Winners!

I only had two entries on the giveaway so I'm going to give both of them the book.  I can get another copy for myself later so the two winners are:  SusieB and Kymberly Pray.  Please email me your addresses so I can get them in the mail by next week.  I rarely ever check my gmail address so email me at kawaski@charter.net and I'll get your book out to you.

Thanks for entering the contest.  Even though I didn't have many entries, I enjoyed this and will offer something else in the future.

Still here, still eclectic and still pretty darned content

Time is whooshing past me at an alarming speed.  I didn't realize how long it had been since I posted here.  Things are good spiritually.  I'm much more comfortable with this eclectic choice, not spending my time studying a system or "learning" who the gods are.  Instead I'm focusing on magic and learning who I am.  The gods are revealing themselves to me as that happens.  Amazing.

I've known for a long time that the mythologies do more to turn me off the gods than help me get to know them but I just couldn't seem to leave them out of the equation.  It's part of my upbringing...to trust the written word way too much.  Especially bad when you take into account the amount of diddling the "church" did with all the stories about the gods.  I just can't trust them.  Any of them.

I know not all mythologies have been tampered with but still you run into man's interpretation of who the gods are and some modern polytheists dogmatic insistence on adhering to the ancient...or more modern...interpretations of just who the gods are based on those stories.

So...I'm going to learn them without the myths.  Just let them reveal themselves to me.  In the meantime, I'm going to work on magic, spend time with nature and get my house in order.  Thanks to my lengthy illness, the house is in total chaos, needing a good cleaning and a good cleansing.  Trouble is I'm still dealing with awful fatigue so it will take a long time to bring the house into a state that makes me comfortable.  Slow and steady may win the race but when you've got other people still making messes, still having meals to prepare, laundry to do and other daily chores, it's hard to play catch up, let alone get ahead.

Brigit was there this morning when I lit the kitchen candles and the incense.  First time I have felt her presence in years, if ever.  It was nice and the first time I felt her as a hearth goddess.  Most times she seems more of a "saint" than a goddess.  Today, though, she was a goddess.  It was nice to see.  We'll see if she comes back.  Not making any commitments right now, if ever.

I also plan on spending a lot more time on crafts, which I find to be a very spiritual practice.  I don't spend enough time being productive, which I think will help me spiritually.  There is something about the creation process that brings you into a level of spiritual connection with the gods, goddesses and spirits out there.  That's another thing that has been made apparent to me...there are many spirits out there who I am finding a connection with.  I had never really made that attempt before so it's reassuring to find others on the spiritual plateau who are interested in me. 

Time to get busy on knitting today.  Since I'm still battling fatigue, even if it is better than it was before, I'm trying to take advantage of that limitation and use it to focus on my crafts.  It definitely improves my mood and my self-esteem.

Language alert: it was a crappy day

It was altogether a crappy day, but then the cards let me know that before I left the house this morning.  Not that I could have stayed home and avoided it all.

First thing, as I was creeping out of the driveway, I knocked over the neighbor's trash can because the sanitation engineers had left it out in the road instead of putting it on the curb.  Great!  I was running late for my doctor's appointment so I had to deal with it when I got home.  Fretted about it the whole time, though, raising my blood pressure.  Gah!

Then didn't have a very good conversation with my doctor at all.  Normally we can communicate but since I've been under the care of a cardiologist, she's been hard to talk to.  She kept complaining about me still being on lasix, which I understand is going to be a standard medication for me because I have congestive heart failure for fuck's sake.  Then she got the prescription wrong when I went to pick it up.  The conversation was so confusing and instead of double checking it, or letting me call her when I got home, she ended up cutting my dosage in half.  I'll be calling the cardiologist to get it straightened out, you can be sure.

Then, the part that pissed me off so much that I was in tears when I got home...she had told me months ago that she would manage my pain meds since my rheumatologist retired but when I asked for a refill today she refused, saying she wasn't "comfortable" managing my pain since she wasn't trained in chronic pain.  Just what the hell did she learn in her internship then?  So she told me to find a rheumatologist and have them prescribe my pain meds.  Thing is, even if I could find one, it would be months before I could get an appointment and I will be out of tramadol by the end of the month. 

As it turned out there are only 3 rheumatologists within an hour of here and none of them are in my network.  So I called back and talked to the appointment lady and she left a message for the dr.  I got my refill although she's not happy about it.  Seriously I was in a panic because I remember the 10 fucking years I went without any pain meds because the fucking doctors told me it was all in my head.  I've never once abused my meds and have never even taken all I'm prescribed per month.  But people with chronic pain need to know they don't have to hoard their pills so the drs generally give them a bit more than they need.  Hey...sometimes you do need those extra pills.

So the cards didn't lie at all.  It was a miserable day.  But still I learned some things.  One thing being that the cards won't talk to me when I'm wearing my hammer.  And that my path is absolutely not one that is an established one.  Zach did 3 readings for me and there was no doubt whatsoever that my path is eclectic. This morning was pretty much the same, aside from the Devil showing up to let me know my day was totally fucked. 

Learning about the Norse/Anglo Saxon gods has really confirmed that for me, too.  There are gods there I am fond of but I don't love the myths and I don't love the system.  Same with the other pantheons.  I know I keep saying this but I also keep trying to find something for myself that isn't mine to have, I guess.  Maybe this time I'll figure it out.

I think Zach has my back this time.  We're on the same page for the first time so I think working together will help.

Tonight, though, I plan on going to bed as soon as the clothes are done in the dryer.  I'm so tired and the stress of the day has wiped me out.  My head is throbbing and I've got to get up for cardiac rehab tomorrow.  But I'm definitely going to look at warding myself and my space as soon as I'm get back.

Giveaway!

I've never done one of these but I got an extra copy of a book that I ordered and rather than send it back, I thought I would offer it up to someone out there who likes fantasy books.  It's not a new book...several years old, in fact, but it's one of my favorites.  I read it to Zach when he was little...many times.  I had loaned my original out but never got it back so when I ordered a new copy, got the extra one, too.

The book is Tailchaser's Song by Tad Williams and it's fantastic.  More like animal mythology/fantasy but reminds me a lot of Watership Down in many ways.

So if anyone wants to enter the contest, just comment on this post and on September 22nd (my birthday!) I'll randomly draw a name and send it off to the lucky winner.

I hope whoever wins it likes it as much as I do.