Category Archives: Spirituality

Happy Thanksgiving

Fall is plaid flannel shirts, golden sunlight, and apples picked off the tree yesterday and handed to you by a farmer.


We are thankful for the beauty and the bounty of food that the earth provides, and for the farmers who bring it to us. We are thankful for the air we breathe, the water we drink, and for the fire that provides light and warmth in various forms.

We are thankful for friends and family (chosen and otherwise), for love and support, for freedom and (relatively good) health.

We are thankful for work, for time to play (even though it seems in very short supply these days), for snuggles and hugs, for cats who purr, for little boys who run and laugh, and for partners who are there to lean on.

And we are thankful for our spirituality, which provides a framework for expressing our feelings about the indefinable.

Thanks, world. You rock.

Brick Walls

As if the last two weeks have not possibly sucked enough, today HRH woke up extremely ill and incoherent and spent the majority of the day in bed. I myself am remarkably weary of being sick; this cold is dragging on and on. Then this afternoon, when Liam and I reached the doctor’s office for his 15 mos appointment (which had been rescheduled three times already), we discovered that the doctor had been called out moments before on an emergency and the rest of the day’s appointments were cancelled. We rescheduled for next Tuesday, the only time the receptionist could give me.

Next Tuesday is, of course, one of the days I had to add to Liam’s daycare schedule because of the amount of work I have to do. So I lose one work day there. I’ve lost this Friday as a work day as well, as Liam’s grandma is out of town. And I have no idea what’s happening on Monday; I’m assuming Liam’s caregiver is not receiving, what with the statutory holiday and all. That makes for a total loss of three days, which is a week’s worth of work for me.

Is everything in the sky moving backwards or something?

When I went to draw a Tarot card last night, I saw that the last one I’d pulled around ten days ago was the Ten of Swords, the Yes, it really is that bad card. I should have known. But the Ten of Swords, while being not a great card initially, also encompasses the whole ending-is-a-beginning concept. So I’m watching for things to turn around and look up. I drew the Seven of Wands today, which suggests being successful in competently implementing what I want to implement (the specifics of which remain nebulous at the moment, but which generally include getting work done, and done well, and being on top of all the stuff I have to handle, and being not-stressed, and happy again).

So there. Yes. Tired of the bad and the crap and the sick. Ready for better things.

From The File Marked “Grrr”

Know what I hate? I hate it when something totally beyond your control — like, oh, say, the lodge where you booked your retreat cancels your four-day booking because their water supply has had to be turned off for some reason — ruins something for which you’ve spent an awful lot of time and energy organising — like, oh, say, your annual spiritual retreat with ten other people.

Sometimes, life really, really sucks.

Fine. We’ll go to visit my parents instead, because HRH couldn’t get an extra day off at Thanksgiving, and the retreat will be rescheduled for later this fall.

I accept it. I don’t have to like it. (The rescheduling part, not the being able to visit my parents after all part.)

A is for Adler and Ashcroft-Nowicki, B is for Budapest and Bonewits, C is for Cunningham and Crowley…

I just spent half an hour rearranging my Craft books alphabetically by author, because I couldn’t find something that I needed to reference. Argh.

I kept the herbalism books and the cultural/mythological stuff separate, though, because with those it’s just easier to zero in on the subject and then look for what I need within it.

And I just realised that I have about twenty books piled next to my desk, because I’ve been using them as research for ESTC. I’ll have to try to fit them back onto the main shelves eventually. No wonder there was enough room for everything. I should have known it was all too easy.