Well, this has been eventful.

 Dear Reader,

At the time of my last post, I was struggling with a serious depressive episode. I worked with my care team and after a major medication change, I am doing much better. Just as I was getting to where I was functional enough to start working on content again my computer died. It took down several important projects and the beginnings of several blog posts when it crashed. After about a week of searching and help from Beloved, I got a new computer. Now I am in the process of learning the ins and outs of this machine. I will attempt to have new material for you soon.

What is the place of chronic illness in Filianism/Déanism

 Dear Reader,

This is something I have been struggling with for months. I've been swinging between depressive episodes and mixed episodes for the last three months. Working with my care professionals, there's some changes going on in my treatment and they seem to be leading to greater stability and health. I really should have said something sooner. (If you are struggling with illness or malaise of any sort, seek out help. It really isn't necessary to struggle when there is help available for most any manner of illness. I was a fool to wait this long.)

Among the questions troubling me was what was the place of chronic illness, more specifically mental illness, within the faith system of Filianism and Déanism.  This question nagged at me even as the medication change lifted the other persistent questions of self-worth from my awareness. If we consider the matter from one perspective, chronic illness is a manifestation of the fragility of all things due to khear. There are many who consider khear synonymous with sin and argue that we who suffer with chronic illness are somehow more flawed than those who do not have such an affliction. I would be so bold as to contend that this argument is grievously flawed and uncompassionate.

A much more reasonable argument is that chronic illness is part of the conditions of living within this world. Life includes suffering for many reasons, most of them hard to define. As beings that are incarnate, we suffer the afflictions that come attendant upon existing in this world. Each form of misfortune that befalls us, be it the failure of our health or our fortunes, is a part of this world being flawed. It is fixed wyrd that causes chronic illness by way of events we can not influence.

I would not dare to say that these events are karmic payment for past life errors. This would be as bad as saying that those who suffer chronic illness are more filled with khear than others and this is an outward manifestation of it. Cruelty does not begin to describe this position. It must be rejected for the same reasons as the other. Thus we cycle back to the question of what is the role of fixed wyrd.

Fixed wyrd, as best I can tell, are life circumstances that are in place to shape a person into what they are supposed to be according to the larger scheme of life. They are crucial events that we are unable to avoid no matter what other choices we make in our lifetime prior to or after these events. Some elements of fixed wyrd may be pleasant. Others are less so. Generally, however, they are morally neutral and simply an event of consequence. The key to this statement is the phrase 'morally neutral'. They are neither morally good nor morally evil. They are events that simply happen, however tragic they may be.

As best I can figure it, the place of chronic illness in Filianism and Déanism is the afflicted are people who require compassion and care as certainly as anyone else. The afflicted are people who have as much capacity to embody good as anyone else. And, the afflicted are people who are at times in closer tune with the suffering of Our Lady. They can not escape their conditions and struggle mightily to live within the constraints placed upon them. As such, perhaps they who struggle with chronic illness might have a hope of beginning to understand the sorrows of Our Lady. 

For, when Our Lady entered into this world, we do not know if she came into it hale and filled with vigor or if she was carrying the burden of some manner of chronic condition that made her frail despite the power within her. The holy teachings tell us that she is with us at all times even as she reigns in Avala. It is possible that among they who suffer from chronic illness, there is a masked presence of Our Lady moving through the world to see how all fares.

I, however, am a madwoman who lives a life that is somewhat isolated and stranger than others. Perhaps another with deeper knowledge may illuminate this with their wisdom. This is simply my attempt to understand my place in things and the place of others like myself. I stubbornly refuse to accept the argument that we are fundamentally the embodiment of how far we have fallen from perfection. I stubbornly refuse to accept the argument that we are to be shunned for such reasons. Far too many people live in suffering from chronic illness and things that they can not change for me to accept the implied argument that we have embrace khear and this is an outward manifestation of it.

Struggling with depression sucks.

 Dear Reader,

I've not been sleeping well over the last while. My doctor adjusted my medication but it doesn't seem to be helping as much as I thought it would be. My mood is dropping and I find myself struggling with thoughts like I should give up on my blogs and all of my writing projects because depression lies to me and tells me that it is all going nowhere fast.

My anxiety has been rather high which leads to me over thinking the prospect of writing anything at all. It's at a point that even writing in my daily journal about the random stuff the kids do and what happens in the neighborhood provokes a mini-panic attack. Fortunately, I will be talking with my doctor next week and figuring out the next step to addressing this problem. 

I feel really guilty that I haven't been writing here or on my other blogs. I sit down to write and I get so full of anxiety and fear that the words just go out of my head. Right now, I'm half tempted to delete this whole thing because "no one wants to listen to you whine." My big Camp NaNoWriMo project only got four pages done through out the entire month. That was supposed to be the Lokean devotional project. I sit down to work on it and I get afraid that I'm going to write everything wrong and that some one is going to lob a brick through my window for daring to go so far as to write about this.

It's a combination of C-PTSD from how I was raised and my performance anxiety colliding with each other and leaving me virtually paralyzed on how to act. I am not going to give up on these things. I'm struggling and my brain is like jello right now. I've got about as much focus as a goldfish. All I want to do is sleep, in part because I'm not sleeping well and in part because I am depressed again.

It is hard to do things when your disability smacks you in the face with a halibut. That, however, is where I'm at right now. Hopefully, after a little bit, I'll be doing better and back to daily writing.

A Confession.

 Dear Reader,

I must make a confession of sorts. I have not been writing on any platform in quite some time because I have been terrified that what I write will cause harm. I have been terrified that what I write will bring suffering to my loved ones. I have been terrified that what I write will be the cause of great sorrow.

These terrors are in part the fruit of evil that was done to me as a young child. The people who raised me told me that if I wrote about things they disapproved of people would come to burn our house down or kill us. They told me that if I wrote about topics that they disapproved of my entire family would suffer because of it. They told me that if I gave voice to anything that wasn't 'normal' that I would be ostracized and other people would do things to harm me. These lies were repeated so often that they became the backdrop to my early efforts to write.

I have walked away from these people. I have cut pretty much all ties to them. Due to the nature of the psychological trauma that I experienced with them, however, I have these anxieties and terror that seize me when my mood is low. I have bipolar II and I regularly experience low moods because of it. This acts as a trigger for the emotional flashbacks that have been making writing and any form of creative expression awfully hard over the last few months.

I desperately want to write. I desperately want to finish the book I started a few weeks ago. I desperately feel the need to express myself. At the same time, terror stops me. The pressure within is miserable. I ask that you forgive my silence. I am trying to over come this. I will not be abandoning my blogs. But things are very difficult right now because of my disability and life being complicated.

Struggling with writer's block.

 Dear Reader,

Life got complicated recently. I've been doing my best to sort it out. In the process of it all, because of my anxiety issues, I have come down with a bit of writer's block. I'm working to resolve this. I hope to have real content for you soon.

This post is a place holder for future content.

 Dear Reader,

I am recovering from a migraine yesterday and dealing with intense pain due to arthritis right now. I'm hoping that the pain medicine will kick in soon and I'll have an easier time focusing. Until then, I must apologize for the lack of witchy content right now. I'm in a fair amount of pain and my brain isn't quite at peak performance right now. Please check back in a few hours or so. I may have something interesting up by then. In other news, arthritis can die in a fire.

Practical Witchery: Lunar Timing.

 Dear Reader,

There's a plethora of books about how to time every thing from planting your garden to cutting your hair with the phase of the moon. There's so much stuff about it, it even makes it in to the Old Farmer's Almanac (which is quite literally the last place I'd look for anything witchcraft related). Generally, the time frame from the new to full moon is good for things to increase. The time frame from the full to the new moon is good for things to decrease. This is a form of sympathetic magic that relies upon the apparent increase and decrease in the visible moon to affect the increase or decrease effects of your spell.

I don't use astrology except to idly note where the moon is located at a given time in the sky during the month. There are practitioners who time things by when the moon is located in specific signs oriented with different astrological houses. Again, as I am by no way an expert or experienced in astrology (too much math for me), I can't point you to good resources to help you with this form of timing. 

I use lunar timing based off of moon phase because it is where I have gotten the most effective results. During the dark of the moon, that approximately three day period around the new moon, I find is most effective for shadow work and revealing things that are hidden. During the approximate three day period around the full moon, I find is most effective for general magical practice of any sort.