Moth Myth Background

I haven't done any graphics art projects in a while, but those who knew me back in the days when the Cauldron used to do avatar challenges once a month probably remember that I used to play around with it. I finally decided I'd had enough of the Masks background--especially because I keep seeing that Anonymous hijacked Oscar Wilde quote: "Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth." While that may have fit my original intentions for this blog on some level, my perspective on that quote doesn't match up to the current popular interpretations. It may seem trivial, but images code meaning for me and since my message has changed subtly, the image must change to match.

(I describe my inspiration after the cut and also attached the picture file for the background as well as the instructions for installing it via code in blogger in case anyone wants to use it.)

Gift of the Curse: Part 1

[Read the intro to this series here.]

The first thing to overcome is the guilt and the fear…the nagging sense that I’m some sort of imposter who has no right to the term “gifted”. Like many, I have long held on to the misconception that “giftedness” could be reduced to a single, coldly defining number: an IQ score. That the everyday genius that is giftedness could standardized on a bell curve. The reality of giftedness, however, is worlds away from that base and primitive simplicity touted by psychologists of eras long since past...

Brief Thoughts About Change on the First Night of the Mysteries of Wesir

This is relevant to what I am feeling as I contemplate the first night of the Mysteries. 

The Akhu feasted on Welsh Rarebit tonight, and partook deeply of spiced apple cider. I filled the little well on the altar almost to brimming with cool water and lit the candle, the light glowing gently against the underside of the fresh cut flowers that I keep above the little cabinet that holds their images. The occasion also saw the raising and decorating of the Christmas tree, for though I am decidedly not Christian the tree is a family tradition and a December living room would feel incomplete without it. My mother loved the lights and ornaments when she lived and so I make sure her picture faces them so she can see the beauty of them.

Re-framed: Intro to the "Gift of the Curse" Series

“You play madness like it’s convenient, you do it so often that you start to believe it, you have demons so nobody can blame you, but who is the master and who is the slave?” --lyric from Voices by Madonna

 I have been diagnosed, at different times in my life, with all of the following: General Anxiety Disorder, Bi-polar Disorder, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, Social Phobia, Seasonal Affective Disorder (SADs), and Insomnia. I have come to the conclusion, however, that I have none of those things.

The Fourth Day

Strangely enough, this was written on time--just posted late. It turned out Thanksgiving was, far from being a distraction, a catalyst for focusing my thinking about this last bit. 

That's because Thanksgiving is a strange holiday for me. Since my brother and I started college, it has been a half-celebrated holiday in my home. Its traditions became inconsistent and casual. Of the last ten holidays, I have only spent three in my own home, only four with members of my own family. I spent this year’s dinner at a coworker’s house enjoying her traditions and her family’s company. I would say that it is sad or odd to be spending a family holiday away from home after what happened this summer but…

Home is a different word for me these days.

The Third Day

It’s hard for me to admit when I don’t know something. I’m not sure if that’s a matter of spending too much of my adolescent and adult life trying to live up to the “gifted” stereotype or a matter of ego, but either way, it leads to admissions like this one feeling awkward:

There are a lot of well-known Names that I know virtually nothing about...

The Second Day

I cannot think of a time in my life when I was able to easily focus on just one project, one skill, or one curiosity. The world is simply too full of grand ideas that demand to be played with, useful abilities to be gained, and interesting things to be explored. I have a kind of insatiability when it comes to novelty that carries over even into the spiritual part of my life. After all, there are literally hundreds of Names out there. There are enough well known ones to occupy a lifetime of study, and there are more than a few who have very little literature about them and are therefore intriguing in a different way.

The First Day

I can’t decide if the timing couldn’t be better or if it couldn’t be worse.

Hip deep in the debris of a kind of mental and metaphysical transformation I wake up to an e-mail in my inbox that would have been far easier to answer to if it had arrived a month ago. Having the RPD option on the table right now seems at once dangerous and a perfect way to speed things up a bit. There is a strong temptation to gain access to yet another little piece of the puzzle while I’m still in those early stages of reformation and foundation building…it could have a significant impact on this reconstruction of me. On the other hand, I’m also buzzing with Set’s energy right now and there is a small chance that doing anything even remotely community related might be disastrous in unforeseen ways.

It leads to a host of other problems as well:

Some Philosophy to Distract Myself from a Nightmare

My brain’s newest variety of hell is creating vivid dream worlds where my mother still lives but my other family members are dying instead. This time it was my younger brother. There is fear surrounding that. Fear so thick I can taste it….

My little brother was born with a freakish blood condition where, every once in a while, his white blood cells randomly decide that his platelets are enemy bodies. There is no cure, but thankfully, the body’s immune system usually snaps out of its deadly delusion given enough time and proper care in a hospital ward. Still, it took a month for his first episode to end. He was a little boy then, so little he barely remembers it… but I remember.

I remember spending a lot of time in that hospital waiting for him to get better. And I remember the adult in his ward with the same condition who didn’t get to go home at the end of that month because sometimes, the body doesn’t just snap out of it. He has only ever had the one episode, but there is no way to know if or when he might have another one.

Jumping is Not Less Valid than Being Pushed

This bothers me, but it took a while for me to figure out why. 

I think what niggles at me most is that, though I respect the author greatly, it just feels patronizing. It's too much like an argument my mother used to make when she was trying to convince me not to pursue paganism in general: “This will make you an outcast if anyone ever finds out. It could ruin your life and your father’s political career. Even if no one ever finds out, you’ll be lonely because you won’t be able to tell anyone. Why would you do that to yourself? You should think hard about it and see if that is really what you want.” Look at how bad this can be. Think hard about “inviting” these troubles into your life… If I was scared away by arguments like that, I wouldn’t be pagan.

I know that (or hope), in this case at least, it wasn’t the intent to imply that anyone who chooses to engage the astral instead of being chosen by it (and therefore unwillingly engaged) is somehow irresponsible simply for having sought it out. But this isn’t an issue with just this article or with the topic of astral specifically.

The Tower Falls (aka "why I've been absent")

She tried several dreams earlier in the week, when she first sensed what was happening, but I didn’t catch on to the fact that it was her. This time she appeared as herself. She started with the house as a metaphor. It wasn’t a house we had ever owned in real life, but rather, it was the dream house we’d built from bits and clips of shows on HGTV. A bedroom like that, a living room like this, a double oven, beautiful craftsmen woodwork, a Victorian façade… we were arguing over the thermostat.

The World Where She And I Can Both Live

The wheel turns and the seasons change again. The trees are bare and the moon clatters through the branches to pour cool light into the living room. I watch the frozen mist roll in from the valleys beyond the town. Something in me shifts slightly.

----

I know when she is going to appear in my dreams because I feel her, see her, remember her just before I go to sleep. I fear that because she is always dying in my dreams. But this time she is not dying.