Rule of Three

I'm not really a witch. I like the aesthetic, and I do have my shamanic kinds of beliefs and practices, though I'm not consistent with much of anything, probably due to most likely having undiagnosed ADHD. People who identify as witches have a different view and set of practices, well, there are very many varieties of witches apparently. My knowledge of these things predate TikTok and other social media. It comes from reading books. Actual paper books. What we see on TikTok especially is a lot of mumbo-jumbo and posturing and gate-keeping and other nonsense where there is constant bickering and drama between different factions of self-described witches. The European witches think that American witches are fake, and the American witches scramble to prove themselves. There are constant threats of hexes and banishments and all kinds of other baneful acts. It just makes me think that these silly women acting this way would have given people long ago plenty of reason for witch hunts and all that shit. Now I know that many innocent women were murdered, ostracized, persecuted, etc. due to false accusations of witchcraft. It is and continues to be a powerful accusation in some parts of society. But I find it really disappointing that some people behave in such an immature way while claiming to have this great power and wisdom.

Many of these witches have disavowed one of the basic tenets of modern practice. The Rule of Three. Basically, it means that whatever you put out in the world will return to you threefold. Maybe it's a "new" rule that doesn't really come from the ancient practices. I don't know. I think it is similar to Karma. It's so irresponsible to throw out a bunch of negative energy or whatever towards others in order to "punish" or even just because you don't like them. Here is where my Christianity steps in and where I believe that forgiveness is a much more powerful response to feeling hurt. Forgiving is hard. Forgiving does not necessarily give you at feeling of getting justice. But it stops the rebounding effects of so much negative energy being thrown back and forth without regard for unintended consequences or collateral damage. Forgiving isn't the same as absolving or erasing harmful actions. It is for our peace and well-being. It protects our energies instead of wasting them on revenge or punishment. The universe will provide its own punishment which will be much more effective.

I am not immune from feeling a desire to punish or avenge. We all have those emotions. I might be writing this to help myself work through some of those feelings. We just got back from a quick beach trip and I brought home a really terrible cold. Not covid but it's pretty bad. In my fevered brain I imagined that someone might have wished this upon me as some punishment for some imagined infraction. In the last month or so my overactive imagination might have thought some things that it shouldn't have, but as I see it my imagination is my own business and if I think something about someone and keep it totally in my own mind then it's between me and God, so to speak. Believe me, I tend to punish myself enough for these things and don't need it from anyone else. I don't know if my strong thoughts get through to other people. Maybe they do. I can't know if they don't tell me. But if my thoughts do somehow bother others then there are better ways of handing it than throwing out curses or hexes. This sounds really crazy, but it sounds a lot like the ADHD thoughts that I've heard other people talk about having. 

Anyway, this illness made my fever run over 102 and so all that heat and energy being generated by my body made me think about how much that energy might build if I sent it out with an intention of returning it to whoever wished me ill. (Yes, crazy fever-thoughts.) I mean I was really thinking about creating a fever-bomb. But I really wouldn't have done that. I just thought about how glad my imaginary enemy better be that I didn't do it. Sometimes fever thoughts and dreams can be entertaining after the fact. 

I'm no longer feverish and my mind is getting back to its normal crazy and not so much of that fever crazy. But I have been thinking a lot about this idea of energy as a weapon or defense against perceived threats. I don't really know how much of this stuff is complete bullshit, but I do know that sometimes we meet people to whom we feel some connection or attraction or even repulsion. Maybe it's all just one-sided imagination? But let's not diminish or disregard people as delusional just because they have very active imaginations that consider all the possibilities. 

I think the best use of our mental and emotional energies in response to feeling energetically threatened or violated is to build up a protective field or buffer. That will not exacerbate or amplify energies back to us. It might not be as short-term satisfying as sending hexes, curses, or fever-bombs, but in the long-term it will avoid so much negativity from overwhelming everyone. And it is closer to forgiveness.     

Midlife Equity

I'm really rusty on this writing thing but here goes.

It's been nearly 20 years since I started this blog. That feels strange. Twenty years has flashed by so fast. So much has happened. Kids have grown and flourished into their own adult lives. No grandchildren yet, but maybe in a few years. I've had heartbreaks and recoveries and times of feeling like I just didn't care about much anymore. But now at 56 I'm feeling that midlife urgency to get things done and taken care of while I'm still here and able. Not to be morbid but if I'm average I've only got another 20 or so years of life, and that 20 years will go ever faster than the last 20. Priorities are shifting. Focus is much less on the future. It is on right now. Time is even more precious than ever. No more wasting time waiting for things to get done or waiting for other people to get their shit together or whatever. 

I feel like I've built up a bit of life equity. I'm talking about the value accumulated over time based on the difference between liabilities spent vs. assets gained. I'm been the bookkeeper for our business for the last 26 years so I just think of things in those kinds of terms. I'm not talking about the current use of the term equity as some social concept to justify discrimination against high achievers because it's not "fair" that some people do better in life than others. That's just life, people. I always wished I could be a rock star or super model but I don't have the talent or physical beauty for required. Painful as that realization was, it was what I had to accept. Anyway, life is not "fair" and everyone just needs to do their own best without trying to bring others down to their level just to feel better about it. 

My own equity I'm talking about does have social aspect but it is much more personal and intertwined with my marriage/partnership. All the years that I didn't spend money on things like getting my nails done all the time, designer clothes, or whatever other shopping/spending habits that others choose has created a type of savings account with this equity. (No judgment on those who do spend their "capital" on that stuff - it just hasn't been a priority for me.) I know this might sound "transactional" to some. That's another current buzzword to criticize certain ways of thinking. Well, at its most fundamental level life is purely transactional - input/output and exchange are the process of life itself. The sun gives the energy it got from its creation to all the plants and organisms on earth that then use that energy to grow themselves and then we use them to grow ourselves and we all convert that energy into other products that other things use to grow themselves and on and on and on. It's a cycle of exchange. Long term partnerships naturally involved lots of sharing and exchanging. Certainly, there are some things like emotions that don't necessarily work best under a transactional structure. I might get into that later. Sorry, I tend to go off on these tangents. 

Back to relationship equity. Over the 33 years of my marriage I've accumulated a bit of savings where I wasn't spending everything all the time. Now I'm looking at things that need attention. As things age they need repairs and maintenance. A lot of people my age decide to spend their equity on fixing their bodies with plastic surgeries or other procedures to look younger or whatever. And again, no judgment on that, but it's not my concern. Well, yeah, sometimes I think about having some "work" done on myself for appearance's sake, but not too seriously because that just hasn't been a thing for me ever so why start now? There's a lot of life baggage (similar to equity but undesired accumulation) connected to physical appearance. Growing up I was never told I was attractive. My appearance just wasn't important except that I was never thin enough. I was either invisible or too big. This probably explains my lack of desire to maintain appearances over my life. What's to maintain if you never had it? Sorry, another tangent. 

So instead of spending my equity on myself I am beginning to spend it on some big home maintenance projects. As a homemaker (along with the bookkeeping as my "career") home is super important. The state of our homes is often a reflection of the conditions of other aspects of our lives. This isn't necessarily a direct correlation. Sometimes people with the most immaculate homes have the most fucked up lives and relationships. And sometimes the most modest and ordinary homes have the happiest families. Clutter and mess isn't always a sign of dysfunction. It's often a sign of people living full lives. My house is generally clean but it is a working home. We work here and from here and it's all functional and lived in. I do like some nice things but it's just not all for show. (Just like my personal appearance.) But over time things wear out and need work to repair and maintain them. This year I've had the exterior painted professionally for the first time since we built the house in 2001. The cedar siding had been cleaned and sealed a few times over the years but it was always DIY and not necessarily done that well. Cedar is beautiful when it's new and newly pressure washed to remove the natural tannin stains that turn it gray-to-black. But it never keeps that fresh-cut look. It wants to be black. So I said "paint it black." Well, it's not pure black, which I would have liked just fine. It's a very dark gray, kind of charcoal color - the darkest that Sherwin-Williams makes - Black Alder - I think is the name. It looks awesome. I love it. It was a big job and cost a pretty penny but I had that equity and used it. 

Another big job that has needed to be done for over a decade is having the wrought iron pool fence painted. We put in the pool and fence 16 years ago and it's all held up pretty well, but as iron will do it had some rust and other issues. Last year I had a couple of posts and a gate replaced and there are a few more posts that will need replaced next year. But for so many years I've had getting it painted on the to-do list. That never was a real DIY option. So I finally just made the call and found the absolute best people to get that done. I am so happy with it! It's almost like having a brand new fence. It wasn't cheap. Getting it painted the right way was almost as much as getting it originally installed. But with Bidenflation it was really probably about a third (or even a quarter maybe) of what it would cost to install new now.

Having these things taken care of have energized me. Spending that equity on my home and surroundings has made me feel like the state of our home better reflects the state of our lives. There are several other projects that need to be done in the next year or so. The equity isn't all used up yet but I don't want to deplete it completely. There's another big painting job that I want done professional this year, and then the other projects are more DIY friendly. Spending on home maintenance seems like a much better investment than plastic surgery or whatever because barring some major natural disaster or something like that, this house will be here a lot longer than I will. It is an asset for my children. My body is not meant to be a legacy. It has already done its creating.         

Clock's A-Ticking

 Well, I've gotten sucked into the TikTok world. It's funny how social media has evolved from the old chat rooms of the early Internet to these quick videos documenting everything from the deepest heartbreaks to the absolute stupidest antics to the most obscure fetishes and interests. But the trolls haven't changed or been vanquished. People don't change.

Ghosted

Ghosts in the machine 

Dead lovers and unsuitable soulmates

Broken code dangling in quantum mystery

Locked blockchain no password 

Crypto scripto got no matter

In the shadow energy

Bridges, Ferries, and Mortality

There are a lot of cliches and metaphors about bridges, but that's because they work. Humans have always built bridges to cross over waterways, ravines, and other gaps or obstacles to where we want to go. Where we live there are lots of rivers, creeks, and other waterways and so there are many bridges. But not enough really. There used to be ferries at various points along the rivers, and many roads are named for these ferries. But I am unaware of any ferries around here that still operate. The old ferries were not the same as the big commercial ferries currently in use in bigger cities and other countries. They were often not much more than rickety rafts, which is one reason why they disappeared - due to safety regulations and whatnot - along with the construction of new bridges. There was one ferry I got to experience before it was shut down when I was in my early 20s. It was slightly more modern than a raft and was a little scary to trust carrying a few cars and several people, but my mom and grandmother wanted to show me some places from their earlier years and the ferry was part of that journey. That ferry shut down after a large bridge was completed. 

There are several major bridges in this area, but it would be nice to have more, especially connecting our area with the area where the kids went to school. As it is, we had to drive a fair distance out of the way to either bridge crossing the river between us and the schools. The closest bridge we always called "crooked bridge" because of its asymmetrical construction (BH Photo #270433 in link above). I don't know why they built it that way. Maybe the angles affect its strength and stability. That bridge gets tons of heavy traffic from 18 wheelers and dump trucks due to the industrial and mining complexes on that road. To have so much school traffic (buses and cars) there too has been the cause of much worry and several bad wrecks over the years.

When we bought our farm there was a very old, janky - mostly wood with some metal supports - bridge that we had to cross over the large creek bordering the property. I was always afraid of it and it frequently flooded when there were heavy rains. There were other accesses to the property when the bridge was impassable but they were fairly long detours.  This bad bridge, however, was not enough to deter us from buying the farm because it is a beautiful piece of property and the price was good. We didn't know when we bought it that the State of TN had already planned to replace that bridge as part of a state-wide program to replace so many dangerous, inadequate rural bridges. Although the road through our farm is gravel it is a County road which means that it is the State's and County's responsibility to maintain. The old bridge was demolished and construction of the a new bridge happened pretty quickly after we bought the farm. Now there is a solid concrete bridge that is so much better. It is less susceptible to flooding, though one time the water did flow a little over the top of it. The biggest problem now is that the side of the road across the bridge from our farm is lower in elevation and floods anyway when there is too much rain. It's okay because we have the other ways to get there, and the floods aren't that frequent. But it does illustrate the important of good, solid bridges.

The metaphorical bridges we build can be just as important. Nearly all relationships require emotional bridges that we use to close the gaps between us. Usually these bridges are constructed of words and actions, but sometimes thoughts are enough for some connections. The variety of these personal bridges are as many as the variety of bridges that cross our geographical landscapes. And their reliability, durability, and convenience are all just as variable. Sometimes instead of a bridge, we just need the occasional ferry, when a long-term connection isn't needed or wanted. There can also be metaphysical bridges between people that are not really the same as the emotional bridges but they can share the same space. Emotional bridges are built in the landscape of real actions and words, but the metaphysical ones are built of thoughts and intentions, maybe even dreams. To those of us with just a grandmother's understanding about such things we can imagine that concepts like the Einstein-Rosen bridge could help explain such metaphysical bridges, though they are more like tunnels (wormholes) that are pretty much just inside out (or rather outside in) bridges. ;-) Real scientists, especially physicists, really hate when we conflate their theories with metaphysical ideas. Sorry, but not really, because creating new connections and testing them is necessary. Scientists can be just as guilty of NIMBY (not in my backyard) as any others who don't want to be connected to what they consider unclean, undesirable, or any other objectionable things. "Don't you even think about using my theory to explain your hoodoo nonsense," is like, "Don't you even think about building a bridge to connect my happy neighborhood to that messed-up neighborhood." There is almost always some resistance by somebody against constructing new bridges. 

Shamanism utilizes metaphysical bridges in its connections. Journeying to the Dreamtime requires all sorts of metaphysical infrastructure but bridges are one of the main things because in Dreamtime quests we like to be as efficient as possible in getting over, around, through the more difficult passages. But bridges present their own dangers too. Under bridges is a popular hiding place for things that might want to stop, hinder, rob, or hurt us. There are these energies and entities in the metaphysical space as in the normal reality. Also there can be heavy, sometimes dangerous traffic just as on our bridge on the way to school. 

Not that all Dreamtime travel is fraught with risk and fear. Sometimes it can feel really good to be there. Enjoying the Dreamtime too much is a downfall that shamans need to avoid because it can become the journeying there just for the sensations of it without any intention or purpose. Not that pure pleasure is a bad thing, but there is a time and place that is more appropriate for that than the Dreamtime which is mostly meant for learning and guiding. If we were meant to live in the Dreamtime we wouldn't require reality and the metaphysical would be enough. The reason we have physical bodies with sensations is so that we will try to be "grounded" to reality. Our physical bodies and senses are the bridges between our metaphysical lives and our normal real lives. If someone claims not to have any sort of metaphysical life he is either misunderstanding certain experiences or ignoring them altogether. We can build bridges but we can't force people to use them. A lot of people have deep phobias of bridges - fear of collapse, fear of the unknown, fear of ambush in a vulnerable place, etc. - so we can either help them overcome those fears or leave them on the other side.   

Despite not being a very social person, in the past I have been an important bridge between people who've made pretty lucrative connections because I've been the one who connected them. It's not that I am so important or well-connected myself, but that I have facilitated the connections of people who otherwise would have never met but who needed each other for mutual benefit. I could be a matchmaker though these connections were not of the romantic variety. Sometimes I am good at seeing how people need to be connected to each person's benefit and help that happen. This helping people to solve problems by being a bridge to information or other people is part of my goal with shamanism. If I can't solve it, let me show you who can. Maybe in this sense I have been more of a ferry than a bridge since there wasn't usually a permanent structure created.

Bridges are often part of the imagery of mortality. Another role shamans can fill is that of helping others through the process of death, helping others "cross over" the "rainbow bridge" or the River Styx in some mythologies. I might have somewhat filled this role when my mom was dying, though I feel I mostly failed at creating any smooth, soothing transition. I just don't really know for sure since I was much too overcome with my own feelings and concerns. It was a very rickety, unstable passage for me, though mom seemed at as much peace as one could expect (though throughout life she had a bridge phobia). I feel some regret that I did not have the strength to carry her all the way to the end. She seemed to understand when I told her that I didn't think I could handle being in the room when she died, but now I do wish I had stayed by her side as she took her last breath. What a shamanic failure! All these years later it's some feeling of FOMO (fear of missing out) that nags at my mind, telling me that I might have mourned better if I hadn't been such a coward in the face of her death. 

I had begun this blog post on March 22, 2021. It's still not fully formed but I'm going to go ahead and publish it.    

Midlife

 Thoughts of mortality are heavy on my mind as I approach my 54th birthday, the age at which my mom died 25 years ago. While I am not ill like she had been for years before her passing I still have these thoughts to process. I have intentionally lived a much different life than she did, hoping for a different outcome than hers, but I have not escaped the usual midlife problems and worries. Things hurt. Youthful abuses or misuses of my body have caught up with me. I'm tired. Sometimes I just want to quit all my different jobs and "retire" to some mythical life on a warm Florida beach. I'm not sure my generation will really get that whole retirement deal that our parents and grandparents had (though mom didn't get there either). I remember my mom talking about being tired of working and wishing she could quit and just live a less demanding life, but she ultimately she valued the money, esteem and sense of autonomy she gained from her job more than leisure time and relaxation. And actually, she ended up working on up until 5-6 weeks before her death. She didn't want too much unoccupied time filled with pain and anxiety. She was a Capricorn.

In many ways I do believe our thoughts shape our reality so I am mindful of not dwelling on these morbid thoughts, but I also know we can't ignore things hoping they will just go away. It's really hard sometimes to control these thoughts about how much time I've wasted over the years. I try not to berate myself for the missed opportunities and inappropriate pursuits that sometimes haunt me. So much time I spent in my own head in some alternate universe that never amounted to anything. In the grand scheme of the universe what kind of wasteful folly have I made of these short years of life on this beautiful planet? As far as we know our experience as conscious, creative beings is very rare in the universe, so it seems especially important to make the most of that. But maybe we really aren't all that special? It might be nice to meet an extraterrestrial who could give us some perspective on the grander universe. Wouldn't it be funny to meet one who was having his own kind of midlife crisis? 

I don't really want to sound so whiny. But gosh, my hips hurt and I'm tired and I'm just not sure I want to start up any new businesses and endeavors. I just want to get through the rest of this month and get past that birthday.    

eScienceCommons: Fruit flies use alcohol as a drug to kill parasites

Another older article of interest regarding insects and "natural medicine." 

eScienceCommons: Fruit flies use alcohol as a drug to kill parasites: By Carol Clark Fruit flies infected with a blood-borne parasite consume alcohol to self-medicate, a behavior that greatly increases t...

eScienceCommons: The monarch butterfly's medicine kit

An "old" article and video but very interesting anyway.

eScienceCommons: The monarch butterfly's medicine kit: The journal Ecology Letters just published findings by Emory biologists that monarch butterflies use medication to cure themselves and the...