Reality check-ins

At the end of January, Siduri and I got together to mark Charming of the Plow. We have done Imbolc in the past around this time but this year we had a new ritual to use. She found a book of ADF rituals using Norse cosmology called Sunna’s Journey, and it worked out well. We blessed some ritual tools with words and phalluses. We also made new moon affirmation jars filled with flax seed, and I have since painted mine accordingly. Even to my hyper-critical eye it looks alright.

And yes, those cords in the top picture are from Fiberwytch.

It was a good ritual, and about all I have been able to do recently. My energy levels so far this year have been abysmal. I rang in 2015 with the worst allergy attack of my life, and I still do not know what triggered it. It was allergies of the sneezing congestion type, not the break out in hives type. As it was, I probably should have gone to the ER. But I had just switched insurance providers and did not know how well that would go over. But I got through it somehow, and kept on plugging away. Winters have also become bad for me mentally because on days when the outside pressure drops and it gets cold, my head feels like it is stuffed with cotton. Focus is non-existent and it takes everything I have just to keep myself fed on said days.

And then add to that something which is difficult for me to admit to, even in this relatively secure but public way. At the end of January I got hit with the worst depression pit I’ve had since my early 20s. There are some reasons why it happened but a big part is apparently my brain chemistry. And life has taught me that when this happens, I need to shove the feelings aside and just try to function. It’s been the way I survived the previous ones, due to not having people around me who I felt okay sharing any of that burden. (And the same is, for as close as my mom and I were, I never felt comfortable going to her with heavy emotional stuff.) But I’m tired of pretending everything is okay when it’s not for me, and with Pantheacon just a few days away, I want to be able to have a place I can point out to people without having to repeat myself a dozen times.

The last few years have been rough for me in a lot of ways. And my healing is not a steady progression up by any means. but i am going to try my best not to suffer in silence. Sekhmet’s words to me at Her healing ceremony have been ringing in my ears in the last few days, mostly her admonishment about me eating my own heart. Hopefully I’ll find a way to move it from being so close to my teeth.

And for a little more lightness, here is the start of my house wight home. Painting like this is helping me relax and focus, as is watching the second half of the Legend of Korra.