sh1njuk1

 Amazing day, just an amazing day so far. 

Me: Yes, I've had to be restrained, yesterday and this morning too. 

Situation: A man concerned with the physical world - that's what we're dealing with today, for sure. Perhaps the joy in the natural world came from the dinner my husband cooked me last night from the garden, hoping that things would turn for the better. It was delicious. 

Outcome: My father has lost his mind about Delta. 

I don't have the energy to go into it much, but he doesn't want to allow my mom to come next week to help, or anyone from care.com, and he wants us to quit the daycare. So... that would mean one of us has to quit our job, with no unemployment. We'd be in dire poverty, with no good options for the future. He was so happy when I got this job, telling me what a great opportunity it was like he was trying to overcome my ambiguity - how dare he?! Now he thinks I can just walk away, no big, in order to help him feel safe - how dare he?! He's just... a coward, a cringing coward in the face of Delta. 

In a few days he'll likely change his mind and beg us not to go but... I can't go through this again. I have made my choice and I must live by it. And so must he. 

So here's the plans set in motion: we have to move. Now. NOW. I've already called two apartment buildings and left messages (it's too early for their office). I can't go through this again. I can't deal with these waves of cowardice that threaten our livelihoods. He couldn't be trying to give me a miscarriage any harder unless he was kicking me in the stomach. So even though it will likely hit our savings hard - we've just got to go. 

Ugh... all this and I don't even have the SOP anymore to help me, and I haven't had a spare fucking moment to set up a meditation practice, fuck me fuck me fuck me AND FUCK HIM. I am not going to deal with this anymore. Cowardice has costs. 

I guess I still have divination, please cards... support me. 

Me: Jack of Hearts - thoughts and feelings bursting forth, which I have suppressed previously

Situation: 10 of Spades (Judgment) REVERSED - "A need to change and the signs that change is due is being ignored by someone involved in the matter." 

Outcome: King of Spades (The Emperor) - my best self

Here's how I will interpret the cards. First, yes, feelings I have strongly suppressed are definitely bubbling up today. Second, I think this is telling me to go about the move without panic - to take the time to make a correct decision. Third, I will handle it by being my best self, the best self I can possibly be. And I will make it through. 

That's about as good as I'm going to get... let's do the rest of the day, then.

 Sigh... I almost forgot to eat dinner tonight. Remedying now. Husband bringing me food too, I won the jackpot. 

Me: I plugged away and got "everything done that scared me", as I told my husband. Also, I did some pretty intense spiritual thinking. It wasn't my "best self" per se (I got pretty cranky with my toddler at bedtime when he wouldn't stop kicking me!), but I did OK. I'll take it. 

Situation: "Excess" - yes, that was right. I didn't even GET to the plums. I spent the AM going back and forth politely but firmly with the HR person about just sending out the damn reference surveys, and not harassing anyone who hadn't personally replied to me saying they were OK with receiving them. They're sent! Probably that's the end of it. Oh, and I had to go to the Fed-Ex and literally print out two pieces of paper, sign them, and email them. SO MUCH FOR TECHNOLOGY. I took a 2 hour walk in the middle of the day because I haven't been getting enough exercise, and I'm trying to be nicer to my body, you know? Then I finally sent out the capstone email for last weekend's meeting, and then followed up with the Druid priest. I don't know whether I ever want to receive replies to either of those last two emails, but for my own integrity, I had to send them. I was so exhausted at one point that I started trembling. And I forgot to eat dinner! ^^; Lemme tell ya, during the SOP (last thing tonight), my body was QUITE annoyed with me...

Outcome: I kicked off any number of plans today. First, I finally got over the hump (I think) on the final piece that caused me any concern whatsoever about getting this job. Everything else should be boilerplate. Should. Just knocked on wood. I might also have continued the Ecosophia meetup in my region beyond a flash in the pan. I might also have set up another Druid initiation in October. I think that's it. Or maybe I'm just really tired. 

Let's divinate and go to bed. 

Me: Jack of Spades - Caution, Potential

Situation: 3 of Diamonds - Craftsmanship, Successful Collaboration, Admiration

Outcome: 2 of Clubs - Debate, A Passionate Conversation

Oog... should I even be surprised any more when the cards directly reference my plans? Easy potential narrative tomorrow: I am cautious about my plans for both plum delivery and talking to my old friend Ericka, she of the ultimate science bent, but there's enough possibility for good to be done out of both of them that I will go forward. Successful collaboration will happen as I manage to deliver some plums to people (or set them out to be picked up). And... at 8:30 PM in the evening, Ericka and I will have a "Debate, Passionate Conversation." Fun! 

For what it's worth - not to get too far into 'writing is my only therapy' territory - last year, I considered Ericka my very best friend I'd ever had. We talked for hours at least once a week, and she had promised to edit my first finished short story. Then... she responded coolly when I called her in a burst of emotion (rare for me) my best friend, and I was a little bit hurt but accepted it wasn't mutual and never brought it up again. Next, she failed to even respond when I sent her my first ever finished rough draft (of a personal project not for school), after no fewer than 100 hours of work with that goal in mind. This was a real betrayal, and I struggled with it on many dark nights, but I finally choked down my anger and got another editor for the rewrite (one major one completed; the project still in limbo, however). Finally, I texted her to ask if she wanted a call three times in a row last March, and she did not respond to a single one. I actually got a divination done by another Dreamwidth user to see whether I should reach out again - I was told I should not. So I let it go. And as I realized that I might become some variety of "vaccine refuser", I became grateful that we'd ended our regular contact.

Now that I've been gone long enough to be missed... it seems she wants to talk again. Well! I know enough about how she treats her men (she is very, very single in her mid-40s) to see a bit of what's going on here. At the same time, she is smart (in a particular sort of way - I know her well enough to see her glaring blind spots, though no doubt she thinks the same in the other direction) and fun to talk to. I'd like to catch up on how her family is doing. I'm honestly not sure whether we will ever see each other again, or if this might be our last-ever conversation. I'll be the Jack - cautious, with cards held close to my chest - but holding the door open for some sort of potential. We don't need to be best friends... I recognized upon much thought that it would be too painful to her to have such a close relationship with me, for a lot of personal baggage reasons. But it would be nice to keep her as a sometimes-friend, when the weather is sunny. 

It's possible I won't be able to make a divination post on time tomorrow, given the scheduling. We'll see. 

 Another accurate divination. I should probably only write an introduction here when the divination is NOT accurate, really...

I woke up at 2 AM without a sense of smell, and panicked thinking that I might actually have COVID and thereby had cut a swathe through the entire North Oregon Ecosophian contingent, who are on average rather older than I am. A few hours later my sinuses cleared and my sense of smell promptly returned. I mean, that doesn't mean it WASN'T The Disease, but it's far less likely. 

I have no intention of getting tested for COVID, no matter what my symptoms are. There's no benefit to me for any outside entity having that information. 

Of course, still being in recovery - and weakened emotionally from that roller coaster - I did not get much done today. It was a day of lying around limply, even when talking to the last Ecosophian who needed to kill a few hours before her train. So that's the Me card. 

As for the Situation card... yeah, today felt like the exact opposite of a party. I either lay in bed or wore a mask most of the day. I felt awful for being sick, for not being the MC like I really should have been, wondering over and over whether I really should have just cancelled yesterday, and... well. I think I'd been holding expectations for the event that weren't entirely reasonable.

I'd been thinking that this was a group I could relax around, who would be "my people" And - it isn't that they weren't! They were about as close as I am ever going to get. I feel like everything that was raised as a topic, I would have jumped on in 2020 like a dog with a bone. But all the vaccine politics that were happening - yes, even in this group - hearing the political discussions that went down reiterated back to my by my husband, and our visitor (and of course my father inviting himself to rant on and on about Trump, ugh, when will his TDS go AWAY) mostly just made me... very tired.

I'm not entirely the same person as I was last year. And one of the biggest ways I have changed, is that I no longer believe there's any chance I can have any meaningful effect whatsoever on the national politics of the United States, and every minute I even spend thinking about them is a minute that isn't helping save my family's lives from the actual crises barreling towards us. 

(Continued the following day.)

I think the real thing that made it the exact opposite of a party, was that I finally realized that for the next indefinite period... I can't have community. Not both community and my next child, anyway. It's time to tuck away, keep out of the public eye, cut back even more on the Internet, and strictly limit my social contacts. (And does this increase our risk of bad outcomes when the shit REALLY hits the fan? Why yes, yes it does. As I've known for MONTHS. But there are no more options left, unless I want to join exactly the communities that my father, who graciously hosts us rent-free, would like to genocide. This was the last one - other than the Druid home church. And I probably even passed on this damn cold to the poor priest who graciously showed up last Saturday, too! Talk about nuking your options...) 

Anyway - enough whining. I need less stress in my life, and it is my extreme privilege to have this option. So I'll be wrapping up the meeting with a cheerful email with some pictures later today, making another backyard meeting a few months out (I don't want to be the one to kill the group, though once meetings need to be indoors, that's probably the end of it). My work will provide just enough community to live. And we can save money hand over fist. And perhaps more importantly... continue our efforts, diligently, to live with less on a day-by-day basis. 

My cold isn't quite over - though it's healing up at a rapid pace, without all this dirge going on in my head I'd be pretty happy about it - but what did happen was that I think for the first time, my husband saw how miserable I was. He says that it's OK if I don't see his mother for the rest of the pregnancy, if I feel I need that (!). I never thought I would get such a concession... but last night, when he tried to comfort me, for the first time in a long time... I actually felt comforted. So that would be the Outcome card. 

Let's get a divination for today, for me and the kiddo who has a terrible-sounding leftover cough, so cannot go anywhere. 

Me: Queen of Spades - more pain

Situation: 10 of Hearts (The Wheel of Fortune) - Plans set in motion "As one part of your life improves, another falters." 

Outcome: 7 of Diamonds (The Star) - Hope, Healing "When The Star shows up in the outcome position, I often find that the questioner has been agonizing over the matter at hand, which may have appeared hopeless. This card is a strong reassurance that she refuses to give up hope, be battered down by depression, the negativity of others, or despair." 

Given the circumstances of this divination - kid running about screaming where was I, loud music playing - this may be the least accurate divination ever. Nevertheless, let's go with it. This is a very kind divination, which feels like the cards took some pity on me. I'll take it :) And... back to childcare!

Guess what? I'm not taking the Amazon job after all! 

I woke up once again at 4 AM in the morning feeling absolutely miserable... and I just finally thought... why? Why am I doing this?? For $1200 fucking dollars a month?!

It would be more money than that - the unemployment benefits start to phase out in September - but I ran some very interesting numbers about how much, precisely, we managed to save over the past year while I struggled through with my last miserable contract. It turns out that we saved... next to nothing at all. Most of our current savings, even, is the stimulus payments + the money we borrowed from our family. And where did that money go? To a lot of things - but most of the non-necessities are under the category of "spending on stuff to keep from falling into suicidal despair." Because that's the type of year it was. And I could not deny it... the same feelings were coming back to me, no matter what and how I kept trying to convince myself to take the job. Mike told me he supported me, my dad said he supported me, even my father-in-law said he supported me too...

So I sent an email to the recruiter just an hour or so ago, telling her that I was having too many sudden mental health issues to be confident I could perform in the role, and to send my apologies to the manager. Not a lie, even!

So - we will live more dangerously. Or will we? There are many dangers in this world... I may have dodged one of them!

Given this blog's purpose, I want to describe the spiritual part of this, not just the practical. I am doing most of the SOP now - the four elements, at least. And as I was trying to focus on them, I figured out the following spiritual truths:

• Amazon really was trying to hunt me down. Their egregore or whatever really was predatory towards me, I wasn't imagining it. 
• The real division was inside me - inside my will. The moment I thought I might get the Amazon job, I was barely able to perform the Fire (will) part of the SOP. I recognized a few days back that it was because my will was deeply divided, and have been struggling to unite it ever since. Well... it's united now. 
• My mind was able to come up with many rationalizations for why it was a good idea to take the job. But it was also able to come up with many rationalizations why I shouldn't take the job. It was a neutral agent. I think all in all it performed well, I'm not mad at it. 
• My heart was numb the entire week, and the ritual didn't seem to be working to "clean" things out, until I finally this afternoon allowed myself to believe that I could back out of this. Upon thinking to myself my incantation for Water - "may my feelings show me what I need to know, may they come quickly and then go" I burst into tears. I really don't do this often - the last time was the moment I gave up home ownership in Portland, in mid-November 2020, at approximately 2 AM in the morning - so that much was a big deal. 
• In the middle of my sobs, I said aloud "We will have to be brave, won't we? And let the old life die..." It wasn't premeditated, and felt like it came from a deeper place than usual. It felt like the truth bubbled out. 
• The most effective banishing I have been able to do this week is in my brand-new Earth invocation, focusing on the body. In the end it was my body - my subconscious - which stepped up and made its will known here. And... I see that what the body wants, the body gets. I have a stronger "lower half" than I sometimes think.
• Or do I? Is the fact that it took this long for my body to get its message through to my head, even when my head was completely divided on the matter itself, yet another sign that I am "top-heavy"?
• I felt all this week as if I was wrestling a demon. I'm not entirely sure that's an exaggeration. 
• It was so much easier, in my heart of hearts, to convert to Druidry vs to take one step away from neoliberalism... shows you what the real religion of this country and civilization is, eh?
• This feels like the better path, spiritually. And normally I wouldn't consider that aspect - I mean, before, that was barely a category. I would have called it "ethics" and most likely shrugged off my concerns in the face of specific goals. Probably. But I couldn't this time. And even though I know I'll need to go through another round of cost reductions... and that the next predator I'll need to deal with is the state, should they investigate... I am so, so, SO relieved. 
• Fuck Amazon.
• I am going to continue on this Druid path, and become a better and more resilient person. Amen. 

The Queen of Spades and her pointy, painful sword plunged right through the middle of me today again - cutting away the old, maybe even later than it should have been done. The Hermit asked of me Sacrifice Without Regret, and I gave to him my old life, and bid it farewell. The Hanged Man, I read about in the longer reference book, often represents going against the grain - he is upside-down after all - and turning down a nice plush contract at Amazon where I could work from home etc. etc. is definitely going against the mainstream. So the divination was a slam-dunk. 

I thought a little bit more, actually, about that one reading from earlier in the week - the one that felt like it was about more than a single day. The Me was Amazon - nearly immersed in the waves. The Situation was "finding solace in nature or religion" - that was my Druid path. The Outcome was the Magician - "transformation" - me finally walking away from the way I'd approached the job hunt for at least the past decade, and moving towards... something new. Tarot can mean something new every time you look at them...

OK - let's do a divination, and sleep well at last tonight. 

Me: 8 of Hearts (The Moon) - Subtlety, Mystery, Instinct

Situation: 10 of Hearts (Wheel of Fortune) - Plans set in motion

Outcome: Jack of Diamonds - Fascination, Wonder, Scholarship

I see... let's sketch a narrative. I reconnect with my instinct, my inner self. I make plans for the next phase of my life. And I embark on them, as the Jack/Page, with a sense of wonder and a nose for scholarship. I sure hope this is close to the truth!