Attack of the Cootied Zombie Mom

It's Wednesday evening and finally things have settled in, at least as much as it's going to settle before bed time for little ones. This week started off on shaky ground for me. I had spent a good of last week checking fevers, plying remedies, and trying to keep up with the flow of how everyone else had to move through the week. Well, as is predictable, now Mom has the cooties and I still have to slog along to keep up with the rest of the family. Ok I don't know who I am fooling with that one. . . it's attack of the cootied zombie mom, so this entire post could out right be completely non-sequitor and bonkers to boot.

First, I would like to congratulate Kris Bradley ( Aka Mrs. B) from Confessions of a Pagan Soccer Mom on the publication of her first book through Weiser Publishing! Huzzah Kris! Way to rise above the slime that was thrown at you last year! She has also been picked up by Patheos! More kudos!

I guess my younger two kids have turned me into a bleacher mom. Miss B is playing volleyball and the Little man has football fever. I am not so much a sports fan, but I am sure as hex a fan of my kids, so if that means I have to go sit in bleachers and cheer from the side lines, so it will be. I am sort of enjoying it, truth be told. I love seeing my kids get out and do stuff they love. The are competitive little ones, far more competitive than I. . . I suppose I can either blame the cooties for that or their father. Right now, I am more into blaming the cooties for everything. ( I didn't say it was their fault, but I AM blaming them!)

I have been walking little man to the bus stop in the morning and picking him up in the afternoon. It's a bit hottish in the afternoon, but we live close and can find a few trees to duck under for a water break on the way. This has been the morning/ afternoon ritual for a bit now that school has started and the neighborhood stray cat on that block has taken notice. He looked up at me the other day and, bold as the sun is bright, came up to me and started purring and rubbing all over me. ( Nike was not happy with me. ) The cat sat down after a while at my feet and continued to purr. We had a brief conversation which consisted of me talking to a cat and the cat meowing back as though holding up his end of the conversation. It's probably a good thing I was by myself, crazy cat lady comes to mind.

The cat conversation was a nice little break in all the crazy makings of the zombie mom I am right now. It just seems that everything has to happen at once. It's like the universe sprang at me with a pop quiz and I left my brain in bed. I wonder why it happens like that. Part of me wonders if it's a subtle reminder that you are stronger than you think you are. Maybe it's just that I am worn through and everything feels much bigger than it really is. What I do know is that there are things that I have to do. I have had a hard last year with my immune system doing crazy stress sick stuff with the move and I have not been back up to par in that area. I suspect other things may be going on as well and have created a mundane and magical plans to bring myself out of the hole.

First order of business is a diet shift. Nothing drastic, just more fresh produce than usual. Soup, salad and bread season is on us and I guess it's right on time. What I would really like to do is collect a bunch of different salad recipes of varying seasons and start making a bunch of salads and soups for dinners while cutting down the meat we intake. Don't even ask me to cut out my bread. . . I will have to send my flying monkeys at you.

 Second order of business is to add a clearing bath to my regiment. I was pouring through one of my books and ran across a recipe for the worn through haggard out spirit. Well that certainly describes me right now. The original working calls for it to be summer solstice, however, as in all things magical, sometimes you ignore the 'right' timing and do what the emergency calls for right now! Besides, there is plenty of fire in this Az desert sun left to serve the purpose of this magic ablution! Just because the calendar say's Autumn, does not mean the weather agrees. It's still hot. So emergency batch of Golden Waters. . . sorry about the weird timing. .  just help me!

Third order of business. . . more stress management. Meditation time must be carved out. I get time to meditate, but I have not established a patterned since I moved into the new house. There are things that I do that have been etched into me since the beginning of my training days, however, my 10 minutes minimum a day has been tossed around like a restless wave gone rogue. Time to grab the sea by the roll and channel it into a new pattern. One that fits my life now.

The moon grows larger and brighter as I type this. I know that this is the time of year where I turn inward to see where I am as an individual. This is just the beginning of a whole bunch of coming introspection and I am trying to make it as productive and holistic as I can. The good things ( and there have been blessings all along the path this year) keep me warm at heart, but the bothersome things still kick my arse with mean bouts of insomnia/ chronic fatigue cycles, that have left me hopelessly Mad Hatter-ish at best on some days. I know this year I will be avoiding and Lead Pentacle work like the plague and focus on a more Jovian resonance this coming Yuletide. Be happy dammit!

The Gods of Samhain cometh and I can hear the world thunder with their tread. Ride the wave, find your balance, and dive deep!

7 Seven 7: a beastly upgrade.

I'm a gonna break the rules. I know right? Shock and horror. I was presented a blogging award that seems to revolve around the number seven so, I figure we're gonna visit the seven playground instead of seven awful boring facts about me.

See??? Here is said award:

Thank you, Vickie

The first thing that comes to mind for me when seven shows up is that lucky, lucky rabbit from the School House rock multiply your sevens short.

In the video Sampson seems to be the exception to the conventions of how life works in comparison to the conventions everyone else adopts and it works for him. He just has the luck and timing thing on his side. Well, sevens have the capacity to be just that: the hand of divine providence that places you in just the place at the right time with just the right thing to say or do. It talks of mystery, magic, fate, gods, and ancestors.

I have had several different philosophies of how numbers are looked at opened up to me when I decided I wished to hone the talents my ancestors gifted to me. Because of that, I have sort of formed this mash up understanding of what numbers talk about when they present themselves repeatedly. The most recent added facet would be my studying and work with Mongolian Shamanic divination techniques. Through these studies I have been putting myself to the task to, I have found that it's not just the number that matters, but the context under which the number is dropped into. This is most clearly demonstrated in the 9 coin divination. The seven of heads indicates success and full recoveries from illness, while the tail indicates horrible disaster by means of predator.

If you turn your attention to the tarot system, seven pips seem to also have that same dualistic nature regardless of its heads up/ down position. It could be talking about using all at your disposal, including magic, to manifest your goals and dreams or it could be talking about delusion, over defensiveness against enemies that do not exist, and fears that are overpowering and defy logic. The inverted seven in this system is usually a great big, wafting lacy, red curtain. . . As in: STOP. Right. Now. Look around you and pay attention.

Turning our attention back to a Mongolian system, the seven in the spread of thirteen talks about you being consumed and crossed by your own anger, self sabotage, or someone is very angry with you and throwing monkey wrenches in your gears. It's clearly a very negative thing here, but a very important message that could shift how you move through the maze. Even then, I would still qualify that as a hand of fate thing on the account of forcing you to acknowledge that something here is not right and you need to take a closer look to know how to fix it.

In a method I was taught to read playing cards,  the sevens are said to bring the troubles that fate has assigned. While Fate may indeed be spinning out our assigned troubles, hurdles, and flying monkeys, Fate does not assign how we choose to handle them. Clearly, that choice remains in our realm and how we choose to handle those things may be the sole key in how the event unfolds. Yes I know, it is a paradox of sorts, albeit, a comforting paradox to me, however.

Sevens are sort of like the words a friend keeps saying to me: " I have good news and bad news: the future is in your hands." Really, it is a sort of beastly up grade to your situation, usually born of strife and chaos, but the imagination takes flight as necessity demands a solution.

Seven seems to be the pinnacle of blessings and blasphemy: 7th Heaven and 7 layers of Hell, 7 chakras and 7 deadly sins, 7 days of the week and 7 seas ( oh come on, we all know you want to obliterate Monday.)  Both the fairy realm and Pleiadies are represented by a star of seven points. So I guess I have good news and bad news: how you handle sevens is all in your hands.