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 Only slightly less tired today. 

Me: The daycare workers are out sick again today - ran around like a crazy person trying to figure out how to work from home, contact my new boss to let her know, worrying about whether or not my father would be patient enough while watching my toddler... then after I figured out I could WFH for the morning only, I spent it asleep (while training videos played). Then I went in to the office to complete my day. So - confusing, yes! 

Situation: I guess I used my intuition to sleep when I needed to sleep, eat exactly what I needed to eat, and bring in a pile of things to the office so that it didn't feel quite so hostile. Tea, sewing, headphones that didn't look like they belonged in the Matrix (and made of cheap plastic to boot, ugh!!) and posters went a long way :) On that note... need to bring in some non-antibacterial soap for the office kitchen. (I can't believe people still buy that stuff!) Also, considering springing for a couple of lamps, for more merciful lighting... we'll see if I can adapt to flourescent...

Outcome: I did not enforce my will in any way today, that's for sure. For a Day 2 employee I caused enough trouble. On the other hand it is interesting that my boss is strictly NO MASK as a policy - even when leadership gave an emergency text today saying that all people in the office need to mask up NOW!! she waved it off with a strong intimation that we also should as well - she believes that the vaccine protects her. We're definitely all getting Delta (the daycare providers might even have it right now). Oh, how I hope she's right about her risk levels... :( In any case... I've decided to risk my life twice already - first by not immediately getting vaccinated, then by going ahead with a pregnancy in the current societal conditions. What's a third time, really? Eventually I'll stop counting at all. 

Let's divinate and get me to bed already. 

Me: Ace of Hearts REVERSED - NO emotional/spiritual/creative flow

Situation: King of Diamonds - Generosity, Happiness found in Nature or Spirituality

Outcome: 10 of Hearts (Wheel of Fortune) - Events Set in Motion

Sounds about right - I'll be keeping myself under control tomorrow, I'll find happiness in the moments of nature and spirituality I can grab from in between the screens, and hopefully I can get my feet under me enough to chug along with some of my goals other than "survival". I can work with this!

 I was going to write back to my mother-in-law, but realized that I am too tired to handle that with the delicacy it requires. First thing tomorrow!

I'm catching up on two days of divinations, but will try to go quickly. 

First day of Edgefield, Me: I think this card just represented me traveling, lol! I focused hard on getting us all out to Edgefield, the place I'd been longing to take my family for months now, and which we finally, after several tries, made it to!

First day of Edgefield, Situation: My period didn't start, but I did have insomnia because it was so hot and humid. Also, I wore my mask most of the time indoors, even though almost no one there was wearing one anymore. My reasoning? I was still quite sniffly as I was recovering from this sinus infection, and I didn't want to spook anyone. No one gave me any weird looks, so on balance, that must have been the right choice :)

First day of Edgefield, Outcome: I didn't drink much, and we didn't push ourselves too much either. Finally, there was nothing we really had to "do". I felt a deep sense of relaxation there (and I told every part of myself during the SOP that it was OK to take a break for a little bit, we'd all worked so hard...). So I will count that as Peace through Self-Discipline. 

Divination, done right before Lugnasadh ritual:

Me: 8 of Hearts (The Moon): I conducted the heck out of that ritual and it got spooky. 

Situation: King of Spades (The Emperor): I think I managed the entire day pretty well - let my husband relax in the AM, got the ritual done, suggested we drive out to Vista House in the Gorge, which was open! The first day since COVID started! What a beautiful place that is... I have such wonderful memories there, and now so does Mike :) Then we managed my mother giving us the completely wrong address for the place to meet her to pick up my son, and not bothering to pick up her phone when we called. Just the same ol' same ol'. We asked the guy living at the wrong address what he thought the right one might have been, put that into our GPS, and got there on time anyway. Heck, he might have been the "Wisdom" part of this card...! 

Outcome: 7 of Diamonds (The Star): We hung out for a bit at my mom's friend's farm - her daughter is running it, and has big plans to sell at a farmer's market. Plenty of animals, all sorts of crops growing everywhere... enough to feed all three people in the home for a while if needed. A relaxing atmosphere, and I suddenly realized, a vision of the future - this is what every home with any sort of yard will look like in 20 years - pieces of old cars reused to make chicken coops; a rutted dirt path between all the garden plots because gravel is too expensive; growing a little bit of everything under the sun, and planting young fruit trees with an eye towards the long run... Maybe that recognition would be depressing for most people. But I see in this lifestyle the will to survive. More people that we might think will find that they have it. What we still have, even now... is options. (And I got a good glimpse of just how much I have left to learn... one step at a time!) 

Divination, done right now for tomorrow: 

Me: 5 of Spades - Possible Disappointment, A Strong Opponent, "danger, struggle, competitive"

Situation: 6 of Hearts (The Lovers) - Love, Beauty, Union "elements that naturally belong together will find each other"

Outcome:7 of Clubs REVERSED - no beavering will happen tomorrow, alas

Not even gonna guess - just gonna SLEEP. Tomorrow awaits!

My cards yesterday all but called me out as being "lethally cranky" today, and well... I think that's about right. I'm so cranky I legitimately wondered if I should bother to write anything at all today, but... it does encapsulate some spiritual elements and this is a spiritual blog. Also, I'm kind of giving in (not that I had much choice) to the "stay awake at night and think about things" outcome card. So let's go. 

I've been working pretty hard to distract myself, with some success, but I can't deny that I'm not all that much happier about this potential new job than the Amazon one. There is a difference in my unhappiness - the scratching, writhing animal reaction that was going on for the Amazon job is thankfully absent - but the appetite and sleep disruptions are steaming right along. (Silver lining - I might lose some weight at this rate...) 

Part of me is like "that's it! That's the statement!" but of course, I have to figure out what to do about it in my actual life. 

What's making me lethally cranky is that unlike the Amazon position, I have no argument to justify backing out of this job that I can legitimately offer to anyone in my life. Mike at least would probably tolerate it - he has been hovering, annoyingly, all day, because he is an empathetic person and can no doubt feel my black mood like a fog. He has told me many times that he just wants me to be happy and I believe him. I wish I could flip a switch and get there. 

I don't want to get a vaccine and I WILL NOT at this time (not without data I feel that I can trust regarding infertility issues, which can't even exist per the laws of math for another 6 months minimum). So, since this is the thing I cannot budge on... everything else has to fall into place from there. But of course, this is the exact thing that next to no one in this society is capable of understanding. And unless I'm willing to lie - like, REALLY lie, like look into the face of a coworker and ostensible comrade and straight-up tell them an untruth they believe threatens their life with a smile - I am going to have to live under the mark of a decision no one else around me understands or sympathizes with. 

I have the strength to do this. More to the point, I have the gender and class privilege to do this - actively bearing and raising an infant as a middle-class married woman gives one an "out" in many ways, even in this increasingly anti-child society. But I don't have the strength, it feels to me right now, to do this and be cheerful about it. My black mood is extending from there. 

Mike so desperately wants me to be happy, he talked all day about how "People are calming down! They're gathering again without masks! We should go places with other people - maybe if we see them enough times, they'll be our friends someday! That's something to hope for, right?" Poor Mike - he can tell, I think, on a gut level that... well... I might be hitting a wall with society right now, period. 

I don't want to be unkind, or ungracious, and I certainly don't want to make anyone else feel unsafe. I know that roughly 80% or greater of the people we would be mingling with would immediately ban me from their group if they knew I was not vaccinated. And that makes me... not want to be there. 

I don't have the energy any more to navigate the impossible standards of left-leaning Portlanders - those raging hypocrites who will nod along with vaccination mandates, social distancing, etc. while of course constantly meeting all their friends (and attending BLM marches) constantly during this pandemic - just on the "down-low". People really are noticeably relaxing, but also I notice a very studious practice of trying not to talk about it. People are just going back to their lives and usual routines quietly. It's a good thing - but the moment they so much as bump into anyone, oh, it's all "I'm vaccinated! I'm vaccinated! I'm a GOOD PERSON!!" The moment one must interact with masks, or COVID, or getting close to another person not in your family, vaccination must be incanted, lest one be Unclean and Bad. I'm extremely tired of it, and seeing as I'd probably have to navigate it every fucking day on this fucking job, I have no appetite to deal with it in any way outside of the job. 

I don't want to navigate the Unitarian Universalist church (they're still meeting on Zoom anyway). I don't want to deal with Meet-Up groups. I don't want to deal with the few online friends that I keep up with, 100% of whom are vaccinated and child-free. I'm already off of social media and I'm staying off. I don't want to deal with my family - it's long past time that I keep Levi's maxim "...to be silent!" in mind, and practice it constantly. They (specifically my father, but also everyone else) don't need to know any more details of my job hunt, period, ever again. I'll be moving my desk out of the dining room and into the bedroom so that I no longer have to interact with anyone in this household except at a time of my choosing. I should probably have done that long ago! 

On the long-term positive side, I finally might be hitting a wall with the news - I've decreased my consumption dramatically, but there are still a few sites I visit across the spectrum - and I might be able to channel this negative energy into cutting them out of my life for good. That would probably improve my mental health dramatically! And move me away from screens, which is something I would like to do. I'm at the point where I'm thinking, what good does it do me to even read about events? I can't change them, and I already have my path. 

I'm extremely grateful that I made the decision to take up a spiritual path right now - if I didn't have this, I don't think it's an exaggeration to say that I would be in a pit of absolute despair. As is typical in a Fourth Turning, there's not really anywhere to run right now - there's no "better place" anywhere I could reach. People have lost their minds and won't quickly regain them - at least not until things are REALLY bad, far and away worse than anything happening in this moment. I can neither prevent such bad times, nor bring them on any faster. The only realistic option is to suffer with dignity, and to keep as tight a hold as possible onto my personal ethics, so that I can retain the ability to look at myself in the mirror. And, hopefully... to welcome my child into this world in a year or so. 

The great thing about AODA Candidacy is that it gives me plenty to occupy my time with :) I've got my planned Earth Path curriculum written down in a notebook - there's a dozen books in there! I haven't made nearly as much progress on discursive meditation as I would like - that's a whole category I get to focus on, with endless possible work - I have The Cosmic Doctrine right there, to provide endless fodder for contemplation. I still need to complete the SOP (I have all the elements, just Spirit Above/Below to add in). I've got lists of local parks and nature areas to go hiking in, to try and connect in the real world with the knowledge in the books. My Bardic path, I believe, will be in "culinary arts" - I plan a 4-part proposed curriculum including mastering basic elemental cooking (Air = bread, Fire = campfire cooking, Water = soup/stew, Earth = fermenting), completing 75% of the recipes in my Mennonite cookbook on eating responsibly and serving them to my family, cooking something grown locally and in season and bought at the farmer's market every week for an entire year, and either eating or preserving everything that is growing in our garden right now. Oh - and making sure there's as little waste as possible from all of the above. So... 5 parts?? Also I'm going to keep trying to keep baby trees alive, and planting them in out-of-the-way areas. I'm discovering there's a hell of a learning curve to that!

None of this requires a community or friends (though I will continue looking into the Druid church options). I can putter around indefinitely all by myself. So, while I know that I won't reject social time or friendship that comes my way... I don't need to hunt it down. I have enough safety to wait until enough people have gone through the stages of grief about what's happening in our society, that my companionship might seem like a good deal, despite being an Unclean. 

To complete my review of my day, I did complete everything I needed to for the ceremony tomorrow. I suppose the positive, creative Queen card worked out that way :) Also, I looked again, and I could also do the ceremony under the same astrological conditions at the hours of 1:52 PM - 2:49 PM. So... I don't need to get up super early after all. 

The chamomile tea I am drinking is starting to kick in and calm me down, so I think I'm ready to do the divination. 

Me: King of Hearts - Sensitivity, Creativity, Career

Situation: Ace of Hearts REVERSED - NO creative, emotional, spiritual flow

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

Oh no, not another hearts sweep... :( But I guess I shouldn't be too surprised. I don't think Amazon is coming back - I'll still be continuing my job hunt, though, 100%! There's a great chance that any offer given will be rescinded once I announce my Unclean-ness, so I need to keep juggling. I have two potential leads, both of which I will follow up on tomorrow. I admit, I'd be pretty surprised if some part of the ceremony tomorrow wasn't done rotely, given my emotional state. But... the outcome suggests that I will reconnect with my instinctual self, and has a spiritual dimension. You know what? I'll take it. I'll take what I can get. 

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! 

Welp. I think the divination might be stronger than my will to fight against it ^^; As for "not learning from mistakes", I ONCE AGAIN left the house planning a string of family events ending with shopping, without the shopping list. So... after a lovely visit to the park, Mike parked far enough away from the house that our toddler wouldn't know where we were, and I hoofed it in the rain to pick up the list. I think this is the THIRD time we've done this, I DID NOT LEARN. Sheesh.

The other cards... sigh. They, too, were correct. First, we had a very unstructured afternoon, where my husband watched a bunch of reviews of new video games. I am uninterested in that world nowadays and did not watch. Instead I did my daily French marathon and read through Reddit - Sunday is my Reddit day. (And limiting it to Sunday has been GREAT for my mental health, FYI!)

And... both the other cards came true, at once. Because I didn't practice sufficient self-discipline during our unstructured afternoon, I went to the reddit forum I have been avoiding for months... r/portland. And of course it was mostly happiness at all the rain and pictures of people's dogs. But... there was also a post, by one individual, a very Portland example of the self-appointed Good People.

She (as it was of course a she, I didn't need to see any pronouns) was a volunteer at one of the mass vaccination sites, and posted "In order to get to 70% vaccinated, we have to talk with and try to UNDERSTAND the people in our lives who don't want to get vaccinated! It's the only way we can CONVINCE them and PROTECT EVERYONE and RESPONSIBLY go back to normal!" Several people on reddit did the reddit thing and bluntly stated "No, we don't have to care. They've made their choice. They're all too stupid to live. Let them die and let's go live our lives again."

And the funny thing... the unacknowledged feelings, or at least the ones I've been quietly wrestling with, all bubbled up to the surface at once. You see - I would have thought the redditors casually wishing death on their neighbors would have bothered me. But they were a RELIEF to read. At least those assholes are going to leave their neighbors ALONE and go back to a normal goddamn life. They are also too lazy to put together anything like a vaccine passport system. They're going to feel superior while achieving nothing, as per the usual reddit way.

But that woman, that volunteer, that true believer. That woman. I bet she truly, truly believes every word she wrote in that post. She is spending all her time and energy doing everything she possibly can to get needles in the arms of every single person she knows. She JUST wants them all to be vaccinated, for everyone's SAFETY... with an untested, brand-new-on-this-earth substance that hasn't even been through enough trials to ascertain its effect on human fertility. Just for starters! Which already has been *proven* to cause significant cases of myocarditis in young men (I consider Israel's side effect reporting as the most cutting-edge and reliable out there). She doesn't - can't - perhaps even won't understand - that everyone getting vaccinated right now who is under 60 and doesn't have a comorbidity is risking their health MORE, not less. She believes in vaccinations creating herd immunity the way an Evangelical believes in salvation by faith. But unlike the Evangelical, she is using every last shred of her Goodness (tm) for something that can - that has already! - caused real health problems in the here-and-now. She's actively demonstrating what road we all get to walk down when we pave it with our "good intentions".

I used to think that people who joined NGOs, or went abroad on volunteer trips, etc. with the best of intentions were a bit naive, but mostly harmless. Oh, how my perspective has changed.

It's not hard, for someone raised with liberal political views (as I was), to sketch out a scenario where "the right" seizes power and enacts fascism. I still don't think that scenario is impossible - I'm half convinced the missteps of the left are going to summon it, demon-style, around roughly 2024 - there's real danger there. But I've finally realized that "the left" can bring about the authoritarian state just as quick, just as strong, just as terrifying. They'd just do it with a smile, telling us all that they just want to HELP! They just want everyone to be SAFE! And you didn't really want all that responsibility of making choices for yourself, did you? You might make the WRONG choice, and we can't have THAT now can we! They'd do it exactly like that woman ALREADY IS DOING. Just as smugly, just as convinced of their absolute intellectual superiority, totally comfortable in their absolute power and patting themselves on the back as to what Good People (tm) they are. The vaccine passport planners ought to hire her! Oh, who am I kidding - they already have. And boy... is she EVER ready, to do her duty to HELP.

It's a weird place to be in - to be praying as best I know how that American society's inertia and laziness and the government's rapidly decreasing tax coffers end up overwhelming the instinct my own 'side' has to HELP. To come to the conclusion that the very obvious path all this is paving for our medical system to pre-emptively turn away the majority of the poor from medical treatment - and for the Good People (tm) to shrug that off as What They Deserve - is the best possible outcome left to us. I have known logically for some time that our "everyone can always come to the emergency room for treatment!" bylaws, lacking Medicare For All, were going to vanish (or be vanished) some way or another. But to see it actually begin to happen... and for it to be the BETTER outcome, because what the group of people I once considered myself a part of would do instead is WORSE... oh, what has happened to my society? :(

Is 2021 going to continue being a parade of randomized 2020 trauma bubbles popping up? Sigh... I already know the answer.

And the hardest of all - I'm going to have to keep intimately navigating these Good People (tm) in my own life... indefinitely. I've sadly but pre-emptively stopped talking to any of my friends who are "pro-science" in that way. I don't hate them, I wish them well, but I don't want to deal with them right now. My father was pushed off, thankfully, with logic (eventually) and my mother is an honest-to-god anti-vaxxer nowadays so whatever else I have to deal with from her, it won't be that. But my mother-in-law is an RN, believes completely that there are no issues with the vaccine, and eagerly told me that if I get vaccinated now, my future child "will have the antibodies". Uh... will they? Is that precisely how the mRNA works?? And, how can she say, when studies haven't even been done yet, whether or not it might prevent me from getting pregnant at all? Or whether those "antibodies" will disfigure or abort my child in the womb? And all this, when I have next to NO chance of getting so much as complications from COVID, given my age and health situation???

But... I will need my mother-in-law, in order for our family to survive adding another child, especially in that brutal first year. It's the biggest unspoken source of tension in my life at this moment - that my mother-in-law is pushing something which could very possibly kill my child if I acquiesce... but I also need her to help me raise that child. She has NO IDEA that this is the situation she's putting me in - no, she's a Good Person (tm), of course. And for her to comprehend the vaccinations, which she is actively sending a whole crop of college students at her clinic to go get, in any less of a favorable light would probably cause a system crash. I don't want that either. She is a good person in so many ways - so much more giving and reliable and helpful than my own mentally ill mother. But I can't compromise on this.

So, she asks my husband about it incessantly on the phone, and he deflects, and I pirouette, and we all continue the dance. He's getting the J&J vaccine next week - it's a slightly better tested vaccine delivery method, I haven't heard about it affecting male fertility, and I pray that no other nightmarish side effects arise - if he panics and goes to the hospital for any reason, that will be half our savings gone at a stroke (gods willing, not with a stroke). He, too, doesn't truly understand what a risk he's taking. He trusts his mother's word exactly as much as he did when he was a child. (She has not yet comprehensively betrayed him, as my parents have me.) So I can't go against his mother any more than I already have, and still keep her in our lives, and my marriage strong. I've chosen to shut my mouth about it and save myself--and hopefully the baby too--and let it be his body, his choice.

I mean... we live in the middle of so much uncertainty. Maybe I am completely wrong. Maybe in December I catch COVID while pregnant, end up on an ECMO, and rue the day I thought I knew better than my mother-in-law. I don't know. There is no such thing as "knowing". All I can do is analyze the data from as many angles as possible, run it through my common sense, and make the best choice available to me at this moment. Right now I believe my future unborn child is in more danger from this vaccine than I am in from COVID, and am living my life accordingly. I'm also taking vitamins, eating healthy, exercising, forming new and more positive social bonds, and trying to get in as good health as I possibly can. I'm hedging every last bet. It's all I can do.

And... this all bubbled up to the surface today because of checking goddamn r/portland. A pox upon it!! Though even I have to admit, as much as I hate modern technology... none of this is the software's fault.

These divinations keep churning up chunks of karma that I'd been putting off dealing with. And for every one I work through, my mind gets clearer, and my heart gets calmer. The SOP also really seems to be helping. So as painful as all this reflection is... I can feel myself getting stronger. That's exactly what I hoped for. So... I am grateful.

Let's quickly get tomorrow's reading done, I've gotta faceplant.

Me: 4 of Spades (Death) - The Cycle of Creation, Destruction, and Renewal

Situation: 10 of Clubs - A Responsibility or Burden

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

OK... I can see the shape of tomorrow, I think. I may still be working through some of this tomorrow in my own head. I need to pick up the threads of the Ecosophian meet-up and move it forward - a responsibility I've taken on, though a joyful one. And hopefully tomorrow, I will make serious progress on my candidacy statement, which is turning into a recitation of my own religious awakening, a process of mystery if there ever was one. OK! Good work, my psyche! And now... to sleep!

OK, this one will be really fast, I am exhausted. Today had a few mysteries I can't find the energy to fully investigate.

Jack of Diamonds - best guess is that this is me, struggling to make Indian food tonight. I certainly learned some things!

Hierophant - doesn't seem to have applied. I should really look up the traditional 5 of Diamonds meaning, as that is also a possibility in this combined deck.

The Hanged Man - I remember now that originally, I drew him the wrong way up... for some of the cards in this deck, reversal is possible. So that means I did NOT gain peace because I did NOT practice self-discipline. That's... about right really! I didn't get my evening routine done because I was too ambitious for tonight (last night's??) dinner!

Let's give it a shot for tomorrow.

Me: King of Spades (The Emperor) - Wisdom, Experience, Authority.

Situation: 7 of Clubs, reversed - NO Vigilance, Struggle to Stay Ahead

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

Hmm... a nice spread of cards! Here's a small story. I use my Authority as someone who arranges meet-ups to continue to clinch the Ecosophian meet-up tomorrow. I don't bother to struggle to stay ahead tomorrow, I do the minimum on the job hunt and move right along. Towards the end of the day I indulge in learning about Mystery by reading the James book "Religious Experiences".

That... would be a nice day. We shall see!

Yesterday's reading was... VERY accurate, as accurate as the previous day's was wrong! :) I think the lesson I will take from this is "take cards from the top of the stack, not the middle."

I celebrated the ability to take a BREAK, from both a long and hard trip up to see family and from the increasingly gnarly issue of being associated with the co-working agency. I absolutely practiced temperance and moderation, by taking things vewy vewy slowly to continue healing from this surprisingly tenacious cold. And in return... I was able to cancel the agency, and write emails to 2 of JMGs frequent commentators, which I had not been able to push myself to do earlier - all of them freighted with many emotions, yet I believe I wrote them calmly and appropriately - emotional flow :)

That was a much better outcome - let's do another one for today!

Me: 8 of Hearts, The Moon - Subtlety, mystery, instinct.

Situation: 7 of Hearts - Secrets, Imagination, New Feelings.

Outcome: 5 of Diamonds, The Hierophant - Tradition, Spiritual Authority, Deception.

Hmm. Now, this is an interesting one (and makes me a bit nervous, honestly)...

I am going to guess that today, I will be moving through the world on instinct. Maybe I will be taking a walk around Hawthorne as we visit it today - maybe I'll go to that back-theater bar at McMenamins? I am honestly not sure how the 7 of Hearts will apply to our plans today - I will need to keep my instincts turned up high and see. The 5 of Diamonds... my scariest card... eep. I wonder who is going to show up to re-institute tradition? Unfortunately, the most likely source is Cory. Sigh. But... he has the right to argue his view, and I can certainly let him have a win today. That's not the worst thing.

Let's see how today goes.