What · Lies · Beneath

Some totally flirtatious energy is blowing into your life like a thunderstorm today. All this flirting will light a fire under you that no social situation can contain! No one will be able to resist your cute remarks and your sassy one-liners, even though a couple of the more sober people you encounter will come close. But all in all, this is going to be a very fun day -- everyone loves to be complimented, and few people are as good at giving out compliments as you are.

1. My favorite color is red
2. Indecisive people irritate me
3. When i was growing up, i wanted to be "goth"
4. I think i still do
5. If i had more hair i'd dye it funky colors
6. I wear glasses
7. I can clean a horse
8. My favorite beverage is Mtn Dew
9. I grew up in a small town in northern new hampshire
10. I've got a soft spot for old cape cods
11. I've written a novel
12. I read fantasy fiction
13. I want to go to Pakistan
14. I'm thinking about joining the peace corps
15. I love college Residence Life
16. I want to collect degrees and certificates the way little boys collect baseball cards
17. I am conversational in Sign Language
18. After 5 years of classes i still barely know french
19. I bite my nails
20. I have a B.A. in English
21. The Food Network is amazing
22. I dont own a TV
23. I have TMJ
24. I also have herpes
25. I'm a slob
26. I think i clean up well
27. Vienna Teng is my new favorite musician
28. Margaret Cho makes me wet myself
29. I love slam poetry
30. Poetry of any sort is great
31. I am a fount of useless information
32. I overshare because i think it's funny
33. Sometimes i think i'm a hussy
34. And then i agree that i dont care
35. One of my favorite authors as a child is one of my close friends
36. My best friend lives on the west coast
37. I miss him
38. I cant decide if i like feet or not
39. I like BDSM
40. I like being outside
41. Hate sweating like a pig or getting eaten by bugs
42. I love to drive
43. Rollercoasters suck
44. I have motion sickness
45. I want to backpack through europe
46. I enjoy firing guns
47. I want a puppy and a kitty
48. Life gives me lemons and i make a lot of lemonade
49. Some days im pretty sure i have discalcula
50. I could write a biography about you and not remember your name
51. I carry a grudge like people do small children
52. I've started these lists a number of times, but never finish
53. I meant to start reading a book tonight
54. I have 1 tattoo and look forward to more
55. Dagaz, Kenaz, Eihwaz, and Ingwaz on the inside of my left shoulderblade
56. I forget its there a lot
57. Depending on my day i'm and INTJ or an ENTJ
58. I dont like to fly very much
59. I hate being hungry
60. I came out of the closet at 13
61. I'm on an Orange Juice drinking kick
62. Booze really isnt my thing
63. My last vacation was to Canada
64. Being called in emergencies makes me feel special
65. I dont know how i make it some days
66. I have tried to kill myself
67. I enjoy fairy tales
68. I have favorite authors like people have favorite songs
69. I enjoy sexual innuendo
70. I like plants
71. I am a Gemini
72. I am also a fire Tiger
73. My personality is very close to my astrology
74. My life sucks when Mercury is in Retrograde
75. I can type 90wpm
76. I have a goal to write 1,000 words a day
77. I tend to freak out a lot, and then calm down, plan, and move forward
78. Usually takes about ten minutes
79. I can make a whip from vynil cord and macrome knots
80. It takes a lot to make me uncomfortable
81. I'm my own best advocate
82. I read about a page a minute
83. My parents died before i was 19
84. I have never met/spoken to/seen my biological father
85. Poorly designed websites make me throw up my hands in disgust
86. So do text messages
87. I have moving
88. But like to travel
89. Disney movies have a strong place in my heart
90. I know how to fence
91. Men in kilts make me hot
92. I can be either your best friend or worst enemy
93. My religious affiliation is "Other"
94. Illegal downloads help me save money
95. I laugh like a hyena
96. People talking during movies makes me psychotically angry
97. I have some shows that i want to get on DVD
98. I like plants
99. I have wanted to be a teacher, botanist, CIA agent, veterinarian...
00. I forgot how much i liked this movie..

To get lost
To run away
To see the world
To find my place
To find home
... and leave it again
To make love
To find love
To write something epic
To write something at all
To sing at the top of my lungs and not care who hears
To remember
To forget
To forgive
To punish
To test myself against the world
To disappear
To have someone come in and get me
To learn
To create
To discover
To look myself in the mirror and adore who looks back
To live out of a back pack
... in cities i've never seen and villages i'll never know
To take a dare
To be loved as much as I love
To learn
To teach
To escape
To make life worth living instead of worth surviving
To look back and laugh
To find redemption
To make new stories
To not care
To do something stupid and not regret it later
To explore
To surprise

Four jobs I have had in my life:
1. Chambermaid
2. Bookstore Clerk
3. Gorge Guide
4. Community Advisor

Four movies I've watched more than once:
1. Willow
2. Brokeback Mountain
3. Moulin Rouge
4. Coyote Ugly

Four Places I have lived:
1. North Woodstock NH
2. Plymouth NH
3. uhm?
4. eh?

Four T.V. Shows that I watch:
1. America's Next Top Model
2. Project Runway
3. Avatar: the last Airbender
4. Locked up

Four places I have been:
1. Montreal
2. Boston
3. Bahamas
4. Raeford, NC

Four favorite foods
1. Chicken Fingers and Fries
2. Paninis
3. Mtn Dew
4. Food!

Four Places I would like to visit:
1. Europe
2. Asia
3. Africa
4. South America

Four things you really didn't know about me:
1. I have an odd obsession with SW native american pottery (blackware)
2. Most things i do i do to make people laugh.
3. I really dont like cheese
4. My music collection may be the weirdest mix of stuff you've ever seen.

Okay so...

I'm a pagan. And this posting comes on the heels of another post by a friend of mine. My faith is very eclectic and ive long-since decided that im okay with that, and it's not something im overly....vocal...about. I believe, strongly, that the pantheons that people worship are all valid pantheons. Too much energy goes out with faith and that it cannot float into thin air to disappear. This does not mean that every god in every pantheon is for everyone. I also feel as some do, that any god we worship is a different face of some greater power. Like a great actor, who is many things to many people. I also believe in ultimate neutrality--something does not come from air and that nothing is singularly one thing or another. Meaning that gods are not "Good" or "bad" nor are "light" and "Dark" the dichotomy some people believe.
As i was growing up, i worshiped the elements. Earth air fire water. As i grew older i also ran across deities in various pantheons that represented, to me, the embodiment of these four. So i dedicated to them. Not in some elaborate ritual, but they are the 4 that i consider closest to me. I also decided that i would not explicitly talk about who they were. For a number of reasons not the least of which is that they are what some people might call "Dark" gods. or "Tempramental" gods. and i've run into enough wiccans new agers and the like with some very fixed ideas that dont float my boat. One is greek, another Egyptian, Norse, and Celtic. Each is a god or goddess of an element, war, and sex. This wasn't intentional and as i researched them more and began to understand them and myself...they were the right choice

All except for one. I forced the foot into the shoe a little with one. A god of love, of light. Coupled against a trickster that i hold close to my heart. I couldn't understand it and when i thought of them, called on them, this quarter was always...weaker. I have thought of him as something less and weaker. And in recent memory i have thought of him more, researched him more, to understand why he stands there and perhaps even more interestingly ... why he has remained. I have felt his hand, like the hands of the others pushing me, guiding me, protecting me. The others...i have known and loved. Until more recently. I invoked him the other day as i have not before. And he has answered. I'm also feeling a bit of the backlash from it as well.

In my worship you may ask anything of the gods, and they may choose to answer or not. And if they do, there is a price to be paid. If it is a reconing, and a balancing of the scales, then things may be different, but ask a favor, give a favor. Sometimes that is in personal energy. It's waking up feeling like you've run a mile. Feeling like getting run over by a truck. Or like the last few days-- a few aches and pains out of the blue that weren't there before i lit the candles, filled the chalice with untouched snow, and called for a boon.

The boon, in true fashion, was asked generally and has given back generally but it is what i wanted with some flotsam and jetsam that i will need to sort through. And i am thankful, despite feeling kind of icky.

I don't ask often or frequently. I call the corners and the circle to remember and to appreciate the elements and the deities that i am called to. Other people may not understand this...or maybe they will. I'm not a gung-ho pagan with priests and priestesses. I dont pray to god every day to make my life become magically better. I understand that life helps those who best help themselves. Sometimes i am selfish, and i embrace that...i'm human. Trying to be anything else than this goes counter to what i believe and to those that i invoke. The gods are no more perfect than anything else. Perhaps more understanding but aren't we all? Hindsight is twenty twenty.

There have been other gods invoked at my altar for specific purposes. I have on one occasion done a full ritual. Typically i believe that there needs only be a few minutes spent with invocation, location, and will power for something. Sometimes i use chant. The only time i've pulled out the bells and whistles (which...arent a lot...i'll describe my set up in a minute) involved a more solid circle, planned invocations, and most of my working materials. It was an invocation of the Hunt, for what it is worth. It was a call from the deepest depths of me in good and bad and i felt the touch of power in the most tangible way i have ever felt it. Three days later after getting knocked flat on my ass, i saw the fallout.

Maybe it was Karma, maybe it was magic, or sudden chance. But something happened and i dont look gift horses in the mouth. So in any event...i dont know why im even really babbling.

Oh - my setup. I have an altar that ive kept since i started college. It's added things over the years and things have been taken out. I used to have a circle made of white feathers, now i use 4 river stones to mark the corners. Inside is a black glass chalice. Its twin...not on the altar, holds a mix of Rose, Lavendar, Pine, and Lilac. I use it sometimes to remember. inside is a feather wrapped in a piece of leather and three turquoise beads. a polished river stone, a bronze scarab, three pieces of amythyst a black candle, my tarot cars, and my rune stones. A statute of Bast stands in the middle the corners are double marked as well with 4 runes - the ones i have tattooed on my back: Dagaz, Eihwaz, Kenaz, and Ingwaz. At present there's a picture leaning against the statue as she stands guard over it. The day will come soon to take the picture away, but not yet. I'm still on the lookout for a knife. i say knife instead of athame because i believe in the working tools being true tools. I would also like an antler at some point, but one found fallen during the right season than caught. So those are my thoughts right now, and my lack of mystical shwag. I find stuff sometimes, or stuff finds me. either or, really.

hope that's insightful. ask me questions if you care to.