed with people in general, and of course, diabetes loves to throw its two cents in during times like this, so I blacked out for several hours and missed an interview. I'm still not sure how I woke from that. I'm not sure how I'm still alive. All I know is I dragged around my house like a zombie until finally it began to percolate in my brain that something was wrong and perhaps I should eat. Then I had to come back to my functioning self, then I had to call and beg for another interview. While I was doing all this, I had to reassure Will that I was indeed ok, sorta, and that he didn't need to drive like a manic madman from LaGrange to check on me.

After I got my shit together, the phone rang. It was my cousin calling me once again to tell me the latest drama. Now that I look back, I realize Suze was high then. I just had too much to deal with at the time to notice.

Suze hasn't called me this time. She has called my mother and gotten her stirred up. Really, nothing bad has happened to me other than I got the one bad call about my uncle's death. But I can't shake the feeling that this is just the beginning and most assuredly, the drama will come hard and heavy.

I have been a ball of nerves since yesterday. Naturally, my sugar has decided now is the perfect time to drop. I awoke drenched in sweat this morning with a sugar of 37. Just to give you an idea of what that number means, most people slip into a diabetic coma if their sugar falls below 35.

I think I have figured out why I feel so on edge. The last time there was a death in my family, I was also dealing with the loss of my baby. That's the main thing, everything else, the family drama, the sugar issues, the not getting the dream job, was just icing on the sad cake.

And now, death come around again. I'm not pregnant this time, but I have the fear that I will lose something very important to me. Nothing is happening to me yet I'm in full battle armor waiting for the night raid.

Progress Measured in Nightstands

It's a funny thing at my house, but you can tell how much I have going on by my nightstand. It seems like all the stuff that 'really matters' ends up here. Will is the same way, everything he doesn't want to forget, everything he needs to attend to first thing Monday morning, all the important papers, pile up by the bed. I am very proud of myself because I worked through my pile. I returned the books I borrowed, I finished the sketches I was working on (and then put away my colored pencils), and today I finished the border of a large cross stitch project. All I have on my nightstand now are two-ish projects. I say two-ish because with one I have no idea what I want to do. I don't think it should count against me if I haven't figured out what I'm doing yet.

So all that's left are the charms I need to sew onto my kitchen curtain and the picture you see above (we're not talking about the one I haven't figured out yet). I've decided to sell boxes. This is part of the lid. I think boxes will sell fairly well, I can do a lot with them as far as styles go, and boxes are appreciated across many markets by many audiences. I can make boxes fairly quickly. I have three possible places to sell them. Or I should say I've settled on three places. If I really pushed it, I could probably sell to a dozen or so places. But I wanted to start slow.

Part of the problem is the boys really eat up my time. I hate to plan out every moment of their day, but that's almost what it takes to keep them out of trouble. If left to their own devices they begin to bicker. They may fight or they may get into things they shouldn't or they may just be really gross. Mostly I remind them of rules, settle fights, try to teach appropriate behavior, and scream at them to act like they have some sense.

Besides the boys themselves, the rest of my day involves doing things to take care of them like cooking, laundry, setting appointments, planning various activities for family events, prepping for the next school year, deciding if they should be involved in clubs or sports, and then all the fun stuff you're supposed to do with boys like fishing. I don't do much for myself anymore. Will and I don't get to go out on dates often and when we are alone there's a 90% chance we are discussing the boys.

My goal is to have made at least three boxes before making a sales pitch. This one is barely started and I am already getting enthusiastic feedback. I hope that is a good sign which translate to open wallets when I actually have finished product.

I'm working hard at keeping up with material costs and labor time. I haven't settled on prices yet. I'm also putting a good bit of magick into the works because really, if you have the tools and resources, use them.

Keep Writing

I follow quite a few blogs. Some people write every day or nearly so and I think that's great. Most of us are really busy and we do good to write once a week. That's okay too because it makes us better writers. We write about what is really important. We take a little more care in blogging so that it can be interesting and entertaining.

Some bloggers disappear for months. This saddens and worries me. I miss you. I wonder what happened to you. I worry that life may have become too depressing or too hard. You probably think I don't want to hear about your struggle. You don't want to write about the latest round of meds, the newest batch of bills, another throw together meal, or yet another failed project.

But I do want to read these things because I live them just like you do. I get medicine that doesn't exactly work like it is supposed to, things cost me more than I budgeted, that throw together meal actually turned out fairly well so maybe I can cook that from now on, and we must fail before we can succeed.

I don't want to hear about just the good things. Life isn't always good. Often, life sucks dishwater.

Over the years, I've made a series of stupid mistakes. I've backed myself into corners then felt that I had no choice. I've rushed head first before I had all the information. I've decided I wanted the very thing I could not have. I've struggled to turn things around, fight against the path laid out for me, then after much screaming, fighting, and uphill struggle, end up in pretty much the same place had I left well enough alone. Life might have been easier had I gone with the flow, but I wouldn't have learned anything about myself.

And if I had only posted the good things, my readers wouldn't have understood me. You wouldn't know how I got to the good things and you wouldn't know why it was good to me. I can tell you I have a good man now, but understanding how good is lost when you missed the story about the control freak, or the dreamer who denied reality, or the guys who weren't bad but didn't connect with me. There's a boring story about coming home daily and doing nothing. It's not a compelling story like the one where you search for love, get discouraged, nearly give up, then settled down contented with a person who just wants to be with you. The good parts get lost if there is nothing to contrast them with.

Post your struggles and trails, the good, the bad, and the really ugly. We all have a story. We love story, it is how we connect and understand. When we have no story to read we become lost and confused. Worse, we may become bored. In boredom every mundane detail weighs too heavy on the soul until nothing has any meaning.

Still In the Process

I have decided to wrap up the move ASAP. I felt a deep urge to go to the bookstore yesterday. And I almost went. Until I realized what I wanted were MY books. On my shelves. I have several tomes that I pour through again and again. So instead of going to the book store, I went to the storage unit and dragged out my tallest bookcase. I had already taken the smaller two cases home and am slowly filling them with mine and Will's books. I have far more books than he does. But combining them is the start of a new adventure. I can travel the familiar roads of my books, and I can venture off into his books.

The corner where I am putting all these shelves and stories is coming along so nicely. I think it will be a very Bohemian corner. Right now I have books, family photos, cow bells, my big jar of feathers, and my horse collection. We've placed the television on a rolling cabinet. I actually have to walk behind the TV to get to my books and I love it. My little nook is more secluded. I'm thinking when all the shelves are painted and filled I'll put up a large folding screen. In the opposite corner is the huge, old radio cabinet. We have records stacked everywhere. How could I not love it?

I'm trying to finish the move even though it means in a few months (I'm hope) I'll be moving again when we get a trailer. Despite saving ourselves a ton of work by deciding to tear down the house, we still have a mountain of work ahead because we will need to clear land for the trailer. And then we'll move. And then we still have to tear down the house.

The more sensible thing would be to keep the storage unit so I only have to move boxes once more. But then that would still be like camping (and I hate camping). I'd long for the comfort of my belongs and feel like I really didn't belong here because nothing in the house is mine. No, I need my books.

A Little More About Spirits

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_x7YNJdB1uk

This is one of my favorite movies. I think it sums up the spirit world very well. In case my link doesn't work, the video is the trailer to The Others starring Nicole Kidman.

The Witch and the Spirit World

I saw a post on tumblr today about some teenagers stabbing their friend in the woods 19 times because a fictional character told them to do it. The Witch commenting on the post had been into a role-playing game based on the movie 'The Labyrinth' and everyone in her group had an experience with the goblin king. Lots of strange things happened. This group of people had an entity communicating with them. So this brings up the question- do you contact the spirit world or does it contact you?

This is my take on things- humans are social creatures. We ALWAYS notice another being. Imagine you move to a new town. You play your radio loudly. Some of your neighbors enjoy the music. The elderly neighbors do not, they think badly of you. The pothead down the street invites you to listen to his record collection. The night shift worker calls the cops.

Now imagine that there's more than humans. Imagine there are animals who flee from your woods each time the radio starts blasting. Until they get used to the noise. Gradually, they come sniffing around your bird feeders.

Go a step further. There are spirits, too. There are spirits everywhere. You may even haunt a place yourself and not be aware of it. Some of the spirits, like the humans in your neighborhood, are nice. Some are not. Some don't care about you at all.

One percent of the human population is psychotic. Which doesn't sound like much until you realize your subdivision has 100 houses. Uh oh. At least one of your neighbors is capable of killing you while you sleep. They probably won't, many factors go into whether or not someone acts on their impulses, but still, I'd lock the doors.

So how many evil spirits are waiting for you to do something stupid so they can easily turn you into their willing servant? Probably not that many. About the same odds as one of your neighbors killing you in your sleep. But that doesn't make you feel any better and it doesn't answer the question of WHY a group of teens decided 1.) to listen to the entity in the first place or 2.) to hurt their friend.

Let's go back to our group of humans. If a person told you to stab someone, would you? Probably not if that was the first thing they said the first time you met. But you might stab someone to protect a friend, especially if you thought that friend really needed your help. And then certain factors would still have to be in place, like a handy butcher knife. You wouldn't stab an abusive person if you had a baseball bat in hand. You wouldn't put down a weapon and go in search of another. And you probably wouldn't follow exact instructions either. Sure, you saw him hit her, ok, the knife was already on the counter in the kitchen where the argument took place. But if your friend starts telling how deep the wounds should be or where the next blow should land, you'd question that. If you've already cut his throat and are sure he's dead, why would you try to cut out his eyes? You wouldn't blindly follow your friend's request, you'd ask why.

So why didn't the teens ask why? Maybe they did. Maybe they were high and thought they were doing something else entirely. Maybe they thought their friend was really evil. Maybe they had been tormented repeatedly and just wanted the torture to stop at any cost. I don't have an answer because I don't know the whole story. I didn't read the news link. I am only speculating on whether or not a spirit can easily make people do its biding.

I would have to say no, it's not easy. Why would a spirit need a human to do its biding? How often to humans summon spirits? It's not that easy. It's hard to make contact in a place known to be haunted. And then you want that spirit to obey? For what? Just to see if you can? If it's a lark how much effort are you really going to put forth anyway? How do you decide when the fun is over? What happens then? Is the spirit hovering about awaiting instructions? What was it doing before you came along? Does it forget servitude? Is it resentful of the duties you assigned to it? How long would it stew in anger before seeking revenge?

Let's pretend you move into a new place again, only this time you are as anti-social as possible. This time you have a 12ft privacy fence, cameras, 'trespassers will be shot' signs, and you never leave the house. You still have to deal with people. The electric company will send you a bill every month. Girl scouts come by selling thin mints. Someone gets lost and walks across your property. It doesn't matter if you keep to yourself, people are all around and they will notice you eventually. Just like spirits are everywhere and no matter how loudly you claim disbelief, at some point there is the experience you cannot explain.

So can playing role games attract spirits? Maybe. How much effort to you put into your game? Does the game become real to you? When I was in my high school drama club we often referred to each other as our characters. Sometimes the person became their part in the play. Sometimes Brad was always Brad either on stage or off. Was our auditorium haunted? Absolutely. I've heard doors slam when the building was empty. Several students saw ghosts. Music played by itself. We were trying very hard to create an alternate reality. And we did.

Did we create those things or did spirits already present choose to manifest themselves? Maybe both. Maybe after so much emotion is poured out it starts to live. Maybe spirits find it easy to manifest in between spaces, places where imagination becomes real.

So will every player in a role playing game have a negative experience? No. Will any game attract local spirits? No. Why not? I don't know. I know lots of things must be in place, and even more things must be in place before a spirit has control of a human. And I know that even if it is a spirit in control, there will always be an authority figure to explain it all away. I'm pretty sure if I go back to the news story background will start to appear and at least one of the teens involved will be on drugs/abused/low self-esteem. Or at least, that will be the 'official' reason.

Witches walk between the worlds. The circle you cast is between the worlds. The Quarters you call are in another realm. Even the muggles walk between worlds when they dream. I don't think you can either avoid the spirit world or it can avoid you. All I can do is urge you to pay attention.

The Visible and the Invisible

I am a Kitchen Witch. Many people think this is a 'lesser' kind of Craft because it uses simple things. I use things I have around the house for my spells. I rarely buy a spell component. I can make a protection spell out of an old bottle, nails, and vinegar. I can make spells out of yarn. Everybody forgets knot magick is a powerful art, thousands of years old. Or maybe they know it until you want to the tie the wind with cheap, store-bought acrylic yarn. It's one thing to read about magick and quite another to do it. This is why I became a Kitchen Witch- I didn't have everything a spellbook called for. You really figure out what works and what doesn't when you have to DO the work.

To me, all magick falls into two categories, Visible magick which uses lots of 'props' and Invisible magick which is secret. There are a million things in between like burning incense to cleanse a space. People can see the incense, they can smell it, but they might not realize why it's burning. They don't know your intent.

Most people want the Visible magick. The want the candles, the long robes, the stones, and the herbs. There's nothing wrong with this. I like these things too. But we often forget, we are the magick.

This is a traditional Witch's symbol. For most Witches, this is the most powerful object of all. We use pentacles in all manner of spells. It's how we identify ourselves to other Witches. I've had lots of pentacle necklaces over the years. Some were given to me, some I bought. I still have the first one I ever purchased. And it was somewhat expensive. I put a lot of consideration into that necklace. I felt like I was buying a badge of honor. But this is the one I wear now:

I know you're going to say, well, that's a star, not a pentacle. But stars are pentacles. And pentacles are five point stars. Do you remember being a new Witch and it seemed like stars were everywhere? Stars on the flag, stars on the policeman's badge, stars in coloring books, stars to rate movies, stars for luck. Both the pentacle and my star are merely designs based on a circle divided into five 72 degree angles. The difference is I can wear my star around my mother-in-law. This is the Visible being Veiled. But alone, neither star nor pentacle has any power. You can draw a pentacle on a wall and it will not do anything. It is meaningless until someone see it and has a reaction. Even then, power is not being utilized to full extent. It will not protect, it will not heal, it will not banish. Someone will have to use that drawing before it has real meaning.

Sometimes ordinary objects become tools. This is also a veiling. It falls into the Invisible because if it were seen it probably would go unnoticed.

I don't know what this object is. It's thicker in the middle, one side is more flat than curved, and it almost looks like a large magnifying glass, but it doesn't increase the size of anything very much. It's too thick to be picture frame glass, and too thin to be an old headlight. I have no idea what its purpose is. I found it in my sister-in-law's Halloween decorations. I don't know why it was in the box. I don't know if she used it as a crystal ball prop or if it just got tossed into a random box. As soon as I saw it, I knew it was magick. I now keep it wrapped in silk and I use it in my circle work. I'll talk more about this mystery object when I write about transmutation circles in October. As long as we are on the subject as ordinary used as magick, there's 3 magickal objects in this picture. You see the coffee mug behind my glass? It's an agate slice. It is intended to be a coaster. I use it as a coaster, but I also use it to charge items. At the very back of the picture is the third item, a slinky. I use the slinky as a meditation tool to achieve altered states of mind.

You probably wouldn't see evidence of magick if you came to my house. But the magick is there because I am here. I don't know if I look like a Witch or not. This is what comes to some people's minds when they think of a Witch:

and this is me:

To me, the second picture is very magickal because it was taken in my backyard in Tallapoosa County. I'm in my favorite chair, it was spring, and I was near my fire pit where I performed many spells.

This is where I do magick now. This is my porch. It's a between place- neither inside nor out. Will built the porch years ago. For some reason, people don't notice the porch. It's in plain view, first thing you see when you come up my driveway. Yesterday, Will and I were on the porch. He was replacing glass in a window and I was drinking coffee. My mother-in-law drove through the yard on the riding mower. She looked dead at the porch and kept going. A few minutes later she came back. I walked down the steps and she stopped. She said she had came by earlier but didn't see us. We weren't hiding. I don't know why she didn't see us. I've had this same problem with delivery truck drivers. For some reason, they don't see me until I walk into the yard. There's a little bit of Visible- the stones and the gargoyle. I think the potted plants are magick because they are nature brought to civilization. Gardens are always magick even if the gardener isn't a practitioner. A secret garden is even better. I didn't intend for anything to be a secret. I just liked the space. Now I think the porch was already magick. When I began using it as sacred space, the mists between the worlds thickened. This is veiled Invisible Visible.

Is this a spell or just a burning candle? We don't know. We have nothing to put it in context. We have no altar, no wedding party, no house during a storm, no person praying. Whether or not this is magick depends on how we perceive it.

What makes our homes home is how we feel about the place. This is the real art of the Kitchen Witch, to make every little thing magick. Even if no one sees it.