Welcome Spring!

The snow is almost gone. Things are thawing, melting, flooding, growing. Mud is the medium for Earth's expression. Mud and vines and the waking green. This past Monday I celebrated Ostara with a few friends. I started my period too, which, is kind of right on the money for Ostara. During the evening we talked about things here and there and in the end we drew Rune eggs from a cauldron. The Rune suggested things we have to look forward to/work on/focus on for the following year. My rune was Ansuz. This rune means Odin or god. It is the 'A' in our modern alphabet and how fitting because I have no less than eight letter A's in my full name. Three in my first name alone. 

A friend interpreted and divined for me that maybe this is the year to really form a connection with a god or goddess. While I'm very drawn to many deities, I have yet to feel one really claim me and become my patron. Maybe that's just not in the cards for me, but at the same time, I feel I really do want that relationship. I've thought about Thor, Freya, Skadi, Elen of the Ways, Herne, Innana, and several others as potential patrons but I don't know that I've really made myself available to them. I know that I am too in my head most of the time for even the smallest of meditations so really listening to the gods and to the wights and to the fairies and to everything around me is never easy. 

I am always looking to the fallen angel and watcher: Penemue. Enochian lore is very interesting to me from a spiritual and literary standpoint. About ten years ago I played around with a novel about a little fallen angel named Dobiel but didn't get very far. I wouldn't mind revisiting the idea but I would like to learn a lot more about the fallen angles before I do. 

Lately I've felt a huge pull toward 'darker' entities and deities. Sometime in summer I'm going to, with the help of a few friends, perform a ritual to honor the scary, misunderstood, dark, and commonly considered 'evil' of our spiritual brethren. Some of those I want to include are: Lilith, Lucifer, Loki, and Princess Luna. Yes, L was a very intense theme here. But there are more gods and goddesses and creatures that fit this category and I'm open to expanding it or even adding a second part. I know I want to keep the feeling of this ritual light and inquisitive and educational. This is a ritual to explore the necessary and positive aspects these beings represent, not to emulate their less admirable acts. 

In other news, the Hannah is doing amazing. She still has really bad days but more often than not she is finding solace and healing in her writing and I'm very proud of her. Right now we're working on building up strength in both of us. I'm walking to the bus stop again (and bitching about it because damn am I out of shape!); and she's going to start going to the mail box and walking me to the property line of the apartment complex when I leave in the morning, We're hoping that we'll both feel able enough to go and see the big cats at Cattails, which is a big cat rescue reserve in northern Spokane.

All the Pretty Cars are Going to Hell

And the god of transportation did look down upon us and laugh. "Your car troubles," he said with smugness, "shall be a lesson. Heed it well, mortals, lest ye ever take your working vehicle for granted again."

The last 30+ days have been filled with car death. Not even Optimus Prime was free of problems. For Hannah and I: May was bookended with flat tires. The first flat was the day before Beltane. It was raining. We'd just left the IEPG Beltane celebration and were heading to a friend's house to continue celebrating when the threadbare tire in the back let out a tremendous wet fart as it succumbed to the inevitable. I wasn't too worried. It was only lightly raining and I'm actually pretty handy with general car stuff. I got my jack and donut spare ready but didn't have a tire iron. Fuck. But we have good friends and two came to our rescue. Fast forward to the day after May. On June 1st I went to use our last little bit of money to get some chocolate for Hannah and I (as Hannah had made it clear that if I didn't get us some kind comfort snack she might murder me) and as I made my way south on Pines, I thought it would be a goddamn great idea to mate my front tire with the curb. The mating ritual began with a boom and ended with a 'ka-thud, ka-thud, ka-thud.' Again, thankfully we have great friends. Our friends who were married on May 1st (the day after the first flat tire) saved me this time. 

But let me derail a moment and chronicle the car problems between Optimus's flats: our friend's Ford Contour died when its timing belt lost track of time, my twinsy friends lost their boat of a car to a suspected dead alternator, and our Kettle Korn diva had issues with both her vehicles (the Smart Car tried to mate with a curb and was even less successful than Optimus Prime and her mustard yellow Truck has been in and out of the car hospital all month). In the few days since our second flat: the newlyweds who helped me out on June 1st had to be rescued from the Cosco parking lot when their hatchback made the death rattle, and a couple of hours ago (2 AM) we got yet another car call. Hannah and I just returned from picking up our poor stranded friend from the Sullivan Wal-Mart due to a dead battery situation. 

I'm going to be working about 12 hours of overtime in the next two weeks and I think I'm going to use every penny extra that brings me to get Optimus checked out and get him a new belt. If I'm going to be the bad-ass friend who rescues my darlings from parking lots around Spokane and Spokane Valley then I need to make sure my ride is a reliable one. Speaking of work, though, this Monday will be the start of an eleven day work week. Of the three people we recently hired only one of them actually worked out (and he's doing freaking amazing!) but on top of that the other Lead quit with only two days notice. Ergo we are mutha-fuckin shorthanded. I'm going to buckle in for this eleven day long haul and enjoy the overtime. At the end of it all I will start a new schedule working Sunday (5-1) and Monday thru Thursday (7-4). What this means for me is that I'll always have Friday and Saturday off which is kind of neat. Also it splits up the weekends between my supervisor and I so that neither of us have to work both days. The weekends start so freaking early and are such a mixed bag of insanity that it might be nice to only have to deal with it one time a week instead of back to back every other weekend. 

Side note to the above: my bosses are so sweet. The manager and supervisor had me come in on my day off to work on scheduling and make a plan to get us through the summer. When I got to the office they called me into a conference room and started the morning by giving me a present tower. They gave me a coloring book with pencils, My Little Pony stickers, Rainbow Dash knee socks, double stuffed Oreos, and a lovely card in which they both told me how much they appreciate me being there. It made me feel so freaking good. Yeah, there are definitely days when this job stresses me out and there are definitely customers that call in who make me want to scream, but I've said from the very beginning, I've never worked for a place like this before. I've never been able to put a local address for the 'corporate' office of my workplace on my taxed. I've never been so rewarded for work well done and I've never received such positive reinforcement. Also I've never had a job before where I truly believed the higher ups gave a shit about me. Not just about 'employees,' but about 'me' specifically. It's a neat feeling. And on that note, I'm going to get some more sleep.

A Review of Creative October and Three More Projects

A better picture of the cute Monster High nails I did earlier this month.

So, I'm confident I can succeed in Creative October. I have been doing projects (I haven't been able to post them immediately but I've still been doing them) pretty regularly and so I still right on schedule. I have a poem I've been working on for a few days and I will be posting that later today for Project #25. In the mean time, however, I wanted to share a few pictures and do a small review of my experience so far with Creative October. 

This is a piece of jewelry from another project I did earlier this month.
I coated the backs of several bracelets, pendants, and rings with clear
nail polish to make them wearable for me.

I, like Dani, really enjoy projects that span a certain amount of time and test one's will power. I tried a 'write every day' thing many years ago and made it into late March before I petered out. I think that for an 'every day' project to work, it's good to start out small. Make a goal of doing something every day for a week, then a month, then for a season, etc. I've very much enjoyed working on and finding my creative every day this month. Yes, there were a few days that I accomplished nothing but for the most part I've learned that sometimes less is more and that we can find creativity in the oddest of places. Also, like Dani, I've rediscovered some of the things that I loved doing in my childhood. Just simply sitting and coloring, or doodling with pencil, or painting... these things are so much fun and easy to do. They are stress relievers with the added benefit of leaving you with something tangible afterwards. 

Pony magnets at work!

But tangibility isn't the most important thing. It's the knowledge that you stepped outside of a normal day's routine and tapped into the beautiful universality of creativity. That might sound a bit extreme but that's what this month has meant to me. It's also been a blessed distraction from not only the stress of leaving one job and beginning another, it has also kept me sane while my poor Hannah has suffered some incredible blows concerning her parents' health. So I'm thankful that, even though Creative October filled my plate to overflowing, that I did decide to do it. And, gods willing, I'll see it through to the end!

A view of my desk at work. You might notice the
Sharka page posted proudly on my cubicle wall.

Project 22: I did a sketch of my character from Dungeons and Dragons. His name is Belafax Malfeiri and he's the crown prince of North Fendar. What I learned while doing this project is that I'm very out of practice with drawing, Also I learned that even though I know Belafax is a fairly attractive half-elf with barbaric tendencies, I always tend to picture him as more of an orc! Even in this picture I feel like he's rather orcish, haha. And I learned too that when it comes to drawing I always cop out and go for the profile shot because for some reason I think they are easier. But in reality they aren't. I need to take some more drawing classes and become more adept of relaying the human shape. All that aside, however, it was fun to draw again. 

Project 23: Yesterday at the IEPG Samhain celebration I portrayed Ereshkigal in our ritual reenactment of the descent of Inanna. So to get more into character, I drew the eye of death on my palm. Then, when it came time for me to kill my younger sister, Innana Goddess of Heaven and Earth, I showed her my hand and spoke the words of death. It was all very theatrical and fun. What I learned in this project is that I really love Sumerian mythology and I want to do further study into the archetypal journey of Inanna's descent. Also I learned that sharpies are the best for making death eyes. Also I learned that I really love the crap out of my Pagan family. They were all so supportive and sweet. Sometimes I get very nervous about performing in front of anyone and even though I felt a bit anxious, I knew that no one would care if I messed up, that they would take it in stride. It was a nice experience over all. And I definitely want to do a ritual in honor of Ereshkigal sometime. She's the Goddess of the Underworld and traditional worship of her usually includes some form of BDSM. So, of course, I'm a total fan. 

Project 24: I sanded and painted a table. Our lovely neighbors gave us their octagonal table earlier this year and since Hannah and I will soon be moving into a place of our own, we decided to spiffy up the table and make it a little more ours. With my mom's guidance, I sanded the crap out of the wood and metal parts then painted over it with flat black rustoleum spray paint. I learned that I apparently suck at spray painting (too many pools of thick paint) but I also recalled a fondness for the smell of aerosol paint. I also like the smell of gas too. I do not, and have never, huffed. But man I sure don't mind a good sniff while I'm gassing up or painting a table! It was brass and brown before. It will all be black as soon as I apply the last coat tonight. Unfortunately I won't have a final, finished shot of it until later because it will be too dark for my pathetic phone to handle another picture after the last coat.

Project 15: Shrinky Dinks!

Inspired by my friend Danielle's recent project of Shrinky-Dinks, I decided to have a little shrinking fun myself. I bought a cheap kit at the dollar store earlier today. When I opened it up I was surprised to find that you had to draw the designs onto the plastic. I seem to remember that back in the day, the plastic already had the outlines on it and all you had to do was color them. But, with the freedom to draw whatever I wanted I decided to include My Little Pony and a few Halloween images. 

I traced each design onto the clear shrinky-dink plastic and then colored them all using a wide variety of markers (the dollar store package only had two small markers with it). After I had traced and colored all of the images that I wanted to include on the plastic sheet, I cut them out carefully and placed them on aluminum foil on a cookie sheet.

Only takes about two minutes for these babies to cook. And when they come out they are reduced in size by about fifty percent. It's a fun and silly project. I had to add My Little Pony to mix because Danielle mentioned in her video blog that she remembers when she used to do My Little Pony Shrink-Its when she was a kid. So in the spirit of revisiting both our childhoods I traced a few choice MLP characters. I only had Rainbow Dash, Twilight Sparkle, and Pinkie Pie on hand otherwise I probably would have only done ponies.

If you look at the first picture of the designs laying on the college ruled notebook, you can see how the ponies take up about six rows before cooking and only take up about three rows after cooking. They are so tiny now! The ponies, skulls, and Halloween thingies all fit in my hand with room to spare. Not quite sure what I'm going to do with them all yet, but it might be fun to drill tiny holes and make an itty-bitty mobile out of them. So to sum up: I did Shrinky Dinks. What did I learn? Choosing my own designs was more fun than having the designs preset. I'm sure I learned something else, too, but I'm still too groggy in the head right now to come up with it. Did I complete the project? Yes. With the help of Narcisa. She loves to get up on the table whenever we do crafts. Today she helped me color by rubbing her face all over the end of the marker as I was trying to stay in the lines. She's a good kitty.