Dancing Down the Moon

Sacrilege

When your doctor says to you, "this medication may make you photosensitive," you really should take her words to heart. 

I returned from SpringFest a day early and spent Sunday and Monday sick as a dog from a lovely combination of heat exhaustion, menstrual cramps, and sunburn bad enough to blister three days later.  Ever since then, any time the sun falls on my skin, I immediately become nauseated.  Basically, Lexapro is turning me into a vampire.

Awesome.

Nothing has ever felt as wonderful as the shower I took Saturday night, except perhaps for my bed immediately afterward. 

Far from the spiritual-sisterhood type experience I was hoping for, the festival ended up making me feel more like a very short nun at a penguin shoot.  I've had worse festival experiences, but they involved things like fire ants in my sleeping bag, tornadoes, or sexual assault. 

I mention this not to garner sympathy, but to address an issue I feel strongly about now that I have finally admitted to myself what I have, at heart, known all along.

I really hate camping.

Cabins.  I love cabins. I love to hike among the trees, sit and read on a rock beside a burbling creek, sit out around a fire looking at the stars and practicing Mallowmancy with a bag of giant Jet-Puffed marshmallows.  But when all is said and done, I want to sleep in a real bed, shower with hot water, and wake up warm and dry and comfortable, without huge rocks in my back, spiders on my head, or gale force winds trying to carry me off in my tent to the land of Oz. 

Bears have caves.  Squirrels have trees.  Birds have nests.  And I have a Simmons Beautyrest pillowtop in a second-floor apartment with central air and a bottle of margaritas in the fridge.

Texas is a stupid place to camp after May.  It's ludicrous.  Now, in March and October, you hit absolutely perfect camping weather, although you still need SPF5000; but the good weather alone doesn't make up for the rest, in my opinion. 

It's a sign of my maturation, I think, that I'm finally reaching the point where what "everyone" does earns a big "fuck a bunch of that" from me if it doesn't resonate with me personally.  For years I've tried to force myself to love Pagan festivals, to keep giving them chances, hoping that some of the great experiences I've heard of people having would rub off on me. 

At first it was because I felt that my track record was bad.  Who wouldn't be jaded against large gatherings after what happened to me in 2001?  Totally understandable.  A year or so later, I decided to start going back to the smaller events, to get my feet wet.  Since then I've been to big festivals and small ones, from twenty people to five hundred, and they've pretty much all sucked.

No, that's not fair.  The festivals themselves do not suck.  Spring GoddessFest, for example, is put on by some wonderful women that I am very fond of, and every effort is made to make it a good time for attendees.  One of the organizers, a midwife and all around amazing human being, came to our camp armed with tinctures of dong quai and motherwort to try and help with my crippling cramps on Saturday (which helped enough that I was ambulatory for a few hours).  They are truly kind and considerate women and a credit to their path.  If you ask almost any other woman who was there, including my campmates, by and large you'll get glowing reviews of the weekend.

It's definitely me.  And the thing is, I know I'm not the only one who feels like festivals are vastly overrated, but much like bisexuality and Angelina Jolie, saying you aren't into camping immediately marks you as some kind of Nature-hating prude who's just not getting it, or worst of all, you're not a "real Pagan."

To that I say, while pain can be a spiritual experience, misery pretty much never is, at least not for me.  I am not going to relax enough to go with the festival flow if I feel like French roasted monkey poo.  If I'm terrified for my safety I'm certainly not going to be moved by any ritual or workshop I attend.  And me and large crowds?  Not good bedfellows, especially not right now.  I'm still in pretty hardcore hermit mode coming out of this latest bout with depression, and I don't see that part fixing itself any time soon.  I am an introvert.  A small groups person.  Subjecting myself to circumstances that I know will make me miserable is no way to connect with the Elements. 

And it's going to take an act of God Herself to get me to sleep in a tent again.

One of these days when I have the money and the vacation time I'm going to try PantheaCon--a Pagan festival in California that's held in a hotel.  Hell yeah!  Now that is my kind of festival.  Decent food, real beds, and porn pay-per-view. 

One of these days, maybe.

In the meantime, while everyone else is sweating their pentacles off and running around with sunburned scrota and poison ivy crotch, I'll be sipping an iced mocha latte and counting my blessings.

A Short Plug, and a Long Meander about Foxes

First of all, I'd like to express my true regret that I haven't managed to answer all the lovely emails I've received in the last month, since Cosmo died.  There were so many messages of encouragement and love that I simply got overwhelmed.  I'm working slowly through them and trying to get replies out this week.  I know I've said this a thousand times before, being that I am the Worst Pagan PseudoCelebrity Ever, but I really do love and appreciate every message you send me.

Meanwhile, the response to my latest fun fictional fluff effort has been surprisingly enthusiastic, so I've created a LiveJournal account to play host to new stories and updates to ongoing ones in the Agency Series.  It's a public LJ, so anyone can read the stories there, and link to it via its RSS feed if desired, or if you have an LJ account already simply add shadow_agency to your Friends List and lo, updates will show up on your page like magic.

I thought that would be easier than having to post in two places every time I update a story.  Once stories are completed they'll be uploaded whole onto the original Agency site, where the first seven are already posted.  The LiveJournal account begins with the story Pentecost, which is probably going to have twenty parts or more. So, if you want to keep up with new releases, surf on over to

The Shadow Agency LiveJournal

Now, on to more serious topics...

I wish I could say that I have received some kind of cosmic wisdom or a sign via burning bush or ghost riders in the sky to tell me how to make sense of my life right now.  I wish I could say that my prayers for guidance or at least clarity have been answered, but they have not.  I am existing right now in a cold, bare room of a life, and my keepers take me on outings to a more colorful place, but I am always returned to the grey.  How long before I become the woman hiding in the Yellow Wallpaper? 

Of course, that makes it all sound much more dramatic than it actually is.  The bare fact is that my depression continues to eat at me, and I have a few good days here and there, and a few bad ones here and there, and I've decided the good days are worth fighting for.  Those precious hours of feeling that I could do something, be someone, change something or everything, are what I cling to when I feel powerless and hopeless.  I hold on to the shooting stars, the red sky at night, the improbable thundershower from a blue sky, and I wait, and I hope, and I pray.

To quote the title of Margaret Cho's most recent book, I Have Chosen to Stay and Fight.

I only wish that I had some idea what I was fighting for, or even how to fight.

So many longings to fit into one human body--the longing to be understood takes up so much space already, as does the longing for significance, and the longing to be remembered. 

There's only one thing I seem to know for sure:  foxes.

Foxes have been all over my dreams for the past three days.  I've dreamed of red foxes trying to climb under a wire fence; I've dreamed of hiding a magical portrait of a fox-woman from a gang of thugs; I've dreamed of being part of some sort of group--an agency, perhaps, of my own--who took out an organized crime ring in possession of a magical knife with a fox carved from the hilt.  My code name in the group was Fox.  An old friend of mine berated me for losing my magical skills, and took it upon himself to re-educate me, demanding that I visualize someone called the Fox Mother.  I've never heard of a Fox Mother.   I informed said friend that I didn't need his help, and that I was stronger and more powerful than he could imagine: when he challenged that statement, I transformed into a grey fox,  exactly the kind I saw  outside my apartment last year, and  then back into a woman...a woman with a gun, who shot him in the head.

Clearly my writing is creeping into my subconscious.  Anyone who knows me knows how much I hate guns.

Meanwhile in the mundane world I keep coming across pictures of foxes, little foxy babies, especially Fennec foxes and their adorable offspring.  Stephanie Law's upcoming Shadowscapes Tarot deck is full of foxes, and those particular cards have drawn me from the beginning. 

Anybody know what signifies a fox?  The information I have found is very lame and New-Agey.  I don't want to hear about how sly they are.  I want the truth.  Which of course means meditation, which of course I've found impossible to do for months now. 

But if my prayers to the Star Goddess this Friday night, whispered while lying on my back beneath the biggest sky I know of smeared across with the arm of the galaxy, were answered in the form of a red-furred animal, then if I want to hear those answers, I'll have to seek them out.  I was always really bad at this sort of stuff.

Still, at this point in my downward spiral of spirituality, I'm willing to try something new.  I was always kind of indifferent toward the whole power animal idea, but there comes a time when coincidence crosses the line into "you gotta be kidding me," and then into "Okay, okay, I get the hint!"

If anything comes of it, I'll be sure and say so.

 

*pokes nose out of cave*

Next week, barring sudden bouts of run-screaming-from-the-crazy-Pagans, I'll be attending the Texas Spring GoddessFest in Dripping Springs.  There's still time to register, so check the website for more information.  I'll be doing informal Rune readings there, assuming my Runes are still speaking to me, for $10, half of which will go directly back to the good ladies of the Festival to keep things running.

While I haven't been writing anything useful for this blog, I have been writing--I've started a new sci fi/urban fantasy sort of series called The Agency, which is purely for fun, and derivative of about fifty sci-fi universes but not fan fiction of any sort.  It has my usual quota of Elves, vampires, Witches, boys kissing boys, cursing, and strange goings-on.  Give it a look if you're interested; I post new stuff a couple times a week.  It's not meant to be great literature, I should note--it's just something I'm enjoying right now, a new world to wiggle into. 

I continue to drift through my Sea of Ennui, which is fun to say--go on, try it.  It sounds like something from Dr. Seuss. 

"It's so boring to be in the Sea of Ennui,
Where the waves are all grey and smell faintly of pee,
But better to sail than to stay in Angst-Town,
Where the dread Emo Marshlands have cut themselves down."

This, boys and girls, is why we don't take our Ambien until after we finish blogging.

Stella continues to acclimate to her new human's strange dwelling-place and habits; we have a bit of an ongoing disagreement about whether or not "kitchen counter" and "kitty bed" are synonyms, and she still has some pretty serious eye boogers which will necessitate another trip to the vet, but overall things are progressing well.  Except that everything I own is now coated in her hair, as well as Cosmo's, with a nice polka-dotting of dried eye booger for color.

At any rate, I hope to have some interesting stories when I get back from the Festival, or at least some inspiration toward subject matter. 

Meanwhile I'll be baking bread and trying to find the Mystery of the loaves and Witches.

Turn, Turn, Turn...

Things are changing, as they always must.

I've been gone for quite a while; my sabbatical wasn't exactly planned or desired, but in the end I suppose it was necessary…and really, I can't speak of it entirely in the past tense just yet, because so much of what came to the surface during this last month is still going on, still trying to work its way into a new arrangement of myself that so far looks less like a portrait and more like a Picasso.

Still Alive, for Better and Worse

Blessed Beltane, to all who celebrate it.  For my take on the Sabbat, which hasn't changed since last year, see the post In Which Sylvan is a Bit of a Stick in the Mud.

I will be out of the blogosphere for another week or so, and out of town for most of that.  I could go on about where I've been or what's been going on with me, but the short version is that I seem to have had a sort of nervous breakdown (or whatever the current PC psychology term is for it) and am just now stabilizing.  I beg your patience and continued indulgence, and I thank everyone for their continued support.

I hope to be back to my usual life--writing, dancing, snarking--by the end of next week, although, I also hope that some things become distinctly un-usual.

In the meantime I am conducting a sort of informal survey; anyone who would like to respond is welcome to in comments below.  (Unless you are on LiveJournal, in which case I cannot see your comments, so you'll have to come to the original post here at DDtM to respond.)

What was your first Pagan book?  Probably 98% of modern Pagans started with books (or read them along with in-person classes).  I cut my teeth on Cunningham, but plenty of people started with Starhawk or RavenWolf (or even Gardner, though that's rarer here in America than, say, Buckland).  Where did you start?  And what year was it?

I'm curious about how Pagan neophytes' literature has changed, or not, in the last 20 or so years.  I've kind of lost touch with what the new folk are reading these days.  Well, and the older folk too.  My interest in Pagan books went from a flame to a fizzle as the repetition bored me and the tone of many books insulted my intelligence and common sense.  Plus, and I've discussed this before, there's not much in "advanced" Wicca books that I feel I need in my personal tradition. 

I have thought many times that I would one day write a beginner's book myself, to create what I wish had existed back in 2004--but really, when you get down to it, it wouldn't be all that different from The Circle Within, just with more vocabulary words and a chapter on pseudohistory that would make me very unpopular with traditionalists.  (Okay, more unpopular.)  A more recent version of that idea would be a textbook for EarthDance, which I would probably make available by chapter online. 

Yeah, maybe someday.  Right now I'm just curious.  Where did you start, bookwise?  And how long ago was it?

EDITED TO ADD:  Per the first comment (thanks Maeve!), if your first literature was online, mention that too.  After all, networking and education has changed a lot thanks to the Internet, so books are obviously not the only road in anymore.

All Over But the Crying

Cosmo died today, in my arms, at 4:30pm. 

He had stopped eating again and was severely dehydrated, anemic, and losing weight rapidly.  An ultrasound confirmed lymphosarcoma, a dozen tumors throughout his intestines.  Chemotherapy would have given him another two months, tops, and the only other option was pain treatment and steroids so I could bring him home, perhaps for a week or two, during which he would be sick and lethargic at best.

We snuggled for a while in the office, the long IV tube getting in the way, and I told him how sorry I was, and how much I loved him, and how great it was to have him with me for over a decade.  I told him I hoped he understood, and that if he ever wanted to come back to me, I'd try to do better if I could. 

I sobbed, the vet cried, the tech hugged me, and I walked out of the hospital, to return to a home where my sweet kitty would never greet me at the door again, never meow me awake, never drop turds in the living room floor, never yowl demanding gooshyfood or pettins, never sit on the arm of the Death Star again, never get fur all over my laundry, never try to steal a cookie out of my hand, never sleep purring against my back.

My home doesn't feel like one now.  It's so quiet, and so wrong, and my heart feels absolutely broken.  The one constant in my life in Austin is gone.

He's gone, and he's never coming home.  And despite everyone at the hospital telling me it was the right thing to do, I still feel like I've committed some kind of horrific crime against life, like what if I was wrong, what if...

But it's too late now.

Goodbye, my furry little guy.  I love you, and I'll miss you, goodbye.

Thank you, everyone, for your support and your assistance during all of this.  I'm grateful.  I'll be back in a few days.

Ten Things I Love - Post-Bad-Week Edition

I know I've been scarce this week--as you can imagine I'm pretty worn out, although Cosmo is healing up and behaving pretty much like his old self.  (Meaning bitchy, grouchy, and demanding, just like his Person.)  We're almost done with the last round of antibiotics, much to our relief; I've about had it with having to chase him out from under the bed with my Hitachi Magic Wand.  (It scares him.  I might think it threatens his masculinity in some archaic way, but really, what has he got to threaten?  He's got no balls.)  Overall it's been a genuinely crappy two weeks. 

At any rate, since I haven't had much time this week to write, I give you a list of things that have been keeping me reasonably sane lately, mostly in the realm of mindless entertainment.  More spiritually juicy posting will resume shortly.

1 ~ I love that Geoffery Chaucer Hath a Blog. 

2 ~ I love Annie Lennox, in particular her albums Bare and Songs of Mass Destruction.

3 ~ I love that Garfield is much funnier without Garfield.

4 ~ I love that Juno will be out on DVD in two weeks.

5 ~ I love Alton Brown.  I want to have his geeky babies.  I've learned more from watching Good Eats than I learned in culinary school. 

6 ~ I love that there's a sequel to Hellboy coming out in July.  Guillermo del Toro is a freaking genius...although I wonder what kind of scary landscapes exist in a mind that can invent terrifying monsters like the hand-eye demon from Pan's Labyrinth. 

7 ~ I love Chipotle's veggie burrito bowl.

8 ~ I love that doing lots of Nia and ecstatic dance is having a noticeable effect on my body.  Things are shifting around.  I'm becoming more flexible, which is saying something, and my legs are getting stronger.  The only thing I have to watch out for is my knees; the left one has been injured a number of times, so it's weak and prone to being yanked out of shape.  However, Nia teaches you to become aware of the feelings in your body, to listen to tightness and discomfort and work at a level that challenges you without stress or pain.  I'm learning how to sit back into my hips instead of leaning forward over my knees, and learning what it feels like to stretch the joint without going too far.  I've never had this level of body awareness before, and I think it's fantastic.

9 ~ I love the agonizing sexual tension in television shows like Bones.  I love to yell at the screen, "Kiss him, dammit!  Throw him down on the autopsy table and ride him like Seabiscuit!  AUGH!!!" 

10 ~ I love raspberry sorbet, it turns out, which is weird, because up until about a month ago I hated all things raspberry.  Funny how your tastes change as you age.  Next thing you know I'll be eating avocados.  *shudder*

Enjoy your weekend.  I hope the weather where you are is more inspiring than what we've had here this week.

The Continuing Kitteh Saga

Cosmo came home from the vet this afternoon strung out on morphine and pissed off.

The vet ended up taking out four teeth--two that were good and rotten, and another two tiny ones in the front that had somehow gotten broken years ago.  I had no idea he had broken teeth, much less how they got that way; Cos has been an indoor cat his whole life, so I can only assume he was chewing on the doorknob or something equally brilliant.  He does have a tendency to bonk his head on the coffee table when jumping down from the sofa, so who knows?

He tested negative for FLK and FIV, thank the gods, and the rest of his teeth are in fine shape.  I just fed him a bit of his usual gooshyfood, which he went after with more gusto than I've seen him eat in a week or better.  His pupils are still hugely dilated and he keeps listing to starboard, but you would too if you'd been gassed and had your mouth sawed in half.  He's also apparently paranoid, like a good little stoner--every time a bird chirps or the air conditioner clicks on he freaks out.

Funny thing--apparently his ability to morph into a lizard beast and wriggle free of captivity isn't just my problem.  He was so difficult to keep still that the vet couldn't get the IV in him, so they had to put him in a tank and gas him, then stick him.  For some reason the mental image tickles me.  The poor critter also has two bald rings around his front legs where they shaved him to put in the IV and monitors--he looks like he's wearing some kind of strange shoe/pants combination.  Behold the half-conscious post-op pic for proof.

Provided there are no complications, including him barfing up the gooshyfood he just inhaled, and after another week of antibiotics (and two days of pain meds), he should be in fine fettle in 10-14 days at the outside. 

Incidentally, I asked the vet tech why amoxicillin for cats is banana-flavored, and he informed me that Clavamax is actually human medication usually given to children, that just happens to be the same dosage and concentration as what a cat needs.  So there's one mystery solved, although having had liquid medication most of my life (I had problems swallowing pills until my late teens) I can testify that banana flavored medicine is never, ever a good thing, no matter what species you are.

At any rate, the bulk of the ordeal seems to be over with, and again I want to thank everyone for their prayers and energy.  I continue to be amazed and touched at the support we've gotten.

For those who donated money:  I have in mind a small token of appreciation for you.  If you're interested, please email me a snail mail address as well as the name you go by (one you would have something signed to, for example, if we were to meet), and sometime during April you should get a small but sincere surprise in your mailbox. 

Addresses should be sent to diannesylvan at gmail dot com.

Spiders and Snakes and Deer, Oh My!

I recently joined a LiveJournal community offering Pagan writing prompts.  I'm looking forward to the suggestions offered--since I solicited suggestions here, I've been compiling a rather long list of possible writing topics to keep me inspired.  (I still welcome suggestions, incidentally;  comment on this entry if you have any.)

At any rate, the first prompt on the community had to do with animal totems in Pagan practice.  It got me thinking back to the early days of my training, when "what's your spirit animal?" was a burning question and I noticed that an oddly large proportion of Pagans were magically paired with wolves, birds of prey, dolphins, and dragons. 

Oh, and cats--let's not forget cats.  At the first student Pagan group meeting I ever went to at UT there was a girl in the corner who claimed to be a "cat spirit" and spent the entire meeting licking her forearms.

I shit you not.

An Update and a Bit of Gushing

Since I posted about Cosmo my inbox has overflowed with encouragement, healing energy, and donations to my fuzzbutt's care--I'm honestly overwhelmed at the response.  It's strange for a writer to find herself beyond words, but I am.  All I can say is, thank you, to everyone who emailed, commented, and donated.  Your generosity is...magnificent.  A blessing.  Inspiring.  Jaw-droppingly awesome. 

I'm trying to email everyone who donated personally, but there have been so many that I'm a bit behind, so please forgive me if you don't get an immediate response.  Believe me, I'm grateful, so very very grateful.

I imagine Cosmo will be grateful too, once he's finished hating me.  I've been having to dose him twice daily with antibiotics until his surgery on Monday, and will have to keep doing it for a week afterward.  Medicating a cat is sheer hell.  And why, why is amoxicillin for cats banana-flavored?  Have you ever seen a cat eat a banana?  Why can't they make it cricket, mouse, other-cat's-butt, or at least chicken flavored?  Every article of clothing I own is spotted with cat drool, white hair, and stinky banana goop.

Other than our endless tug-of-war with the syringe, Cosmo seems to be doing pretty well; the antibiotics have obviously helped him feel better despite his protestations, and he's eating more regularly and even getting wacky with his catnip mouse.  I have no idea what to expect after the procedure Monday, but I imagine he'll be a very unhappy kitty for a few days. 

The vet is concerned that he may have FIV--his antibody count was lower than it should have been.  They're doing a test for that, too, when I take him in.  I'm trying not to think about it too much.  I realize that cats can live for years with FIV, just like humans can live with HIV, but it's not exactly something I would wish on either.  Gods willing, the tooth extractions and antibiotics will clear everything up and he'll feel better than he has in years. 

I forget sometimes that my Cosmo isn't a kitten anymore.  He's 11 years old, considered a senior, but he's been a grumpy old man as long as I've had him.  He has been the one constant of my life in Austin; it's always been Cosmo and me, since I was 19, both of us shy and awkward in the big new world. I can only pray that we've got a few more years together.  If the amount of energy everyone has offered has anything to say about it, he'll outlive me!

I'll post another update on Cos after his appointment next week.  Until then I hope to get back to writing now that the initial shock and stress is calming down and I don't feel like I'm spinning toward a black hole anymore.  All I can say is, thank Goddess for antidepressants--this knocked me for a serious loop, but if it had happened in February I don't know if I could have dealt with it.   As it is, I've spent the better part of this week either bawling like a baby or so angry I could flip off a box of kittens. 

To quote Mother Teresa, "I know God will not give me anything I can't handle. I just wish that He didn't trust me so much."