Samhain 2012: Part 1: Aftermath

Sometimes, after a really intense cleansing ritual, you feel like your soul just took a shit.* Sometimes, you feel like your soul has had food poisoning for the better part of a week, and is mostly better, but weak and empty, and oh-my-fuck-just-the-smell-of-those-onion-rings-is-gonna-make-me-barf-right-here-right-now.

And everything hurts. Everything. And all you want is to lay down in the dark with a soft pillow and not give any fucks at all. Maybe take a nice, long, warm bath with soothing oils and just let everything soak back in.

But you didn’t ask for the 1^st off from work, because you thought you were some kind of a badass. So you’re straggling into work three hours late looking like hell, grateful beyond belief that you decided months ago to always keep a toothbrush in your car, smelling probably of woodsmoke and dragon’s blood, but no one’s got cultural narrative for that. You probably just look like another Halloween party casualty.

It’s not like you can gather your coworkers around and compare notes. It’s not like anyone here wants to hear that your body feels physically different, that last night might have been the most intense work you’ve ever done, or that your new rule is at least one hour of recovery for every hour of prep that goes into a ritual. (By that math, you’d be sleeping long past noon.)

It’s not like you’re going to say, “I am not hungover from drinking. I am feeling the after effects of some serious visionary work and ritual suicide. Murder. Exorcism. There really isn’t a word. The absinthe is not (much) to blame.”


_________________
* Direct quote/paraphrase from one of the participants last night.

Progress: Null

This is part of that whole accountability thing.

This week: nightmares. That is all. Very little anything magick to speak of, at all.

I will be back on track today, but this is my weekly update. Sadface.

Project Null: Intro/Week 1 Summary: Themes in (P)review

How many colons in your title?! Yeah, I thought so.

There was supposed to be an intro post, before I started doing any of this shit. In it I would have discussed my overarching goals, history with chaos magick, issues with agency/Will, a smidge of feminist theory, and my Saturn return.

Without further digression, then.

Super-Long Intro

Overarching Goals:

Get my brain in order. Fix my life. Change shit up. Tear it down. Rebuild. Push some buttons. Clear some air. Dig deeper. Climb higher.

Spend time at the edges without completely losing my center. Alternately, lose the center. Re-define the center.

I Am Feprot's Candle

Subtitle 1, Experiments in Instant Magick

Subtitle 2, A Prelude to Actually Talking About Project Null

Subtitle 3, Shit That Happens When You Have to Drive but Are Way Too Tired

Subtitle 4, This is Aradia on Chaos Magick

A friend of mine gave me a reading this morning over coffee. The reading included one of my favorites - the 9 of Swords. The 9 of Swords in her deck, though (which is not one I'm incredibly familiar with or can even remember the name of) is an interesting version: a woman standing on the edge of a rooftop with her eyes closed.

"She should, you know," said the friend to me, "Probably open her eyes."

random dreamy weirdness

I an in a store - pet food, people food, something. I can't be sure. There are only huge bags of food, labeled with simple names. Some of them are single ingredients, corn or flour or peas, and some of them are mixtures of things, like Rice Blueberry Seed. The bags are the color of brown paper, nearly the size of a queen sized mattress, and stacked up on very tall shelves all throughout this huge store.

Wednesday is FML

1) Possible: 5 of Swords - Defeat

Seriously?! I am so tired of you, 5 of Swords. It's not like I am sitting about doing nothing at all. I don't know WTF you want from me.

Nothing like the universe saying, "Well, you're pretty much a complete failure, so..." to get your morning started. FUCK YOU SWORDS.

2) Important: Prince of Cups

I don't feel like being conniving and merciless today. Conjuring the energy to do that is going to take some work.

3) Courageous: 8 of Cups - Indolence

Two options: 1) Give up now. Really. It's your best bet. 2) Actually deal with some lingering emotional drama, i.e., actually go to this meeting this morning re: getting back into school. The entire school question is a giant 8 of Cups.

4) Futile: V - The Hierophant

Now I lean towards the "give up" interpretation of position number 3, because this cards here says that interactions with authority will be fruitless. Translation: meeting with the registrar will be a waste of my time.

5) Necessary: Princess of Disks

Intuition says: perseverance. But this reading has already told me to give up three times. MAKE UP YOUR MIND, cards.

6) Joyful: III - The Empress

Why you gotta give me the Princess of Disks and the Empress in the same reading?  Really?

7) Funny: Ace of Swords

I finally make the decision to make the school thing happen and it turns out to be completely impossible? That is funny. Or not.

8) Helpful: Prince of Wands

Being an asshole. Got it.

Today sucks

Tuesday is blargh!

1) Possible: XI - Lust

Energy. Drive. Getting shit done. Passionate pursuit of things I want. Alternately, it is possible to get what I want today. Which is exciting.

Determining what I actually want out of today would be the challenge. Things to work on: this.

"everyone's got a Monday..."

1) Possible: XX - The Aeon.

Are you serious? It's Monday, for fuck's sake. Nothing of actual importance ever happens on a Monday. Mostly to busy trying to avoid the mundane terrors that are conjured by the thoughts and fears of an entire populace concerning Monday as a mythical sort of beast intent on destroying us all.

But I like Aeons, mostly. I like the promise that this particular set of terrors is to an end, that there is something coming of it. It's tidy, and hopeful, and I've got way too many planets in Virgo and Sag to not be drawn to tidy, hopeful things.

Sunday

1) Possible: 5 of Swords - Defeat

Crowley: "Weakness rather than excess of strength seems to be the cause of the disaster....The defeat is due to pacifism."

I am pretty familiar with this one. A phone call not made or an errand avoided turns into some kind of mess.

What type of defeat/what thing needs to be dealt with? The Princess of Swords. Crowley again: "She is firm and aggressive, with great practical wisdom and subtlety in material things."

Oh, right. ALL OF THE THINGS. Just handle it. WTF, cards?

The Necessary Tower

I spent much of yesterday ISO the Tower that showed up in my reading for the day. I told myself I would embrace it, given the chance.

I have an almost unlimited appetite for Towers and Aeons and indications that radical transformation is on the way. I am always looking for (r)evolution. Give me some moldavite and and initiatory vision and a new metaphor for death and rebirth any day. Let's fuck shit up. Let's burn it down.

Eventually, so goes the theory, one of these Big Bad Fundamental Shifts will leave me with something that's you know, actually workable. Something that I can poke and tweak into the life/mind/paradigm I want.

Nine Possible Swords

1) Possible: 9 of Swords. So, it is possible that today is really going to suck, what with the being so caught up in my own head that I hate everything. Here's hoping I can avoid that shit. It's not like I am even working or anything! And it's not like a day of idleness could in any way lead to me overthinking my life and ending up in a shitty headspace. Oh, wait.

2) Important: 10 of Wands. This is either a warning to not push too hard or a warning to not let myself be pushed at.

3) Courageous: Prince of Swords. Yesterday this was in spot #4. Not sure I get it. Meditation, maybe.

4) Futile: Knight of Cups. No intuitive fluff for me today. No inspiration.

5) Necessary: 6 of Disks. I have some work to do, apparently. I am not sure what this is. I am not working today. Anything I'd really like to be doing outside of that would be all Knight of Cups-y. Maybe laundry?

6) Joyful: 5 of Disks. This is not joyful! This card sucks and needs to stop following me around.

7) Funny: XV - The Devil. Really? Funny? Maybe to someone else. I'd really like to know who's been laughing at all of these.

8) Helpful: VII - The Chariot. Focus on the destination. Actually do things that bring me closer to the destination. Focus less on whatever terrible shit is going to happen today than on where I am heading.

I did a bit of pretty serious magick/visionary work last night, that I thought was pretty awesome and productive. Looking at this, I am wondering if maybe I just fucked it all up.

Nothing like drawing the 9 of Swords to make you immediately start feeling 9 of Swords-ish.

notes on some visionary work

This has been sitting in "draft" form for almost two months. The intention had been to expand upon it... these are the immediate post-trance notes.

I haven't done anything with it, though, and I decided that I kind of like it like this.

Friday: The Possibility of Kicking Ass and/or Being Destroyed in the Burning Tower

1) Possible: Queen of Wands. HELL YES. Also, this is Crowley issuing a challenge: remember that you do actually have some power, yeah?

2) Important: 9 of Wands. Again with the power. Today is a day for kicking ass, apparently. Noted.

3) Courageous: Ace of Swords. Again with you, Ace! Decisions, decisions. I think this is about school. Maybe I should, you know, actually deal with it.

4) Futile: Prince of Swords.  All these ideas and nowhere to go, no commitment. Yes, incredibly futile. This is a comment on all of those "maybe, yeah, sure, whatever" things I've got floating around. Mr. Prince is not in control of his own mind, and therefore can't get anything done.

5) Necessary: The Tower. Ummm... yeah, I guess. I don't like it, but I will keep my eyes open for radical change potential today.

6) Joyful: 7 of Swords. Normally I would make some crack about how useless this information is, but I totally get it right now! I am sufficiently caffeinated for the first time in a week and my brain is actually working and I GET IT. Some things are not under my power. Some things are not in my control. The "joyful" part of that is leaving those things alone, and focusing on the things I actually can deal with.

7) Funny: 7 of Cups. I am starting to wonder if "funny" in this reading means "strange" instead of "humorous." There is some strange 7 of Cups business about right now. Weird emotional detritus floating to the surface that I don't really want to deal with. AT ALL. Or maybe I am supposed to find humor in the situation, which I am having a hard time doing.

8) Helpful: Knight of Disks. Yeah, yeah, whatever. I hate Disks.

So - today = action and control and power and decisions! And that nasty emotional drama? Laugh at it! This is, perhaps, the most coherent and helpful this spread has been so far.

Also, watch out for Towers.

Thursday: Mission Impossible

Still doing the same 8-card reading. I am not sure whether I like it or not.

Assuming this is even possible with a cat determined to sit on my cards...

1) Possible: 4 of Wands. Oooh, actually getting shit done. Exciting. It kind of goes downhill from there, though.

2) Important: Ace of Swords. Being decisive and clear and other things at which I am terrible.

3) Courageous: 7 of Cups. Facing emotional nasties. Thanks for that.

4) Futile: Princess of Cups. I love Princess of Cups days, all drifty and inspired. Inspiration, though, is not happening today.

5) Necessary: 10 of Disks. Paying attention to resources, I guess.

6) Joyful: 3 of Cups. Duh.

7) Funny: Queen of Disks. Yesterday you were futile. Now you're funny. I get it - no control for me. Not sure, if the 10 of Disks is necessary, the Queen can be futile. Aren't you telling me two contradictory things?

8) Helpful: 5 of Disks. Seriously, you want to tell me that worrying about shit all day is helpful. I don't approve.

So, today: Get things done, be clear and decisive, but don't expect to be inspired. Focus on physical and material resources, and be happy, but don't expect to have any control over those resources, and definitely worry a lot, thereby accomplishing....nothing?

I'll sit this one out and move on to Friday, please.

the possibilities of Wednesday

This is possible: 6 of Wands - Valour

This is important: 5 of Cups - Disappointment

This is courageous: Princess of Wands

This is futile: Queen of Disks

This is necessary: Knight of Swords

This is joyful: VIII - Adjustment

This is funny: Ace of Wands

This helps you to get ahead: Princess of Swords

Today's best case scenario: much is accomplished, through a lot of effort (6W). I am having trouble reconciling that with the 5 of Cups, but I will be on the look out for disappointing things. The courageous part? Seeing this whole situation, whatever it might be, as an adventure (Princess of W), because actually being in control in any meaningful sense (Queen of Disks) will be impossible. It will be necessary to stay cool and objective about it, which is a difficult if I'm to be doing any Princess of Wands-ing. The joyful part of this is finding clarity and balance (VIII). I think this has to be important because it's the only major. In addition, being bitchy and critical might assist me (PsSw). I don't really get how the Ace of Wands is funny. It's a funny card, but...

There are too many court cards today and too many conflicting ideas. Get in there, fight hard, but it's not actually going to work. Have fun, but don't think for a second you're in control. Stay objective and cool unless you think you really need to be bitchy, in which case, feel free.

Sounds like a bit of a disaster, especially on so little sleep.

when one card isn't enough

Over the weekend I picked up a copy of Complete Book of Tarot Spreads. What I really want is Barbara Moore's Tarot Spreads, but so far that one hasn't turned up for $4 at the used bookstore.

I used to be skeptical of these kinds of books. I mean, once you've seen enough spreads you can just make up your own, right? Are there really going to be any ideas in here that I couldn't have thought up on the fly?

The answer: sometimes, yes. Also, I was feeling like I needed a kick in the something. New idea, new inspiration, whatever.

Right now I am digging this 8-card spread out of the Complete Book called "Facing the Gap." I've actually started using it for daily readings, which might seem like a bit of overkill, but I've felt like I need a little more information, more nuance, than just one card can give. Also, if I'm going to be honest, my brain is a chaotic disaster mess right now. Astrology says what?

(Plus I'd been pulling Lust like almost every day and using it as an excuse to eat lots of ice cream. Which is not exactly the best strategy for me not being in a sugar coma.)

Without further rambling intro: the new spread, and today's cards.

the gendered politics of sacrifice

I'm torn between my desire to write about this, as a theoretical exercise, and my aversion to any tendency towards policing individual choice. I will settle with a bit of disclaimer before I begin.

I have no interest in policing choices or identities. Literally none. Exploring the cultural contexts of those choices does not translate into criticism of individual choices or spiritual practice.

Few of us come to paganism, or any "alternative" spiritual or cultural identities, without some awareness of the archetypes that precede us. We may embrace them, flirt with them, or eschew them entirely, but we know them. In some ways our identities are bordered by these archetypes - providing inspiration, condemnation, or some mix of the two.

no hx of trauma (the story of a very expensive trance)

I am having shoulder drama. Whatever. Shoulder drama isn't new. What's new, this time, is that after a month of ibuprofen abuse, and ice packs, and chiropractic appointments (two or three times a week), my doctor looked at me, with a bit of concern, and said, "I think we should schedule an MRI."  Cue panic, and everyone I know sharing rotator cuff stories, and finally me being so bored with the whole thing that I start moving conference room tables again because it's just pain, after all.

two months hence, I still hate swords

Late monthly reading...

1) General Mood and Outlook: Queen of Swords

I am going to stab mofos.  Sweet.

2) Finances: 7 of Disks - Failure

.I don't want to hear this. There's a lot of fail in this area already. Short of repossession, eviction, or incarceration, I am really not sure what other failures might be in store.

Fix: XV - The Devil

I think I get it. It's not actually something I want to hear, but I think I get it.

3) Everyday Experiences: 7 of Swords - Futility

Cue nihilism.

Fix: Prince of Wands. Which is just Crowley's way of saying, "Well, I already told you there was nothing to be done with it, but if you'd really like to bash your ahead against your own powerlessness, please feel free. I've got popcorn."

4) Home: 8 of Swords - Interference

More nihilism.

Fix: 3 of Disks. Feel free to work your ass off although forces outside your control will render it moot. Thanks, cards.

5) Fun/Hobbies/Games/Whatever: 7 of Wands

So here we find the fight. Everything is fucked, but we're putting energy into hobbies? Seems to me the Queen of Swords isn't being as discerning as she likes to pretend.

6) Work: 2 of Cups - Love

Things get better at work. I now believe my cards are taunting me in retribution for that whole "almost setting Lust on fire" thing. (That's for another post.)

7) Partnership: 4 of Swords - Truce

The fix? There is no fix. The fix is the 10 of Swords. Leave it the fuck alone and it won't get worse.

8) Crisis/taboo: 4 of Cups - Luxury

Time to embrace a life of asceticism?

9) Higher Perceptions: XIV - Art

Ah, balance. Maybe I need to almost set Art on fire next. This might be the key to aligning some of this nonsense.

10) Public Recognition/Future of Occupation: XXI - The Universe

Light at the end of the tunnel? Is this even relevant?

11) Friendship: Prince of Disks

I think I could use some Prince of Disks energy right about now.

12) Secret hopes/fears: 9 of Wands - Strength

Stop mocking me, cards.

what's up supermoon? (OMG I HATE SWORDS)

I have learned that blogging this as I do the spread is the most likely way to ensure that I actually interpret the reading, instead of just writing it down on a sheet of notebook paper and keeping it folded up in my wallet promising to do it tomorrow, for a whole month.

ahem.

supermoon, kids! and wow is this month ever filled with crazy times. let's do this dance.

*NOTE: I hate this reading. This reading pissed me off, a lot. I am posting this as is because otherwise I will never post it, and never look at this spread again. It's really rough and whiny and terrible.*

tending the foundation (or, what I am so not doing right now)

For the record, I should not be blogging. I should be doing any number of things, but none of them are this. Also, warning: rambly.

A few weeks ago, a friend offered me a reading, which we finally got around to doing this morning. It's been a while since I got a reading from someone who wasn't me, and usually when I read for myself lately...let's just say it's not helping. There is a Hierophant, I don't know what he wants, we're in a standoff. More about that in another post.

My friend used a 7-card spread, one card for each chakra, which I kind of loved. I am a big fan of survey spreads - overviews. This is what's working, this is what you're fucking up, this is what the universe is attempting to beat into your head that you're not hearing. Right now I know that some things are working and some things are fucked, I just don't know which things are which.

ma(y)nia

"Shrill as a choir of children 
Urgent like the first day of May 
False and inflatable feeling
Tugs at my senses, big as the Macy's Parade..."
- Bright Eyes

Life is better since I put my altar right.

There is a peace in sunlight and wind and brilliant green, of letting the hum and buzz of life rush over and through.

But it is urgent. Behind or under or below that stillness, there is vibrant singing, desperate want. Trees are serene, perhaps, but leaves are vicious, reckless, demanding. On the smallest levels they are all screaming more, and so am I.

More of that, please. I want more light and touch and sound and taste. I am greedy, taking everything that I can, every opportunity to say yes, to abstain from rest, to absorb the sun of activity or conversation.

The world is greedy, too, asking more and more of me, and I am breathless with all that I can't keep giving, except that giving and getting are mostly the same, and every time I open my mouth and ask for more, I get it. I give it. We go on.

I suppose I can sleep in the fall.

Quick note re: Beltane candle

I am really fascinated by the feeling of grounding into an energy sink that's (physically, at least) about twenty miles away. It's easier than I expected, and that makes me a little nervous.

But I had a headache for about thirty seconds, and simply sent it away. I experienced a brief bit of homicidal anger at someone stopped next to me at a red (because, I'm sorry, I should not be able to hear Rush Limbaugh playing in your car when your windows are closed, and I sure as fuck should not be able to quote him thirty minutes later) but smoothed it out, reorganized it a little bit, and sent it home.

The headache I wasn't worried about sending straight-up: just excess energy. The rage needed a little work before I felt safe launching it towards my altar.

But - thirty seconds, a minute, and it's gone. I have been more productive at work today than the last few weeks combined, and that's not just the caffeine.

Beltane

It's Beltane time, kids.

But wait, Aradia, you might say, Beltane is like two weeks away.

To which I might respond, with sincere respect, where the fuck have you been?

It's been Beltane since the Equinox, at least.

COTD: 7 of Wands (ten thousand cupcakes)

Wanna fight?

Sure.


I love the 7 of Wands.

monthly forecast time! (part 2)

Continued from here.

Arguably, life gets a little more interesting in houses 7-12. That might just be my generalized bias towards life. I think that 7-12 are where we find most of the good shit.

7) Partnership: XV - The Devil

My current approach, when I think a card could be about any of eighteen things in my life, is just to assume it's about all of them. (The major question for this house is who? More on that later.) And for all of my drama with The Devil, I think I am getting a bit more comfortable with the kinds of things he means, for me at least.

sacred (a statement of belief)

"Into the thump of the now with the juice of the yes dripping off the chin of the yum." - Mark Morford

"My point is, when I gasp "oh God, oh God" during sex, I'm not kidding." - The Pervocracy

"How is it different with me?", he asked, which is something almost no one asks. I had told him that I tend to see life through the lenses of relationships, of the important people in my life. This particular relationship was a poorly-conceived and terribly executed bit of (not-at-all harmless) fun. My answer sounds almost silly, looking back, but it was very true.

"I notice the sky," I said.

We were explicitly temporary. No pretense about the possible future, no room for that. We were a series of beautiful, transient moments, nothing more. A lovely storm cloud of a relationship.

(I know it really seems like this post is going to be all about sex, but I promise it isn't.)

monthly forecast time! (part 1)

In case you're wondering (you aren't, but it's cool) I did do a reading last month. It sat on my altar the whole time waiting to be decoded. I never got around to it.

I could sit here and tell you that I was too busy and just never got around to it - and there is such a thing as so busy that you do not have one free hour the whole month, but I was not that busy. What is more relevant is that the reading was kind of terrible, and I was feeling sort of terrible already, and I didn't really want to think about it. I was just getting through the terrible. (It's definitely not the case that everything about it sucked, but, well, we'll get to that in a minute.

However, this month's reading rocks, so I am going to post it at my first opportunity, when I should actually be doing something else.

thoughts on faith and object constancy (when magick and madness collide)

I remember asking, through a haze of trance and candlelight, "how do you believe in anything?"

It sounds accusatory, or skeptical - it was neither. It was desperate. It was pleading. It was, and is, a question central to the journey I'm on, however broadly you'd like to draw that map.

How do you believe in anything?

Words to Eat

My dearest darlings, have I ever fallen behind.

It's not that I haven't thought about writing, or that I haven't been doing any divination or ritual work or dreaming any interesting dreams or making any progress. It's just that my schedule, here lately, has eaten me alive and spat back out something that I am not entirely sure is still me, something I'm not entirely sure I recognize.

Something smaller, with softer edges, perhaps.

There is much to discuss, but let's start at the top.

It's Valentine's Day.

All the Plausible Nightmares: Difficulties with Death

I wrote this a few months ago, for another blog, but I find myself feeling the same sort of angst over this card again today...I am not feeling quite so despondent over it as I was then, but still - what the fuck, cards? What does this mean?

I'm going to spend the whole day looking over my shoulder and that's something I despise.

I dream of knitting.

For what it's worth, I don't knit, but I think I should take it up.

I am sitting in some sort of living room knitting with two friends, one on my right side and one on my left. We're sitting in a vaguely circular pattern. At some point we are at my grandmothers' house. (She doesn't knit either.)

We are each making a pair of gloves. Mine is ivory colored. Left-side friend's pair is green, and right-side friend's is black. RSF is struggling with his pair, as his right hand/wrist is broken.

Full Moon Forecast

I use a constantly evolving version of the Astrological reading out of Keywords for my monthly forecast - it prevents that unfortunate, "Wow, that Hanged Man could be about anything" that often occurs with a less specific reading.

This one is bound to be interesting, because I was so not in my body or my mind or my life when I pulled them.

The 10 of W(arning)

I've tried hard, my darlings, to embrace the idea that there are No Bad Cards. You've heard it, I'm sure, in books and lectures and mild scoldings from the Older, Wiser reader who noticed your furrowed brow when you drew the 9 of Swords.

It is, as we say in corporate America, a process. (By that, we normally mean that it's pointless and futile and not generally worth pursuing.)

These cards, these Not Bad cards, the ones that make me want to give up and go back to bed, include things like The Hanged Man, and most of the Swords. I just don't dig Swords. In addition, until recently, that list also included the 10 of Wands.

pop goes my brain

I have spent the last 20 hours debating with myself how, or even if, I might write about the last 20 hours. Words feel cumbersome and pointless; if you were here I'd hold a piece of the way I feel in my hands, let you touch it.

I feel confident that somehow you'd understand.

In lieu of that, I guess I will have to try at words.  I know this is probably really incoherent, but I also think it's important to write it down, for my sake if for no other reason.

when you don't want to go to church

One early-drinking afternoon a few years ago, a few friends were gathered in the living room of the shithole of an apartment I currently inhabited. Two of them were trying to have an Important Conversation - actually, one, Elsie, was attempting to have an Important Conversation. Dan was attempting to evade it, and focus on his can of cold beer. They regarded each other with the kind of awkward intimacy that only comes from a friendship developed in childhood and carried through to a mostly subtextual but generally unresolved sexual tension.

Elsie wouldn't let up. Dan needed to come back to church. They'd gone together for years, and in the midst of some serious personal drama, he'd stopped. "I just don't feel," he said, slowly, staring her straight in the beer, "That I should be going to church right now."

COTD: The 8 of Disks

The 8 of Disks suggests, to me, discernment. Carefulness. Watchfulness and patience and reserve.

Attributes that most of my dearest ones would admit, even after a moment of discomfort, that I lack.

Also, I'd much rather be running amok today, kicking ass and/or taking names and/or drinking something fruity with an umbrella. Those 8 Disks are surveying me, now, with mild horror. (They're not capable of any other kind.)

Also, there is a lot on my plate today, so I wonder - do I have to 8 of Disks everything? (This where I try to get another answer, because... I don't want to. I don't want to listen to the cards and sit still, on my hands, not talking, today. I don't want to stay home and be careful about everything.

So I did a whole 10-card about where I am right now.

Naming the Year

One Word 365: a call to simplification, to focus. Forget your resolutions, forget your plans and lists and whatever else.  Pick a word, just one word, for the whole year.

A mantra, a shield, a thing to cling to against the forces that rage and push and distract. Just one thing.

I am prone to starting too many projects at once. I am guarding against it.

But.

Here Comes the Sun (of Employment Termination)

My card of the day, yesterday, was The Sun, which could mean, "chill the fuck out and enjoy your day," or "chill the fuck out and focus on your ascension," either of which is totally fine with me.

I can do both at once; I'm cool like that.

So I didn't let traffic bother me, or being two minutes late. I didn't get too harsh with myself over the $5 mocha I couldn't really afford but really wanted. Focus on The Sun. It was actually sunny out, and that made it all easier.

And then... I got fired.

I got fired for the first time ever. I'd never been fired before.

And my first thought was, "Sweet. Now I can go home and sleep." (This was a second job, not my primary employment.)

My only concern is that in my annual reading (which I ought to post here, for reference) my card regarding all things of the Second House is The Sun, too, so... let's just hope the shortest path to happiness and/or acension isn't always getting canned.

The Sadly Uninteresting Story of a Chronic Procrastinator (NYNY)

I've been thinking about this prompt since it went up, and it's been rather obscenely difficult to for me to decide what to write about.

Could it be that I'm just so on top of everything that there's really nothing that's been relegated to the back burner/top shelf/dusty recesses of hypothetical future to-do lists?

Resounding "no." That could not be it. The issue here is, in fact, that I put off everything.