Category Archives: Spirituality

Out Of It

I’m waiting for my chicken cacciatore to thicken so that I can bring it over to the Harvest potluck we’re attending tonight. Let’s hope it goes better than the rest of the weekend has, because wow, have I been out of it.

Let’s see: While talking, I’ve been trailing off into silence, losing my train of thought. Not what you want to have happen when you teach four classes in three days. (Mercury in retrograde? Ah. Check.) I also have the attention span of an adolescent gnat. I’ve been battling headaches as well, which I’m certain is connected to the pressure yo-yoing up and down. At least I slept soundly last night. My incapability to sustain a coherent thought likely explains my horrendous no-no in the supermarket this afternoon, where I saw my goddaughter and reached for her without announcing my presence first, probably scaring her poor mother to death. I would never, never do something like that while thinking straight.

I did, however, manage to remember everything I needed to pick up in the store. Wonders will never cease.

We’re tidying and vacuuming while the stew thickens, too, because we have a couple of friends coming over for tea tomorrow night. The cats are nowhere to be seen, of course. While we’re out tonight they will undoubtedly shed fur with joyous abandon, rendering the whole exercise completely futile. Ah, well. At least we made the effort.

I’ll go check on that cacciatore. So far, this recipe is a definite keeper. (It’s from the October issue of Martha Stewart Living, which I picked up solely because it had pumpkin owls on the cover. Turns out it has terrific cookie recipes as well as this cacciatore recipe.)

I’m going, I’m going…

In Which She Muses On Stress

I know I haven’t been terribly communicative, but it’s my sandbox, and I’ll play when I want to. Expect me to be very absent over the weekends, because I simply have no time or inclination to fire up BiFrost, Computer of the Gods after three solid days of teaching.

It’s been a pretty exhausting weekend. Apart from the teaching of four three-hour classes, there was a birthday gathering, and three separate stressful situations that I was involved in or peripheral to. The highly ironic aspect of the weekend was courtesy of the stress-management lecture I gave, and the subsequent lecture I taught on how to function as an effective counsellor.

(See, Tal? Those ten-plus years of offering you tea after a break-up gave me training! Thanks!)

I will not go into details, because all of it’s confidential. As a priestess and a teacher I function as a counsellor, and I stick to a counsellor’s rules of engagement. I can, however, offer you my basic conclusions:

A) People in general have to smarten up and become aware that there are other individuals in the world around them who matter too. Grow out of the six-year-old I’m-the-centre-of-the-universe identity thing, and join the adult perception of cause and effect. Please.

B) Common sense is all too uncommon. I think it’s connected to (A) somehow.

C) Taking advantage of others just sucks, okay?

D) While it’s acceptable to feel tear-limb-from-limb anger, acting on it is a no-no.

Today is dreary and I have candles lit to help cheer things up while I read an excellent book for review. If anyone wants to take a look at how and why a Wiccan ritual is set up the way it is, read Deborah Lipp’s Elements of Ritual.

I’m also reading Sarah Water’s Fingersmith, a stunningly well-plotted and -written work about a Victorian underworld scheme to liberate an heiress from her fortune. I’m taking Jacqueline Carey’s Kushiel’s Avatar in small mouthfuls to savour it, unlike my consumption of the previous two books in the series when they were released. And I’m still going at Hermione Lee’s Virginia Woolf and Lucasta Miller’s The Bronte Myth. The latter isn’t so much a biography as an examination of the whole marketing/legend that has grown about the Bronte family. Fascinating stuff, if you’re a literature addict or a Victorian pop culture nut (score two for me!).

I think I’ll go for a walk. Fresh air, some rain, exercise, maybe the used book store.

Retreat Recap And More

Happy very first birthday to my precious little kittens, who are kittens no more. Nix and Cricket officially enter Cathood today. (Thanks to everyone who fed all our fur children over the weekend, by the way!) They grow up so fast. *sniff* Remember when they were just handfuls of fluff?

I slept over twelve hours last night. In fact, over the past five days I’ve spent an alarming amount of time asleep. Okay, a couple of events down south were extremely energy-draining, which might explain the need to recuperate; but I seem to be careening to insomnia’s opposite extreme in general. (I oughtn’t complain. Paze mentioned last night that a parent is supposed to look not at what a toddler eats in a single meal, but rather at what s/he eats in a week. Perhaps I ought to address sleeping in a similar fashion?)

Neat stuff I picked up south of the border:

– a new thermal mug in stylish black and brushed metal. I’m using it now. My tea will take hours to cool off. Muah-hah-hah.

– a beautiful pale green light wool wrap with Celtic knotwork along the edges. My husband bought it for me while I was gazing at it, all open-mouthed.

– a funky flowy dark red top with three-quarter sleeves, a wide neckline, lacing and embroidery. I love it.

– a jingly anklet. I’ve always wanted one of these. (Yes, this and the previous acquisition point to the bohemian Gypsy streak buried somewhere deep in my soul, which rarely comes to light.)

– my very first MagLight. Whee!

– a stunning, stunning pendant cabochon of green amber in a simple silver setting. This was a mentor-gift from the protege assigned to me over the weekend. We do this to help new people integrate with the group, get to know people other than the ones with whom they travelled down, and to ease the culture-shock they might be feeling as a result of their first private festival. (My Tradition deliberately schedules this private event to get city-bound folk into Nature for at least four days, as well as to touch base with the physical part of the group mind and soul.) I was given this pendant by my protege on the first day of the event and it rendered me speechless. Such an extravagant gift for someone you’ve only just met! But he called it a heart-gift, from his to mine, and a thanks for being part of his new experience. I’m still overwhelmed, but part of the long hard road I’ve been on has addressed learning to accept gifts and compliments in the spirit in which they’re offered. In several ways and for several reasons this gift was appropriate, and I have no right to deny or diminish the love with which it was presented. I’d been feeling rather plain, too, since I’d left all my pendants at home, so I wore it all weekend.

– a clergy certificate. Did I mention that part yesterday? (Okay, okay, I didn’t come home with it, but it’s in the works. I’m proud of it. Let me be proud.)

– assorted candles, etc., as gifts.

After a day of re-adjusting at home, I find that I can’t quite walk a straight line (I appear to be listing to the left), and I still seem to be missing things I reach for. Camping isn’t supposed to relax you this much. I feel as if I’ve passed the point of relaxation and gone right to spaced out. It’s not a bad spaced out, though; it’s more like I’m in a mild dream state, which is infinitely preferable to the strung-out state I was in before we left. (Odd how you don’t realise how tense you were until you’re not any more.)

I should try to bottle this, for future pick-me-up situations.

Spiritual Retreat

I can’t exactly provide a more in-depth commentary on my camping experience this weekend, so for now…

I passed my clergy exam. With flying colours, apparently, though numbers will not be released. And I aced the practical, which was ground-breaking and deliberately crushing, apparently in order to make a point to a certain number of my evaluators (I love politics, don’t you?). It was a real high to have people whom I respect as spiritual leaders involved in various impressive paths, traditions and positions come up to me over the weekend to tell me how impressed they’d been with my performance. I have every right to be proud of my achievements.

In circle, you may now call me “Lady Autumn”. I’ve damned well earned it with blood, sweat, and lots of tears: tears of frustration, joy, and anger in various amounts at various times. I’ve taken my oath to serve and to walk the clerical path, and I’ve been warned that it just gets harder.

The theme of the weekend was “Bring it on!” (most of the time – at certain points it was “Don’t make me get Canadian on your ass!”), and you know, after the stunning proof in the pudding (of Friday night in particular and the last five days in general), I can say that with all confidence regarding the rest of my life, now. So, bring it on. I’ve proven that I can deal with a tremendous amount of stress, upheaval, and pain over the past few years, and come out swinging. I’m only human, and I’ll still make mistakes, but by the gods, I can hold my head high and be proud of who I am, who I’ve become, and the choices I’ve made. I can help others survive, and seek, and witness for them throughout the changes in their lives, too.

It’s not what I ever thought I’d end up doing with my life, but destiny rarely drops you a neat little schedule at your birth to paste into your baby book.

Last Notes

Well, that’s it; we’re off to pick up the van, then catch a quick nap, and then away we go.

Just to keep you all going while I’m away, though, you can think about the telephone call I just had with the acquisitions editor at that US publishing company, where we felt each other out, decided we were friends and were equally enthusiastic about the project. We talked about availability, what the position would entail, and so forth. Come Monday when I’m back, we’ll be speaking again to hopefully finalise things since she’ll have actual numbers and projected dates and such.

I’m pretty stunned. Mind you, so is she. Her publishing editor told her she’d never find anyone with publishing experience. Not only did I fit that prerequisite, I also have the educational background for review and analysis, and I’m knowledgeable about the field the series would cover. Both of us are rather impressed that this has fallen into place.

This truly feels slightly unreal.

Lost In Files

Digging through my files for driving directions to our campsite in Pennsylvania (give me a break, we only do this once a year, okay?), I found two things that made me smile.

The first:

Scribbled on the manila envelope where I put last year’s info (complete with all the exits leading to Friendly’s restaurants) I found my Highway Haiku:

Ontario First
New York: Three Giant Ravens
Pennsylvania Ho

Bridge May Be Icy
Buckle Up For Safety Please
Right Lane Closed Ahead

(Yeah, that last one is composed entirely of road signs. And I’d completely forgotten about the three humungous raven statues in the field just over the border, on the west side of I-81.)

The second:

A white envelope that only had my name on it. I opened it and pulled out three print-outs of submission requirements to three major publishers. On top was a sheet of paper with huge letters on it:

A,
If you
make it,
they will
come.

The sign was a colleague’s gag at work a couple of years ago, when we were joking about possessed hardware after our network was set up and from the back office he could fool around with printer that sat next to my work station. But it made me smile, because I found it in with those manuscript submission guidelines.

If I make it, they will come, indeed.

Under The Influence (Of The Goddess)

Yes, she scores again!

I stopped by my not-so-friendly neighbourhood Salvation Army thrift shop this morning (seriously; the depressed staff always seem like they never want to be there) and found another super-sexy pair of hip-skimming, ankle-enhancing Buffalo jeans, in black. I paid $4.99 for them.

Muah-hah-hah-hah.

Oh, yeah; and I found a light brown pair of jeans to go camping in that actually fit me, unlike the rest of my camping clothes.

Sometimes I wonder about this sudden onslaught of girly-girlishness that seems to have possessed me — you know, cosmetics, higher heels, highlights in the hair, sexy midriff-baring tops, jeans that actually show the shape of my legs… and then I look back over my life and think, hey, why not? If it’s taken me thirty-two years to reach the if-not-exhibitionist-then-at-least-less-introverted stage, then so be it.

Or it could be that I started working with Freyja as my goddess-form this spring.