New Year New You 2019: Week Fifteen – In Which We Are Grinding Along

I’m (once again) doing Miss Sugar’s New Year New You Experiment in Radical Magical Transformation because I find it’s a really good way to kick my own ass into getting things done. It’s a good mix of practical, magical, and thought-based exercises to help accomplish specific and significant change in your own life. If it’s relevant to your interests, give it a try!
 
Instructions: We’ve spent a few more weeks thinking, planning, and doing magic. Now it’s time to return to the task at hand: doing the work necessary to accomplish our goals.
 

Next World Tarot – 7 of Pentacles – Abuelita’s Labour of Love Pays Off – An old lady sits surrounded by the art she’s been making for years which, it turns out, people want to pay for.

 

Osho Zen Tarot – 7 of Rainbows – “Patience” – A heavily pregnant person with long hair sits serenely under the phases of the moon.

 
Tarot Card: Seven of Earth. I chose the Seven of Pentacles, and I’m not a hundred percent sure it’s the right card. I’ve often gone with the Eight of the same suit for prompts about gettin’ ‘er done and keeping at it. But I wanted a card that allowed for a little bit of stock-taking as well as action, for a little bit of thoughtfulness alongside the grinding, a little reminder that “this is a marathon, not a sprint” even if the point of doing this as a project with prompts and activities is to get that long process going a little harder and build up some solid momentum.
Cristy C Road says, in her write-up for her Next World rendering of the Seven of Pentacles, “Our bodies execute magic daily, and your destination will blur if you forget the journey”.
 
And this project continues to be a journey. I wrote my initial goals post almost a year-and-a-half ago. I can recognize that I’m making progress, even if it feels super slow.
My glamour magic is at least somewhat effective.
I’ve had eight poems published since I started this project, with another five accepted for publication before the end of 2019 (so far – part of today is dedicated to working on another submission that will, hopefully, up that number again).
I’ve started dating a pretty amazing out-of-town lady and have also been going on more dates with my wife.
I have a whole other project on the go that specifically pertains to sex and sexuality (partnered and otherwise).
While the “know in my bones” part of a lot of those goals is still very (very) much a work in progress, I’ve started telling myself that I have permission to ask for the experiences, care, and pleasure that I want and will really enjoy, that all of me is worthy of love and belonging, and that my “scary” side isn’t actually scary to people who are good for me.
So, like… I’m doing the fucking work, and I’m getting results.
 

Things I’m doing this week to further my goals:
 
Going to a poetry launch at VE, yesterday (helping to refill my creative well while surrounding myself with poetry folks)
 
Going to the Bi/Pan public get-together on my way home from work – also yesterday (thus potentially finding new people who are a great social fit for me, while also getting to say Hi to one or two people I already know are a great social fit for me)
 
Moon Salutations (which open up my hips and unlock my lower back, and which also give me 10 minutes to reach out to one of my Goddesses who I feel like I’ve been neglecting)
 
Reading Burnout, by the Nagoski sisters (and trying to remember to Practice Self-Kindness instead of spectatoring and catastrophizing in Very Specific Situations)
 
Taking care of my garden (because cultivating food is one way I also cultivate abundance and sensuality, particularly while feeling the FINALLY warm sun on my FINALLY bare skin)
 
Asking at the local coffee shop about how to get my self-published chapbooks onto their ‘zine wall, and then – earlier today – following up on that information
 
Going to the park a doing something akin to “assisted” or “suspended” pull-ups (in the interests of eventually being able to take an aerials class and actually get my body into the hoop to do all those cool, graceful, balance-based Beginner Tricks that I think I might be able to pull off… once I’m up there)
 
Working on new poems and finishing my latest poetry submission (to further show off my writing chops and move a little closer to the point where I can start shopping the chapbook around)

 
Concrete things to keep myself moving along, one foot in front of the other.
It’s funny. Or not funny, I’m not sure. I’m thinking about ritual. About Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha defining “prayer” as repetition, intention, change.
So often my repetitions feel like a rut. The rhythm of my days feels very small, less like the foundation of an ostinato and more just the trudge-trudge-trudge of someone who never does anything new. Returning to this post again and again. Some days I feel like nothing gets accomplished, in the grand scheme of things. Other days – like today – I write three new, good poems (based on a three-card draw of a deck I haven’t used in a while, no less) and a draft of a fourth; get extra cream in my coffee from a friendly, queer waitress; get to impress a 2-year-old with my not-so-amazing, but aiming-for-amazing, balancing tricks. Some days the rhythm of yoga and garden and kitchen and writing and making my living by the strength and stamina of my body, some days it feels magical. Some days I can see where this journey is meant to be taking me.

New Year New You 2016: Weeks 14 & 15 – Searching for a Sign + One Small Step and Then One More

I’m doing Miss Sugar’s New Year New You Experiment in Radical Magical Transformation (again) because I find it’s a really good way to kick my own ass into getting things done. You should try it!
 
Instructions: “Now would be a good time to check in with your personal Powers That Be (PTB) about your goals. […] How do your PTB’s advice change your approach to your goals?” PLUS “We’ve spent a few more weeks thinking, planning, and doing magic. Now it’s time to return to the task at hand: doing the work necessary to accomplish our goals.”.
 
Tarot Cards: Eight of Vessels (Week 14) + Two of Earth (Week 15).
 
So. I spent the past month-and-a-bit avoiding my tarot cards. A mixture of being afraid of what they’d tell me and being afraid of how I’d mis/read things (the stories in our heads are frequently how we interpret readings for ourselves, and it’s easy to read worst-case scenarios AND wishful-thinking daydreams into what the cards have to say).
None the less, messages have a way of getting through.
A huge part of the Queen of Cups Project has been, basically, answering the question of “How do I get to Happy?” Miss Sugar talks, occasionally, about Radiomancy – the practice of seeing what pops up when you spin the dial, put your playlist on shuffle, or otherwise just see what songs are screaming at you from the airwaves.
I’ve been getting these two a lot. Plus this came across my desk this morning.
Gosh, do you think someone is trying to tell me something?
>.>
 
Yeah.
 
My Eight of Water story is, basically, “Gotta let this one go. No fixing it. Time to start again. Put your energy somewhere else” like, say, feeding your whale heart and nurturing relationships with people who actually care about you. Combine that with all the “Femme Emotional Labour” and “Trojan Horse Boundary Crossing” stories I’ve been getting linked to, of late (or, y’know, all freaking year…) and, yeah. The Eight of Blooms (top, right) is the pearl found (at last?) after going through a lot of oysters. All those discarded heart and vulva shapes ringing a treasure found by moonlight, by shining a light on all my old patterns and assumptions. The “rebirth” of the Eight of Vessels is a reminder that there will be other chances, that it’s hard to be happy when you’re fussing over every little thing in order to “make” yourself worthy in the eyes of someone who, when you get right down to it, messed with your head and took advantage of you, no matter how much of a compassionate lens you can view that through.
 
So that’s the information I’ve been getting.
 
How does that translate into One Small Thing I can do to push towards my goal?
My Queen of Cups goal has been to become more receptive, to understand that I’m actually loveable and worthy rather than just some fuck-up who has too much privilege and too much monster-brain to warrant being cared for without having to seriously earn that stuff. So…
I mentioned feeding my “whale heart”. That’s a Life Coaching thing, my “new Way of being/operating” that is self-compassionate, and doesn’t truck with people who won’t step up to meet her needs the way she steps up to meet theirs. The one small thing, the moment-to-moment practical thing I can do to feed my Whale Heart is to practice being kind to myself and doing what’s actually good for me.
Yes, it’s totally a challenge – I’m something of what Nydia Dauphin calls a “high functioning self-neglector”. Way more likely to make food if I’m feeding someone other than myself. Way more likely to swallow the worst of my feelings and focus on others than make them listen to me whine (uh… this entire blog notwithstanding…) – but it’s also necessary. So. Things I can do right now along those lines?
 
Start the latest batch of stock + process a bunch of sunchokes/as’kebwan’ for the freezer. This will make it easier for me to make meals later on.
 
Put dinner in the oven (I dug through my meat bin, in the freezer, and pulled out a tiny roast. This, with some sunchokes/as’kebwan’ will be a good start to dinner. I can throw in some frozen veggies or pickled beets and sour kraut (if they’re ready) for veggie content) and make myself Real Food instead snacking on crackers until my wife gets home to start cooking. It’s not quite making Real Food For Just Me, but it’s a step in that direction.
 
Bake something (probably soda bread and/or brownies using whey and/or Gone Off Milk). This will be creative, plus it will mean easy go-to food available for lunches and snacks over the next few days. It will also clean out the fridge a bit, which won’t hurt.
 
Do 10 minutes of yoga (child’s pose, plank, tree, warrior pose in one direction, Goddess pose, warrior pose in the opposite direction, downward dog, heart-melting pose, child’s pose again), possibly while humming. This will work my body, strengthen my arms and my core (good for my back), remind me to make music and let me move energy through my body.
 
Start anointing my heart chakra with “Unveiled” – a limited edition perfume/magical oil that Miss Sugar made, years ago – to help me see what I usually can’t/won’t see, the bad stuff I wish wasn’t there, but also the good stuff that I’m too prone to ignoring or refusing to allow in.
 
Wish me luck!
 
 
TTFN,
Meliad the Birch Maiden.