*Pop, creak* Ouch

I got to go to a hot springs, I got to go to a hot springs. Na na na na na-nyah! I'm kicking myself though, because I didn't take as many photos as I should have.  Also, further digging into the area... showed that the Pacific Crest Trail, goes right that spot.

Deep Creek Hot Springs.  A gorgeous little gem of an area.  Now mind you this was Sunday-Monday.  The hike out was a bit more intense... okay a lot more intense, because we were going up for a large chunk of it, but the calf muscle and shoulder pain have been totally worth.

Then last night one of our local grocery stores was having a sale on turkey... that basically came out to 50 cents a pound.  

We grabbed a 14 pound one and processed it down into more manageable sized pieces.  Cut the legs, wings, breasts, shoulders and thighs off.  Cut a large amount of dark meat off into smaller pieces and wrapped that up and froze it as well.

We threw the remaining carcass which was the ribcage, spine etc along with the neck bones and the remaining meat from the turkey breast we had gotten for thanksgiving into the pot.  Proceeding to boil that down for about maybe two hours.  By the time we were done, there was 2 quarts of nothing but turkey stock.  The amount of broth and meat leftover for turkey stew is close a quart and a half.  The turkey meat leftover after that  is enough for turkey salad, turkey omelettes and turkey tacos.  And that was just from boiling down the bones and the meat that was left one them.

I still haven't gotten my pack cleaned out and put back together yet... or the sleeping bag run through the dryer... or the laundry finished....but I do have the Toothless order almost finished and am about to finish of the coats and start on the stockings and.... LOL yeah, I know, I need an assistant some weeks.

It's been one of those weird weeks though ya know?  A lot of great things have happened, but we also got hit by Murphy again this past Sunday.  The fiance had to go take care of a speeding ticket.  He hit something that blew out the front tire and while trying to bring the car to a stop, managed to get gravel between the tire and the hubcap, and flat tire alla carte.

Which cost us close to  400 bucks (250 for the tow... yeah seriously) then replace the blown tire and fix the flat tire.  Oh and that speeding ticket does look like it'll get dismissed, but it's going to take two more trips to get it ironed out.

Then I have family and friends that aren't quite feeling themselves and...

Well, let's just say I have a Yule/Christmas challenge for ya'll.  This holiday season, instead of casting/praying for this that or the other thing, pray/cast that the people you know, even if they haven't told you they need, are provided comfort.  The holiday seasons are some of the most brutal times of the year for a lot of folks.  Like me.  Christmas day, seven years to do the day this year, is my second miscarriage.  I was two months along.  Time takes the sting out of it but... well...

So yeah, that is my challenge to everyone who reads this.  Pray/wish/cast that everyone in your life, is given some comfort and closure.

It's the etheral things, that make Yule/Christmas what it is.

Oh blech

So for whatever reason today, I keep having minor flashbacks and it's proving hard to want to be online.

So here have something cute:

And one more for good measure:

The Problem....

is people expect other people to have identical experiences.

US Marine Corps expect people to think like them.

US Air Force expect people to think like them.

US Army expect people to think like them.

US Navy expect people to think like them.

US Coast Guard expect people to think like them.

US Civilians expect people to think like them.

...all the while forgetting that every last individuals experience is different, translated differently by that individual's experience.

Civilians can't understand military and military can't understand civilian because most of the time they BOTH are too stupid to remember that the life experiences are different.

That the goals are different.  That the past experiences temper how one sees the present.

Experience or lack there of, dictates how one is able to relate or understand.

And when one is used to someone normally getting it, it's a huge betrayal when even the one is using language that using the other can understand, they don't!

They don't get it.

You can't talk it out in the normal left-wing or right-wing methods.

Somebody has to shut the fuck up.

Someone has to humble themselves to the point of listening.

And when they don't, they can't get pissy and claim you're trying to be all "victimy".  ( Totally a word!)

You can hear someone all day long.

Whether or not you've listened shows through in how you treat that person.

It's looking lazy...

It's been one of those weeks.  I despise weeks like that to be honest but when your muses don't wanna play, you just kinda roll with it and work on projects that don't require too much creative juice.

You can throw some podcasts on in the background and just veg crochet.  You ignore deadlines.  You ignore the phone.  You ignore the world.

The end result is a bit jarring. You're a lot calmer at the end of that day.  You're able to look at things much more objectively.  You're able to look at discussions and go... This ain't my circus.  Fuck these idiots.  I have better things to do.

Like figure out what's going into my Book of Shadows.  Usually a Wiccan, Witch, Pagan, etc will keep a large amount of collected information and things that they've actually tried in terms of spells and rituals in said book.  

I've been studying and practicing for about... 13 years now.  My book of shadows is... sad looking.  I don't have a lot in it right now, but that's because I've not really done a lot of this "formal magick."  Formal magick being used in reference to actually collecting spell and ritual components, doing the groundwork of divining the right time of the day/night and doing the quarter calls, invocations etc.  I call that formal work.  When was the last time I did a ritual?  About two years ago.  I did one to finally fully let go of the babies I had lost in my miscarriages.  Named, said good-bye to one at a time, and let go of.

Most of the magick I do, when I actually find it's needed, is informal.  It's "Oh shit, that's a lot of friends on facebook reporting they feel like shit, time to break out some light blue and white candles!"  and let them burn through the day.   It's "damnit, I didn't need to think about this past traumatic event, time for some purple."   It's "That's our neighbors arguing for the fifth time this week and it's only Tuesday, I'm smudging right now because I don't need that shit leaking in."

It's having fluorite and Tiger's Eye in my pocket that I can play with when I'm out in public and start feeling the anxiety coming on.  (Mine deals with too many people in one place, have had that problem since I was little, but it got worse as you can expect with the PTSD fully actualized.)  It's having animals get a lot closer to me than other humans just to say hi.  (Heh, the Fiance is still getting used to this.)

But I'm digressing, back to the Book of Shadows.  It's always evolving to be honest.  At least they should be.  As you're growing in your craft, your book should be growing and evolving to reflect the information you're learning and not just about magick, but also about yourself.

Mine is like I said, kinda empty.  Mostly because I've been journaling in a separate book for over twenty years.  What goes in the BOS is what I use in my magick frequently.  Mostly just to commit the information to memory more than to refer to, but it's still kinda....well, abnormal if you believe a chunk of the magick community.

Keeping true to yourself in magick is more important than keeping true to a set dogma taught via book or person.  Else, it just spins out of control and you will find spells going haywire, situations that were once peachy going sour, finances crumble, etc.

Catharsis: It's there.

I seriously think that there are times when the rituals that were once to help engage in that process, were deliberately discouraged and banned.  Not because they were a competing religion but because such rites make it harder to control a human.  Because that human wasn't distracted by emotional constraints and they had dealt with their shit to an extent that allowed to take of care of themselves and those around them that they cared about.

Rituals and catharsis... they go hand in hand.  With so much lost of the Old Knowledge, such rites to deal with grief, lose, etc are much more spontaneous, less structured and more personal.  It's a blessing curse, because what works for one person... will not work entirely for another person.

Here a few weeks ago, I had another miscarriage.  It'd been... four or five years since the last one, and it was until halfway through bleeding like a stuck pig that I realized it what that was going on.  Kinda hard to mistake to that ache honestly.

One of the things I love making is toys.  It's been almost impossible to crochet for any decent length of time since the miscarriage, but I am managing. I wasn't expecting to end up with these three let alone more than one, but it would seem that this had been my catharsis.  I don't dare do anything that would ensure a full term baby yet, because we need out of California first.  Give it a few months in Phoenix, and then... well, we'll see what the universe holds us, won't we?