What's been going on in my neck of the woods.

 Dear Reader,

I haven't been doing exactly too great over here. The tarot reading business that I was running I had to shut down because the site that I was working with has become too predatory in their approach towards advisors. It's bad enough when the cost of overhead for having a listing is 53% of your income. That was why I shut it down before. Then I came back, raised my prices and said if I had a brick-and-mortar site I was working at, that I'd have a good chunk of income go towards that and swallowed down that uptick (when I started with them, it was 30% of your income). 

The company that I was working with to have that listing changed hands again and they made changes to how they assessed metrics and the policies were punitive to part-time advisors. They were also screwing over people who had been long term (as in working with this place from when it was founded in the late 90s, long term) advisors with changes they were making to internal policies. Thrown on top of this, the company was no longer providing technical support advice via forums that had been set up for it, put the onus for trouble shooting problems with their app on the advisors, and made it practically impossible for you to get ahold of someone to actually address problems on the site for advisors, I had to walk away for good. Especially when they started erasing posts in the advisors only forum where advisors were discussing the challenges faced by policy action and posting a 'notice' (read warning) that only 'uplifting' posts were permitted. Sorry, Friend Computer, but happiness is not mandatory so you can go right to Hel.

I've been in a bit of an emotional tailspin for the last month or so because of this. It's made for a huge change to my daily schedule that I am struggling to cope with. It's further increased my social isolation due to the fact that I live in the boonies and I have a hard time socializing because of my social phobia. It's been a rough couple of weeks, y'all. It also looks like a writing gig that I had set up is falling apart despite the fact that I did a lot of work. It's emotionally really hard to realize that about three years worth of work and emotional investment is ultimately not going to go anywhere.

And then there's the writer's block that I realized was panic that all of my work blogging and writing was futile and a powerful wave of despair. So, in an effort to combat that despair, I am going to resume working on blog posts. I've got more time now. I am also going to get to work on the list of books that were supposed to be done but I was working on that other gig and forgot about those. The books are going to take a while because I have to get my notes in order and transfer stuff from old format to new format and rewrite a bunch of things. That's all before the dreaded editing process.

Next week, I will be back to posting stuff about Runes. We've got six left out of the Elder Futhork to cover and then that series will be finished. I will do a wrap up post that puts all of the links for each rune on it. After that, I haven't decided what direction I am going to go next on the divination front. I have to review what I have up here to see what I have missed. (Side note: sometime late summer <if everything goes according to plan> I will have the condensed version of the handbook for psychics out.)

Practical Witchery: Depression Witchcraft (pt. 3)

 Dear Reader,

It's been rough for a while now over in my neck of the woods. I'm starting to come out of that depressive episode and, boy, is there a mess around here to clean up. Depression can make you neglect things that are important, like self-care. For witches, self-care looks a little different for every witch you meet. One thing that they'll agree on is that regular practice of grounding and centering yourself is important to be on the path to recovery from depression. Now, if you ask 13 witches how to do this, you're going to get 463 answers.

Here's my contribution to that 463 answers.

• Eat or drink something - the act of consuming food and beverages forces one to focus on their body.*
• Sit on the floor or the ground. Then project your energy down through your spine and pelvis into the surface you are sitting on. Allow it to be absorbed and dissipate.
• Take a shower or a bath - this is like the first suggestion and works to get you back to a 'mundane' headspace.*
• Hold a rock or put your hands into dirt. Then project your energy through your arms, out your hands and into the stone or dirt. If you're using a stone, after projecting your energy into the stone, set it on the ground and wait for the energy to dissipate.
• Wash your hands or place your hands in running water
• Hold an ice-cube, for a more intense sensation to focus on place the ice cube in your mouth
• Note five elements of your environment that you see. Repeat the process with your other senses
• Practice the Square Breathing technique: Inhale to a slow count of four, hold your breath to a slow count of four, exhale to a slow count of four. Repeat as necessary.

You may notice that some of my suggestions are classic techniques used to help people with PTSD and other dissociative disorders to refocus on their present situation. These techniques work for people with depression and are struggling to focus. They are also highly effective for helping you let go unwanted energy.

*For people who are bodily dysphoric, these exercises are difficult and I recommend choosing one of the other exercises. Remember, this is supposed to be a gentle exercise to ground unwanted energy and focus you on the present moment.

Addendum: Bodily dysphoria happens for many reasons and to many people. If you are struggling with it, you are not alone. Be gentle with yourself and your body, it is your home on this plane and as special as you are. (And yes you are special and deserve to be happy, healthy, and well.)

Divination: Rune Study - Hagalaz

 Dear Reader,

I first want to apologize for how long it's been since I said I was going to start posting again. The last few weeks have been nothing but chaos. It kind of seems fitting because the next rune is Hagalaz, which is associated with chaos by many diviners. The rune card just sat there lurking beside my laptop as things like my camera quit working for no reason, my allergies suddenly became so bad I thought I had Covid (I didn't, thank goodness!), and my kids went on break from school earlier than was printed in the school calendar. (The school calendar has some misprints in it, like the surprise superintendent's conference day last month.) It's been an interesting time.

Hagalaz translates to the word 'hail'. This is not the greeting but the ice that falls out of the sky and flattens your field of wheat (or busts your car's windshield). Wikipedia has the different variants of how this rune is formed on their page. The rune poems all agree that this rune is discussing hail. In agrarian communities, hail is a big pain in the neck. It can ruin a field of crops, damage equipment, and (if you're caught out in it) injure you or your livestock. This rune is one of the more negative ones in the entire system. It is tied with Nyd and Isa for the amount of misery it predicts.

Hagalaz is also one of the runes that can not be reversed. As one person said: the opposite of chaos is more chaos, not order. Depending on the placement of this rune in a reading, it can mean an immediate challenge that must be endured or a protracted period of difficulty. When you are pulling runes on a yes/no question and this one pops up, the answer to your question is a hard no (this is also true for the runes Nyd and Isa). Either way, this rune portents challenges and hardship where ever it falls. It is my experience that Hagalaz's challenges can not be averted or mitigated as those predicted by Nyd or Isa, only endured.