Defender: Baby Sister of the Heart

I really hate it when I find someone important doesn't appear in my cast of characters. I could defend myself and say my baby-sister-of-the-heart just hadn't been outrageous enough to mention yet, and I only list someone when I talk about them. Certainly that doesn't mean I always talk good about folks, either.

But instead, I'm going to apologize, publicly, abjectly, and then tell the whole world about a really extraordinary woman whose been a part of my life about ten years or so.

Defender, so named for her fiery spirit that will take on any injustice with passion, has survived phenomenal odds to become a fantastic mother of three. She's about to marry (again, but that's a long story) the love of her life. Indeed, she's even asked my partner Cameron to officiate. I've watched her grow from a scrappy teen to a powerful woman who works hard, attends school, cares for her family, and still manages to be there for an entire group of survivors.

Defender, you are one of my heroes. Love you!!!

Cat Lady, Servant of the Lady Bastet

Cameron told me I should have added that title to previous post....I should have listened. Indeed, Cameron has been telling me for weeks what dervishes the cats have become. Don't think I've ever had 6 kittens, approximately 6 months old, in the house at the same time. The house ain't safe. Literally. I really should have listened to Cameron.

Cameron's house sitting for a friend, so I woke alone this morning. Mercy, I miss that wonderful transgender human being. But I digress.

We've both been sick lately, and in a mad dash for the bathroom, I set the laptop aside with the cover up. Bad mistake. I'm not sure which cat jumped on the keyboard, began the music, panicked and unsheathed a claw to get away, but the result was spectacular.

To add insult to injury, a little later I rounded the kitchen corner as the toaster hit the ground. There stood Dante, attempting to look very innocent.

Our cats:

Dickens (Charles Dickens)
Tannis (god)
Iben
Legba (god)
Chole
Lucy (red headed mother of 5 kittens by Firedancer)
Xian (god)
Temptation
Bear (Bear Burgman)
Firedancer
Wee Bit whose tale is named Be-Wit
Marmalade (mother of Hermione by Firedancer)
Pippin (Lord of the Rings)
Browning (Elizabeth Barrett Browning, he's the only survivor of 3)
Starshine (Favorite literary cat hero)
Lotus

The kittens:
Hermione (5 months)

The rest, age 6 months:
Dante (poet)
Rossetti (Christina Rssetti, poet)
Mya (Mya Angelou, poet)
Amergan (celtic god)
Audre (Audre Lord, poet)

That's some serious energy...

World Between Worlds

I'm reading an amazing series, as I mentioned in an early entry, by Sterling. Reading of a world where the gods walk our lands, having cast out electronics and, consequently, many weapons, has brought me closer to my own pagan self. Grad school and working these last five years has made it difficult to circle, and we aren't part of a regular group. We have our own grove identity, occasionally cast circle for ourselves and a few friends, and have had a student or two, but it hasn't yet been time to walk that path further. Put that on the back burner.

When I began this blog, it was with the thought to provide a stable wiccan presence in the online community. Too much drama on the e-list I was on has led to long term silence from me. Most of my entries these days are actually terribly mundane...and the silence between entries has lengthened over the last year or two.

Knowing myself, reconnecting with my spirituality requires me to write. Anything. Because in time it always leads me back to the center, the heart of who and what I am. Lady Grace Dreamweaver, Priestess and Daughter of the Gods. That is my mantra, my every day prayer, my call for centering, and my honoring of my place in the universe. Put that on the back burner.

Today has been very mundane. I moved back into my office to face the plastered sheet rock which isn't drying well, due to the recent SC rain. I have a cold. It's one of those that you aren't really connected to the world, and if you can keep enough Robitussin in the system, you just kinda drift. Thoughts are tangential and elusive.

And Cameron is house sitting for the next few days. And my phone battery won't charge and the new phone won't be in until tomorrow. So I have few interruptions, although Cameron will stop by after class to make sure I'm okay (he's way more worried about this cold than I am, as I'm really too sick to care, and not sick enough to do anything about it but take Robitussin).  Today I rescheduled all but a few clients so they would have less risk of infection and the boss let me leave at the close of dosing hours, two hours early.

Now lets take all these thoughts and stir the pot...

Being sick, and numb, can lead to some very metaphysical musings. I read the book, and I think of my own calling, and the balance which we've been struggling to maintain. And suddenly, just for a moment, there's the space here where the gods walk the world, where I know what I know, and in the midst of broken toys and a damaged house and 14 year old cars, I know. I am the daughter of the gods. I am a child of this universe. And I can call the blessings of the universe to me and accept them with gratitude and open arms and open hands. And I can share them with others, in therapy, on a blog, by walking this earth myself. Thou art god/dess...

Sometimes we just need potato soup made from scratch, homemade wheat bread, and a cold. Glad I did the cooking yesterday.

Blessed be.

Lady Grace Dreamweaver, servant of the goddesses Inanna and Kali

Further Along the Office Adventure

Today there are zippers at the end of the hall on both sides of the payment window. The payment clerk is taking payments at the opposite end of the hall, near the only entrances to the clinic, at the dosing area. So how is it that zipper and darkened area with no overhead lights invites people to open the zipper in an attempt to go pay for their dose? Addictive behavior at its finest. I finally put up the signs no one else had.

Since the construction crew has taken over my office for a few days, I am borrowing the nurse's office in her abscence. It's a rather cold, sterile room overloaded with filing cabinets and the door doesn't open all the way. It doesn't have an office chair, so I've had to resort to one from the conference room. Not to good on the back and knees, but getting mine to this part of the building would be difficult, at best.The good news is that the computer is five years newer than mine and doesn't crash when I open the internet! And the overhead light works! LOL Although I wasn't quite expecting the constant interuptions by staff who come in to use the sink or the scales: )

Stilts and Zippers

Yes, that's a man on stilts, mudding the wall. He'll do the same to paint it. My job is never dull...

If my boss will commit to it, this may become my new office.

And this is the zipper just outside my door while they work...Someone just poked his head through and said I have to get out of my office...shesh...

Pumpkin Pie and Driving

I was dreaming at 3:30 this morning when the alarm went off. Usually I'm half awake when it goes off, and I get out of bed quickly. This morning I was caught in that dream state, tangled between the here and there. I was dreaming I was watching a middle aged couple and their son, like the perspective of the intrusive television eye, and she was kissing the neck of her partner. They had recently fallen in love, and were quite taken with each other. The teen in the room was rather appalled that grey headed people still had sensual, sexual energy. He was objecting to shows of affection when the alarm rudely intruded.

I've been read the Change series by S M Stirling. If you haven't read it, do so. It challenges my perceptions of the world in wild and uncomfortable ways. Yesterday I read a very pagan account of ritual, of the horned god channeled through the hero. I went to bed thinking of the turn of the wheel, the coming of fall, the shift in the world and the smell of the wind. I've also been thinking of my own shifting sexuality/sensuality. Being the partner of a transgendered person, being in recovery from rather serious PTSD, being a grad student and now graduate of a marriage and family program, has challenged in these ways and more.

I've missed my own sexuality as it took the back seat to study, exhaustion, working full time, attending school full time, and an overburdened caseload. I've worked hard to heal from mental/physical/sexual abuse. I disavowed my sexuality, reshaped it, and struggled to take it back. My identity as heterosexual woman transformed to identifying as lesbian. Then it transformed again, as my partner identified as transgendered. Funny, my spell check doesn't even recognize the word "transgendred" and yet it defines so much of who I am.

I digress. So what does that have to do with pumpkin pie and driving? 4:30 in the morning I drove to work, still in a world not quite made of this one. It's 60 something degrees and humid as I drive, window partly down and heat on my toes. I scanned the roadside for deer, but didn't see any this morning. I thought of the dream, of the book, and of my lover who is suffering a sinus thing that has left her coughing and exhausted. I wonder at the pronoun I just used, because while I use the feminine pronoun, I don't think of Cameron as female very often. But I don't think of her as totally male, either. Wish we had a transgendered pronoun. One that leaves space for becoming.

But I digress. As I grabbed my prepared breakfast and lunch from the frig (I have two days a week I eat all three meals away from home, returning only to sleep), I saw the pumpkin pie. On a whim, I cut a piece. The in-laws sent it home with Cameron last week and we forgot it. I've never been a big fan of pumpkin, and especially not pumpkin pie. But I associate it with fall, with harvest, with the Horned God of sacrifice and bounty. I tried to eat it mindfully, as I drove, tasting the pumpkin, the nutmeg, the cinnamon. It was surprisingly good. Perhaps my taste buds have grown and changed again, accepting tastes as pleasant that I used to simply tolerate. Perhaps my taste buds have become another symptom of the transformation of middle  age, the moments before I become a crone, as I wait post-menopausal and changed at the gate of cronehood.

Something was different about my drive to work, and this quiet moment at work when no clients have yet tapped at the door. Something shifted in my metaphysical awareness. I usually mourn the loss of summer, of heat, of green. This year I find myself grudgingly embracing the fall, the cooler weather, the taste of pumpkin and the ambivalent love of things male. I stand here at this moment of becoming, recognizing that another transformation has presented itself, and wondering at the journey that's about to begin. Wonder where this one will go.

Monday Morning

And back at work. Spent the first ten minutes this morning wiping down my desk from the wall board dust. Looks like I'll be doing the same for a few more days this week. Next is taping, patching, then wet sanding. Eventually they'll even paint. By then I'll be looking forward to my new office, immediately on the opposite side of this wall!

Check out the guy on stilts working just outside my office. It's not every day you see a guy on stilts in your office door.

I worked Saturday morning, and even though it is only a few hours, we all seem to agree that the lack of a psychological break makes us feel as though we didn't have a weekend. I'm definitely feeling it this morning.

I've started a new blog, which at the moment is entirely private. In time, I'll probably link it up. I keep recipes on my computer that I gather from cookbooks and all over the web.  I finally decided it might be wise to put them on a blog, which will offer an excellent index when tagged correctly.  But I also have worries of copyright issues, so I'll need to go back and make sure each credits its source. I also think it will be cool to take pictures as I try recipes, and my changes in ingredients, etc.

Each morning as I leave for work, I drive by the lake and pause in front of an empty lot so I can see the water. Each morning I say my prayer of requests and thanksgiving. This morning was no different than any other. The cloud cover masked the moon and darkened the water. Nevertheless, there was an indescribable moment of presence, a feel of the shift in the season, a movement and change. As I drove to work, I scanned the usual areas for deer. At 4:30 in the morning, I often see several groupings. I only saw one this morning. An older doe actually crossed the road in front of me. I've driven that road for eight years, and it was the first time one of them crossed in front of me. Usually they remain well off to the side.