Reinventing: A Brand New Me

A lot has happened in the last couple of months.  My birthday passed a couple weeks ago, and I feel like I am coming out of a chrysalis.  For one thing, the pink is all gone.  My birthday present to myself was a trip to the salon and a return to my natural hair colour.  After 15 years, it was a bit of a shock.  I am still getting used to seeing myself blond again – I haven’t had my hair any shade of blond in over a year and a half (and then it was still half pink).

Everything in my life has a somewhat impermanent feel to it.  After six years in a tiny apartment, I feel like we are only visiting this new place.  We still don’t have a lot of furniture.  Moving and setting up house is expensive, so we are taking it slow to avoid unnecessary debt.  Half of my stuff is still in boxes.  With all of the room, I’m not really sure where to put things.  Before we moved, it was all in the living room, but it doesn’t need to be crammed into one room now.

My dishwasher is my new best friend.  I have been spending a lot more time in the kitchen now that there is room and it is always clean.  I made dark chocolate balsamic truffles yesterday, and today I made apple sauce out of apples that were on the verge of going bad.  I’d forgotten how much I love to cook.

Another surprise on my birthday was an e-card from my father.  A man I haven’t heard from or layed eyes on in over a decade picked this year to get back in touch.  I’m not really sure how I feel about that.  I don’t really have any other parents left in my life, and I while I’m not angry with him anymore, I’m also not sure I forgive him yet.  The scars of my childhood haven’t completely healed – and I think that the self-image he helped to create will be something I will struggle with for the rest of my life.

We all make mistakes in our 20s.  Luckily mine were made without 3 children looking on.  It would be nice if things were better between us, but I am a little worried that we are just too different now.  All that said, I am willing to give it a try.  No expectations.

In other news, it snowed again on Wednesday.  I blame the radio people.  They were complaining that if this were next year and it was as warm as it had been last week, then the Olympics would have to be cancelled.  So what happens two days later?  That’s right, a half foot of snow.

Luckily, it warmed up enough to melt the snow Thursday afternoon, and now it is back to being springtime weather.  But seriously, I have had my fill of winter.

Also, my LJ account has lapsed again.  I’m not really sure if I will renew it this year.  I only go to LJ once a week or so now to catch up a bit on my Flist.  I generally prefer the layout and interface of WordPress.  The only thing that keeps me at LJ at all is the history and my friends page.  I guess we will see what the springtime brings.

–PT

 

Settling In

We are all moved in and have started the unpacking process – and I have no furniture!  I knew that I would need to pick up some pieces when we moved.  A one bedroom apartment into a three bedroom town house was going to leave some holes.  But I wasn’t expecting to have whole rooms bare.

I don’t even have a dining room table.  I didn’t have a dining room before.  Luckily, my taste in furniture tends to run pretty retro, so I am hoping to save a few bucks by stalking the local Sally Ann.  My brother also has a friend who’s uncle might be looking for carpentry work, so I might also get my bed built for less than I was expecting to pay.

I am hoping to have some of the house put together in time for a house-warming party that I am planning to coincide with the Equinox.

Once things have found their natural routine, I am going to get back to work on my photos.  I have quite the backlog of post production to get through.  I haven’t even finished with my pictures from Mexico yet.

I don’t spend a whole lot of time online any more.  I have been reading LJ the past couple of days, but I don’t think I will get caught up any time soon.

I think that leaving the internet might be a part of my moving away from the Pagan community as a whole.  I am finding myself less and less interested in what other Pagans do.

I don’t really care about many of the issues and outrages that I used to. I caught a post on Jet’s LJ about P/W, and I went over there to take a look.  I couldn’t bring myself to even open one thread.  I just didn’t want to go around in the same circles again.  The thought of watching the same old trolls flinging the same old muck holds no appeal for me.

My spiritual dry spell has been going on for several months now.  I still do a bit of divining, but that is really about it.  My life has moved to a more earthy phase, I think – home, career, family, physical fitness, etc.  Not a lot of room for much else.

I think that it’s ok, though.  I spent years trying to chase down who I was and what I believe.  Now it’s time to build the life I want to live.

Anyway, I am still alive, and occasionally watching from the sidelines.

–PT

 

New Year – New Home

My New Year’s tarot spread was 4 of Wands, 10 of Wands and the Fool.  Which for me was both encouraging and oddly familiar as well.  I know that at roughly mid-year I tend to hit a point where I know I have started too much to keep up with.

I need to work on that, I think.  The trouble is that I get excited about new projects and ideas, and I forget to pace myself.  This leads to overburdening.

On the more immediate future front – we have found a new place.  After 6 years, we are finally moving out of this ‘temporary’ apartment.  Our new place is a 3 bedroom townhouse.  It’s not in New West, which is a little sad.  I am going to miss my town, but Coquitlam is a nice town too.

I am very excited about finally having a decent sized place.  I am also a little nervous about moving.  I have wanted to move for so long, but we have managed to stay in one place for a fairly long time.  I guess now it is just about getting through it.

I am glad that we have time to get everything together before moving, since I didn’t actually make it all the way through the winter with being sick.  Chest colds are the worst when you have asthma.

All in all, I think that 2009 is going to be a pretty exciting year.  I might even get my last credit card paid off.  Yay for being steps closer to freedom from debt!

–PT

x-posted to http://phae-talon.livejournal.com

 

The Dark of the Year

The changes that have been plaguing me these past months have lead me to the realization that the Dark of the Year is the Witch’s time.

In the spring I tend to feel more Pagan – more daughter of the Earth, servant of the gods, joyous dancer to the music of life.

In the autumn and winter I feel like the evil old Witch in all our well loved faery tales – the baleful wind that blows chaos and change through the village, the darkness that forces the hero to reach for his potential, the temptation offered by the devil.

The dark of the year is the time for work.  It is the time for divination and spellwork and wrestling with demons.  Celebration is on hold while the world sleeps it’s way towards Yule.

At this time of the year I always feel a bit less religious, a bit less Pagan.  But this year is somewhat different for me because it change from Earth Child to Witch happened so much earlier that it leaves me wondering if I ever turned away from the Dark Witch of last winter at all.

I look back at my posts from the beginning of the year and I see myself pulling away.  I am pulling away from friends, from projects, from plans, from a nice, safe future.  I remember how horrid it was to claw at the plans for a stable future as they slipped away, but I knew enough to know not to follow them.  Some things need to die.  The plans needed to pass so that I could be in a position to accept this new place – this new path where nothing is planned beyond the next month.

The fog is still thick enough to blur my view beyond December.  Maybe it still needs to be lest I fall into old habits.

At this point, I’m not even sure what it means to be non-religious.  I still believe all the same things I used to believe.  I still see my gods more as ancestors than gods.  I still don’t know that that matters.

Maybe I am not so much non-religous as non-political or just not interested in my community anymore.  I don’t even read the news articles anymore.  I can’t really bring myself to care about the latest protest, the latest fight, the latest outrage.

The new year will bring some interesting developments, I think.  We’ll see if the cards are willing to shed any light.

–PT

 

Autumn’s Rush

It certainly has been a while, hasn’t it?

As predicted, August was crazy busy with school and work.  I am now just inches away from a much deserved vacation in Mexico.

I think that the near future will be pretty good, though, I do have to say that my foresight has been fairly limited of late.  I can’t really predict how my life will be more than six months in advance.

I guess you don’t realize how much you rely on a talent like that until it stops working for you.  It makes things a little scary – but exciting too.  I’m not afraid of the dark as much as enchanted by it.  I want to see, so I push on.  Which probably isn’t the best way to go about things.  I have watched September fly by without much of anything to mark its passage.

I think I will need to find a happy medium.  I’m not sure if life will go back to being a charted course or if I will simply continue on through life blind to the next bend.

Work is good, and school will be restarting in January for me.  For now, I am going to see about getting back on even ground with a new position at work, and a newish passion for photography and the world in general.

And for some measure of cuteness and silly nonsense, I give you, my baby dragons!  I have no idea why I find these little guys so addictive.  They just are.  Click them for luck and watch them grow!

–Phae

 

The Turning Tide

Good golly, it’s hot!  The promise of fall is in the air already.  There is no cool breeze or bite to the morning air (I couldn’t be that lucky), but there is a definite change in the air.  The wheel has turned from the growing season to the harvest season.  I can very nearly taste it.

August is going to be a long month for me.  I start my class on the first, and I still have a few essentials that I need to pick up (like a tripod and a bus pass).  This means either no vacation time for me until after my course ends, or I have to somehow wrangle a mid-week mini vacation of some sort.

Perhaps I will put off vacationing until the fall.  It is my favorite season, after all, and maybe I can manage a trip somewhere interesting.  I feel like visiting somewhere haunted.

I have returned to my quest of collecting all of my favorite scary movies.  Though, none of them are really scary.  Mostly just thrillers and some Tim Burton – Sleepy Hollow, The Haunting, The Others, The Village, From Hell, The Order, etc.

I am having a heck of a time finding the Haunting.  I love that movie.  I know it didn’t get the best reviews, but I would prefer to not have to buy it online if I can avoid it.  Alas …

I have been having stories ideas and plot bits floating around in my mind lately.  I am going to get back to writing pretty soon, I think.  I would like to actually finish one novel over the winter.  Who knows, maybe by the spring, I will have something to submit to an editor

–Phae

 

In Other News

I wrote to my MP (Member of Parliment for those to the south or east or generally outside of Canada) about the proposed copyright legislation, urging her to vote against it.  And suprise of all suprises, she wrote me back!

Turns out she was already opposed to this legislation, and is planing to do what she can to see it defeated.  She also urged me to stay active in the cause.  I’m not sure if it was a form letter or not (very nicely written one, if it was), but I am happy that she agrees with my stance.

Heck, I might even vote for her next time

–Phae

 

Ideas – Jewelry and Photographs

A trip to the craft store has inspired me to take a bash at making my own jewelry to sell.  I actually know a great many folks who do this with varried success, so I don’t really have any high hopes to make a living off of it.

But, I like to make necklaces, and I think I am pretty good at it, so, why not?  I picked up a few supplies, and I am very excited about the idea of having my own line.  My new camera should be very useful in getting gorgeous shots of my creations to post – and each peice will be made to order (so I don’t have to give up my originals … which has always made this idea flop for me in the past – I want to wear my pretties too! lol), and prices will include shipping – I have always preferred to know exactly how much I am going to be charged before I order.

I’ll post more on this later, though – today I am headed to the beach with my new camera!

–Phae

 

Soothing the Savage Beast at only $20,000 a pop

The last few days of news coverage of the Canada’s recently tabled new anti-copyright infringement legislation has really just depressed the hell out of me.

The law itself is a knee-jerk reaction to the fact that the government is behind the times when it comes to file sharing technology, and rather than think things through, and find a way to make the new world of music fair to everyone (which, if you ask me, means cutting out the record producers entirely so that artists and musicians get the income that they deserve rather than a nickel off of every CD sold), they have decided to target teenagers.

This new law proposes $20,000 fines per song against people (who are mostly teenagers) who pay to download a song, and then send it to their friends. Yes, the answer to internet piracy is to sue music fans and bankrupt Canadian families for stupid teenage tricks (I think we can all remember those years when ‘it seemed like a good idea at the time’ was the answer to every dumb thing you did and couldn’t really remember why).

I find it darkly amusing that the recording industry seems to think that pitting musicians against their own fans is a good idea. Because, you know, it’s not like the entire entertainment industry is dependant upon fans and their disposable income.  </sarcasm>

In the end, this sort of manipulation will only end up hurting the musicians. No one is as vindictive as someone who once loved you and now feels betrayed. Hell hath no fury …

Today, I read this article from the Vancouver Sun. And I have to say that I am very glad to see that my favourite musicians are against this sort of legislation. Lawsuits are not the answer to everything. Neither is breaking privacy laws or targeting young people.

I imagine that this bill will be defeated rather soundly, especially since it is virtually unenforceable. There really is no way for them to prove where material on your computer came from (unless you save all your bit torrent files, I guess – which brings us back to targeting teenagers). It is, admittedly, a scare tactic. Dirty pool, if you ask me. No different than the environmentalists who push the fear of global warming and natural disaster on people in order to get them to recycle.

Manipulation and greed – They leave a bad taste in my mind. This is why I don’t watch the news.

Today, I am going to clear off all of the blackness of crumbling communities with a trip to Granville Island. I’m going to remember that all I really want out of life is happiness. Peace, serenity, food coaxed from the earth by loving hands, beauty, inspiration, and the ocean are all I really need. And power struggles, greed, indifference and fear do not need to be a part of my life.

Oh, and on a completely different note – allow me to introduce the newest residents of Vancouver Island’s Qualicm Beach:

Rare white ravens make home on Vancouver Island

Have a happy Saturday, everyone.

–Phae

 

The Muse is Rattling Her Cage

The last little while has cause me to do a lot re-evaluating of my life and where I am going vs where I want to be (Saturn-return sucks heinie, btw).

I will be going back to school part time starting on August 1st.  At first when I realized that I would be at school on Lammas, I was a little bummed, but I have come to realize the influence of Lugh on my life, and I am starting to think that it is rather fitting.

When I was young, the phrase that haunted my artistic pursuits was ‘Jack of all trades, but master of none’.  This is something that I was always something I was told that I should avoid.  I was always encouraged to focus on one thing – one skill, and master it.

Now, anyone who knows me knows how harshly against my nature it is to force myself to focus on one thing to the detriment of my other interests.

The one thing that I loved SO much when I first read about Lugh was that he was a Master of all trades.  He is a hero to me for this reason.  He shows that it isn’t a waste of time to pursue all your varied interests at the same time.

The near future is very foggy for me right now (for reasons I can’t really discuss), and I don’t know for certain where I will end up in the next couple of years.

When I go back to school, I will be working on a photography certification, and I do have the opportunity to go to Emily Carr to get a BFA with a photography major – which is a four year degree, and not really something that I had considered as possible for me previously.

This would be school for the love of school and of art.  I could major in photography and still take classes in painting and sculpting and digital media and fashion/jewellery design and creative writing and whatever else sounds interesting.

In order to get into this art school, though, I would need to put together a portfolio.  Now, I used to paint and draw and lots of other things when I was younger, but I haven’t done more than doodle in a good 5 years at least.

Last weekend, WD when out and bought me new pencils, an eraser and a new sketch book.  I’ll be starting again, almost from scratch – and my creative juices are going into overdrive.  I don’t know where to start.  I want to write and draw and paint and sculpt all at once.  Knowing that I can do it all and that I CAN master it all if I want to is something that makes the butterfly in me infinitely happy.

In between bouts of cooking, cleaning and sewing, I will be sketching this weekend.  Even if all I accomplish is to get the ideas out of my head.

Jack of all trades; master of whatever I want.

–Phae