Hello Witches!

Hey there!

I'm amazed that this blog still gets any traffic since I've been such a horrible blogger for so very long now.  I will be getting back to this space in due time and for a little eye candy I'd like to offer up my new photo tumblr of sorts, it's actually through a site called 'posterous' and so, without further ado here is the link to my new eye candy site~

Blessings!

Collected Magick 
http://seraphinabohemian13.posterous.com/
(for some reason I can't make this a link show up...not sure what the issue is but let your mouse scroll over the area above this line and the link will appear)

Blah blah blah

Hello all~

I've been avoiding this blog because I've been dealing with piles of health issues and haven't had the energy to come up with something else to bring to the table. Well, I'm going to make more of an effort, I've recently got some things cleared up and with some positive MRI test results I'm feeling more like poking my head out of my shell.  But tonight, tonight you get poetry.  You love the poetry, right?  It's like sex for your eyes & brains!  Word sex! 

lie still, tiny mouth.
lie still, mouth from which eternity will speak. tiny tongue
that will soon summon the dead,
that will define grace, that
will silence our foolishness.
Rosebud lips- upon which ride
a starborn kiss of forgiveness
to those who believe you, and of
death to those who deny you-
                               lie still.
excerpt of piece by Max Lucado

I'm trying. I really am.

photo source unknown.

This has been such a trying week.  Another surgery to correct a problem that sprang up from the last one and on the exact same day of my surgery our truck died.  Then my lovin' man went out of town the next day.  So here I sit, all alone with another fucking catheter for a week (two days to go till I get checked out to see if it can come out) and no vehicle.  Damn.  I just don't even know what to say about all of this except DAMN.  I know it will all work out and that everything will be fine in the end but it really was starting to look like we were pulling it together and making some progress with our health & our money saving.  Now they have both taken a big dive and again I'm sitting here dazed in the wake of destruction.  There's so much research and such that I could be doing while I'm stuck at home sitting on my ass but to tell you the truth I've been so dazed and so blue all I seem to be able to do is watch Bollywood movies and read books with swarthy pirates.  I've really got to pull myself together. 

I have been her kind.

Her Kind

I have gone out, a possessed witch,

haunting the black air, braver at night;
dreaming evil, I have done my hitch
over the plain houses, light by light:
lonely thing, twelve-fingered, out of mind.
A woman like that is not a woman, quite.
I have been her kind.
                                               


I have found the warm caves in the woods,
filled them with skillets, carvings, shelves,
closets, silks, innumerable goods;
fixed the suppers for the worms and the elves:
whining, rearranging the disaligned.
A woman like that is misunderstood.
I have been her kind.



I have ridden in your cart, driver,
waved my nude arms at villages going by,
learning the last bright routes, survivor
where your flames still bite my thigh
and my ribs crack where your wheels wind.
A woman like that is not ashamed to die.
I have been her kind.

                                                           -Anne Sexton

Painting by Lauren K. Cannon

There is a season

Today a simple meditation on some song lyrics helps to remind me of the truth. Give it a read and think on it a sec. Maybe it will pack the punch you need as well to accept where you are today, who you are today.


Turn! Turn! Turn!
Words-adapted from The Bible, book of Ecclesiastes

To Everything (Turn, Turn, Turn)
There is a season (Turn, Turn, Turn)
And a time to every purpose, under Heaven

A time to be born, a time to die
A time to plant, a time to reap
A time to kill, a time to heal
A time to laugh, a time to weep
A time to build up, a time to break down
A time to dance, a time to mourn
A time to cast away stones, a time to gather stones together

A time of love, a time of hate
A time of war, a time of peace
A time you may embrace, a time to refrain from embracing
A time to gain, a time to lose
A time to rend, a time to sew
A time for love, a time for hate
A time for peace, I swear it's not too late
                                                             Music-Pete Seeger

Slowly I’ve been arriving at a number of insights recently. Chiefly I am stunned to realize just how often I have to learn and relearn things over and over and over. At times I’ll think to myself, “I’ve got this. It’s understood, I know it.” In no time I’m back to crying, wondering what went wrong, what happened and the worst- why is this happening?

Let me illustrate; everything I know about witchcraft teaches me that the universe moves in cycles, hence the inclusion of the Byrds lyrics. And yet this last winter I found myself struggling immensely with some very dark thoughts, lingering depression, and seriously lacking motivation. I half-heartedly tried to fight it but mostly I was just feeling sorry for myself and waiting for it to lift. I suppose it's worth mentioning as well that I have been having a cold spell (ha ha Witchy double entendre) in regards to my spiritual practice these last handful of months.

I'd been so consumed with having family in town, recovering from my double foot surgery, the second surgery (of which I'm still having complications)  that I had put everything else aside. Looking to inspire myself to delve back in I uploaded some new podcasts to my iPod and I'm starting to get the feel of it again. Oddly enough as soon as I had the realization that Winter is the season for turning inward, for looking into the darkness within I felt the veil lifting. I sat with it, I no longer rebelled against it and so it goes that the claws & teeth have been retracted.  Spring is here and I'm ready for renewal.

I'm taking stock of what is going on internally (which of course always ends up being manifested externally) and making plans. Typical me, I've got a list a mile long of things I hope to learn, try out, change and accomplish for the next year- I'm nothing if not ambitious. Which brings me to my next bit of inspiration- a quote by Henri-Frederic Amiel

"Learn to limit yourself; to content yourself with some definite work; dare to be what you are and learn to resign with a good grace all that you are not; and to believe in your individuality."

Finding this was a complete revelation. The light bulb went off and I think I heard an audible 'ding!' at the same time! I am always so hard on myself, internally berating myself for everything that I don't get to, all of the goals I don't meet. One of my resolutions is to strike a balance between nourishing & realistic goals and things that are more 'shoulds' will fall away. I need to put my limited amount of energy where it counts. Right now that seems to be on continuing to move my health in a healing direction.  
 
I've been getting good at allowing myself to heal.  I am allowed to sit and read for hours at a time.  I'm allowed to leave the dishes in the sink and take a nap.  I'm allowed to watch a movie in the middle of the afternoon.  I'm allowed to spend all day painting.  I am allowed to lay in bed daydreaming.  I am allowed to let others take care of themselves. 
 
What will you allow yourself to do now that you have my permission to heal?

stitched up and sprouting



source unknown

 Surgery number 2 is behind me and today, 10 days later I finally feel better.  The best part is that I got to have the catheter removed.  Yeah, I had a catheter in for the last 10 days.  Horrible.  Turns out the issues they were dealing with were more complicated than anticipated and I ended up having emergency surgery on my urethra.  Bleck.  The whole thing made me grouchy, now I'm much better!!

The good news:  all issues were addressed and there was no evidence of any other issues so my lady parts get the thumbs up!!  The remaining pain is nothing now that the damn catheter is gone, funny how at some point pain becomes relative. 

I've done my best to pay close attention and remain introspective during this journey, it's been an emotional roller coaster for a variety of reasons I was surprised to discover.  When we lost our baby a few years back I was far enough along that I had to be induced and my feeling at the time was that I wanted every drug possible to make me as numb as possible.  I wanted to be unconscious, I didn't want to participate in one second of that labor.  That feeling continued after I had the baby, I took quite a bit of Valium & painkillers in the following days.  I floated through it in a fog and told myself I was alright. 

I finally sobered up and got angry about the whole thing, I started asking the Goddess some intense questions, I got some real answers and it changed my life.  Ever since then I've been careful to be as present as I can, to listen to the lessons that are revealed.  I know now that many of my life lessons will come through my struggle for total health.  I've got a long list of things to work on though I've crossed off a fair amount of them in the last two years.

The pieces are sliding together, 
I'm becoming me.  

Darkness before Dawn

I've been very hesitant to make this blog all about my health issues.  My quest for better health has been a huge struggle in my life most notably for the last couple of years and so it's inevitable that it would leak into this space but I know how tedious it can be to read about someone elses' health problems so I've tried to be selective about what I share.  One thing I've been pretty open about is our quest to get pregnant.  I know there are quite a few couples out there that have issues in this arena as well and I've appreciated having other bloggers input about their journey so this is one topic I've addressed and now I know there are at least two bloggers who come here just for this reason so I want to give the update on my testing. 

I can't express how glad I am that I listened to the little voice in my head that kept telling me to go in and get the thorough once over to see if everything with my lady parts was oky-doky.  My little voice (who grows louder every day thankfully) kept telling me that everything wasn't okay and she was right.  My new ob-gyn specializes in infertility, she was the first one who ever really listened to my list of complaints and took me seriously, she too felt that the list of issues warranted testing.  The first thing we did was a vaginal ultrasound which immediately revealed that I have a septate uterus, a very large cyst and a uterine fibroid.  She was concerned about the cyst and wanted a better look at the uterus so she ordered an MRI.  The results were concurrent with her findings during the ultrasound plus the test provided a diagnoses of adenomyosis. 

I've been on such a roller coaster since all of these tests started coming in.  A big part of me is relieved to know what is really going on and know that I have the insurance to have it taken care of.  A very big part of me is seething with rage that I can barely contain at times over all of the doctors who I tried to get to listen to me when I told them that something was wrong.  When we lost our baby a few years ago they told us they did every test they could on both of us to figure out what went wrong and both my ob & my ob surgeon are AMAZED they didn't see the problem with the uterus during any of the ultrasounds we had done during pregnancy or that they didn't look at the uterus at all for a miscarriage cause.  I believe it is clearly a case of us not being insured at the time and them not wanting to delve into it for a state aid charity case.  But besides the inept doctors (which isn't new to me in my previous experiences) I'm also pissed at all of the other non-traditional healers (medical intuitive specifically) I have been working with these last couple of years.  That one is tough because I went out on a limb to trust them and to have faith in their spiritual process to guide us to a healthy pregnancy and baby.  EVERYONE kept telling us that we were over our hurdles and it was time to go for it and start really trying to get pregnant.  It devastates me to think what could have/would have happened if I had somehow managed to get pregnant again (which even both docs I have now acknowledge was a miracle the first time around due to all of my issues lining up the way they do to hinder fertility.)  My uterus is too small due to the wall up the middle to carry a baby.  We would have either lost it again around the 5mo mark...again...or would have had to deliver prematurely and risk all that comes with that.  I just keep thinking to myself, WHAT THE FUCK????  I had an entire fucking team on this ONE health issue and not one single damn person could figure it out.  I've been trying to see what the lesson is in this....maybe I'm still too close to it to see it clearly but so far I'm not getting it. 

So now the next step is surgery.  I met with my surgeon yesterday and while I believe him to be knowledgeable I'm concerned with his approach.  For one he doesn't think it's important to remove the fibroid.  His logic for this was pretty fuzzy, he seemed to be telling me that it was a much more involved surgery and he didn't want to 'put me through that' without any consideration for the significant amount of people in my family who have died from cancers or the fact that I made mention that in a year from now I won't have insurance any longer so I may not be able to do anything about it if I don't get insurance after my job is transferred.  

I'm so frustrated, it feels like I don't have anywhere to go for real solid answers.  This is all so confusing and it enrages me to think that I have to hold these doctors hands through all of this to ensure that they don't screw me over again.  And my medical intuitive?  She dropped the ball big time.  After all of this came out I emailed her and told her of the results and point blank asked her how it was that she with all of her spirit helpers and all of her years of doing this work wasn't able to clearly see what the issues were- at least with the uterus- and instead was compelling me to go ahead with trying to get pregnant.  Her response was so amazingly idiotic that in spite of my anger I had to laugh.  I'm still amazed.  Not once did she bother to explain in any manner how she missed this, neither did she apologize or offer any suggestions about my exposed conditions.  She did say that if I needed any further assistance after meeting with the surgeon that I could call her for a free session and she would help out.  Well, after the adenomyosis diagnosis came in following the reading of the MRI results I emailed her again and asked her if she knew anything about adenomyosis, that was two weeks ago and I haven't heard anything from her since.  So FUCK YOU LADY!!  How could you sleep at night or live with yourself if you were taking someones money and advising them in matters of health only to find out that you were horribly wrong- without apologizing or bothering to right the situation you just go on with your life and your business? 

And to make matters worse I've got next to no support group as I go through this.  My mom of course is my rock, she's always there for me and I felt so much better when I thought she was going to be able to come here and be with me for this operation & recovery but last night I found out that isn't going to happen.  She's in the middle of closing on a house so she can't leave in the middle of all of the financial stuff.  I'd been keeping a pretty stiff upper lip until she told me that.  When we got off of the phone I was devastated. 

My husband is not known for his nurturing or supportive abilities.  He means well in his own way but he's never had to or been bothered to figure out how to be helpful in the ways that I need him to be.  This was never more apparent to me than when I had my feet operated on, thank the Lord & Lady that my parents were here for that or who knows how it would have gone.  I keep reading all of these blogs where these women have these amazing circles of friends and family that are there for them through their struggles and crises, last night at work I was reading a new blog and the woman was talking about how a friend of hers had some severe complications during childbirth and there were dozens of women who organized to breast feed her baby while she recovers in the hospital.  It was so touching and so beautiful I started crying at my desk.  I feel a massive void in my life where a nurturing community should be.  Aside from my mom there isn't really anyone.  I talked to my best girlfriend about the test results when they first came in and she was concerned but was going to be leaving for vacation in a couple of days and I haven't heard from her since.  I don't want to call people and whine, I loathe talking about it honestly but it would be great to just have someone who would call/email from time to time to check in and just say they were here.  My mentor, Swan, has totally ditched me.  She finally answered my question about whether or not we were still training and or hanging out together and said yes to both counts but hasn't answered an email since.  I just stopped, clearly she is too busy for me. 

I hate that this is starting to sound like a pity party, though I am indeed feeling a little Eyore-ish about the whole thing.  I know everyone has their own problems, such is life I guess.  In the meantime I'll journey into this darkness to find out what she is trying to teach me, this- like so many of the journeys in my life will be a solitary one it seems and there must be a reason for that too. 

Into the deep................

Lascivite



Lucifer for Agent Provocateur

 Take me back rocket through
the miles missing you
is delicious the taste
of anticipation smooth
the ripple release the soul
bound by the ecstasy moan

murdering words whispered
diving headlong towards inception
raised by ritual
driven by salacious hunger
hunting, the sharp teeth
slick tongue disguises
opulent ancestral lust
release
release
going deep

dreams of saturnalia
     consumption
chasm abandon the ashes
in your wake sharpened to
fine point desire
arching estrus you see
every pulse invading
your consciousness, nearly wise
intended saiety
I can see you will
not be denied

lull, lull, lull the lust
swallow the release
bury it deep
gloss the surface
quiet the drums

unfastened contortion
prison the severed
wings unbalance
and knot my cruelest curse my
beast heart (tear
empty wake) it's getting
harder and harder
to separate
myself
these days.

~Esmeralda~