November? It's been that long?

Dear Reader,

I have been having life drive me crazy. I keep wanting to write but finding the motivation, energy, and time has been very difficult. Perimenopause has been the primary culprit for my struggle with motivation and energy. Brain fog is a real problem. Also, hot flashes suck the life out of you. I have been having difficulty thinking of what to write. I have also been having difficulty getting my computer to cooperate with me on getting online. (I fixed that today by a combination of luck, grim determination, and being talked through the process of how to resolve the 1k cookies that were on my browser. Thank you to Beloved for his endless patience and being tech support off his work hours.)

I have tried a couple times to back track through past posts to figure out what series of posts got left incomplete but that was not working so great because of the cookie problem with the browser. I'm going to attempt this again to try to pick up old threads and reweave things. I have some housekeeping I have to do with organizing these posts series that I have done. It is going to be a process but I think I might actually have some success this time I attempt it because the computer is actually cooperating with me.

I have a few incomplete book manuscripts that I have to type up and finish. I also have books to revise and do new editions of. Look for a new book out early next year. Research is still happening and editing is going to be a bear of a problem, I can just feel it.

Still, I am going to be writing more soon. My hope is to get back to daily posts. Right now, however, it may just be weekly posts as I have time. Wish me luck. 

NaBloPoMo: Planning difficulties.

Hi everybody.

I wanted so much to get back to daily posting on this and my other blogs. My problem is planning topics. I strive for original and novel content in what I post. I am not a big fan of recycling old blog posts for more clicks. This blog is a very niche blog with content that doesn't appeal to a broad audience. Most of the posts I write are my brain drabblings on the general topic themes of the day. Sometimes I actually get organized enough to plan a series of posts along themes that fit the day. Often, I get side tracked by life and I stop in the middle of that series of posts and leave loose ends all over the place.

The problem with this is I lose track of which thread I was last working on. I try to pick them up and resume work on them but there's so many that I've lost count. And I haven't made any real organization of this stuff, which makes tracking down old content that got left hanging hard. I tried on paper to organize some of this and that was a nightmare. If  you wanted a murder wall, that's basically what I had going on the kitchen table in three notebooks and my planner.

I have to get this disaster under control before it eats my brain. I think, however, I hear knives sharpening in the not so far distance.

NaBloPoMo: Sometimes your child's laughter isn't a good sign...

My eldest son got scammed out of his savings and the scammer continued to harass him for a couple months. Then I introduced him to the concept of trolling on the internet. He's been giggling like Beloved when Beloved's up to mischief for the last 20 minutes. The scammer has begged him to stop sending them gibberish texts. My son's goal is to get the scammer to block him. I think he might accomplish it today. Revenge is best served random, silly, and vulgar.

NaBloPoMo: Bippity-Boppity-Busted.

 I don't know about your region, but mine has taken to the legalization of marijuana with great fervor. Stores that were just selling generic herbs and smoke supplies have started including it in their line up. Hell, the bait and tackle shop just across the bridge has been styling themselves as a dispensary with out the paperwork to back it up. Throw on top of that the fact that they're not age checking who is coming in and buying product, they've landed themselves in hot water. They haven't been shut down yet, but I give it a few weeks. From what I hear, their customer service is awful.

I know that marijuana is a helpful medication for self-medicating for a variety of conditions. My psychologist said that if my bipolar didn't feature psychosis in deep depression, I'd be a fine candidate for using it to treat my cptsd. His concern is that the marijuana would cause psychosis and the way my psychosis goes it's pretty terrifying. But I know people that it is helping them live a healthy and productive life.

With this yammering at the national level about enacting prohibition against marijuana again, I am highly annoyed. Let the people have their weed and focus on solving real problems. Like food insecurity in this nation or the number of people who are functionally homeless because they didn't get government assistance in rebuilding their homes after natural disasters. Don't get me started on the policies about homelessness and sending the national guard into cities to bring them into line. I have a lot of anger on that one.

I have a bad feeling about all of this.

NaBloPoMo: Spinning my wheels.

You know that loading icon? The perpetually spinning circle? That is my brain right now. Several familial challenges have popped up over the last two weeks. I'm thinking hard but not getting anywhere remotely close to a solution. I've got some bad feelings about one of the situations. A member of the extended family is having some health difficulties and it is deeply concerning. I'm just plumb out of ideas on how we can help. And then there's my youngest son's challenges with the school where I'm in a holding pattern waiting for them to come back to me with proposed solutions. To be honest, my anxiety meter is pegged at high and I think it's going to stay there for a little while.

I am finding that the more anxious I get, the worse my writer's block gets. I am highly annoyed with this. I know that I could be creating better content and more engaging material. But my brain is not cooperating. I am frantically looking at the situation trying to find a solution and not finding one. Gods help me, this is going to suck. And my seasonal affective disorder is acting up. Ugh.

NaBloPoMo: I have disappointed the cat and squirrel of judgement.

 I woke up at 0630 and thought my day was going to be full of writing goodness. I didn't get to any blogging until 2030 because my brain was still loading. I got some chores done, but creative work was nothing. Hopefully this block will clear up and I'll be working again soon.

NaBloPoMo: What in the nine worlds am I doing?

 Hello everyone. It's been quite a while and I do apologize. Depression got the better of me and then I kinda hit rock bottom for a bit. I wasn't writing anywhere. I wasn't crafting things. I think the only positive out that entire experience is the fact that through the many medication adjustments and such, I got to be at home instead of in a hospital. I felt safer and worried less about my family through that stretch of time. It was rough.

I just gave up on everything at some point. Choked down my medication, forced myself to eat when I was hungry, and numbly did my best to make the household run smoothly. I prayed the entire time for it to end. I didn't want to be dead, but if the gods deemed that was how it was going to end then it would have been by their hand. To say the least, Loki and Freyr were both most concerned. Somewhere along the way, my psychiatrist found a SSNRI that actually works on me, two actually. Those got added to the cocktail along with a switch in the atypical antipsychotic that I take off label for my bipolar. 

The medications helped, a lot. Then I realized how much damage my two and a half years of depression did. I am still struggling to pick up the pieces. Half of my houseplants died for want of care. Those remaining are still looking unwell but I am confident that I can get them back to good health with some watering, repotting, and extra tender love and care. 

I felt horrible about the plants. I was convinced that Freyr was disappointed with me at best, at worst he was angered. When I talked to him about it, he said that I wasn't in control of myself during that period. My illness was in control of me and I was too unwell to manage that burden. I still look at the empty planters and kick myself, but I am working to nurse these other green babies back to health so I do my best to focus on that.

I can't find that divination deck I was working on. Loki's told me it is in a 'safe place' and that I will get it back when I'm ready to work on it. If Loki's safe place is anything like my safe places for things, it'll be another two years before one of the cards shows up. He smirked when he said it'll motivate me to take better care of myself. I wanted to argue with him, but I couldn't fault his logic.

When I started thinking about NaNoWriMo and NaBloPoMo, both Loki and Freyr insisted I should work on it. This was back in March. Camp Nano came up but there was too much family stuff going. I was also still adjusting to the medications. I made a few forays into blogging, as you can see in my past posts. I just was struggling with so much stuff and still on the mend from the depression that writing in my blogs felt impossible.

Déa felt distant. I didn't despair, though. I knew that every relationship, especially with deities and spirits, have their fallow periods. To keep myself centered, I picked up the pen and resumed writing in my prayer journals. It wasn't anything grand. It wasn't eloquent. Honestly, a lot of the prayers over the last while have been pretty desperate sounding. 

My mental illness and its attendant problems aside, this year has been rather rough. My ailing father-in-law died in February. His funeral mass was in May (lots of complicated things lead to that happening how it did). My sons had a hard year with school. When Cuddle Bear graduated in June, it felt like a victory over the school system. You know it's rough when dealing with the school looks like an adversarial relationship instead of a partnership. 

Summer was busy for Snuggle Bug, which meant it was busy for me. His brother sort of looked for work but spent most of his time playing games on his computer. I didn't realize how maddening that was going to be until I was in the middle of it. Cuddle Bear (who is 100000% done with this nickname) turned 18 in August. We were so busy helping out with Beloved's mother that there wasn't much of a party. 

My mother-in-law is having difficulty adjusting to being a widow. Considering that they were married 50+ years, it makes sense. She's also having health issues and mobility issues that functionally keep her housebound. My brother-in-law has been staying with her to help out. Beloved is over three times a week to help keep his brother sane. Every time there's been a chance to help, Cuddle Bear has stepped up. He's done a lot of yard work and is currently working on cleaning up storm damaged trees. He's talking about selling the wood. We keep reminding him he has to finish cutting it before he can sell it.

And Snuggle Bug is having a rough time of it with school this year. He's depressed and struggling with some classes. We're doing what we can to help him and to get some supports from the school. Next year, Snuggle Bug will be a Senior and hopefully things will go better for him.

Back to the title question: what in the nine worlds am I doing? Hanging in there like a cat on a window screen, all claws deployed and yowling for someone to help.

NaBloPoMo meme edition with cats!

 I have been blocked on writing. The migraine that I've had for the last 4 days hasn't helped any.

NaBloPoMo meme edition

 

Divination: Crafting Your Own Oracle Deck (pt. 2)

Hello friends!

This week's divination post piggy-backs off of the themes of the last divination post. Glyphs in most any situation are a way to express an idea in a concrete fashion. They come in a dazzling array of designs and that is before you begin talking about an artistic glyph or letters from other languages. Typically they're used as a form of short hand to express the idea as quickly and simply as possible. 

Language that is written is a form of using glyphs that most people don't think about. Literacy is so common in the Western world that we have forgotten the power of words. I think people are drawn to ancient languages because they don't seem so common and that lack of commonality evokes a sense of mystery. There are many people who don't want to hear that Latin is about as complicated as using a computer generated spreadsheet program. It is tedious to learn, but once you grasp it, using it is very straight forward. The same is true for most of the languages derived from Latin. (This position has been espoused by quite a few Latin teachers and others who teach languages like Spanish that are derived from Latin. I still have nightmares of worksheets on proper verb endings in Spanish.)

When most people think of glyphs, they are thinking not about letters but artistic glyphs (which are often based upon long forgotten languages). These type of glyphs condense the idea expressed to a single image. This image can be called a pictogram, though that term is better suited for language components that have a resemblance to the idea expressed. Japanese is an excellent example of a language that uses pictograms in complex fashions. For example, the Japanese kanji for the word trouble (which I can not pronounce or spell phonetically) is a simplistic image of two women under one roof.

Artistic glyphs can be used to create cyphers and codes (the first thought that comes to mind is the infamous Zodiac killer's cypher based upon the glyphs of the zodiac). These cyphers and codes can be used like normal letters to spell out the intent of your spell work or the ideas you wish to impress upon your creative work. Or you can incorporate the use of a cypher wheel (most often seen with the English alphabet on it, it is a wheel of letters that you can draw a shape that spells your keyword). In this fashion glyphs can be turned into sigils.

Most of the glyphs on my oracle deck are artistic glyphs that serve the short hand purpose accompanied by the English word for the concept they embody. I feel that my artistic glyphs are too simplistic and lack emotional depth. Some of them I am considering completely reworking. I am debating incorporating background imagery to convey the concept of the card visually as well. This leads me to wondering if I should use traditional techniques and imagery or if I should use abstract. It's a tough debate.

Umm... Format changes were going to happen but I forgot. LOL

Hi everyone!

Yeah, I had big plans. I was going to completely revamp the blog and reorganize material. Then I forgot about it in the midst of life being a pain in the neck. I've been having a lot of issues with my anxiety and executive functioning (flashbacks are the seriously un-fun part of C-PTSD). I would have been writing but I was afraid to. Some of it because of flashbacks and some of it because of the flashback trigger - the current political-social environment.

Once I realized that was the problem, I was so angry that I was ready to spit nails. I took my anxiety medicine and did some deep breathing to calm myself down. The anxiety medication worked better than the deep breathing this time, I was that mad. I could have written a flaming rant about everything, but I stopped myself and looked at things from a bit of a clearer perspective. I realized that flaming rants are not going to help anything (especially my blood pressure). I thought about it and came to the conclusion that if I continued posting my content, it would be an act of resistance against the christo-facist crap getting spewed everywhere.

I grew up in an abusive household that had this type of garbage flying through the air and any resistance or rejection of this you got a nasty response ranging from verbal humiliation to physical punishment. To say the least, this isn't an easy topic for me. I was afraid that my blogs were going to get shut down because the powers that be are falling into line behind the president. Then it struck me, I'm not a big enough fish for them to worry about. I didn't have to worry about getting beat for being too liberal. No one was going to verbally shred me without consequence for disagreeing with the government. And, right now, I still am free to say whatever the hell is on my mind.

In a way, there's going to be something of a format change. I am going to be posting stuff that is political on a weekly basis. It will tie back to religion and witchcraft in some fashion usually. But some of the posts may just be old fashioned rants.

Admin Note: Big Format Change coming!

Hi everyone!

I just wanted to let you all know that before I resume topic based posting, I have to dust off cobwebs and reshuffle some things around. I am planning on making more pages with links to individual posts for topics like tarot reading. It is my hope that it will make this blog more user friendly. Daily topics are going to remain the same. Mondays are for divination, Tuesdays are for witchcraft specific items, and Wednesdays are sharing some of the treasures that I have. Thursdays are going to be vlog days. Each month is going to have a theme for the vlog. I will post transcripts of the vlog posts with the link to the vlog entry. And Fridays are recommendations. Saturdays are dedicated to sharing the antics of myself as a godspouse to Loki and Freyr. Sundays are my off day because it is frequently a day that I don't have much access to the computer due to family responsibilities.

I welcome requests and suggestions for topics to cover. I have been a practicing witch since 1993 and I love to share what I have learned. I'm an educator at heart. I will be covering themes and topics relating to Filianism. I'm still at the organizing stage of a full critical analysis of the Opera Omina of the Madrian Orders. This is a big project and will keep me busy for a while as I address each element of the two volumes individually. I will also be working on a new revision of the Children of Déa version of the Clear Recital. There's some formatting issues that need corrected among some other points of order to be addressed. In the early planning stages is a second daybook like A Year With Déa. I hope to have some progress on that by later in the year, with out the formatting problems that happened in the first daybook. 

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.