Full Moon – Snow Moon Crests

So Snow Moon is full today. The sky is very clear, though there’s more snow in the forecast over the next couple of days. The past week of very, very cold (but normal for this time of year[1]) weather seems to be calming down and the temperature has been lifting to around -11 from it previous postion of about -30.
 
My altars are lit (offering day is a day late this week, as we spent all of yesterday in a car with my wife, driving to and from Toronto in order to pick up a couple of patchers[2] for the Work Room – but I’ve still been doing weekly offerings since the beginning of Snow Moon, and I’m happy about that). Most of the candles that are burning right now are ones that I made less than an hour ago. Hugging them in seems to work as far as making tealights in a mini-muffin-pan (silicone) goes, in order to make them fin into the little half-ounce foil liners I’ve got lying around.
 

Today I made candles, yes, but also a pair of slippers[3]. I’ve darned (for the second time in my life) a hole in something so that I can wear it again[4]. I also re-sorted my yarn stash (such as it is) and have further organized the work-room, so that I have a shelf for my various Kits (modeling, Voices of Venus, jewelry-shows) to live when they’re not in use. I’ve got a little bit of mending yet to do, and need to find places for a few more things to live (inside of an hour), but things are moving along.
 
I feel a bit as if, for the moment at least, Full Moon is a time for goal-assesment. If New Moon is a time for figuring out what to focus on, Full Moon is a time for taking stock and seeing where things need to be tweaked.
 
I admit, I’m hoping to come up with something else to focus on during Full Moon. Possibly because my progress report is only semi-okay right now.
Yes, I’ve been doing yoga and a lot of walking (and a lot of modeling, which has helped), albeit not on the schedule I’d originally set up[5]; and yes I’ve been listing and promoting things on Etsy (not exaclty on a weekly basis, slightly more frequently than that, actually, but my promotion of those items is not nearly as smooth and streamlined as I’d intended. It’s more post-promote-forgetaboutit than post-wait-promote-wait-promotesomemore-wait-post…).
I have been working through Trance-Portation, doing the exercises (ish… again, not exactly as written), and writing them up as I go. But I’m nowhere near done my OrgASM writing. I’m not even done the first story, and I committed to writing four. By next Friday. O.O So, yeah, there’s going to be some hurrying on my part that, two weeks ago, I hadn’t expected to need. None the less, I still want to get it done as I said I would. (Wish me luck and good writing).
 
But that’s where I’m at with my Clear, Short-Term Goals.
Decent on three fronts, even if it doesn’t look exactly as planned, and pretty terrible on the fourth (woops).
 
 
I got into a discussion with someone about guilt, shame, and paralysis recently, and my own lack of progress on the OrgASM front is definitely hitting some of those buttons. I’m secretive, don’t want my wife to see what I’m typing even if I’ve told her what it is I’m typing about[6], feel like crying when I look at how fast the day’s gone by and how little of my own work I’ve done.
I know so many people – my own mother included – who keep themselves Busy in order to avoid feelings of guilt and shame over, well, the “sin” of “sloth” (lets be obvious about this – all that protestant work-ethic stuff is ground pretty deep in this culture, whether a pagan hedonist like me approves of it or not).
This isn’t the same thing, I don’t think. Way more “failure to follow through” than “failure to Be Industrious, Just ‘Cause”. But guilt and shame don’t actually get things done. More often than not (for me, at least), they’re instrumental in continuing to not get things done[7]. Heh. I think I should approach Getting Stuff Done the same way I approach activism, in the sense that (1) feeling guilty about something doesn’t actually make it stop happening, and (2) accomplishing small things is better than accomplishing no things, so get on it.
 
And, with that, it’s time for me to skedaddle ’cause I have a slam to deal with.
 
 
TTFN,
Meliad the Birch Maiden.
 
 
[1] We usually get a good week or two of -40 (including wind-chill) in January, the same way we usually get a good week or so of +40 (including humid-ex) in August.
 
[2] Patcher = type of sewing machine that is built for use making/fixing shoes and boots. My wife is a cobler-to-be, so we’re getting her set up. 🙂
 
[3] Last year, I bought a bunch of second-hand sweaters (wool and cotton, for the most part) to “upcycle” into hats and arm-warmers and fingerless mitts that I could sell at winter a craft show. Most of one sweater became two hats and a pair of arm-warmers. Most of the last of it has, today, been stitched into a pair of “mary-jane” style slippers (I used the ribbed collar/neckline to make the “straps” across my insteps) and the few shreds that were left went into the compost, since it was 100% cotton and I figured I could get away with that.
 
[4] More slippers – these ones originally made by my mother-in-law (I quitely purloined them from Ghost, since I’m at home all day and needed something on my feet) some time ago. I wore holes into the balls of the feet and under where my big toe tends to be. Now they have darned patches of pink where the holes used to be, and I’m wearing them on opposite feet in order to re-distribute the wear-patterns.
 
[5] Rather than alternating walks and yoga, I’ve been doing yoga on any day when I didn’t have (a) figure-modeling and/or (b) an on-foot commute to a meeting of one sort or another. There has been more walking and modeling than yoga. On the other hand, I have noticed that I do feel better when I do a bit of yoga in the mornings, so it’s worth paying attention to that and using it to motivate me to do more.
 
[6] I don’t even know. I tell her that I’m blogging about Full Moon and progress reports, and yet I stop typing and get all watchful when she walks behind me to move the patcher. I am a weird, weird little creature in this regard. I don’t understand it.
 
[7] Miss Sugar’s post (and comments section) talks a little about this with regards to “self-talk” and different types of motivation. Some people do better when berating themselves. Others do better with “Gold star for you!” Neither of those work so well for me. I’m better off with “Here’s another manageable chunk. Get it done. Good girl” than anything else.