It's Just One of Those Days

    I had no idea how hard it was to come up with five positive things about myself. I say this because an ask came through on Tumblr to do such a thing, and while I have three things down, I'm stumped on four and five. It's rather depressing, but at the same time, I know I need to work on 'me' that much more. This piece, this was supposed to be me kind of venting I suppose, about finding inspiration to write in the oddest places, maybe not so off, but just as moving as say the sun peaking through the clouds. I hate when I know I sounds so full of myself, that I'm the last person who should write about anything inspiring or sounding like I might be giving advice, but this ins't that (I don't think) and this really isn't for anyone but myself (even if putting it on the internet makes it for the world).

    It hasn't just been this week that I've felt so off, so... so something I don't really have words for, but it is definitely this week the depression has hit so incredibly hard again, and that anger that has come with it, at the world and at myself, it's almost unbearable and I've been on the verge of tears for days now and I still cannot begin to comprehend a thing. 

    Work takes a lot out of me, but it's a job, it pays the bills and I'm close to home.  One day I hope to do better, but there are things I have to do first. It's a really big stair case and I might as well be rock wall climbing just to get to the next step. That doesn't mean I'm not doing it, it just means things get a lot harder here and there and sometimes I don't know how to deal and or get passed them; Which I guess is the whole reason to this post.

    I'm still working on the other two answers I need while I write this post too...

    You know, for the longest, I was doing pretty well keeping up on my tarot, and if I wasn't posting about it, I at least had it for myself, I'd pull a card or cards, drag it around with me. Even if I didn't have a chance to interpret the meaning, I had the image, I had the initial reaction and the way it made me feel overall. Sometimes, I could come home and look more into it, sometimes i would completely forget. This past week, I may have pulled a card once. I did actually. Just one. It was a werewolf reminding me to embrace my wild side, and let me tell you, I feel more like a sloth needing to hibernate because they've never seen nor been anywhere near the cold and snow. Whether or not this is a proper comparison, I don't really know, but that's what I've got. The whole point to any of this I suppose is the fact that I haven't done anything, I can't even motivate myself. I hate the next day before it even begins and my cards just sit on my shelves. 

    It must sound silly, that I put so much stock into my cards, that I feel guilty leaving them and not looking to them for guidance when the past year, starting in April, it was all I did, it was how I pulled through after leaving the man I was with and moving back in with my family, with my dad after six years of not speaking to him, of kicking him out of my life, after letting a whole side of my family disappear and let myself fall into the shadows and have regret to live with now. Now, I'm rambling, point is, I had all these things to come back from, finally felt like I was getting somewhere and then I had a week like this, and everything is so unclear again. 

    When I started writing this, there was supposed to be more of a flow, but I guess when you have to ramble you have do what you have to do. 

    So, the whole drive to write any of this came from reading a post about a person reflecting on their livejournal days and how far they've come now as far as writing, and the online friends they've made, lost touch and managed to reconnect with one. It was one of those things that make you stop and 'aww' and while I don't exactly have experiences like that, there are things I can relate too. 

     Here's to the little things, to trying to push forward, to venting and not caring who is listening because it's more toxic keeping it in. Here's to trying again. 

The High Priest(ess)

The first three cards of the Major Arcana from The Fountain Tarot. I've been anxiously awaiting their arrival and they finally came home Wednesday. The art on every card is gorgeous and it's a seventy-nine card deck. The seventy-ninth card being The Fountain, a card created as a result of the inter-contentedness that social media and the internet has brought together - allowing for more people between religions and ethnic origins, witches, Druids, Shamans, and such an incredible spectrum of people to come togther and share what makes them, them. 

"The fountain card is the eternal context beyond human experience
in which anything and everything can happen" 

Jason Gruhl - The Fountain Tarot Guide Book

As I've already spent some time with The Fool, I will say this. I often feel connected, but at the same time, jealous too. The beginning innocence of starting out, the adventure that lies ahead with all its unending potential, the lack of people that are their to drag him or her down, along with a supporting cast there to lead the Fool along."

There are a few new things I've noticed with this deck then ones I have previously used. One particular thing, and I'm overjoyed by it, is the fact that I can find my characters I identify with in the cards, such as ones based off my own creations or ones I have a strong attachment too whether in books or media. With the Fool, I even made note of this whilst journaling, is that within the Fool, I saw one of boy's. I saw him before he feel apart, and I saw him where he is at in his own journey, making up for the bad he's done and trying to just generally be a better person.

It must sound silly, but with reading tarot and writing for it, my creativity has been sparked and it would seem a shame that my characters didn't get to thrive through it as well.

That's why I've entitled this post the high priest(es), because it is inspired by a male character by the name of Gary, but it is usually the priestess depicted reading the tarot cards and or a crystal ball... Now it's Gary seeing himself in the card, or this time it's myself as the High Priestess with Gary pictured on my cards.

Anyways, just a bit of rambling inspired my love for my brand new cards and a rekindled passion for writing.

Defining My Own Practices and Spirituality - Part 1

In my last blog post I mentioned a challenge on Tumblr for creating a Grimoire. The current prompts are all about preparation, and within that, defining what your own practices are, what you believe, what you work with and things like that. I have made many attempts to put together where all my interests started and I've finally put together a piece that gets out what I have to say. A piece I can work off of and add on too. While I never expect people to believe or truly understand me, I will leave it here with the hopes of continuing it further. It is a huge part of me I never get to share, and this is the first time I don't feel silly about it at all.

• What do I believe in and things of that nature?

   If everything and nothing was a proper answer to give, that would be mine. I was raised southern baptist, I spent many nights reading the Bible with my grandfather (on my mother's side) and loving God every bit as hard as he did. I am not the first, and won't be the last to have had such a spiritual person in my life and have lost them as well. He passed away when I was going on thirteen. My Uncle Jim, who was very much like my grandfather, Eugene, passed away on my 18th birthday, and my Grandmother (on my father's side), Marilyn, passed away December 7th, 2014. You always hear how God pulls his children to Heaven... the hard part is when the people he/she/it seems to pull away the people that truly matter, the people who would give up everything in God's name because they love so hard and so much and want everyone to do the same. These people in my life loved, and they never forced a word down anyone's throat as you often see today. They were kind and amazing and it breaks my heart to know they are gone, but at the same time, I know they are at peace, they are with their maker and where they want to be. 

     I say all this because my grandfather dying was a huge, huge blow to my existence, and of course I blamed God. When my uncle died, that was the last straw, but there were so many other things before that, that I knew wholeheartedly that God was a being... a being amongst many more. My dad will say that he has many names, and many forms. I however believe that God, and other supreme beings, myth and legend all have roots somewhere, that enough stories, enough encounters, enough faith means that there is always going to be more than one version; That while the Greeks had Hades, and the Romans had Pluto, they had their own Gods, and the two of them could very well have been separate entities that partied in their underworld lairs. I'm not about to deny the existence of God because that would be foolish, but I sure as hell am not going to credit God as the one and only being out there, especially not when I've spent most of my life dedicated to Egyptian Gods and the sacred rituals of their dead and the passing into the afterlife. 

    Even before my Grandfather died I knew that I was obsessed with Ancient Egypt. I wanted to be an archaeologist before anything... I wanted to travel and to explore and all sorts of other things children often want to do. It all started when my brother obtained a guitar pick charm with an ankh engraved onto it, on a string necklace out of the quarter machines you often find in discount stores. He didn't care for it, but it was his and I couldn't have it right off when I knew I wanted it more than anything. We would often clean and I remember singling in out so it wouldn't be lost, and eventually, it became mine. I'm now twenty fine and I still have it. The Ankh, the key to eternal life, it was and is still very much my everything. It was my first tattoo when I turned sixteen and I have a key collection that's been growing quite nicely recently, and it's not just skeleton keys, but any key in general. There's just something about them I'll never be able to truly define.

    Ancient Egypt started my love for the afterlife, from there it became the paranormal, and then the undead and death in general. My parents are always baffled as to my collection of skulls, and the need for the dark and morbid. I just think I'm better off in the shadows. 

    As far as my witchcraft practice goes, the last thing it is set in stone because it has become about tarot and crystals now, trying to divine with crystal skulls and scrying, on top of the fact I once considered myself an empath. I obsess over the Constantine comics and a lot of other things that involve darker magicks and creatures from the beyond. I mention Constantine because the man, the comics, the movie and later the show, they've all been a great impact and recently I made the joke that if you could be reincarnated as a character, I was him in a past life. While that may not be possible, I do believe I was an Egyptian Priest/ess in a past life, and had a few dreams growing up, one where I woke up speaking another language and my step-sister at the time had heard me. Not that I can prove any of this now, and I suppose this is where faith, of any sort, comes in.

    One day, I hope to list all of my little experiences from out-of-body ones to general paranormal one's, but it is one of those things that make me feel silly writing or typing up, and maybe that is a way of saying I should keep them to myself. At this point in my life, I really don't care who believes me or not, what I do care about is the fact that they just need to accept it. They are more then happy to think I'm crazy or any variation of the word, but the last thing they need to bother with is trying to argue me out of my point or my belief, because I have a few of my own arguments and very few people like when you throw their religion back at them. 

    There's probably quite a bit more to this, however, this is my spiritual basis, a rocky foundation that has now seen so much growth in the past year, and I'm proud of what I've discovered recently and where I am. I look forward to wherever this journey might now lead me. 

Happy New Year to New Challenges

Just like the title implies, though, challenges could just mean life in general, however, in this instance, it is not the case. There are so many social media platforms and so many different things going on across them, and I happen to be on a few, to be able too see intriguing and silly posts, meet wonderful people, and yes, take part in things that give you something to do on a day to day basis. Though, it is more then that...

Tarot has become something I have grown more then fond of in the last year, it is a daily way of life, a tool, guidance and meditation, it is a release from the daily grind and one of the best things that has come from it is a supportive community through Instagram and being able to embrace a side of me I've thought foolish and silly for a long time. I'm not the first and surely not the last to believe in the strange and awkward, and even if I didn't, I at least have one hell of an excuse to write now, even if it is just nonsensical words on paper.

Well then, hello January and your new challenges, aye? Firstly, I will be hunting down tarot ones later this evening, there is already one I know of for sure that is an extension of a December one that has helped me to know what I need to work on to cultivate certain energies within me, and around others to grow as a person.

Secondly, I've established my own writing challenge, and while I don't have the followers to put it out to the social media world, a few people do know of it, and I have already written my first piece. Writing has always been a passion of mine, though, I'll never claim to be good at it. I've read things by people so eloquent in their words to know I'll never compare, but hey, no one said I couldn't try or enjoy myself as I do so. So, this challenge happens to be writing a poem a day for 365 days... yes, every day of the year in 2016. I know full well this is a huge thing to tackle, and that some days might end up a huge masterpiece or just a line of nonsense that I might be lucky enough to call a sentence. No one's perfect, and I don't expect my writing to be, or this post or blog in general. This is something that I'm doing for myself, and if something comes out of it by the end of the year, then that would be insanely amazing, and I would be beyond grateful.

So that part of me that I've always thought foolish and silly happens to be, being a witch, or practicing witchcraft in general. This is a whole other topic that needs its own post, so for now, I'll kind of leave it up in the air, but no this, I've always felt a connection to the dead, and things about death in general, I believe in reincarnation, and a whole lot of other little things have happened/ been happening since I was nine.

Now, that being said, there is a challenge going around on tumblr to make and or work on a Grimoire, a book of shadows. It is meant to be more useful to the individual person then just simply copying down texts and moving along (not that there is anything wrong with that and I do it myself). I feel like I've only really cracked the shell on who I am and who I want to become and I think this will be a good way to really dig deep, especially since it will have weekly challenges for the monthly themes and go throughout the year. It is something I hope to keep coming back too, as well as another excuse to write.

I plan to do a lot this year, I really want to start focusing on myself and actual goals, and get out of a generic, working-class job that doesn't pay me enough to make ends meet. People have the opinion that you shouldn't live with your parents, grow up and all that. Well, I'm done moving, I'm done dating deadbeats, and I'm done struggling. This is all going to have to connect one day, and while I'm not that old, I feel much older and that I've wasted a good part of my life.

Here's to the new year, and all the things that come with it - The happy and sad, life's little moments, that pretty rock you find, the rain cooling your cheeks, and seriously, anything that you can learn a little something from and or just appreciate. I say it as a reminder to myself as well.

Love and light from a friend in the shadows. Cheers!

Do check out Tumblr Grimoire Challenge and Instagram Tarot/ Oracle Challenge