Thoughts For the Season

I took this image more than a week ago and I think it's got some brilliant red colors to enjoy and mark the important, but often forgotten, point of the whole season of holidays: the return of the sun after the longest night of the year. Unfortunately, my monitor crapped out on me and I've had to temporarily replace it with an ancient Compaq monitor that only has 32 bit color. So, I'm not quite sure if this photo is very red or not. Either way I seem to remember liking this image, so I hope you do too!

I read on The Wild Hunt how some 300 people came to Stonehenge to celebrate the Solstice on the wrong day and I just couldn't believe it. Or, rather, I was incredibly dismayed by it. I know I'm a hardass about celebrating the solstices, equinoxes and cross quarters at the right time (I don't celebrate Samhain on Halloween, for example, but on the actual cross quarter which usually occurs a full week after Halloween) but come on folks! You call yourselves pagans? And you didn't even realize that our holydays are based on astronomical events and thus don't always occur on the same calendar date? You know so little about what it means to be pagan that it never once occurred to you to check the date? I wish I could meet those folks and slap them silly! I guess I wouldn't have to slap them silly since they are already! Okay, stepping off soapbox now.

I stayed up all night on Yule and kept the fireplaces and candles burning all night. I like the idea of making it a tradition; it's a beautiful way to not only recognize the solstice but show respect for the sun. I've read before how keeping candles/lights burning all during the Yule night will help draw the sun back or otherwise help the sun find its way back. I don't think the sun needs our help but I like the idea showing my support. There's also that little fact of it being seriously cold to encourage one to keep fires going!

Here's hoping you and yours stay warm and happy during this season and all the years to come!

Control

Idris over at House of Inanna recently wrote a blog post that really got my motor running about something I've been mulling over for a lot of years: control. Here's Idris:

Children had to [be] forced to the truth - and schools were created whose sole purpose was to break this natural urge to move to delight and love and force them to bend their knees to will of old and woman-denying men.

The above kicked me closer toward a conclusion that's been growing in the back of my head for most of my adult life: everything really is about control. It's not sex, it's not money or love, etc.; those things aren't secondary necessarily but are things to have control over. Starkhawk was/is very wise to discuss the idea of power over in her writings. (I really need to get her books off my dusty bookshelf!) And she's totally correct.

You know who else is correct? The BDSM crowd and the psychological folks: in every relationship there are dominant personalities and the submissive, weaker personalities. And some people just don't know when to quit or when to stand up and start. There are control freaks and those who don't want to be controlled by others but also can't or won't make hard decisions and stand by them.

The power hungry I can't really say much about other than that they've got serious ego issues that can, and often do, involve the domination of millions. They are of a breed largely unknown to me. I can only assume that those who feel the need to control many others are themselves very low in the self-esteem department and somehow think that if they dictate the actions of others than their own will be perfect. Or something.

Now the regular everyday controlling, bossy people are different. They like to keep their ducks in a row and have a handle on their particular situation. And I get that, I really do. Some people make better leaders than others. Some people are better under pressure and can make better decisions. And that's all well and good. My problem with some controlling people is their amazing ability to make everyone around them feel like stupid, barely evolved children who don't even have thumbs let alone the capacity for critical thought. I guess the only thing to do in that situation is to just ask them to lay off. At least, that's what I usually do.

As far as the rest goes, I've heard the phrase "passive aggressive" and always thought it was just a bunch of shit. I used to think, and I still do in part, that those who accuse others of being passive aggressive are just pissed cuz they don't get to rule the playground. And that is true, in one sense. But as I've gotten older I've learned that being passive aggressive can also be a wimpy, whiny ass way of doing your own thing while pretending to do what you know is best. And it's mostly a control and ego issue. There's a line in a Fiona Apple song that goes: "Do I wanna do right, of course. But do I really wanna feel I'm forced to answer you, hell no." And I completely understand that!

We've all got our own opinions and ideas and sometimes it's really damned hard to follow through on a stupid idea assigned by someone else. But being passive aggressive is agreeing to do something to a person's face and then doing something different once they've gone. Instead of having the guts to disagree with that person at the start the passive aggressive turd says one thing and does another. Passive aggressive people are experts at being two-faced. I oughta know, I've been one and occasionally still suffer relapses.

As I move further into the firey stage of my life I'm doing the passive aggressive schtick less and less. No, I'd much rather point out how wrong you are to begin with so I don't have to go through the charade of following your stupid orders. I'd much rather do that than add more bullshit to the already overflowing bullshit supply to be found in this world. I guess for many of us it's just a matter of age, experience and strength of character. I'm coming up with all kinds of new mottoes or mantras lately. My most recent is: I will not tolerate bullshit from others or myself.

Sacrificed Sense

Have you ever played one of those mind bending "what if?" games with someone? Ya know, you're passing the joint and you get to talking about weird shit? Or have you, like me, just pondered strange stuff on your own as you looked longingly at your stash box and tried to swallow down a cheap beer? Well, I have done the latter a lot lately and something I came up with was this: if you had to give up one of your senses which would it be? Smell, taste, sight, hearing, touch or speech? Without hesitation I chose speech.Why?

Well, my most important sense is hearing. That's a no brainer. While it makes communication infinitely easier that's not the reason I would never choose to give it up. Nope. I'd never give up the ability to hear because I couldn't live without music. Couldn't do it. "Oh, I can't hear anymore? You got a gun handy so I can stick it in my mouth? Sorry about the mess. Bang." No question. Take away my hearing and dig my grave.

My next most important sense is sight. I don't cherish it as much as hearing but I don't know how I'd handle never seeing a sunset again. I don't know what kind of life I'd be living if I couldn't see the afternoon sun streaming through the bright green leaves of spring. If I couldn't see the moon? Forget about it! I also know it would hurt like hell to not see my young cousins grow up. That would gut me. So, no, not willing to give up my sight.

Next most important is probably touch. And this is because I think daily life would just be incredibly difficult if I couldn't feel what I was touching. Can you imagine trying to use the bathroom if you couldn't feel? Or wash dishes or drive a car? I don't know how I'd function if I couldn't feel. And the biggie of touch is typing! I couldn't make it without that. I guess it's possible to learn how to function without feeling but I'm not willing to go there.

Smell and taste are up next. I put them together cuz, well, they just go together don't they? Peas and carrots, chocolate and peanut butter, toast and jam, smell and taste, see a pattern? While I would greatly miss the smell of rain and the smell of bacon frying I'd be much more willing to give those abilities up than others but there is another sense I would sacrifice in a heartbeat. And that's speech.

I've got very little use for the ability to speak. I don't like to talk all that much. In recent years I did most of my talking when I was stoned and now that's past and I'm back to talking only when absolutely necessary or when reunited with friends. I don't get to leave the house very often and I have only a very few friends to visit anyway. And, even when I do get to visit with friends, I talk for a little while to catch up and then I'm all talked out. When I was very young I virtually stopped talking for over a year. I did the baby noises thing and was starting to say a few words and then my sister was born and I stopped talking. Just like that, barely a word for a long time. I would answer a question but that was it.

And then, one day, I started talking in complete sentences expressing complete thoughts and ideas. So, clearly, while I wasn't talking I was still comprehending, I was still thinking and learning and growing. I just didn't feel the need to tell anyone about it. Later that night, as my Mom tucked me into bed, she asked me why I went so long without saying much and my answer was pretty simple: "I didn't have anything to say." I have no memory of any of this because I was too young. But I totally understand because I still feel that way. If I don't have anything important to say I don't talk. To me, speaking is necessary when answering a question or when expressing something important and that's it. It certainly isn't enjoyable or fun; it's almost a necessary evil sometimes.

There is one problem with this whole idea of giving up the ability to speak: I guess the ability to sing would go along with it. And that would seriously suck. I love singing, I love to sing! And I'm pretty damned good at it if I do say so myself. And I do. I can't sing like I could when I was a teenager. After all, I've smoked a lot of weed since then, had chronic bronchitis for a number of years and developed allergy induced asthma. And, to top it all off, I haven't done a scale since the day I graduated high school. There's also the sad fact that I haven't had much reason to sing about in the last few years. So, no, losing the ability to sing wouldn't make for too much of a change in my life. But I would still miss the hell out of it because when I feel like belting it out, and I really can, I love it.


If I was a nun-type person who took a vow of silence I don't think my chosen god would accept it as a virtuous decision as keeping silent isn't difficult for me, not in the least. I can happily go hours and hours and hours without saying a single word if given the chance. I'm just not a vocal, verbal person. Nothing infuriates me more than those individuals who, for whatever reason, talk incessantly. It's a waste of energy and incredibly irritating to boot. I don't waste words and I nearly always say exactly what I mean and nothing more. I don't play head games because they're all essentially games played with verbal tactics. And those things hold no interest for me. I say what I mean and there's no point in reading anything into it because if I had more to say I would just say it and not make you guess. Period.


As I've gotten older, harder and meaner I've become more like that in my writings. There aren't any hidden meanings, no insinuations, no intimations. There's no reason to read between the lines because there are no lines to read between. I don't play games and I don't employ much subtlety. I don't tolerate bullshit and I don't serve it up. I've got lots of ideas, opinions, questions and just outright blatherings to share but the internet is my chosen method for communicating these things. I love words, I love words! But I greatly prefer them typed and spell checked.

What sense would you be most willing to sacrifice?

Under Construction Part II

Well, after receiving some great feedback from various readers I came to the conclusion that the worry I'd had from the beginning, about the readability of the text over the awesome background, was well founded. Yeah, the template was gorgeous but I should have stuck with my hard and fast rule against transparent templates. It was great looking but it presented too many problems and really did make reading difficult. So, now I've changed templates again with no transparencies this time! I've yet to add my title image or any of my widgets but I'll keep at it.

You may also notice, or you may not, I dunno, that I've got a lot more posts than I did last time you visited and that my label count looks a lot different and is now topped by "photography". Well, that's cuz I merged Sacred Spiral Creations, my photography (and sometime collage and occasionally textile craft) blog with this blog. It just makes sense to include my creative pursuits, such as they are, with Magic in These Hills which has, over the last year especially, become much more personal. So, if you are so inclined, please check out the new labels and see some of my so-called art. And, as always, feel free to offer some feedback about it! I'm hoping that getting those pictures and such out to more readers will inspire me and get me moving back into a creative mode.

Anyway, when I first started this blog I was dead set against including anything relating to my personal life. It was gonna be all business: mythological discussions, pagan issues in the news, witchcraft tools, ideas, ethics, etc. And while I've included all of that, and more, somewhere along the way I began including more and more personal stuff. I guess that was just a function of time as I began to make genuine friends throughout the blogosphere and felt the need to vent about my deteriorating family situation.

So, that's the news, that's the latest scoop. I'm pretty happy with this new layout: it reflects my personality with its firey swirls and spirals. I'd still like to know what you kind folks think of it, but I'm pretty sure I'll be sticking with it. I'd also like to fess up that I've been a terrible reader these last few months. As my urge to write slipped away from me any pleasure I got from reading the blogs of others was also stripped from me. So, for the time being, I'll refrain from adding a huge blog list. It's going to take me some time to (re)acquaint myself with my favorite, and new found, blogs. So, if you used to be in my blog list but aren't just yet, don't fret; I'll get to it! Thanks everyone for all of your kind words and patience over the last year or so. I'm back in the saddle again and it feels good!