Wow, it's been a week already?

 Dear Reader,

I have been super busy this week with functionally no time for writing. I had hoped to hop back in the saddle and resume daily posting but life got in the way. A lot of progress was made in off-line happenings but not much with my writing online or off-line. I apologize. I had plans to write a lovely poem for Lady Day but I spent Lady Day doing just about all the dishes in the apartment and prepping a fish tank for a new betta. (Our old betta Snap passed on last month the day before my father-in-law died. We now have a new betta named Pacman (with the nickname Sunshine because the kids couldn't decide on a name) and he is just as silly as Snap. The coolest thing about this betta is that he is yellow. I'd never seen one that was yellow before.)

I did not get as far as planning out blog posts for this week. As such, I didn't have base ideas to work from to create quality content. I'm going to do that today. While yesterday was my planning day, I spent the day running from appointment to appointment. March has been a busy month and April looks to be just as busy, to be honest. Being disorganized does not help my writing process at all. I know there are threads that I have dropped and I'm trying to find them in the back posts here. It slows me down a considerable amount too. I am doing my best to get back to daily content. It may just be a bit rough for a little while. Please bear with me as I am working on it.

Divination: Musings on Crafting Your Own Oracle Deck.

Dear Reader,

I posted a while back that I am working on making my own oracle deck. It is based off of dream images and running themes in my artwork. The preliminary deck is small symbols sketched out on 3x5 notecards with a word associated with the symbol in question at the base of the card. It is proving a bigger challenge than I anticipated. I need to flesh out the artwork because a small glyph doesn't fully capture the meaning of the image.

I am trying to decide if I am going to use paint or colored pencils on the next set of cards I make. I am a fan of both mediums. I don't think I'm brave enough to use the watercolor pencils that you can paint over. I have always had a hard time controlling where the paint goes with watercolors. Either way, the glyphs alone is not sufficient. 

Reading with the deck is pretty meh right now. I have come to the conclusion that the deck is incomplete, which means I need to work up more glyphs for more dream symbols. I can get an ok reading with the deck but it lacks detail. I want the deck to give results that are just as detailed as I can get with a tarot deck. That means tweaking it and working up different layouts for readings. Just pulling cards gives some information that is useful. Laying them out in a fashion similar to the Celtic cross just gives me a jumbled mess. So tarot spreads are not going to work for this deck.

It's a shame that my favorite craft store is going out of business. I'd pick up heavier cardstock and make the cards with that. It's not easy to shuffle a deck of notecards. They tend to bend. But, here's your update on how that project is going. Slow and steady is what's going to win the race here.

Godspousery Notes (a day late)

The past week has been busy. It has been stressful to see what the Trump team is doing to the government. So stressful that I am back on the higher dose of antianxiety medication. I grumbled and muttered about how I didn't want to do it. Both Freyr and Loki gave me a glare. I dare say they had matching expressions of disapproval. I was pointedly reminded that I had just finished a major depressive episode and failing to control my anxiety would drive me into another. I could have been stubborn but that only gets you so far when you're out numbered and logic is on their side.

I thought that Freyr was going to be upset with the vegetal casualties of my depressive episode. He wasn't, much to my surprise. His response when I started to apologize for the umpteenth time was to say "You did your best. How can I expect you to walk on a broken leg while it is still in traction?" He is encouraging me to do more gardening indoors and outdoors. But he is making a point of cautioning me against making plans that are too much for me to handle. Continuing with the broken leg image, he told me that I can't run when I'm using crutches.

Loki has been quiet of late with the exception of the day that I heard about his opinions on my resistance to the antianxiety medication getting raised. It feels like I'm being observed. I am pretty sure he's up to something but I have no idea what. It is a bit unnerving when deities take your measure and you're aware of it on some level. They can see literally everything about you.

Moura 2025 CE: Day 28

 It is Kala. This is the day that Our Lady is slain by the Dark Queen. Given everything going on in the world, it seems like the Dark Queen is running rampant. It's pretty easy to feel tempted to despair. I exhort you all to resist that temptation. When feeling like all hope is lost, sit with the feeling and learn from it what you can. Then bless it and let it go. Resist the urge to ruminate on the feeling because it will only make you feel worse.

When you have done your best to let the feeling of hopelessness go, refocus your efforts on the present moment. Do something that involves as many of your senses as possible. For my part, I'm going to go wash dishes after I finish this entry. I may wind up cleaning up a significant portion of the kitchen. My effort to tending to present matters will help push aside the anxiety that I am feeling and help me to adhere to the ritual taboo against contemplating the future over the next 48 hours.

If washing dishes and tidying up the kitchen doesn't refocus me on the present, I know my stomach will when I am done. Lunch time is about an hour away and I figure I have about an hour's worth of work to do. If that doesn't help, I know there's more housework to focus on. 

Moura 2025 CE: Day 27

 It is almost Kala and my goal of having everything around here picked up by then is impossible. I'm not going to stop cleaning in despair. I did that last year and I think I have enough dust everywhere I could plant things in it. (I really was at a bad place last year.) I have decided that since the world is going haywire, I might as well let myself have some extra time to get the household picked up. It's not like dishes are going to go anywhere, if you know what I mean.

A small part of me hopes that within the coming days that we'll be witness to a miracle and the republic will be restored. It is the same part of me that hoped that Christmas would come with the miracle that life was going to turn around as a kid. I am fairly sure, however, that such a hope is foolish. There are forces at work that I can not fully fathom and I doubt that I have the capacity to effect change on that front, as much as I want to. I pray, but prayer feels useless.

Instead of mumbling pleas that the decay of the US pass me by, I am focusing on what I can do and what I can change. I continue to work on getting things ready for when my eldest son graduates high school. I'm planning a garden and I'm going to get supplies for preserving food. I intend to take time to put by food for my household and some of the extended family. Part of that process is going to be learning how to can tomatoes. Hopefully, I will find a recipe for canning fruit that doesn't require a super huge amount of sugar. 

I am attempting not to despair. I am resisting the urge to chronicle ever aspect of the political happenings in my country. I just know that would make everything harder. So, I am trying to refocus on practical things and what little things I can do to help people around me. I'm still making preemie hats. The rate had slowed down because of last year. But whipping those things off in a half hour does wonders for my stress levels. I plan on dropping off 90 preemie hats with the county hospital next month. I'm 2/3rds of the way to that goal. Focusing on things like that help ease some of my feelings of helplessness and gives me a bit of hope.

Moura 2025 CE: Day 26

 I have been struggling against the ritual prohibition of not contemplating the future during this month. One, there are many worrisome things happening that I am concerned jeopardizes the future of my children. Two, I have blog topics to plan for next week that I am struggling not to start work on. And, three, I have books that I am going to write this year that I want to get organized and such. I am impatient to get to work on the projects like blog planning and I am unable to stop worrying with each new development in the news here in the US.

I attempt to focus on the present. It is part of the reason why my kitchen is actually looking kinda decent right now. When I catch myself worrying, I go and start cleaning. My bathroom is still a disaster but the mirror isn't super foggy from whatever the kids sprayed on it when they last attempted to clean. I am probably going to spend a bunch of time working on handcraft projects today when my worrying begins to be a problem. 

I have a spinning project that has been languishing for months because I have been forgetting to work on it. Spinning yarn is a relaxing hobby for me and since I figured out how to do it as I am walking around, it makes for a good motivator to get some exercise. In fact, I prefer to take a walk and spin with a drop spindle over sitting down at my spinning wheel. I do love my spinning wheel but I don't have a good set up for using it at the moment. The chair that I sit in when I am working on fiber projects has arms on it and makes it hard to get a long draw going with my fiber.

The weather today isn't going to be that fantastic to go for a walk outside and spin, but I can walk around my apartment and do it. It's an ideal project for when I have to focus on the present because I have to carefully watch my fiber to make sure that the yarn I am making is even. I have one of the three singles done and in a ball. I have to make the second Alpaca fiber single and then the third single out of acrylic fiber. I am kinda worried that the acrylic fiber that I have has a ridiculously long staple length and it will be difficult to spin. However, when I get the three singles done, I am going to ply them together on my kick-wheel. It's a project that is going to take a little while to finish up.

I haven't decided what I am going to do with this yarn when I get it done. It is going to be my first 3 ply yarn. I want to save it for myself and when I do another 3 ply, I'll make something else out of it and give it away. I am contemplating selling some of the yarn I spin. According to theory I could fetch a good price for it. I am undecided on it all. But, Moura isn't a time for making decisions like that. It is for focusing on the present and the holy mysteries of the season. 

Moura 2025 CE: Day 25

 I woke early today. I hadn't planned on it, it just happened. I am not groggy, so I guess I got a full night of sleep. I'm hoping this isn't an indicator of heading into hypomania. I have to keep an eye on how much sleep I get. My body isn't exactly helpful on that front with this perimenopause business going on. That said, I am hoping that my migraine doesn't hit me in the face until this evening. This wild weather is wearing on me and it looks like this is going to be a long week due to it.

As I was staring at the ceiling, I was thinking about things like what guidance is needed for non-Madrian households. I have been struggling with this particular question for months. I have prayed for Déa to show me the way to approach this. I keep cycling back to the question, however. The only answer that I have is love. Then it occurs to me that perhaps a better way of approaching the question is how do we express unconditional love in a parental relationship.

There is an expectation of obedience on the part of the child. This obedience is not blindly given, however. It's often like pulling hen's teeth, in my experience. The kids challenge me on a regular basis and pretty much always have with the question why being at the forefront. As a person who's passion is for educating, I have a default response to explain things and do my best to make clear what's going on. My household isn't ruled by mood swings as much as by logic. No  matter where I am at in my bipolar, the kids can count on me to give them an answer that makes sense, as long as they give me the time to explain it.

Perhaps this is something that Déa does with us. She guides us through life and when we ask why things happen, she presents an answer to us. Sometimes we understand her answer and sometimes we don't. If we stay curious, however, things are made clear in their own time. I had a point as to how this related to relationships but I lost it. I fully believe, however, that Déa is always reaching out to us and pointing things out to us that we should focus on.

Things are scary right now and they're hard because of what other people have done. At the same time, however, there is hope because people are (as Chuck Tingle says) proving love is real. And love is one of the most powerful forces in the universe.

Moura 2025 CE: Day 24

 Shufflemancy has struck again. I am listening to random music on Spotify and the bot brought up Gary Jules' song Mad World. I was thinking about the state of the world right now and that song is a good way to describe it. Living here in the US isn't that great right now, despite what some people want to say. We have a president that is batshit crazy and congress is doing very little to oppose him and his administration. He took a pot shot at the judicial branch yesterday and it was met with very little hue and cry. This entire business has been a disaster for civil rights and I am afraid for the future.

I try not to talk about politics on here because I know that mixing politics and religion is a very bad thing. At the same time, however, the malarky happening right now in my country's government is a real and potent danger to people like myself and my family. And it is happening because a group of people practicing an extremely conservative version of Christianity has seized power. I am waiting for the day that the president rules by fiat that Christianity is the official religion of the country. I'm not looking forward to it but I'm waiting for it to happen.

To some extent, I can mask as a generic, secular oriented Christian of a nameless protestant version. My boys, however, can't do that. We raised them outside of a Christian denomination, much to the annoyance and outrage of some relatives. Neither myself or Beloved are Christians and we felt it was wrong to push them into being part of a religion from the cradle. We have made a point of educating the kids in a wide range of religions as best we can, including the lack there of. We have continually espoused that they are free to believe whatever they want as long as they are being decent people. 

It seems, however, that our standards for decency are different from those of others. Which worries me and makes me concerned that my boys will be targeted for harassment and assault by people who don't like them. We've already had a public threat made against one of them by a kid down the road who opposes the fact that they refuse to stand for the pledge of allegiance. And when I say a public threat, I mean that the kid stood up at a podium and gave a little speech about how he hates people who don't stand for the pledge, got lots of applause from the neighborhood as he stared at my kids. My boys ignored him but it was deeply worrisome that it happened.

The lack of tolerance and acceptance of differing views is egregious and troubling. I have had people start off hostile when I openly wear my headcoverings and my pendants that show that I'm not Christian. There's a knee jerk reaction to a pentacle in this country where people insist that you are a danger to others. Never mind the fact that if you're cold and in need, I'd give you the shirt off my back to make sure you are ok. The necklace that I'm wearing makes me a threat to them in their eyes.

I've had people threaten me behind my back as I was out shopping or in the general public. I almost always turn around and glare at them. They tend to quiet down when I look at them. But if they think I haven't noticed, they get vulgar and nasty for as long as they think they can get away with it. It's as bad as the bullying that I had to deal with as a kid. I am concerned that at some point it'll turn ugly and I don't have the spoons to rearrange somebody's face for spitting on me.

Moura 2025 CE: Day 21

 Well, it is the day before the Full Sap Moon and the total lunar eclipse (which is happening so late at night tomorrow evening that I can't observe it with the kids). I have been busy with housework and scheduling things for family that I had quite forgotten about writing here. On the plus side, I have found the desk, paid the bills, and found a good portion of the living room floor. On the minus side, I forgot about writing stuff and my goals to be more social. However, because Déa grants us all grace, I can forgive myself like she does and work to do better.

I have been doing my best to approach my efforts to improve myself like I would teaching my kids how to do something. I manage to have more patience with them than I do with myself. The focus when a mistake happens isn't on punishment of an error, but rather on teaching them how to self correct and make reparations for whatever damage is caused by the mistake. Most of all, I do my best to be kind in my approach towards it all, even when I am frustrated. (Being kind when you feel kinda mad is pretty hard but worth it.)

In attempting to extend that measure of grace and kindness towards myself, I have learned that I am repeating the harsh way I was raised in my self talk. I confess, I was rather horrified when I realized how deep the roots of my negative self image was due to this. The habit of cruelty toward myself has been a very hard one to break. I haven't succeeded yet but I am going to keep trying. 

Beloved told me at one point in time that I should treat myself like one of the kids to get better at being more self compassionate. It has made a big difference. As long as I continue to be relentless about my efforts, I think I will eventually find success in this endeavor. I know that I am imitating Our Lady in this (which is always a good idea). Anna is the image of the best of Marya's children and she embodies all things healthy. Healthy looks different for different people, which is why Anna appears differently to each of us, but the fact that she is reaching out to  help us reach our full potential in life is universal.

Moura 2025 CE: Day 17

 I would have posted yesterday but I was busy with family stuff just about all day. No great tragedy has happened. I just was busy with a doctor's appointment that was running almost an hour late and then clothes shopping for the kids. My youngest (about whom we have some weight concerns) has put on 10 lbs in the last 10 days since we have started pushing stuff like desserts in front of him. My eldest has some reservations about this push to get him and his brother to eat more. I want to kick the person who planted the idea in his head that being overweight is the worst thing in the world. As a result of that, both kids are anxious about eating too much. Add on top of that the factor that they're somewhat picky about what they eat and you can guess how much difficulty we've been having getting them to eat.

I try not to worry about them but when the doctors involved in their care get concerned, I can't help but worry overtime. It's rather stressful to raise kids no matter what age they are. I suspect I will still be worrying about them when they're grown and out on their own too. I can't believe that my eldest child will be graduating high school this year. It blows my mind. I look at him and think to myself that just yesterday it seems we brought him home from the hospital as a newborn.

Time is weird like that. I wonder if the Divine has moments like this? I have no clue if they experience time like we do or not. I don't know what happens when you go from 4 dimensions to something higher. Well, not entirely. I know it takes a lot of really hard math to describe the layout and the graphs of it look really funky. Trying to describe 4+ dimensions on a 2 dimensional surface is really hard and visually confusing.

Moura 2025 CE: Day 15

 I made the mistake this morning of listening to the news as the boys were getting ready for school. It made all three of us angry. Then I had to explain to the kids that they had to be cautious about what they said and posted on the internet because of the ramifications of saying things like how they wished people died. They weren't happy but grudgingly accepted my explanation of things as they stand. They asked me how long the president will be in power and I had to honestly answer that I had no idea. It made me feel bad to say that, but it was the truth.

There are people who seem to take pride in saying unpleasant truths. I may at times come off as one of them, for which I apologize. I may be proud of the fact that I am honest, but I don't want to hurt people with it. It is difficult to tell when honesty is going to be too much for some people. I try to gauge my audience before blurting out blunt truths but I have less success than I'd like to at that effort.

I suppose part of the problem is the fact that I tend to take stances and be a bit brash about it. Growing up, I was taught by some members of the family that I had to make myself smaller and put in effort to fit in better. It was painful and other members of the family told me that if someone could not handle me as I was then they didn't deserve me. (Can you guess who I am still talking to?) It's become reflexive to resist that pressure to conform as I've grown older. The more effort I put into accepting myself, the less I tolerate others trying to make me fit their preconceived notions about who I am.

My nonconformist attitude is running cross-wise to pretty much the whole cultural current of my local area. As such, people will do things like give me funny looks and mutter comments under their breath as I walk by. I keep my head held high and do my best to ignore them. It still stings, to be honest, when they do that. People have treated me in that fashion since I was young and it makes it hard for me to believe there is good in people at times. I am unabashedly liberal in my political leanings and that is a big problem for some of my neighbors, it seems.

Our place hasn't been egged yet. I think the reason why that hasn't happened is because we don't own the building and there are other apartments in it aside from ours. Someone did randomly smear dog feces on the door at one point. (That wasn't fun to clean off.) I've had people record me as I am about and doing things while they're making mocking commentary at full volume. 

Since the political climate has shifted, this and the muttering is becoming more frequent. It is concerning. I have to do my best to keep in mind that this type of harassment is not personal. To them, I am just a convenient symbol of what they hate. It still makes me furious. I try to put the anger aside, but it's really hard. I've prayed on the matter and the only answer that comes to me is to keep being myself. I guess that I can't change other people and I can't change how they view the world. Tolerance seems to be a luxury.

Moura 2025 CE: Day 14

 It is the feast day of Med Moura. Most years, I take the day off to relax from cleaning and such. This year, the kitchen is a bomb blast of dirty dishes, the living room is threatening to topple over with piles of mail sitting around to be sorted, and there's at least three loads of laundry that need put away. And we won't even talk about the state of dusting required except to say I think I could plant things in the layer of dust settled on top of everything.

I am attempting to focus on gratitude today. It's kind of hard because I slept really poorly last night. Hormonal changes in my body have me sweating profusely at night which made me wake up at least 4 times. It's rather gross to wake up because of how much you are sweating. I am not looking forward to summer. I have made a point of pushing water into my system because of it. It feels like I am constantly drinking something but I'm not dehydrated so I won't complain too loudly.

The kids are resistant to doing housework right now. They tell me that they're not in the mood for it. School has been challenging so far this week because they're distracted by their thoughts about their late grandfather. Throw on top of that one son's problem with bullies and the other son's fretting about the future, and you have a whole heap of distractions. 

My eldest is really starting to feel the pressure of getting ready for graduation and the end of school. I have been doing my best not to worry but that's hard. They say that having children is like having your heart walking around outside of your chest. It's a pretty metaphor but I think it's more accurate to say that it is like having that for each child and your significant other. The more you love people, the more you worry about their well being and how you can help them thrive, it seems.

It makes me wonder if Déa has similar feelings about the whole of creation. I like to think that is the case. It's a hefty idea but it makes sense to look at it that way. She is the Mother of All. That leads me to think that she feels every thing more sharply than we realize and that we'll never truly understand the depth of her Love because it's been with us at all times. It's easy to take such a love for granted. Children can't conceive of a world with out that when they've been raised with it always there. It's a lot like how children think that the world has always been as they know it and they're always a little shocked to find out their parents have lives beyond them.

Moura 2025 CE: Day 13

 I am weary. I woke up at 0430 today. I know I'm not hypomanic because my brain isn't clicking along at a thousand miles per hour. I didn't sleep well over the last couple of days because of this persistent headache. I also have been finding myself caught up in worry when I'm not busy working on something. As a result, I tend to push myself to stay active until I am too tired to keep going. It's not a healthy habit and I don't recommend it to anyone. (This is one of the habits I'm trying to break this Moura.)

Worry is not productive. I have a magnet up on my fridge. It reads: Worry is like a rocking chair, it'll give you something to do but it won't get anything done. I find myself looking at it on a regular basis and it serves as a little reality check. When you have an anxiety disorder, reality checks like that are super helpful. It's really easy to get caught in a cycle of worry and spend half your day unfocused because your thoughts are distracted by anxiety over a ton of things. For me, once I start worrying about one thing, I jump to another not much later and then the next thing I know, half an hour has gone by. All I accomplished in that half hour was sitting and staring at things as I perseverate on my anxiety. It's really frustrating.

With the recent death of my father-in-law, I am concerned about how my children are doing. They seem to be ok, just more restrained than usual. But, I find myself having my anxiety kick up and I sit, worrying that they're in deep grief and feeling like they can't express it. It leads to my checking on them a lot (and the boys get annoyed with me). I try really hard to make myself available and approachable for them at anytime they may need me. It is a lot of emotional work on my part and I don't think they realize it.

The hardest part of it all is putting aside my fretful thoughts for me to focus on the present moment. I have done my best to place my concerns in the hands of the Divine, but I am not very good at that. I am really good at repressing things, but that's not healthy. (Another habit I'm trying to break.) I journal frequently. It helps some. I have a therapist that I see on a regular basis, which helps too. The mental habits of worry have deep roots and are very difficult to rip out. It's like the worst game of wack-a-mole ever. Slap one down, sixteen more pop up all at once.

Still, I keep trying. Practicing catch-and-release with thoughts is a good mindfulness technique. I sit for a few minutes and observe what thoughts are running through my head. I acknowledge them and then I consciously put them aside. It is like a mental version of writing things out and closing the notebook. It's a technique that has been most successful in helping me to worry less. 

Moura 2025 CE: Day 12

I am at something of a loss for what to write this morning. I have a bit of brain fog from my migraine medication lingering. Migraines are crushing pain and I don't wish them on anyone. When in the grips of one, I tend to hide in a dark room and whimper in pain until I pass out. It was worse before the doctor gave me this medicine, for which I am deeply thankful.

One of the things that having a migraine brings up in my thoughts is how it connects me to the suffering of Anna. Or perhaps how it connects Anna to my suffering. It's a puzzle to phrase and difficult to fully describe, but I am going to try. Our Lady, especially through the season of Moura, passes through suffering to bring us reunion with Déa. Every pain we have ever known, she knows and feels with a keenness of a knife. 

Physical pain, emotional pain, psychological pain, and spiritual pain all are on equal footing. Pain is pain and no one gets to say that it is more or less valid given the type of pain one is suffering. The culture around us encourages us to compare our sufferings and try to rank them in degrees of greatness. This unhealthy competitiveness has broken many relationships and caused a good deal of harm. By simply accepting that suffering is an integral part of being alive and attempting to meet it with compassion where ever it is found helps us in our struggles with life.

The hardest place to meet suffering with compassion is when it comes to our own suffering. I tend to meet my suffering with bitter anger and sharp self criticism. I was raised to view my own suffering with scorn. It has taken me many years to be more compassionate with myself. I fail on a regular basis at this skill. I have some doubt that I will reach a level of acceptance that I can endure pain with out self flagellation. I know that there are many, many other people who struggle with this same skill set.

This is where I look to Anna. I place my suffering in her hands and ask for her to help me bear it. Asking for help is perhaps as hard for me as being compassionate towards myself. It is not a matter of pride as much as a delusion of worthlessness. It is easy to feel like you are worthy of love and compassion when all things are well. It is a lot harder when you are suffering.

Moura 2025 CE: Day 11

 I live in the United States. It is deeply distressing to see the changes happening in my country. I pray regularly for patience, courage, and for opportunities to resist the fascist movement rolling through the land. I am embarrassed by the president's behavior, disgusted with the behavior of his administration, and horrified by the failure of Congress to act to retain the balance of powers. One may say that it is out of character for me to post something looking at politics here.

I try to keep religion and politics separate. But given the current environment, I am afraid that freedom of religion is going to get stripped away. I am afraid that my family doesn't pass close enough for the 'normal' to keep the eyes of fascists away from us. I am a student of history and looking at what is happening now, I am deeply concerned that death camps are not that far away. And I know that I and my family would be on a list.

I am of German heritage and I was taught by my family that the rise of the Nazis was the shame of Germany. When my younger brother espoused approval of Nazis when we were in our youth, I decked him for it. I got in trouble with my parents for nearly punching my baby brother out, but he never brought up the topic around me again. With keen awareness that the Nazi policies and practices were based upon how the U.S. government treated the native peoples of this region, I have an equal sense of shame for the U.S. 

I have a history of calling out people in power for bad behavior. I have taught my sons to speak truth to power as well. It cycles back to the lesson that we've been instilling in the boys: don't apologize, do better. Apologies are nice, but empty words if no action is taken to repair the harm done. 

I also have a history of taking action for justice and using my privilege to raise up others who don't have the access to things that I do. If you are starving, I will not only make you a meal, I will help you find food resources and teach you how to cook. If you are naked, I will give you the shirt off my back and help you acquire clothes. I was taught that having privilege obliges you to help those who do not. I was taught that having privilege obliges you to be an example of how to wield the power that comes with it justly. 

I am not a saint. (Though Beloved considers me to be one and he's really sweet for doing so.) I am just a good person attempting to make the world more livable for all of us. As such, I do things like recycle, pick up trash whenever we're at the park, and try to practice sustainable living habits. I like to think that doing a whole bunch of little good acts equates to helping push back against the hate that surrounds us. 

Now, however, is the time to do more than my usual small acts. It is time to seek out the people who are being persecuted and form a shieldwall between them and the people harming them. It is time to scream in the streets, halls of legislature, and across the social media platforms that what is happening is wrong and against our consent. We must exercise our rights or we will lose them. And we must march to protect those who are in danger because the people in power will come for us next.

Moura 2025 CE: Day 10

 I was reading the meditation for today's date and it occurred to me that I have a fair amount to atone for. I have an anger problem and it leads me to say things that are sharp and biting. It doesn't matter if the cause of my anger is reasonable, my response to be acid tongued is not. Over the past year, while I wasn't well, I said a number of sharp things to Beloved. He graciously didn't take it personally, telling me "This is coming from a sick brain, I am not going to get mad." Looking back on it all, I feel about 3 inches tall for it and deeply ashamed that I was cruel to him. While being sick explains it and my anger also explains it, it does not justify it.

In my household, we have an expression. "Don't say you're sorry, just do better next time." The kids tend to apologize and then go right back to misbehavior. It is a microcosm of how the world at large operates. Which is why we encourage them to focus on deeds and restorative justice. If something is broken as a result of your actions, you try to fix it and if it can not be fixed, you try to replace it. When neither of these are possible, give a sincere apology and figure out with the owner of what had been broken is a fair compensation (which ranges from money to work on their behalf). As parents, we try to facilitate this process for our children.

I think restorative justice is more in line with Déa's will than punitive justice. Not all situations does the reasoning of how thamë was broken help to restore it. In fact, in many cases, explaining what your mindset was when things happened can just lead to more upset and a big fight. Teaching people to apologize by way of explaining themselves isn't that great. I've found it works better to give an expression of genuine contrition and focus on repairing the rift between oneself and the person(s) you've done wrong by.

Déa does not want us to suffer any more than necessary. As such, we're exhorted to act with love and kindness. Punitive justice has no love or kindness in it. It's based in a harsh eye-for-an-eye mindset. It takes the wrong doer and reduces them to a subhuman state which is used to justify inhumane treatment. It perpetuates a cycle of harm under a thin cloak of moral superiority. Both the wrong doer and the victim are harmed, and there is no resolution of the problem created. Also, there is no focus on addressing the root cause of the problem. It's awful and I am more than a little confident that Déa doesn't want that for us.

I have been working very hard to keep my anger and acid tongue in check. I have been striving to put kindness at the forefront of how I approach the world. If I can't help them, at the very least I can avoid hurting them more. It requires a lot of self questioning and careful consideration of how to act. But the alternative is just not right.

Moura 2025 CE: Day 9

 I apologize for not posting over the last few days. Life here has been somewhat chaotic. My father-in-law died Wednesday night in his sleep. The kids are still in a state of shock. Beloved is working very hard to make sure that his late father's wishes are respected in death by the extended family. (There's a few people trying to big foot it and assume charge over matters in complete ignorance of what the man wanted.) Beloved's siblings are working just as hard and all three of them are doing their best to support their mother, who is beside herself with grief.

I didn't sleep well last night. The concept of Beloved dying and being no longer physically present in my life disturbed me deeply. The only reason I got to thinking about that was because my parents-in-law met as children and were married almost 55 years. While Beloved is in relatively good health (as am I when all things are considered), the thought of this person I adore suddenly being gone from my life is heartbreaking. Given my very vivid imagination, the nightmares were rather realistic and tragic.

While typically, Beloved's snoring is a bit annoying, I am relieved and thankful to hear it right now. It grounds me in reality where I still have my little family and that we're all ok.

Moura 2025 CE: Day 5

 Not a very long post today. The kids are recovered from the flu. They went to school today. The weather was unseasonably warm for the last two days but it seems to have melted some of the ice covering everything underneath the snow. I'm not looking forward to later this week when the temperature plunge back down and things freeze again. 

There is a state wide road salt shortage. Stores are limiting bags of salt to two per household. Beloved tried to get an additional bag for his parents but was denied because the cashier recognized him from earlier. He may try again this evening on his way to his parents' place after work. The salt mine a few towns over is operating 24 hours in an effort to relieve some measure of the shortage. There's been advertisements in the paper that they're on a big hiring blitz. 

Working there is a hard job but they pay well and have a good benefits package from what I hear. Strong unions for the workers set up a good deal with the company. Snow plowing hasn't been like last year. The county roads are pretty messy because something was wrong in the language of the county's paperwork bidding for a contract from the state to handle the bigger roads. As a result, they've been paying their workers out of the county highway budget, not the package they were expecting from the state. It's been a challenge. Things are being renegotiated and I'm hoping it will get settled out before we get walloped with another nasty storm.

I've been resting a lot today because I am the last one to get over the flu. My guts are not in utter rebellion, which is a good thing. If this pervasive exhaustion would go away, I'd be happy. I almost didn't post my daily prayers on Tumblr but I got myself organized enough to do it by the time the afternoon rolled around. I figure if I get it posted before the end of the day, there's hope for me yet. I've been doing my best to put aside my anger with people from my Beloved's side of the family in the face of Beloved's father impending death due to complications from fatty liver disease. It's been a challenge but I seem to be pulling it off so far.

Snuggle Bug and Cuddle Bear (they're teens and are going to hate these monikers but I'm going to keep using them) are handling things ok. Snuggle Bug's immediate concerns are the kids at school that keep giving him grief over things like his style of clothes and haircut. Cuddle Bear has started talking about learning to drive. At 17, I expected the topic to come up. I am hoping that he can enroll in the school's driver's education class before he graduates this June. But that's what's on my mind today and how things are going.

Moura 2025 CE: Day 4

 I had planned to log in and update my blogs. Then the flu took my whole household out at the knees. I spent most of my day stumbling around trying to take care of sick kids and it was rough. I am really hoping that Snuggle Bug (my youngest) didn't pass this virus on to the kid next door when they were playing on Thursday. Beloved was the first one to get this and we thought it was food poisoning. Bright an early Friday morning, he was getting sick and actually called out of work. Beloved never does that, which told me he felt awful. 

Saturday morning, I was optimistic that the flu vaccine covered the strain that was knocking the kids down and had Beloved sick in bed. Jump to the middle of the day and I discovered I was wrong. About when I was feeling awful, Beloved started feeling better and took over managing symptoms for our household. Neither of us had eaten all day, which had me concerned because Beloved and I have diabetes. Not eating when you have that is not a good thing.

When he got home with the groceries as I spent my time sitting on the couch with a bucket and my head swimming I saw that he had picked up the apple juice I requested and ice pops. My dinner last night was ice pops. My thinking was the ice pops were light enough on my tender stomach to stay down and would melt slow enough that my body would adjust to it instead of expelling it at full velocity. I am fortunate enough to say that theory was proven correct. Drinking liquids wasn't fun because it kept making me sick to my stomach.

This morning I seem to be doing better. The kids are definitely doing better as is Beloved. I still have two sinkfuls of dishes to wash and pots sitting on the stove. I feel well enough to do them, it is my hesitant plan to spend time cleaning up the kitchen on that basis. I am tired but I am keeping breakfast down which gives me hope that I am on the mend.

I did a little bit of dusting on my altar before the flu hit me like a brick to the face. After that, I had zero energy and lots of stomach cramps. This did not bode well for feeling anything remotely like comfortable. My hernia still aches from all of that cramping. I wasn't my typical stubborn self and trying to force myself to get chores done as I felt awful. I like to think this is a sign that I am making progress breaking that habit, but if I'm being honest, I just felt that awful and spaced out from the fever that I spent a lot of my day yesterday staring into space.

Today, Beloved is certain he is symptom free. This is a good thing because he needs to stop by his parents' place to take care of them for several hours as his brother takes a break. My parents-in-law are not doing well. We've all been doing our best to support them, but it's hard. Earlier last week, it looked like my father-in-law was going to die in a few days. As such, Beloved took the day off work and we brought the kids up to the hospital to see him. The old guy was just sleeping due to pain medication and liver toxicity. Fatty liver disease runs in Beloved's side of the family and it's caught up with my father-in-law.

It's made things challenging. The man has stopped resisting efforts to help him. I know that is a big blow to his pride. He came home to die in his home instead of at the hospital or hospice care. This lead to big thoughts about what is a good death. The man is in a lot of pain from the fall that sent him to the hospital on Amity day. That was when they checked his liver enzymes and saw they were high. He was frustrated with the side effects of the medicines that he had been on to flush the toxins out and finally decided he had enough. So, aside from pain medicine, he is off of all of his medications. 

Fortunately, during the week a hospice nurse is coming in to help take care of him. This is a big improvement in quality of life than what he had before going into the hospital. Before it was just Beloved and his siblings doing their best to manage the situation. Now that some of the stress of caring for their parents is off of them, they have more of an opportunity to come to grips with what is happening.

I am concerned for Beloved. He's been putting on a brave front but dealing with very complicated feelings. Things are not good between him and his father. Since the old man is sleeping all the time, they're not bickering. I think that makes things easier for Beloved. At the same time, it's disheartening to see your parent dying before your eyes and being utterly helpless to do anything about it. We're all doing our best to respect the old man's agency and see that his wishes for his final days are met, but there's some complicated stuff that needs to get covered that I suspect isn't going to happen before he dies.

It's all a big heap of a mess, and that was before we all got sick yesterday. I wish I could do more than provide moral support. But there's literally nothing more I can do. The doctors say he has a few days to a few weeks. This is not easy for the kids to handle. They've a close relationship with their grandfather and have been doing their best to cope with what's going on by distracting themselves with their computers. It's a healthy approach, although I could do with out the barrage of angry cat noises as they laugh at cats doing stuff like falling into water and knocking over toddlers.

Moura 2025 CE: Day 2

 Moura Day, which was yesterday, had me busy with minding tasks to keep my household on an even keel. With the death of our beloved pet fish named Snap (he was a betta that lived a long life), the kids are disappointed but hoping that our next betta fish lives longer. Today, I will be cleaning out the tank and doing a ton of dishes because I went on a cooking binge on Wednesday. The entire pan of brownies that I made are gone, except for two. But the neighbors and their kids helped with that. It was a big pan of brownies that I thought was going to last longer than two days. I was wrong.

By pure coincidence, I spent Moura Day in meditation on the subject of death. It happened that the fish died that day and that my father in law, who has been living with liver failure, is actively dying now. I don't know how things are going to go on that front. The hospital said he may have a few days or a few weeks. Today is the man's birthday and I believe he's still alive but in pain and miserable. It's an awful way to have your birthday pass. Amity Day came and went with him in the hospital for a fall. That was when they discovered his liver enzymes were high. He decided that he was done with treatment for his liver failure and that's when life got complicated (Tuesday).

To say the least, the kids are upset that their grandfather is dying. They have a close relationship with him. I am doing my best to support them, Beloved, his siblings, and his mother. There isn't really much I can do but hold space and be a shoulder for people to cry on as needed. I have been praying with gratitude that I came out of the year long depressive episode in time to be of assistance. I truly believe that was a blessing.

My altar is coated in dust and spiderwebs. (The apartment has a dust problem due to the paint that was used and it has always driven me batty.) So, if I can today, I will be cleaning everything up there. I still have the earth tones colored altar cloth on it that I use for the season of Moura. It will, quite obviously, need cleaned as well. I know that Déa is merciful and forgiving, as well as understanding of the challenges that have lead me to neglect the altar. I still feel badly that it is in the state it is in.

I have no great conclusions on the topic of death. Except that death is complicated and simple at the same time, much like life. I suspect that I will be looking at this topic through the lens of what is happening in my family. I have been praying that Déa will be kind and that Sai Kala will come for my father in law soon. The man is suffering and, as much as I dislike him, I don't think that is a good death. A death with pain and agony is ill fated, regardless of what happens to the soul after it has shuffled off the mortal coil. I don't wish that on any living being. I recognize it happens very often, but that does not make it good. It only makes it common.

Posting to Resume Soon

 Hi everybody!

I have finally crawled my way out of a major depressive episode. It took a long time and a lot of prayer, but I made it. I am profoundly thankful for the antidepressants that my doctor prescribed. Bipolar is a real bear to deal with. I think this depressive episode was longer and deeper than the last one, which Beloved seems to agree on. My sense of time is rather scrambled and I am struggling to remember what plans I had made for this blog. After flailing a bit on this front last week, I said forget it and I'll just make new plans. Which is what I'm working on.

I don't have any posts in line right now to auto load this week. As the kids are on winter break, it's going to be a bit challenging to get them done. While they are teens, they still need some supervision and guidance. I can't just throw myself into writing all day and ignore the world around me. This is a thing I do when I get into the 'zone' as I am working. I start in the morning and next thing I know, it's time for the kids to get home from school.

If you have something that you're interested in seeing up here on this blog, drop me a comment on this post. I am willing to tackle most any topic within the scope of witchcraft and religion on here. Occult studies is one of my passions as well. Also, if anyone has any book recommendations, comment. I am looking for witchy books to read and review. Until next week, I hope everyone is warm, safe, and doing well. Thanks for your readership and I will be doing more work in the near future. Right now, it's time to plan.