Oh that stalky feeling. . . trust it.

There is a necessary thing I must discuss right now, in spite of the fact that my nerves are still jingle jangled up. Over the years and varying jobs I have held have taught me a very specific skill set. Why??? Because, apparently, I need that crap. I am quasi cute, little, and look easy to manage until I open the big fat sailor mouth my Father bestowed upon me, ( thanks Dad.) I was taught, over the years, to know when I was being stalked.

It's that rumbling and churning in that dark place in your gut. As Feri, I recognize that place as where the Unihipli resides. It went ice cold and rolled through me as I noticed a Black humvee like vehicle slowing and pulling closer. I felt it happen in the back of my brain, just like it did the first time. I actually owe a great large thanks to a specific few Athletic pros. I had learned that some athletes have a predatory edge to them especially in regards to women they mean to woo. There was a physiological response. Everything in me flooded with adrenaline and I turned to see what had spawned such a reaction and this man's eyes had stripped me to the bone with precision. Needless to say, I fled like my heart was going to explode with terror. That was my first experience with the Stalking energy.

It was many years and under different circumstance that I encountered that energy again. I was on the way to the store on a fall morning in Tempe. The weather had spawned a weird fog that danced on the ground in rising spirals as the cars stirred it up. I was sitting at a stop light when I thought I saw a black wolf peek from the fog. I thought I had lost my mind because it was gone just as fast as I thought it was there and the light had just turned against a second look out in the fog. I remember being more curious that shaken at the experience and continued about my business. I was quickly approached in the store by a stranger who wanted to know if I worked out and where because his girl friend wanted him to go get fit. I was stabbed with ice and that same dread feeling I had been taught years ago. I recalled the wolf and sent him sharply on his way. He came back at me forcing me to repeat my move on command much louder and in my scariest Mom voice possible. The adrenaline rushed as it had before and I thanked the wolf that warned me on my toes.

I have another tale of similar experience and then today. The alarms went off like a gong as this guy slowed. He asked me where a street was and grew frustrated when I wouldn't approach the vehicle. He tried to lean closer and I backed away telling him I don't know. I am new to the neighborhood. Both true by the way. I told him to use his phone and look it up on google he'd have better luck than asking me. I walked on and any fool could have seen that I was a little spooked. He whipped his vehicle around  to ask me more questions and I kept going he wanted to stop and I whipped out that Mom voice that only comes when the Unihipili engages and all three souls suddenly snap together with a single command.

"Move along, there's nothing here for you. ( hand swishes through the air. . . no really. . . preferably in the direction you wish to banish this to.)"

I think my Unihipili likes the Jedi Universe model on occasion.

But what did you expect? She also like Dr. Seuss.

I digress.

The underlying lesson here is simple. If you feel from your core a creeping feeling that sets the heart a flight and a cold rush of ice in your blood. If it tells you you are being stalked. . .

Trust it.

Bus stop mom problems

Fear and ecstasy have both been proclaimed on high to be the little death. Fear, however, goes deeper. Fear is also the little death that leads to total obliteration if we are to listen to the Bene Gesserit. I also ran into a reclaiming chant that talks about where there is fear there is power. While I agree to that statement in general. .  I think the specifics of that thought form will differ vastly. I was raised to recognize and reject demagoguery.

Yes there is power in fear. But it is the power of force. Power over. The power that fear bought is as transitory as a person's decision to face that fear, stare it down, and nail that foe to the wall as a trophy. Fear is a mere flash of lightning in the face of love's power. Both lightning and fear have the power to be devastatingly destructive and by holding either of these potent forces is the same as squeezing broken glass in your fist.

We are exhorted as warriors to seek balance within and without. We are reminded that we are not to seek out fighting for the sake of battle, but to go into battle as a means of defending yourself and the ones we love. I am finding that the battle has been brought to me. I live at a bus stop and watch how the kids interact with each other. There's this one party who always seems to get the raw end of the stick. This child is constantly taunted in passive and aggressive ways by another in particular and no one seems to make this prober back off of its prey. I realize what it is these kids are responding to; I also realize that they have no clue, what so ever, as to why they are behaving in the manners they do. I am watching a microcosm of the enclosure effect and it alarms me. No one wants to stand up to the bully. They are all afraid to have an unpopular response to a situation even if it is the correct one.

They are also probably afraid for their lives. I think they smell it too after this morning. I intervened and have in the past between these to butting heads. This was different. There was a hysterical frustration voiced in both tenor and tremble. It frightened me. I am frightened this child may snap. I am frightened that the prober/child has no idea that it could be putting itself in target position. I am frightened that these behavior patterns in our children will only grow more prevalent. I feel intense pressure all around these children as they wait for the bus.

It's horrifying watching other people's children behave as a wild pack of screeching banshees picking each other apart with no respect paid to the skeletons they leave in their wake.

What is it I am to do with this fear as it stalks me? It is indeed a very real and rational fear. I have ideas that include things like peace water sidewalk wash and making chalk drawings on the drive way with magic chalk . . .  let the little man loose. I'll sacrifice some chalks for that cause.

I am not seeking power over the situation with these acts. I am seeking to create a flow of positive energy that prevents all people hanging out in front of my home from believing the imprecations hurled upon them by the cruelness of adolescent behavior.

The school year is almost gone. Literally in two weeks so I need to move fast if I expect to test run it for next season. This thing, drama, what ever it is in front of my house needs to stop presenting itself as a threat to my family's well being.

I feel more settled and now that I faced my fear and followed it's path to nothingness, I find that there is indeed only myself and that the real answer is far more loving and kind than I expected.

Thumper sounds

Dune. Dune. Dune . . . It rolls around in my head and echoes like the deep thrum of a thumper calling something to me. The Fremen, The Bene Gesserit Witches, The Mentats, the Spacing Guild, The Worms, the spice and the eyes. It's the eyes that catch my attention the most. A shade of bewitching qualities. Politics, Shamanism, Jealousy, Greed, Survival, Love, Faith. . . all of those things that excites the iron in our blood and makes it roil for passion is sung in desert chanties secretly inbetween the lines of the story. If you listen you can hear the lonely Stilgar, the unnamed fanatic being born, the devoted heart brother, the conflicted wives. Life and some of its truths I find written in a manner not so far removed from our own realities. It makes the lesson more clear when you can see it from a higher vantage and remove some of the pain inflicted by its passage. Another reason to keep our Shamans well fed ;)

Running the iron pentacle has become something I have been more focused on as I a reading Dune this round. Inevitably, as I have engrained into myself during my training days, the pearl follows quickly brought to heel with a prayer to the Star Goddess and Kala. It's a ritual that flows from one exercise to another like water for me, it's as instilled into me as much as the litany against fear. I shall not fear. Fear is the mind killer. It is the little death that leads to total obliteration. I put that one there on purpose as a teen and it followed me through my life as a faithful servant of self mastery in the moment. A way to ease that quibbley blob of fat in my skull when it freaks out. I am indebted to Frank Herbert's genius for this piece of calming magic.

I am committing an atrocity in the bibliophile world. I am writing in my tattered soft cover. I am reading with a pen, marking the wisdom as I find it. I can't just let this book go even though the cover is duct taped on, the pages threatening to flee out of order and flutter away abandoning me for the illusion of freedom.

I can still hear the thumper.


I know what has been invoked and I must stand firm in the sand with my hooks in my hand. The hiss of the moving worm grows louder. I shall not fear. My hook sinks true and my eye is opened in the desert moon. 

iDune and agents of balance.

Dune Fan art

My iThing is threatening to die on me and I believe it. I thought I had toasted it when I shattered the glass, nope, we got her all fixed up. Then for some weird out of the blue reason,  it decided to go iBad. What I really mean is that trying to get my phone to do anything requires you can break through a bunch of static gobbledy gook that is almost out of the Matrix. Well this afternoon it was not doing the gobbledy gook dance well and was not going to be responsive to anything I did. So,  I whacked it.  I had nothing to lose at that point. On the side of the house. Rather hard. Yes, that's right, I iWhacked my iThing and guess what? It's working just as badly as it was before, but I can still use it until I can replace it.

iPhew.


I am actually sort of preoccupied with a thought form as put forth in Dune about the impermanence of things and how by striving to create and maintain a flow of ever changing moments you inherit eternity. Ourobos has been a prominent symbol the last week. First, it was me rediscovering the tail devouring snake ring my son made for me in jewelry, then Hemlock Grove, This afternoon X-Files. She showed up again and again. I only have a vague idea right now of what She is persistently hinting at: Change is imminent and agents of balance are required.


OK agents of balance? I have no control or influence over that my dear Goddess. So I'll tell you what. How about I do what I can and make a few harlequin poppets?????


So how do we connect Ourobos with Dune??? Hrm. The Worm I guess. I suspect this next reading of Dune is going to be anything but mundane. I'll take notes. I might share.


If you want to tag along with the Dune witchy current I got brewing please let me know maybe we can chat. ;)