Featured

The Hypocripha

Once upon a time, I asked a Pastor’s Kid – what can God do for me now? Like Heaven is great and all but I kind of cannot wait here. What help can I get *now*?

I shouldn’t have seen his lack of answer, his honesty, as the red flag that it was. I had been raised in this religion after all. I was asking him, “what have I missed all this time?” and despite being a PASTOR’S KID who was going to SEMINARY he didn’t know. Had not a single answer for what the god he professed to worship and had made a lifelong commitment to spending ETERNITY WITH and he couldn’t tell me what good it would do me in this world. That should have been enough to keep me away but gosh darn it he had the cutest green eyes and the most annoying smirk.

That stupid jawline and infectiously cocky attitude set me back a decade from discovering who I truly was, what I truly believed. I clung to that delusion so, so hard because there were some dreams I just didn’t think I could survive losing. But that is neither here nor there.

What that experience, that whole chapter of my life, really, taught me is how absolutely ingrained it is to dive deep into the “mysteries” of the triune god and turn the blindest eye you ever did see to the absolutely obvious and effusive amount of contradictions. That is the true definition of a believer. Someone who has become “saved” when they can profess to see the clarity in the absolute jumble of nonsense that is the American Christian religion.

Allow me to paint you a picture of this. Let us say you are living life quite peacefully in your corner of the world. There are some hardships sure. Life has its ups and downs. Emergencies. Scars. Triumphs. Life. And then one day, you are invaded. Conquered. Forced into abject slavery. Raped. Families separated. Your children, sold. And wholesale slaughter. You are forced on your knees to worship the god of the people who have ruined everything. Who have killed people you loved. You die hating that god. You go to hell. Because those people were Christians and that god was the one true god, they just got the representation wrong but *Jesus would have given them (the oppressed, not the oppressor) some revelation of who he was so they could be saved.

**Being something that has not one single backing in scripture but that any reasonable, even remotely empathetic person would know that this situation is *bit* much to ask of someone to know before they unknowingly choose their eternity. Even adding that meant-to-be-comforting addition, that’s… psychotic. Cruel. Twisted.

Let’s try again. You are a person taught that you are the chosen people meant to save the world. Your empathy is slowly numbed out of you by being taught, over and over, that women and children and anyone who does not have your exact melanin content are subhuman and worthy of nothing but your rule. You embrace this. It makes you feel big. You see people being hurt but no longer care. You see that owning them can make you wealthy beyond reckoning. You begin their wholesale slaughter. And you do it in the name of the god that chose you. You do it because you are cleansing the devil in their hearts. And making obscene amounts of cash with every death and sale. On your death bed, you ask to be saved by the god that was preached to you and though you got the interpretation of it wrong, to the tune of thousands of deaths by your hand alone, and never with any intention of ever lifting a finger to right even the smallest of wrongs wrought by your hand – you go to heaven. Congrats. These are the rules.

And the rules are perfect. You cannot contradict the rules. Because god is all good. And thusly his rules must be fair. They must be just. They must be. But they aren’t.

I used to wonder how a god of pure love and light could have such fucking hypocrites as followers. Until the kool-aid began to fade from my system, and I began to see what was, instead of the deeper mysteries I had chosen to focus on instead.

No, they are just like him. They model him perfectly. All they ask of you is all their god asks of them – turn a blind eye. Do not see the cruelty in slavery, defend it as the order god enacted after the flood because despite just killing off the entire population of the world, save one family, god gets so mad at one of the remaining people that he curses them and every goddamn descendent of theirs for the remaining 6k+ years. Tad bit petty, don’t you think? Like. Really? But then again, when you think about it, it’s just par for the course. He literally cursed all of humanity, billions upon billions of people – not to mention the rest of creation, even if only on earth (which would be absolutely absurd), has led to the suffering of TRILLIONS of animals in the knowledge that only a handful of them, a drop in the ocean of humanity, would meet his conditions for salvation – from his own wrath. LIKE.

(Important note: first, god lied to them and then got mad when they didn’t listen.)

God: If you leave me, not only will I put you into an eternal torment, I will afflict every generation of your descendants FOR ALL TIME.

Literally, anyone who has studied psychology at all: WELL THAT’S TOXIC AF.

The church isn’t not being like the god they profess when they silence the abused instead of the abuser, they are mirroring him. When they are on the wrong side of history, it’s because they are benefiting from this particular translation of their holy book and are wholly uninterested in truth but in remaining “right”.

I bring this to attention as I have been seeing a number of Xtians claim that things were better when people had a healthy fear of god. Which is a very strange code for believing that people are “breaking gods rules” by not subjecting themselves and their families to abject abuse by Xtians nor following the American Christian’s rewritten version of Xtian History because people don’t take hell seriously enough.

We were xtians guys. We were uber devoted. We followed the rules better than anyone. We prayed ourselves away. We took hell extremely seriously. I read the entirety of John Piper’s book refuting Rob Bell’s Erasing Hell. I would cry in bed, agonizing over the concept of purgatory, terrified even of that cleansing fire. (And if you want to say well purgatory isn’t real, then congrats, you too are deciding which parts of Xtian theology to pick and choose not based on biblican backing but on emotional preferences.) I forced myself into small boxes to try and cut off the parts of me that caused me to sin and doubt. I was praised for doing so, even as men in power refused to do any such thing and just bolted down the locks on my cage while they continued to poison and pollute everything they touched.

So for anyone that thinks that this is a phase or a tantrum – no. This is carefully, in full knowledge and awareness of what the Xtian belief of the consequences of my choices are – deliberate rejection of not only American Xtianity, but of the Xtian god in his entirety. Not because of how he is represented by American Xtians, no, while sad, pathetic, and frankly vomit worthy – he is *not* mis-represented by American Xtians. That is what all of my studying revealed. Despite the self proclamation of “all good” and “holy” and “pure” and “love” – all evidence, anecdotal and systematic, points to the exact opposite.

Thusly.

I choose any future, eternal or otherwise, to be as far away from the Xtian god as possible.

If that god made this brain to come to this conclusion then even in this worst case scenario – I’m gonna enjoy the absolute H. E. DOUBLE HOCKEY STICKS out of the next 60 years before an eternal torment. Which, logically, is the better option than slowly suffocating my soul for the next 60 years before putting myself through a different eternal torment by being stuck WORSHIPPING the most chad bro god since Zeus. No. Fucking. Thanks.

So, next time it occurs to you to tell someone that they just aren’t thinking through their choices – especially when it comes to your religious viewpoint – try to wrap your very inflexible brain around the fact that they have probably thought about it 10x more than you have. And that rather than saying a gods damned thing, you might want to take a second and listen to someone who has gone through the dark night of the soul and awoken whole and awake on the other side.

But hell, you do you boo.

Featured

1,600 sq. ft. and still no place for towels

Tonight is a short rant. Like a long tweet for the precise reason that I am not concise. I have my gripes with every generation except Millenials because we are perfect. The end.

But tonight I’m not going to talk about the skyrocketing cost of education, how hypocritical it is to march for unborn babies while denying their born counterparts and their parents the ability to thrive or even survive, why Cheeto Satan should be the death knell for evangelical christianity instead of its poster boy, or why grandma can’t understand why I like kissing girls. No, today I’m ranting about popcorn ceilings. Because WHY?

WHY WAS THIS EVER A THING? You know what we should put on the ceiling, Brenda? SHIT. Shit that is going to catch every speck of dust flying around here. And we’ll do it FOR FASHION.

And while we’re at it, Bob, let’s design houses in the literal dumbest way possible and waste as much space as we can. IT’S BRILLIANT.

Understandably, you might have guessed from this post that my house has popcorn ceilings and storage issues and you would be correct. But so does every single house that every single friend I have, regardless of age, gender, or location lives in. They were all designed spectacularly poorly. And honestly, I have not the foggiest understanding of why.

How does such poor design make money? Surely it doesn’t save it. You could house double the families in the same amount of space if someone just thought to themselves, “I bet these people use towels in the bathroom. Let’s plan for that.” Instead, the designers of my home decided that it was a most excellent idea to make the entryway a narrow hallway of, I shit you not, 12 feet and include a small, useless closet whose door opens out to block any entry into the home. It’s some fucking brilliant stuff.

I once visited a friend in Germany and stayed with her and her family in their townhome and while the size of the garages did indeed give me anxiety, those houses were amazing. It was the most practical, convenient, and honestly beautiful design I have ever seen. Every square inch had a purpose and a function. There was storage everywhere. Everything made sense. A family of 5 lived, extremely comfortably, in half the square footage of my home in which we trip over each other constantly while I begin to stroke a mustache I don’t have and fire up the chainsaw in a desperate attempt to avoid another meltdown over storage space.

If you find yourself asking, are you one of those tiny home people? Please know my answer is no. I’m not saying we should all get by on a meticulously planned 100 sq ft because frankly, I like baths too much and also, I have a tooty booty and want my partners to stay in love with me. But this whole ‘Here’s some space let’s fuck it up with shit tile, textured surfaces, and awkward closets’ has got to go.

If there is one thing that the next generation that has wealth to build custom homes and/or own a home building company does (no worries, Gen Z, you’re right in the fucked boat with us, but maybe one day there will rise a new breed of human that understands that water and air are more important than hoarding billions)- please, please, for the sanity of every person – design houses for people to actually live in them. End rant.

Featured

Come to me RPG Avatar

I don’t want to be here, banging my head against writer’s block that is 3/4 stress induced and 1/4 imposter syndrome determined to be heard. I want to be losing myself in a farming RPG, a grand adventure, or quietly exploring a world like the mystical witch that I am. Basically, I’d love for some escapism at the moment.

Gaaaaaah why is it that I love grinding in games so much more than real life?

What I find interesting about my deep (and, at times of high stress, desperate) need for escapism is this: upon inspection its actually a really insightful road map for who I want to be and what I need to be working toward.

Herbalism, permaculture, spiritualism, and FFS a colder goddamn climate so I can enjoy being in nature. I am a witch of the woods not a goddess with stank pits, boob sweat, and active bitch face. Do you know how good I look with a cute pink nose? It’s a helluva improvement from flushed face with an ash white upper lip and eyes glazed with heat exhaustion. Gimmie some mittens and a proper pair of boots. And let. the bugs. die.

Maybe that’s the key – sit for a moment, and escape. Go somewhere that is not overwhelming, and open my arms wide. Take a deep breath, hug everything I see, and bring it back with me.

January 2nd 2022

It’s been too long. I started off NaNoWriMo on fire and then burned out like a sexed out mayfly. And I learned, as we do, that perhaps starting an ambitious writing project riiiiiight as I’m starting to feel burned out in every single aspect of my life was not setting myself up for success.

I never left, and yet I am here now. Back again, with you. 

We did it. We made it. Another year. When really, it feels like everything has been shit since 2016. Then again, maybe that’s just when I started paying attention. 

2016. It wasn’t the very beginning of my deconstruction but its when it got out of idling and onto the freeway. Crashed a few times. Made a lot of mistakes. Accepted that prayer, guilt, and shame were not ever going to set me up onto the narrow path. And that the people who teach this to children, who get them to internalize it, are not holy people but merely adults ruled by the fears and scars of their own childhoods. I learned that the most important voice isn’t male, but mine. That truth is insanely nuanced and dogma and doctrine are all made up and there is absolutely no reason to not figure out how it works for you as you go. 

Mistakes aren’t sin, but telling people that the way that who they are, and who they love (with full adult consent) is wrong and that a sadistic god gave them the “burden” of hating and rejecting themselves while white cishet asshats get to sexualize little girls in the name of holiness most definitely is. I think the fuck not. I genuinely cannot get through a post without ranting and fram, thats just the season I am in. I’m not changing it, or editing it. Anger is an emotion, and a fuel, that I am called to explore in this season. 

I remember being a Christian and wondering why the atheists were so angry. Like fine, don’t believe in god, but let me believe in peace. But I get it now. It is infuriating to watch this nationalistic cult continue to hurt and scar and wound people for absolutely no reason. It is infuriating to watch people you love drink the koolaid and offer you some and look hurt when you smack it out of their hands like the poison it is. It is maddening. I am not an atheist, but I am angry. I am furious. And I am going to keep using that anger as fuel to keep going in this world. To leave it better than it was given to me, to raise my children to stop seeing borders as more important than people. To keep going. Because honestly, when will the Christians realize their own holy book, their own god was telling them this the whole time. The kingdom is already here, this is it. This beautiful world, the creatures in it, the mysteries and dangers and breath taking beauty – the experience of it – its all here. This is not the fallen world, this is not a left over that has been handed over to evil for us to patiently wait for it to all end in fire. This is it. This beautiful mishmash of pain and joy is everything. The fact that we have set fire to so much and so many and blamed evil spiritual beings instead of the rich and powerful is simply a testament to how much responsibility we have to right what we – not the devil – WE have wronged. 

Which brings me back around to this new year. I don’t have a ton of resolutions. And I’m not going to get in shape or change the way I eat or write every day. I might spend more time, though, trying to figure out why I do not do the things I want to do (write) and try to spend a bit more time being quiet and trying to hear myself. And then heed myself. 

And, starting today, and lasting not all year but for the next nine days, I will be doing a meditation on anger. And the place it has in my life. 

Because I can be happy with where I am, and my life in the moment. And still be angry at what was taken from me. Anger does not have to rule me in order for it to fuel me. Anger is not just an emotion, or a reaction. It is a holy warning. To stop harm. To keep it from continuing. To stop toxic cycles. Anger is a gift. Anger isn’t something we heal from, it is the tool we use to heal. And anyone who says otherwise is just someone who doesn’t want to be stopped.

All of that being said, I guess I do have one resolution. This year, I’m getting published. This year, I’m getting paid for my writing. This year… I’m not hiding my brightness. Not from anyone.

Way Back When

Whether it’s a helpful habit (or more likely not) I tend to put a show on in the background when I do planning stuff. Not writing, but when I’m doing meal plans, washing dishes, and homeschool stuff, I put something on. Often it’s every season of the Great British Baking Show on repeat, but I also enjoy The Grand Tour, and then I like to sprinkle in various British contests I watch on HBO Max. Like “All that Glitters” or “The Great Pottery Throwdown”.

Today, as I was planning out home school stuff and wondering how on earth I was ever going to schedule some field trips when the weather here is constantly asking Mother Nature to hold its beer, I put on a new show. “Clarkson’s Farm” because in all honestly, not only do I enjoy “The Grand Tour” but I enjoy Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond, and James May and keep up with whatever they put out. While “The Great Escapists” was delightful nonsense I have no plan to re-watch, “Clarkson’s Farm” has hit a note in me that has rang so deep and loud that I am now here, writing about it.

Not only do I delightfully get to watch baby lambs being born, but I was reminded of when the pandemic began, and what that looked like. I know it was a horrid global pandemic that has now killed 4 million humans and I don’t long for that to be back in any way, shape, or form. No. What I miss, though, was that for a few months, for almost a year, really, the societal expectations of me shifted. I wasn’t expected to be running around with my head cut off getting groceries and planning trips and running errands and visiting friends and going to play dates etc. I was expected to be at home and to be happy about it.

And I was.

I could *breathe*. And as of late, I have found myself once again going way too fucking fast. I am out of breath, constantly. Not because I am literally running, no, in fact I wish I was in better shape. Rather, I find myself so stressed out I am actually holding my breath to try and slow down.

The kids and I are going out almost every day. Just for this quick or that quick. Run errands here and there. Grab this. Do that. And suddenly the day is gone, and I’m completely wiped. There went the week. The month. The time slips through my fingers and I cannot seem to get enough sleep to make up for it.

And I feel an ache for when we did not. When I did not run to the store if I forgot something, but made do and waited. When days at home were filled with everything we had already being enough. When going out was planned and we did it consciously and effectively. And being home was the *norm*.

I have too easily been led away from that peace. Too easily pulled back into the stream of never ending needs that aren’t actually needs at all. No. No. I’ve had enough now.

I’ve had enough of the running. Of the constant pull. That’s not what I want my life to look like, or what I want my kids’ lives to look like. I’m not going on lockdown again, by any means. One kid is signed up for soccer this autumn and the other is to start gynamstics. We have home school meet ups once a week, plus field trips. But I am going to be more intentional. On days we are out, we can run errands. So that every day is not an out day. Instead, they can be limited. And we can truly rest and not let our time be stolen by pointless comings and goings. We can spend time with ourselves and each other because shockingly, I like us. I like our home.

Magic starts here, at home, with me. So I’m bringing back the magic that was the “permission” to be contented at home. But this time, without a global pandemic and without anyone’s permission. I mean, I’m a witch. If I wanted permission, I’d go to church.

Always Two Minutes Away From Dying

The thing about life is that it’s insane, really. Especially our lives, moving at the speed of light, hurtling everywhere at dizzying speeds with over 150,000 deaths per day and a population that continues to increase. We are anxious sacks of meat supported by wet bones that are controlled by flashes of light sent from a wrinkly grey mass on the top of it. Lives are made and destroyed by strangers taking pictures and a few of the wrong chemicals can kill you, get you high, put you to sleep, or give you a hot flash. There is literally not one single thing about any of this that makes any sense.

Except love. Trite, I am aware. Over said. Over produced, certainly. But when I look at the passed out form of my children (it has to be asleep – lately they’ve been tiny bodied assholes during the day) and feel every last ounce of love that I have for them I accept that I am an anxious cucumber that takes sanity pills every morning and drinks magic bean juice to wake up and am surrounded by energy and wavelengths and data I cannot see and am always two minutes from death if for some reason I stop breathing and know that I would do it all again just to love them more.

And that’s all I have to say about that.

Biggest and Best

I have always been a little person. Always. Since pre-memory I have taken pride in hiding in spaces that should be too small for me to fit in. I didn’t weigh over 100lbs until I was in 6th grade. Puberty didn’t strike until I was 15 and I was 19 before I got my b cups. I look back and realize I should have worn a bikini absolutely everywhere.

Fast forward to 33. Two children have given me stretch marks on my stomach and thighs, an uncontrollable eye roll reaction, and the beginnings of laugh lines around my eyes and mouth. They have also stretched out my boobs to look more like udders and eating their leftovers and running on spiritually empty for a *while now*, plus quarantine and keeping a handle on my depression – I have gained some weight. Not a significant amount. About 25 lbs. But when you’ve been told your whole life how small you are – not fitting into adolescent clothes as an adult seems like a game changer.

But instead of falling back into starvation and self loathing and over exercising (because I promised my body I would honor her instead) I have spent the last year just letting her be. Loving her through my insecurities. Finding new voices to listen to. (Specifically the voices of my partners telling me how sexy my juicy booty is, how worthy I am, how good I look.) And understanding that if “getting skinner” is my goal, I’m always going to fail. Not because I can’t diet or exercise or lose the weight – I have absolute faith in my ability to do that. But because there is no gain in getting skinnier. There is no reason to be other than to fit into a set of criteria that our society has dictated that has no place in reality and puts a buttload of mental energy into looking… thin. And like… thin? That’s it? Not like a warrior goddess here to kick ass and heal? Not a full heart nor aligned chakras nor knowledge about myself nor a healthy appreciation for the body that has brought me this far? Just. Thin.

Fuuuuuuuuck that. Fuck it all the way to purity culture and back. And what would that teach my daughter? Sorry honey, mama is barely holding on so I can get a brief and insufficient hit of dopamine because I can fit into a size 4 again. Sorry honey, it’s not that ice cream makes my body feel bad, or isn’t healthy, or that I don’t enjoy it but because I have to listen to these rules to look a certain way or I’ll spend our story time trying to burn off these calories. Fuck fucking nope.

Things I want for my body: increased strength (my kids are getting fucking heavy!), increased endurance (wheezing after 2 minutes of tag is not something I’m particularly proud of), flexibility of any kind really (I am mildly ashamed at the amount of work it takes to keep my back from hurting now that I’m in my 30’s), and honestly I’ve always wanted to do a handstand and have the core strength to hold it. If those things cause weight loss – okay. If they don’t – okay. Because, and I’m going to say it again, thin is not a goal. Thin is a way some people are and some people aren’t.

And I… I want to be me. All of me. Even if it’s the *biggest* me. Because right now I am the best me. The most realized me. The most whole me. The most healed me. The most genuine me I have ever been. And maybe it’s because that in this season, this is my way of learning that there is nothing inherently holy in being small, no matter what I was taught.

Oh how I longed to be small and quiet and docile, as a true holy woman should be. Instead I was quick witted, sharp tongued, inquisitive, and loud. I did not do as I was told, I needed things to make sense, I had things to talk about and wanted to be heard. I had interests. I had enthusiasm. I was not demure in any way, shape, or form.

Maybe, my body is just changing to look like my mind and be okay with taking up space. I’m not afraid of it anymore. I’m not afraid of being big and bold and loud and inquisitive and enthusiastic.

Because why the fuck not. Because why is taking up space a bad thing? Why is being squishy a negative? It’s not. It never was and it never will be. So I’mma go put on my bikini and wear it everywhere. Behold, world. Look at my pale ass perfection and be blinded by my white ass cellulite. Watch me jiggle as I chase my kids and behold the glory of my laugh lines. Swing my little batwings. Bounce my juicy booty. Shimmy and shake and clap those thighs with the movement inherent in a full and glorious life.

The Chosen

Full moon rises outside the window
Two deadweight bodies radiating body heat
Legs across mine
Claiming me as their own even in sleep
I don’t mind
I have been theirs since the moment I could finally hold them in my arms instead of vaguely curse at them to get the fuck out of me

Tension rises outside the door
Voices raised as emotions are expressed
Two people learning how to love each other again
How to belong to each other
And themselves
I don’t mind
I have been there, walked those exact steps, been overcome and overwhelmed and desperate
And came out the other side with more love than I ever believed possible

Words rise inside of me
Always wanting to get out
Past my tied tongue and my half open eyes and stiff fingers they demand release
I don’t mind
Racing across the page they are the wind in my sails
Pulling the weight from my heart and pouring it on the page they are my anchor
They are my breath in good times and bad

We rise out of expectations
Insisting on making our own way
Laying down the burdens of antiquated ideals
Ignoring the calls for self sacrifice from the same lips that call us entitled
I love him I love her they love me we love
And I don’t mind
The side eye when I introduce my partnerS
Call myself a witch
Or hear my child drop the f bomb at story time
Because at the end, when I walk into the light again, I will never wonder what my life would have been like if I had chosen it instead of accepted what I was given

Leave It Un-Done

Today was a day. Today I had many thoughts that need to be written down. About how waiting for sex until I was married wasn’t what fucked up my brain, but the purity culture that fueled it. About how romcom love isn’t actually love and living life together while still enjoying each other while you have young kids and fuck tons of pressure on every side is the best thing ever. Literally. It is freedom. It is joy. It is looking at your person and knowing that there is nothing life can throw at you that you won’t make it through together. Because it’s not about what the journey looks like. It’s not even where it’s going (that vision will change many, many times). It’s about doing it together, and discovering yourself along the way. About how I once read about a “pious” woman who worried, constantly, about getting grilled about her time on earth once she was in heaven. And how it’s taken me years to begin deconstruction on this bullshit but today, while watching IG reels and laughing my ass off, I thought that if anyone on the other side of death had the *audacity* to ask me if I thought today was well spent I would respond with “Well fuck yes it was. Actually. Thanks. Had a great time. 9/10. Would recommend.” About how people in the middle of doing the work don’t get enough fucking credit for how difficult it is in the middle of it.

But it’s the end of the day. My babies need cuddles. My brain needs a break. My shoulders need to come down from my chin. And I just do not have the capacity to give any of those topics the attention they deserve.

So, instead, I’m going to do this. I’m going to talk to myself (and you). Just a quick little message. Here we go.

Everyone deserves rest. Even writers. Even moms. Even people who haven’t gotten out of bed because it was just too much today. Here is your permission to leave it un-done. To try again tomorrow. To celebrate how far you made it today, against all the odds. Play the game on your phone. Binge the show you have watched a million times. Let your brain shut off, take a deep breath, eat the donut, and love yourself.

Perfectly Alright

Community. A term I have known, longed for, been deluded about, and rediscovered. I have been told since before memory that church was community. And since I could remember, I didn’t fit into it. I was not cool enough. I used to think it was holiness or piousness, but upon reflection, that’s fucking absurd. I did nightly devotionals, memorized scripture without anyone telling me to, read theology books for fun. The “accepted ones” had… other hobbies. No, it was definitely because I was an awkward, anxious bitch who couldn’t be chill for her life. Oh and poor. Adopted by some of the rich kids, sure, but definitely the charity case.

I don’t know if American Christians are even capable of community. Because community is impossible without whole-hearted acceptance of the “other”. Unless there are people who are not like you in your community, it’s just a club. And like any club, it is defined by it’s exclusivity.

Whereas witches… I’m not saying there aren’t exclusive, gatekeeping white witches out there. There are. I’ve met them. They suck. But most witches I know are the most welcoming people I’ve ever met. There is no one way to be a witch. There is no one color of witch. No one aesthetic. No one sexuality. No one pantheon (or lack thereof). No one path. So many that overlap and mix and mingle.

I went to a witch’s market today and it was glorious. A) there was cool shit everywhere. The talent of these witches! The art! B) The compliments! Everyone there was admiring everyone else there. “I love your dress!” “Your shoes!” “This is divine!” Short witches, fat witches, skinny witches, tall witches, goth witches, fairy witches, stone witches, card witches, fire witches, old witches, baby witches, atheist witches, goddess witches, green witches, and every other type of witch I could imagine. And we were *jiving* with each other. Celebrating. Lifting up. Supporting. Amplifying.

Honestly, I think it’s because everyone there has one thing in common: finding our own way. Or at least trying to. Not the mysteries of the universe. Not the secret to success, or the key to the afterlife, and certainly not an arbitrary list of rules written and rewritten by white men in positions of power. We are each on our own path and acknowledge and celebrate that rather than trying to get people on our path, the goal is to help them on theirs.

My favorite part though, has to be the style. No one has styles like the marginalized. The expression. The sheer, blissful audacity. The *authenticity*.

Oh, right, and I forgot the very best part. *No one there gave a single shit if anyone else was a witch.* Not a witch? Cool. Don’t need to be. No pressure. Want to talk? Want to do *this* witch thing but aren’t feeling *that*? Cool. Whatever you are comfortable with. Have questions? Have emotional baggage? Awesome, we all do. Let’s begin unpacking it together. Maybe being a witch isn’t for you. And it is for me. And that’s perfectly alright.

Saturday Thoughts

Potato Salad is a gift to mankind that I have recently realized I can happily eat every day. Fight me.

After many years of struggling with horrifically negative body self talk, restrictive dieting, borderline eating disorders, and insecurity – I have finally begun to make progress in learning to honor, even love, my body. I have rolls and cellulite. I’m 20lbs heavier than I have ever been in my entire life. And when you’re 5’4″ (and have been the skinny bitch of every friend group since you were 10) it’s noticeable. I have confronted the fears. My partners are not going to leave me because I went up a size. And if they did – those are not the kind of partners I want. My kids praise my squishiness literally all the time. To them, I am a soft place to land. It’s been a year of me just breathing through. I want to be stronger, but I have given up being thinner. It’s not worth it. My body has done too much, given me too much, for me to ever wonder if I have earned my dinner ever, ever again.

Baked chips are not chips. They are the love child of chips and crackers and I am not mad about it.

Today, while trying to keep myself out of a panic attack, I became suddenly aware of a sound that I currently and will always cherish (and someday, miss with an awful ache) the slap of kid feet running in and out of the house and shouting “MOM!” to show me something. These few years will go so fast.

Get the gap insurance. Just do it. You never, ever know when life is just going to… drop a fucking global pandemic on your ass.

We don’t play in the rain enough. Today, my daughter and I played in the rain. Well, we moved bricks in the rain but it felt like playing. It was a light rain, no storm, nice and warm. We got soaked. There was no dry clothing by the time we got in. Every layer was drenched. But it was perfect. And it felt amazing. And I’m done with letting anything other than ‘perfect’ weather dictate my outdoor time.

Dive in. Do the thing you don’t know how to do. Make mistakes. Look ridiculous. It’s so much better than never trying. And it’s so good for my kids to see me doing it. Today my daughter watched me fail in my first 11 attempts to fold dumplings. Yesterday my son watched me lose a fight with a can of spray paint. Next weekend they are going to watch me figure out how to use a tiller. But importantly, they watch me want to do something. They watch me not have any idea how to do it. They watch me research (a little). They watch me try. They watch me fail. They watch me keep trying until I succeed. I can now fold a dumpling confidently. I know how to use upside down spray paint cans. And soon I’ll be able to use a tiller. And every time it gets a little easier to fail and feels a little better to succeed. Understanding that one naturally follows the other, rather than it being an either/or situation.

What is one thing about people that you have a preference about that everyone else thinks is weird? I’ll go first. I love my partner’s feet. My male partner has wide feet and his toes all end at the same length like a rectangle. It is ridiculously attractive to me.

Aaaaaand there is your daily peek inside my mind. You’re welcome.

Friends Without Agenda

As an ex-Christian (and a devout one who studied theology for fun kind of Christian) I have a lot of “say no to “let’s meet up for coffee!”” posts about enforcing boundaries while deconstructing on my social media feeds. Which is super important and I whole heartedly support those “no”s.

But why? There is an assumption here that isn’t being talked about as clearly as I feel it needs to be. When the “friends” ask “let’s meet up for coffee!” they are being false. They don’t want coffee. They want confrontation. They want to address what they see as a deviation from their expectations of your life. That, friends, is *toxic as fuck*.

I’m not saying true friends won’t invite you out for coffee to address sudden, or even subtle, changes in behavior. They will. They should. What I am saying is that true friends will invite you out for coffee to listen, not talk. We all change. All of the time. And the course of our lives will shift. Sometimes subtly, other times drastically. If you had told me 8 years ago as I was walking down the aisle that not only would I whole heartedly abandon the fuckery that is American Christianity, but be in a polyamorous relationship and understand myself as a witch – I’d have freaked the fuck out. And yet, if you ask me about it now, I can calmly and rationally explain (granted, with the use of curse words, not even remotely sorry) that my deviation from my original “life plan” is actually a heart felt continuation of my deeply held beliefs about the nature of the divine, justice, and love.

That rather than a deviation, I see my current path as a natural exploration of my values once the destructive influence of the patriarchy was removed. Once the ways in which I expressed my values were no longer dictated by a completely arbitrary set of rules, my life is what happened.

And I am currently supported by friends who understand that, even when our values are not identical, or do not express themselves identically. But I wasn’t always. When I was beginning this transition, in the midst of all the chaos, I didn’t have a solid friend group. And I listened to friends I shouldn’t have. And it almost destroyed my life. Not because of my life choices, but because of the way they were framed by my “friends”. I began to doubt myself. And that’s when the real problems started.

My friends, well meaning though they were, had an agenda for my life. Monogamy was part of that agenda. And it almost ended my marriage. The toxic trait isn’t the questioning of the change. It’s the refusal to consider the why. It’s being convinced that there is only one right way. Denying individuality, denying personal revelation, completely unable to address discrepancies in common belief systems, and worst of all, using friends as surrogates for their own problems and projecting issues onto them.

*cough* married people with their own damn problems *cough*

And fram, the only way of finding those people is to be those people. My network is incredibly diverse. Polyamorous families, monogamous families, agnostic, atheist, buddhist, pagan, Christian, sex workers, transgendered uncles, boy scout leaders, in the closet, out of the closet, parents, childless, and a missionary. But the one important thing to note is that not a single one of those choices, be it a lifestyle choice or the choice to live authentically and loudly, was made because it was expected of them, or because it was society’s default. Every life is lived because they examined themselves and decided the best way forward.

No one in my circle thinks that there is a way we are supposed to be other than kind. Each way is authentic to the person living it. The end. And the beginning. And the middle. It’s the most supportive, encouraging, loving community I have ever been a part of. I have watched so many women heal.

So when decided which people are truly your people – please remember to say no to anyone who is invested in your life looking a certain way.