Category Archives: Spirituality

Weekend Roundup

So, that increasingly bad fibro thing on Friday wasn’t my fibro getting out of hand. It was actually me getting ill. No wonder doing all my usual Soothe The Fibro! things weren’t working. It also explains the somewhat below normal two days leading up to it. I fought bad nausea all afternoon, and after consultation with HRH and Paze I cancelled my appearance at the Friday evening outing. Good thing too; I reached the falling-over dizzy stage of the Sick not long after I tendered my regrets.

However, I passed out and slept almost twelve hours straight, and woke up Saturday morning feeling a million times better. So much better, in fact, that we decided to hit Ikea as soon as it opened to see the new bed we’ve been thinking of getting in person. Not only did we agree on the bed but also on a redesign (read: actual thought-out coherent design as opposed to using the mismatched things we had — I cannot tell you how grown-up this makes me feel) for the bedroom, and a reading chair for my office. We introduced the boy to the concept of bunk beds on the showroom floor, which threw him into a level of cooled out far beyond what we’d expected. This is a good thing, because HRH is buying a set for the boy’s room from his office mate at the end of the month. We will be the Coolest Parents Ever when this happens, I’m sure.

We came home with a new duvet cover, a new carpet for the living room floor, a magnetic knife strip for the kitchen, and proceeded to clean the heck out of the house. I moved the books and bookcase that was serving as my bedside table downstairs to the communal office. We got rid of HRH’s highboy (which also served as his bedside table), I put three drawers’ worth of things into plastic storage containers and stacked them in the cupboard, and we now share the six-drawer bureau. We have two short tables on either side of the bed at the moment, rescued from other uses. Suddenly there’s lots of space and the bedroom isn’t so, well, not-relaxing. The clean-up continued: I moved a bunch of things out of my office closet, and I took down one of the shelf units in my upstairs office, condensing my herb collection down to about an eighth of what it had been. As I did I was struck by how familiar some of the smells were even though I hadn’t worked with those specific herbs in years, because they were the first ones I worked with: angelica, marshmallow, hyssop. Reorganising the storage for all my spiritual practise-related supplies made me think about how my practise has evolved over the years, and how my focus has flowed through certain areas and into others, and what sort of techniques appealed to me at different times.

Absolutely everything in the house got dusted, swept, and vacuumed. I tell you, it was like we combined spring and fall cleaning. We’re nesting, I suppose, getting things ready for winter. It certainly felt like fall late last week.

On Sunday we had brunch with the neighbours, a once-weekly event that got dropped when people ended up booked for other things on a regular basis. We’re going to try to get it going again on a semi-regular schedule. It was wonderful to sit and talk and munch. Blade introduced his Rubbermaid tub of Lego to the boy, who had lots of fun playing with the Lego people and dragons and vehicles, but wasn’t completely clear int he concept of building with the bricks. There’s nothing like a box of Lego to get all the adults in the room interested in what’s going on and mucking about with it.

Sunday afternoon HRH and Blade swapped our washer and dryer for the ones in the communal office space, and HRH moved things around in the garage yet again, making even more room. His bike is now ready for use; all we need is an extra coupler attachment for the bike trailer and we’ll be set. There was gardening done, groceries obtained, and I made my very yummy and creamy much-less-than-seven-teaspoons-of-sugar (gah! who knew!) version of iced cappuccinos in the blender. We finished the day off with a truly delicious homemade spaghetti sauce and garlic bread. I made two loaves of bread yesterday because the first one was completely gone by the end of the day. Yikes.

Despite the amount of work and the being sick at the beginning of it, this was the best weekend we’ve had in a long, long, long time. I think we’d forgotten what being relaxed around one another was like.

I leave you with a six month old Foxtrot cartoon. Yes, I am behind the times.

(Oboe! Hilarious!)

In Which She Muses About ‘Celebrity’

Despite the fact that I have worked in the book business for mumble-mumble years (good gods, has it been seventeen!?) and I know perfectly well that Editors and Authors Are Real People, I still have to work through the ‘yikes Famous Person’ veil that descends over my eyes when I meet one. I am, as previously mentioned, deathly shy, which makes self-promotion a challenge to say the least. It also means I have a permanent inferiority complex.

Brendan Cathbad Myers is someone whose work I’ve read since he published essays about druidry in Wiccan Candles, a now-defunct Canadian publication. (You can still read his articles, though, on his web site here.) His articles demonstrated to me that there was a deeply philosophical and ethical aspect to Paganism, above and beyond the basic foci (and petty arguments) that seemed to resurface again and again.

I tend to write and publish material that has a practical application focus to it. His work is on a completely different level academically and intellectually. (His work is stuff I wish I could write. And maybe did, once upon a time in university, before I was swayed by the need for not-101 books about alternative spirituality.) So when we finally came face to face on Saturday night in the resto-bar where we were waiting for a table, I was expecting someone different. Instead, he was excited to meet me.

(Funny story: I walked into the dark and crowded area with Blade and Silly Imp and waved at everyone, including someone who I knew was Brendan from his author photo. Brendan turned to another friend of mine and said, “Who did I just wave back to?” “That would be the famous and best-selling local author Autumn!” t! replied enthusiastically and on purpose because he knows how uncomfortable I am with having fuss made about me.)

We were both excited and a bit nervous. I admire his books immensely, and he appears to like mine. Which boggles my mind, because they’re so simple as compared with his own. Apples and walnuts, I suppose; you can’t really compare such different things. We were both thrilled to meet a fellow Canadian and pagan author, and we began to chatter away. He has such wonderful experiences to share, and a sense of wonder and appreciation pervades his conversation when he shares stories and thoughts.

We talked a lot about our experiences publishing, which isn’t a surprise. We shared our frustration about the very real needs of the intermediate to advanced readership within the alternative spirituality market that aren’t being met because publishers are more interested in putting out basic books that appeal to a broader cross-section of the market. I can’t argue with their reasoning; it makes sense on a piece of paper. There will always be more people in the beginner stages of study than those who choose to continue through. At the same time, however, one of the most common requests in esoteric bookshops is “Do you have something that’s more advanced than this?” He told me about his current publisher, about whom he has nothing but positive feedback to share, and I’ll certainly look into them as I develop ideas that the publisher I’ve worked won’t touch.

We talked about the festival experience, and the need for people who have more experience under their belts to hook up and share their own experiences and thoughts. It’s hard to find stimulation when you’re the one teaching all the time. And we talked a lot about responsibility and ethics and values and other cultural themes related to his most recent book, The Other Side of Virtue (which I glowingly review in the upcoming Summer 2008 issue of WynterGreene Magazine. The short version: Brilliant, insightful, valuable. Read it.).

At the end of the evening it was hard to leave someone I’d just met and with whom I’d made such a wonderful connection. And it was truly wondrous to meet someone whom I consider an established and respected authority only to discover that he was just as eager and nervous about meeting me. I am an idiot. There is a lesson here, if only I’ll absorb and remember it. On the way to the restaurant Silly Imp told me she’d met and worked with Thorn Coyle recently, and that she thought we two were a lot alike. This was another source of ‘yikes’, as Coyle is another huge name who I respect immensely. I suspect that I will never shake the feeling that I’m a kid masquerading as a confident and qualified adult.

Apart from Brendan fitting into the group remarkably well, it was really, really good to (a) be out after dark, and (b) be out with friends deliberately ignoring what time it was. I’m paying for it now but it was good at the time, and I’d do it again (just not any time soon). We all have such a hard time scheduling things that it was remarkable to have us in one place to begin with. The only downside to the evening was that HRH couldn’t share it with us. I know he and Brendan would have hit it off rather well.

I’m feeling even more excited about the Hamilton festival now that I’ve met Brendan.

Quick Recap

So much has happened this weekend that I need to splash it all down in point form, to be expanded upon later:

1. Finally, finally I got to meet Brendan Myers! We’ve been missing one another at events for the past couple of years. It was a bad fibro day yesterday so I had to pass on the first part of the day, which would have entailed attending his reading and workshop, because I would have used up my available daily energy and ended up bailing on our planned evening out, which would have been dreadful. So at dinner time I met him and a group of dear local people (none of whom I see nearly often enough) in Old Montreal, and only got home at midnight. (People, that’s unheard of for me these days.) It was wonderful. Bren is sweet and thoughtful and quirky and thought-inspiring and has crammed more living into his life than most people our age have. I clicked with him right away, and I’m so looking forward to maintaining and cultivating this special new friendship. This gets a whole blog post of its own very soon because there’s a bunch of ideas to put down.

2. HRH cleared out the garage yesterday. Ye gods. There is space. Also, the garage door now works again. Huzzah!

3. I’ve been reading my fifteen year old issues of Strings magazine. Reading about music makes me want to play it (as if I haven’t been obsessing about it enough what with the 7/8 issue eating my brain lately) so after a couple of hours of reading I sat down and played forty-five minutes of pizzicato cello this morning while the boy played with his trains. Gave myself a blister on my middle right finger doing it, too. I played through dozens of pieces at about the RCM grade 5 level, things I’d been playing before I stopped with my lessons, messing about with them position-wise and intonation/tempo/vibrato-wise. Very satisfying.

4. We had a delightful visit with the ADZO family this afternoon. The kids are at an age where they can safely play in the next room on their own and either interact or parallel play doing their preferred thing, and it was so good to just sit and talk about anything and everything while they enjoyed themselves. (And eat. Ye gods, when we go over they just keep casually putting food in front of us, blueberries and watermelon and tea and cheese and crackers and yum. Then there was dinner. They spoil us dreadfully.) As a result of this meandering chat something extremely special might be coming into my possession, via a stroke of serendipity. More news as events warrant. ADZO and I have a date tomorrow morning to explore the situation.

5. Local freelance work. Yay! Small projects, but comfortable ones. Every dollar counts towards the 7/8. Which is important, because the second-level Jay Haide celli I’m going to be looking at in Toronto (confirmed date with the shop: Tuesday July 29!) are twice as expensive as the entry-level Eastman 7/8s I’ve been testing locally. If I like them/one enough I might right rent one/it for two or three months; it’s an affordable option with the shop I’m primarily interested in visiting.

Right. As wonderful as this weekend has been, I have used up all my spoons and have run out of available energy. I’m going to have to be careful over the next couple of days.

*facepalm*

My life just keeps getting more and more interesting. Unfortunately it’s in the Chinese curse sort of way.

Yesterday my internet access went down, thanks to Microsoft sending out an XP patch that didn’t play nicely with ZoneAlarm, the firewall I and millions of other people use. I spent sixty-nine minutes and 28 seconds on the phone with an unintelligible person manning an outsourced help desk last night. We finally got things back up and running.

And then this morning, the laptop died. It’s dead. D-E-D.

For those of you keeping score, that leaves me with no computer. None. I am stealing time downstairs on HRH’s computer to tell the world that yes, I am actually alive, but I sure as heck can’t work down here. I may come down to check Gmail tonight, but apart from that, nothing. Looks like I’m writing longhand during this afternoon’s writing jam with Jan.

Mitigating today’s severe technological ARGH was the wonderful wedding ceremony I performed yesterday for Scarlet and Blade, with the assistance of HRH, Jess, and Winterwolf in the ritual. It was a wonderful day with perfect weather and a lovely potluck buffet afterwards. I like performing marriage ceremonies for friends; I’m allowed to play with them during the ritual.

Right. I can’t stay here any longer. It’s claustrophobic and very damp. If you need to get in touch with me, do it by phone.

ETA: It’s 11:14 and Blade has just finished closing up the ADZO tower HRH borrowed ages ago and has been hanging on to in order to transfer the last few files to the second ADZO tower he officially acquired. I have internet (and proper browsing via Firefox, thankyouverymuch, first thing I installed), a functional computer, and thanks to my external hard drive that I love with much love I’m fine backup-wise. I can even use my external monitor again! I have a whole desk in front of me instead of a laptop! Speaking thereof, we’ll try a reinstall XP on the laptop and kick it back into shape. I’ll lose a couple of pictures but that’s about all. Muah-hah. I’m still installing Thunderbird and setting up my email addresses even now. Did you miss me?

Goodbye, Maggie-Cat

Last night, at around eleven-twenty, Maggie passed away.

I had gone to bed and was asleep by nine-thirty. HRH woke me up around eleven-forty to say, “You need to get up. Something’s happened, love. Maggie’s dead.”

She was just outside the door to my office, lying on her side with her eyes open, staring at nothing. She was still warm. There was a bit of blood and clear fluid on the floor under her head. She’d been rattling when she breathed for the past couple of days, and she’s been coughing for months. She just finally wore out. HRH had found her when he came upstairs after playing on the computer.

I sat there and stroked her for about half an hour, thinking about the seventeen years we’d spent together. She’s been with me through all my boyfriends, eight different apartments, five other cats in the family, a baby who became a toddler and an enthusiastic preschooler who was so proud of being able to pick her up. She was the first to meet us when we brought Liam home, peeking into the carry seat. She’s been with me for everything important: my university graduations, my wedding, our celebrations, writing my books, and a part of most of Liam’s milestones too.

Maggie’s favourite spot to sleep was in the curve of my stomach when I lay on my side. She was the only cat who would stay in the room when I played my cello. When I first began playing, she would jump onto the chair behind me and stand on her hind legs, resting one paw on my shoulder and touching the scroll with the other. When she was a kitten, her favourite pieces of music were Schubert’s Trout quintet and the Death and the Maiden quartet. (I’m not kidding. She used to jump up onto the bookcase that housed my CD player and sit in front of the speakers when I put the CD on.) When she was little she used to suck on one of my knuckles and knead my hand, because she and her littermates lost their mother at only two weeks old; it took her ages to grow out of the habit. She was also the only cat who would do ritual with me, walking through the circle and sitting nearby to keep me company while I worked, leaving once the circle was down. Mags was usually the most social of our cats, coming out to casually insinuate herself into a group of friends until someone realised that there was a cat on their lap. t! coined the term “Breyfogling” to describe a particular sideways prance she’d do as a young cat, her back arched and her head tossed back so that she was all angles yet flowing, because if she’d been wearing a cape while she did it she’d look just like a Norm Breyfogle panel. The tip of her left ear was bent back, from an unidentifiable accident when she was a kitten.

Maggie was just always around me. She’d be on a cushion on the floor of the office if I was working. She’d be next to me on the bed if I was lying down. If I sat on the couch to read, she’d be in my lap. I used to have to push her off my office chair if I’d left it to get a drink or a reference book, because she’d steal it whenever she got a chance. She had dozens of nicknames: Mags, Maglet, Princess Maggie Puss-Meow, Mugwort, and the name almost everyone knew her by, Maggie. Her full name was Margaret. She loved bagels and would claw through a plastic bag to get them. She was even more insane about old-fashioned doughnuts dipped in granulated sugar. She would literally climb your arm to get to one if you held it above your head to keep it out of her reach. She also loved french fries (specifically McDonalds’ fries, not that we had them often and stopped eating them years ago); she would hook one out of the box and catch it in her mouth, then give a sharp shake of her head to, well, break its neck before she ate it. She enjoyed the occasional slice of olive from a vegetarian pizza. She also liked drinking mint tea.

Telling Liam this morning was almost as hard as making myself stop stroking her last night, as wrapping her in a deep brown towel before laying her gently in a cat carrier. I took his hands and said, “I have something important to tell you. Maggie is dead. She died last night while we were asleep.” “She’s gone?” he said, and his face began to crumple up. “But I want to see her again!” Then came the question of why, and I had to explain that when cats get very very old, they slow down and get tired, and eventually they just lay their heads down and die; it’s part of life. We assured him that he would see her again in the Summerlands, and that Gully was taking good care of her for us right now.

Some past Maggie-themed posts:

Maggie gets her own back at the annoying machines that steal her laps
Maggie turns sixteen

And there are others that were lost in the Great MySQL Crash, notably the “Here at the Maggie Institute for Lentil Research” post that recounted the day t! came over for lunch and Maggie sat on his lap, carefully hooking her paw over the edge of his bowl of soup and delicately coaxing a lentil out of it.

She was my baby, the first cat I ever got on my own. Seventeen years is a long, long run, and she had a wonderful life. I will miss her, but I’ve known she would eventually fade away. She’d been fading for months, feeling slower and slower when I placed a hand on her, feeling lighter and lighter as if she was losing energy. I always hoped she’d die in her sleep, and I’m sorry I wasn’t there at the very end for her. But she knew I loved her deeply. And somewhere in the Summerland there’s a big orange cat butting his head against hers, and another black and white cat who is perhaps less annoying in the afterlife than he was in this life licking the top of her head like he used to do.

Because she died at home, I don’t have a memento of her in the way of the fur a vet shaved from the area for the injection, the way we do for Gully and Roman. It feels odd not to have something of hers left, although I know that somewhere we must still have the black collar she used to wear. She never had a favourite toy or blanket. Once upon a time I thought I’d want her cremated and her ashes back, but I know I don’t need that now. I don’t really need a memento, because she’s always with me.

Thank you for everything, Maggie. I love you so very, very much. I hope I gave you as much joy and comfort during our time together as you gave to me.

Floored

This is by no means a done deal — in fact I have no idea if I’ll do it or not — but:

I’ve just been invited to replace Laurie Cabot as a guest speaker at this year’s Hamilton Pagan Pride festival.

I haven’t said yes. I said “Urk” and “OMG” and “I’m honoured” and “Let me know more about what you expect out of a guest speaker before I decide, please”.

I’m wondering how desperate they must be for a replacement if they’re asking me. Apparently Brendan Myers gave them my name, gods bless him. I don’t know whether to thank him or hit him with a book when I see him this July.

This isn’t the first time I’ve been invited to speak at a festival or conference. The year the boy was born I was invited to speak at the Spirits of the Earth festival (which didn’t happen because, well, premature baby and green witch deadline, and the logistics would have been nightmarish), and I was confirmed as a guest for the 2006 Gaia Gathering but had to cancel because of family stuff and finances.

So. Yes. That’s what new in Autumn-land.

I’ve bashed out a new intro to the hearthcraft book intro to reflect the new title, and now I have to walk away from it before going through the rest of the MS and inserting appropriate references to said new title. Maybe I’ll play the cello for a while. After I take something for this headache that has crept up out of nowhere, that is.