Coming back around

I'm familiar with the expression "the road to hell is paved with the best of intentions". I've always taken it to mean, no matter how virtuous your intentions may be, ultimately it is your actions that matter most. Causing harm is still causing harm even if you don't mean to.

Sometimes I wonder if another twist on that expression is that great intentions themselves send us on spirals downward, if we overlook our limitations.

The last six months have felt a lot like, two steps forward, two steps back, though I know that's an unfair assessment.

My mental health took a blow at the end of last summer. My team at work has been consistently understaffed, and promises to bring on more people, alleviate some of the load, etc - have taken too long, and been too little on arrival. There was a brief respite in the fall, a few sweet weeks of having my feet under me, before it all spiralled out of control again.

I'm out of touch with myself. I thought I had a handle on things. I had a decent amount of time off over the holidays, and thought that I could keep it together, day by day, just getting over each hurdle as it came. Turns out I was further down the rabbit hole than I thought.

I've been off work since the new year, but going back at the beginning of February. I feel ready - I miss people, I miss a reason to get up in the morning and DO things. I've been pretty good at not completely succumbing to laziness, and moping around the house in my pyjamas, but it's hard to get up early in the dark when I don't NEED to. It's hard to get out of the house when it's freezing or too mild for January and raining, when I don't HAVE to go anywhere. Laziness is easy.  Especially in winter.

But I've been needle felting and colouring and keeping the house clean and seeing my therapist and my medication got upped, just a little - so I'm trying to focus on that, that I'm still growing gods damnit, I have not been stagnant simply letting my mind go empty. I've also been doing a lot of winter birding, which has been lovely on my head - out in the fresh air whenever it's a few degrees above "I can't feel my fucking face".

My favourite band (Florence + the Machine) has a book club which I mentioned briefly before -- it's nice to be reading again, and reading things that are outside my usual scope of interest.

At the same time, I'm plodding through Gods and Myths of Northern Europe (HR Ellis Davidson). It's actually a more enjoyable read than I was led to expect - not as scholarly or dry as I feared, it's just competing with a lot of other brainspace right now. It has given me an unexpected new attachment to Thor, who surprisingly has been a god I haven't worked much with, but plan to start.

My felted creations will be going up on my Etsy soon, and I have lots more planned once I can get my mitts on more wool.

I am not going to promise to be vastly more active, because I'm certainly not out of the woods yet, but my intention, hell-bound though it may leave me, is to be more active here, to pick up where I left off and really make something of this again.

Because no matter where I end up, one thing is certain: without intention I won't go anywhere.

Still alive

So I've been scarce. I still have a lot churning in my brain I have to unpack before I can really tell much about it. 

I've been oddly disconnected lately. My altar sat in a mess for two weeks, I finally got it back in order, and realized (somewhat guiltily) that I haven't made any offerings to my gods in... Awhile. I at least haven't been begging their help either, so I'm not being exploitive or needy, but I need to get on that. 

Some of it is just business. After a few blissful months, work has been hectic because of vacations leaving us perpetually short a body. It's still nowhere near as bad as it was--but still a culture shock, and of course it's coupled with summer being such a busy time in the "real world". A few of my lovely IDGAF brethren pointed out that spiritual energy ebbs and flows like any other--and summer is a season of life and busy activity, so it may be somewhat natural that physical realm matters are keeping me tied and away from the otherworldly ones.

But I can hear voices, feel brushes of fire "out there" and I've slipped into old lazy habits of not making time to go see them. 

A new energy is approaching me as well, and I am 99% certain I know who it is--based on feels and readings and my Familiar's input. It's going to make things... Interesting. I can't even honestly question why he showed up. I know in my heart I called him, in my own way, without wholly meaning to, but simply in the way these things happen. 

I finished my fifth book since my Initiation (of 6 "learning opportunities" needed in a year). A Deed Without a Name by Lee Morgan. 

I enjoyed it quite a bit, though I have...a few issues with it. The author clearly has their own very specific definition of what a witch is--which is fair. I don't quite fit it, but still found s lot of value. That the book lends no real credence or credit to other ways of doing things, of other "types" of witches, may be bias or just "short book". The book seems to imply, for example, that carnal interactions with one's familiar or "fetch mate" are very common, but I don't know many self-described witches who've had encounters like that. The author makes mention of "the Master" but never really explains who that is.  Whether that is meant to mean "the devil" or some other force is never really clear. 

The author also lists several rituals at the back of the book--gives fairly explicit instructions (while stressing for some that this should only be done if you are already skilled in the area) and provides chants for them which she doesn't explain. Some are in English, but she never says anything about where they came from--whether they are made up or historical. There are also chants in some... Non-English language (they don't look like any language I'd be even remotely familiar with.) There is no info given about what language they are in, what they mean or where they came from. They could be made up nonsense words for all you can tell. Given the stress on being experienced before trying these things, giving mysterious chants in full with no context or background seems oddly dangerous a practice. 

This reminds me a lot of A Witch Alone, a book I found a lot of issues with--but still got a lot out of, in the end. I'd recommend it if the subject matter is of interest, but I took a fair bit of it with a grain of salt.

My next book... Since I'm apparently feeling both brave and crazy, will be RitualCraft by Azrael Arynn K and Amber K. It's... Huge and fine print and oh god I might be crazy.

Hope to have more soon.