Outdoor Altar

This post was inspired by Dani over at Magickal Mommy. I really enjoyed her post about her outdoor altar, and it reminded me of one of my favorite places to gather for ritual. I have a friend who lives nearby, and we used to get together every now and then for ritual. She has the most beautiful altar in her back yard. I have a few very fuzzy pictures of her altar all decked out for Beltaine in 2005...this is the best one I could find.



Her altar is made out of a log holding up a wooden pedestal, which displays an enormous crystal. During this ritual, we used this as the main altar, and placed all the ritual items around the huge crystal.

I don't have an outdoor altar. The #1 reason being that whenever it's warm enough for me to be doing rituals outside, my back yard is invariably infested with thousands of spiders...and I'm extremely arachnophobic. I do, however, have a lot of little outdoor things here and there that honor the Gods in various ways. I have a couple little stone plaques. One says, "Goddess Dwells Here", and is displayed right outside the front door. Another says, "Blessed Be The Trees", and this one is stationed below the twisted willow tree.



If there were a place where I felt comfortable communing with the Earth in my back yard (without being accosted by creepy crawlies, which would send me screaming across the yard), it would be below this tree. *sigh* Maybe the next home I live in, I will make sure to have a back yard that I can actually enjoy.

Unfavorite Things: Mother's Day

First, let me say that I don't dislike Mother's Day by itself. Second, before I get into what makes Mother's Day one of my Unfavorite Things, I should warn you, this is probably going to get a bit emotional. I'm just going to lay it all out here.

I was just kind of happily moseying along, minding my own business, not thinking about my estranged mother, when all of a sudden, everyone and their...well...mother...started talking about Mother's Day all at once. I've been doing so well in this mother-less state of mind...it was rude to jolt me out of it. Not that I can fault anyone...mothers do deserve their own day to be honored, cherished, pampered...I desperately wish I could do these things for my own mother. And it's not that she doesn't deserve it. By virtue of the fact that she willingly shared her body with me for nine whole months, went through the ordeal of labor (which I've seen twice, and I know it doesn't exactly tickle), and the fact that I survived my childhood (barely), well those are all the requirements for motherhood, and therefore, she deserves to be honored, cherished, and pampered.

I was going to explain why I can't honor my mother this year on Mother's Day...but those whose mothers are Narcissistic will "get it" without explanation, and those whose mothers aren't...just won't. No matter what I say, the response would be, "well, did you try _____? I'm sure she loves you. She couldn't have meant it that way." Yeah, she did. Trust me. I grew up with this woman, I know what she did when she had me alone, when she knew no one would ever find out. I don't have to explain it. Besides...I'm just not in the mood to revisit all my childhood trauma right now. Just a little chunk is all I can handle today.

This will be the first Mother's Day in my entire life that I will not at least make some sort of attempt to acknowledge my mother's motherhood. At this point in my life, my lack of communication with my family is necessary. I'd like to think that I will one day be able to have some sort of relationship with them, and still be able to keep myself safe...I just haven't figured out how to do that yet, and right now, I don't have the emotional energy to deal with unsafe relationships. So, as much as it pains me, I'm going to have to skip right over this Mother's Day without so much as a howdy do to my own mother.

This must seem very confusing. I want so much to talk to my mom, to love her, to hold her, to be in her presence...and yet, I'm fuming angry with her, can't stand her, don't want anything to do with her, and cringe at the thought of my phone ringing and seeing her number pop up. I would love nothing in the world so much as if I could give my mom a Mother's Day card and mean every word of it from the bottom of my heart...but I also know that no matter what I say, it will be used against me. (I gave my mom a card once because she was really down on herself, and I was trying to make her feel better...she turned every word around until it was so twisted and deformed that my original message was unrecognizable...and she convinced my dad that I had given her the card just to tell her what a horrible person she is. I still don't even know what to do with that information...how do you react to something like that? This was years ago, and I'm still at a loss about it.)

So, if this seems confusing...well, it is. During the holidays, I was angry that my mom didn't even bother TRYING to call me. However, if she had tried, I wouldn't have answered, and I would have been angry that she had violated my boundaries after I specifically asked for no contact. Nothing makes sense anymore when it comes to my family. Not that it ever did...but at least the dysfunctional, abusive, narcissistic, crazy patterns of my youth were consistent (well, they were inconsistent, but I could count on the inconsistency, as much as I could count on the dysfunctionality, and everything else).

My point to all this is that this Mother's Day is weighing heavily on me. Just thinking about this upcoming holiday is difficult. I wish I could just move to some foreign country where they don't celebrate Mother's Day...just until it's over. I'm glad everyone else is honoring their mothers this year...I just can't handle being reminded every day for the next few weeks that I'm not honoring mine.

Easy Bakeware

Have you been getting the Easy Bakewear pans for free? I don't know how to do banner links, but this blog has a banner right up at the top that will take you to the web site. So far, I've ordered two pans. I've recieved one of them, and it's quite nifty. But that's not why I'm blogging about this.

BUYER BEWARE!!!

You'll get your free bakeware all right...but you'll also get a bill for $14.95 for something else. If you're the type, like me, who trusts that everything is as good as it looks, you might want to put that whole trust thing on hold for a few minutes. When you sign up for the $1 shipping, a bunch of stuff pops up that tells you that if you sign up for the $1 shipping (effectively making your bakewear $1, which is a screamin' deal), you are agreeing to sign up for some worthless thing that does nothing for you, for which you will be charged monthly, blah blah. You have 7 days to cancel your membership. So, if you do order one of their pans, I'd recommend putting in your order and going right straight to the phone to cancel the worthless whatever you call it thing that charges you for nothing.

What? I'm not angry. Why would you think that? I'm totally fine about the fact that I only have a few bucks til payday, the radiator hose is busted, I had to buy gas this morning, and now I get to worry about the bank balance dropping below zero, resulting in $30 in overdraft fees because businesses don't give a crap about the little guy, and will gouge you any way they can JUST because they can get away with it. I'm not angry at all. See this GREAT BIG SMILE on my face??? I'm fine, I tell you! Now shut up and leave me alone!

Feelings

Glorious, imperfect, messy, frightening, ugly feelings. I have a love-hate relationship with my feelings, but it's slowly moving more toward love as time goes on. Feelings were not allowed in my home as a child. Well, for the children anyway. The adults were not only allowed to HAVE feelings, but in addition to that, the feelings of the adults dictated the childrens' lives. For instance, if Mom was in a bad mood, it was perfectly fine to beat the tar out of the children. We didn't even need to be blamed for her bad mood...it was enough that she was IN a bad mood.

I've been fighting back a tremendous sadness for...well, my whole life. I tried ignoring the sadness...calling it something else...covering it up...changing its location...oh, I tried everything. It's caught up with me.

Here's the deal: my family (meaning those I share DNA with) do not love me. Or, if they do love me, they act it out in a really inappropriate way. I have some wonderful friends that I have referred to as my "chosen" family for many years. But it's just hitting me that, dammit, they are NOT my real family. I can call them whatever I want - they're never going to be related to me, and I am never going to be a true part of their family. It doesn't matter how you want to dress it up, true "family" are the people you share DNA with, and that's it. You don't get spares. You might think you have spares (like I did), but those spares aren't the same thing.

Some folks that I thought of as family just up and walked out without a backward glance. Now, with the family I share DNA with, even though I've walked out, we're always going to be connected. And if I were to walk back in their lives, the reception would be a whole lot different than if they were not related to me.

The point I'm trying to make in all these ramblings is that all my life, I've been trying to make myself feel better about my shitty family. I just realized, today in fact, that I don't HAVE to feel better about them. You know what? It sucks that the people who SHOULD love me don't. It sucks that the people who SHOULD support me don't. It sucks that the people who SHOULD accept me don't. And all the friends in the world, no matter how wonderful they are, can't make those crappy feelings go away.

So I'm going to be sad dammit. I'm going to allow myself to be sad, to feel all those feelings I should have felt as a kid when I was being thrown down the hall way and being told I wasn't worthy of my family. It doesn't matter how I dress those things up or try to ignore them...they happened, and they SUCKED!

Wine

It's been a B-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-D couple of days. I think that drinking my favorite wine out of a crazy straw shaped like a bunny will make me feel a lot better. Care to join me?

Being An Unperson

This is such an important message, delivered so well. I think that we can all relate to at least one sentence from this video...and if we can relate to one line, we can imagine relating to the rest of it, too. I have been an unperson. I have loved unpersons. I want this message to be heard and understood by every person on this planet, as it relates to every other person on this planet. We are all worthy of being real.

My UNfavorite Things

I'm going to have to add a regular "My UNfavorite Things" section to this blog. My inspiration comes from almost DYING last night on my way home from giving Owen his afghan. Tiffany, if you read this, no offense. That car we bought from you SUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCKS! It's great having two cars, don't get me wrong. Let me count my blessings here for just a second:

It's REALLY nice to not have to get up at 5am to take Jason to work in the morning so that I can have the car to get myself to work. 5am and I are not friends.

HOWEVER, if you've ever owned a rear wheel drive car in the winter, you know you may as well leave the POS at home. We don't get much winter weather here, and this winter has been even nicer than normal. But still...every time I think I'm safe driving that car when it's questionable, I end up fishtailing out of control (we're not talking a little fishtail here, we're talking spinning wildly through 3-4 lanes). Thankfully, each time this has happened, the road has been nearly empty.

Another blessing I have to count: When I spun through 3 lanes last night, I went the right direction. Had I gone toward my side of the road, I'd have gone off an embankment. Seeing as how I kinda like this life thing (even though it is expensive, and it kinda creeps me out that it's sexually transmitted and always results in death), I'm glad that if I had to lose all control of the car, spin out wildly, being flung to and fro for about 10 seconds until the car finally slammed into a curb (why there's a curb on a mountain road, I know not, but it is one more thing I have to be thankful for), at least I spun the one direction that was least likely to result in death.

After I checked all my body parts and car parts to make sure we were all intact, I started the car and straightened myself out (I was facing toward the lane I had been driving in) and pulled over. Then, I realized I was in the middle of a curve, on a sheet of black ice, halfway into the far right lane because there was no place to pull over. I decided to head back to Shannon's...and promptly changed my mind, and just found the closest place to pull over.

Another blessing: Even though my cell phone disagreed about this little factoid, I DID have a signal, and was on the phone most of the time I was waiting, either to Shannon or Jason.

Since the rest of the story isn't life-threatening (and is probably only interesting to me), I'll skip to the end. I was a little bit frustrated to find out that this horrid section of road was no more than 6 miles. I could have crawled along at 2 mph until I got to a safe place and I would have been fine. But I wasn't keeping track (from now on, when I go up to Shannon's house, I'm keeping track of what landmarks are where), and I thought I was in the middle of the pass. Poor Jason had to come pick me up, not getting to bed until 1am (and having to turn around and get up for work at 5am) just for six lousy miles of ice.

And there I have one more thing to be thankful for. Two, actually. I have chosen some really, really awesome people to have in my life. Shannon stayed on the phone with me most of the time I was up there, even though she has a newborn baby to take care of and she was exhausted. And Jason gave up a lot of sleep to drive all that way. Those two people most certainly top my list of favorite "things".