Archive | September 25, 2013

I’m pissed. The question is, am I willing to forsaken something I’ve devoted the last 15 or so of my years to? I’m afraid I’ve gotten myself into a passive aggressive state because if I don’t hold my tongue, I’m gonna burn the holy hell out of some bridges.

For the first time in my life I regret not being a showy,” look at me” sort of priestess. I feel discounted, disgruntled, ignored and quite frankly more than a bit incendiary. It takes me awhile to get there but when it does the fire burns low and of nuclear temperature and I never in the world thought I’d get to the maybe it’s time to leave spot, but I am.

We’ve been planning the Hieromum’s memorial and Laura was right when she said we were like herding cats. I hadn’t counted on some outsize egos getting involved and people that hadn’t been there in over 10 years insisting on being in the center of it and in the process drag us backward to when they were the big hot cheese or at least they thought they were. (D if you read this, I’m not talking about you.) I’m talking about people who have a record of being spectacularly manipulative to try and get their own way and who discount other people’s ideas.

I admit I’ve missed the two planning meetings. One I was at my camp reunion and the other my arm and back were killing me and I was doped to the gills. Not an optimum driving state.

I agree we have to honour her whole life but she had been doing so much the last 20 years of her life that it can’t be ignored. And my perception is that it is being ignored or relegated to the outside as not really Laura.

Some of the priestesses never have liked BunniHoTep because they weren’t involved in any of it. Or they don’t approve. There have always been some who thought it was silly and childish and maybe it’s my ego that is feeling trampled on but the day Laura went into hospice, being told BunniHoTep was there, was the one goddess that got her excited in a good way and not agitated in a bad way. Not D or Amhari or me, just BunniHoTep.

I’m sure a lot of people are absolutely oblivious that there even is a conflict or they are so sure of their worth that they aren’t questioning that people could be angry but I know at least 4 of us are and there may be more.

I know that Laura’s druidry is being discounted partly from a comment she herself made, that she hadn’t known she was a druid before she was ordained an Arch Druidess. But she was very serious about helping us create the group and her Skype sessions with us creating the rituals and the prayers and the mission statement are times I will treasure for the rest of my life as well as the Druid ordination we did very early in the morning in January at the wildlife refuge with just the 4 of us. She was so delighted to see the Great Blue Heron take up a position to keep an eye on us. She was her favourite bird. It made it that much more special even that the creation of the grove or the two Companion rituals or the Bard ordination. Each step of the way she was there and I know we never made a big deal of what we were doing or even told the rest of TOILA but she was there working with us and encouraging us. Helping me write things when I got stuck. The four of us did a lot of work to make it happen and she was supposed to ordain us as Arch Druidesses but she got too sick to do it. She wrote Caroline and Linda to get clarification on parts of ritual and to find out if we could use our own TOILA brand of craziness to the rituals or whether we had to do the ones that are already written by FOI and got a lovely letter that said we could create anything we liked. We had been so worried before that letter came. And now that whole part seems to be being thrown out or disregarded because people didn’t know about it. Someone even said they didn’t know we were affiliated with TOILA. Gee thanks, for noticing we existed. I also know she made those Skype calls when she was alone in the house so the person that sometimes shared space with her had no clue how much time she was spending with us.

And it’s really not helping that some people after so much time still seem to have totally misunderstood Laura’s role in TOILA. Laura was our guide and the ones that knew, knew she thought of us as all equals. That she was most certainly not “in charge” and that we don’t leader now. Laura allowed us all our own roles and never made a ranking but some people seem to not “get” that salient fact. Laura asked and we did. But Laura neve, never, never thought she was in charge. She did have a way of “suggesting” you should head in a certain direction but I don’t remember her ever tell me to do anything and she listened if I didn’t want to. I still might do it if it was out of my comfort zone but she never ordered anything. She point blank asked me twice if I wanted to be a Hierophant in FOI but I had absolutely no interest in being a Hierophant. I didn’t need that title, never have and never will voluntarily. The only title I care about is Arch Druidess in the Druid Clan of Dana because to have a Grove we have to have Arch Druidesses. I treasure my Ordination. I worked hard for that and it was one of the best days of my life. I think the Littlest Druid would be amused with it.

I’m doing the slide shows for Laura and no one else and in my style not for anyone else but her. I don’t like feeling used or that someone is"letting" me do something useful instead of suing our talents for the best.

Swedish Pea Soup

Sep25

1 small package of split peas

1 onion chopped

2 carrots sliced

3 inch sprig of fresh rosemary

2 ham hocks

Salt to taste

1. Place all ingredients in a large pot. Add water according to the pea package plus 2 cups. Cook until the peas mash when pressed with spoon, at least an hour.

2. Remove the vegetables and blend until smooth. Remove meat from the bones and return vegetables to the pot. Mix well

Good with corn bread and honey butter.

This was my Swedish great- grandmother Hilda’s recipe and the rosemary was my mother’s addition.

I thought this went with the time of year.

When did your kids really play last?

Sep25

When I was a kid we played every day. We had recess. We had PE and we played with our friends and we played alone. This led us to have adventures and to solve problems even if the problem was how not to get caught by our parents doing something we shouldn’t. It was considered a healthy childhood.

We played on playground equipment and tried to swing to the moon or the stars. We climbed the mountains around our houses pretending to be hunters and explorers. We played Indian princesses defeating the invading colonists. One of the few times I ever played at being a princess. We sent our much hated Barbies down the drainage ditch Amazon River).

We explored the local park that had a cemetery and a stream and waterfall. We invaded on some kids involved in nookie where they shouldn’t have been. Still remember how we laughed at their naked butts.

When someone was given a Flexie Flyer basically a sled on wheels, we figured out that the more people on it the faster we went and actually stopped traffic on a cross street so we could go two very long blocks at very high speed and we were lucky we weren’t killed because we didn’t count on the brakes not stopping us at the dead end. I have no idea how fast we got but it was probably 200 lbs or more of small girl on that sled and it was a fairly steep hill. We managed to get 5 of us on it and it was the most exhilarating things I had ever done at age 12. Kids need to do things like that. It helps them learn. We saw it as a challenge and something we could do, of course at age 12 you are fearless and I’m glad we were but if our mothers’ had known they would have killed us first The first law of every kid adventure, “Don’t ask. Don’t tell”.

We had a 2 story playhouse and a 2 story tree house in our backyard in a tall carob tree, a small pond and a bamboo grove and a huge redwood and our garage was 2 stories tall too. We went all around the world and never left the yard. We explored Africa, South America and the Old West. We had colossal night time games of hide and seek that covered the whole neighborhood on summer nights and every kid on the block was there. We were Daniel Boone and Davy Crockett. We were Lewis and Clark. We fought the Revolutionary War. We played Wizard of Oz and Dorothy and millions of other games that we made up on the spur of the moment. We explored the moon with the astronauts. We were pirates on the Spanish Main out to bring down the English and the French.

We played board games and we read but we also climbed trees and waged war on our siblings. We ran in the sunlight and wind and occasionally the rain. We turned cartwheel across the lawn and had wheel barrow races with our friends. After Mom read us Midsummer Night’s Dream we were Puck and the faeries peeping from the garden shrubs. We played in the sprinklers, danced under the full moon and howled. We were free kids.

I used to teach Arts & Crafts at camp and the difference between a group of Girl Scouts or public school kids and the kids that went to Catholic camp was creativity and play. I never had to tell the Girl Scouts what to create and the Catholic girls always asked me what they were supposed to do because the nuns usually tell them what to draw or make, now it seems most kids have to be told and that is so sad.

When was the last time your kid played with no structure and decided themselves with no help what they were going to be? When was the last time you played?