Sometimes I don't believe in the magic until I tell myself a story that's occurred to me, or until I've bounced the idea against someone:not that talking about it makes it true, but that I've dredged out a truth existing? example: until i explained my feelings about the quiet but present spirits "behind the house" at the family home, I wasn't sure how I felt about the land here, or what there was to it. until I wrote a piece about my ... familiar/tulpa friend ... interacting (well, refusing to interact with) with a similar daemon of my boyfriend's, I hadn't realized that's how I'd envisioned "seeing" it with him, but once I wrote this, it was locked in and became a sort of memory. or vision. just feeling the Sandman, readings on alaskan shamanism vibe again.

shaken loose by the act it's not love but complication the cards are drawn, one has his face and scattered thoughts and squandering and loss the most are mine, many projects brought to fruition but only with strength, a student in debt and green love with too many on either side begins with this and more, complication Everything is a sign, over the door is a black sun that was never important but now I stare until another door opens and the fire returns, violet, streaming somehow too wild with strength, I will be throughout myself.

Stories about how people got started in witchcraft/the occult often seem to be: "I saw shadows and demons from a young age." I like that people can start their story like that. I'm too literal-minded, I think, to just say that and let someone fill in the blanks. Sure, I remember some notable monster dreams as a five-year-old ... Like the shadow on the wall that slowly bent over. Typical sharp-toothed, cartoonish tree-beast. With bent, reaching arms. *shudder*. I was definitely primed with Celtic fairy stories, fantasy movies, and one parent's minor encouragement as he explored his path; but practice and some degree of exploration didn't begin until I was nine. At that point, I was so haunted by the "Is God really a giant sky dick?" and "Where does it all begin?" question that it kept me up nights. I was also a lonely home-schooled child with few friends and parents constantly working, often babysitting my baby sister and fearfully watching the doors and windows in case the dreaded burglar actually entered our floor-level apartment. This has *not* affected my *totally non-defensive and suspicious* mentality in any unhealthy way. (I have never stalked the short hall of my new, adult apartment with a hunting knife in hand for the first month. Ever.) In any case, the shelf of forbidden books I had been so conscientiously not touching on the parent's orders became a possible answer to questions and my lack of power. My first spell was for rain, and with one dramatic success, spells became a tool I could access. Chanting and dancing brought rain, roses and need brought friends I would still trust with my life. Depression eventually depressed my creativity, imagination, and ability to feel the natural "buzz" of life. I start and re-start, trying a slightly altered perspective, seeking the essentials of practice. I feel guilty at times for not being religious, one step away from nihilism. Life gives me a sort of faith; the meaning we give something that is and is not a void gives me hope. I use less and less tools. I would like to read more. I doubt everything. I use many things, regardless. I am essentialist. I may be called "witch". I am a minor magician, perhaps. I continue to define my origin to determine how to proceed. ~

Magic ... A web of customs created, deals with luck, many faces I do not deal in names. The best was in the past the wands were play the cards were games And I play still. I have done nothing with toys they are objects d'art expressing what I've done with bare hands, unadorned skin, fierce words, fever and nightmares and tea leaf patterns.

I don't enjoy long walks anymore. All my problems have all the time in the world with me; and being spiritually/witchy-inclined, I simply feel like I'm overflowing with "fire" and madness. I end up calling for help to anything out there in the dark - a distraction, an attack, an epiphany ... It doesn't matter. I'd be into serious substance abuse if I wasn't so steadfastly against it.

And so, for real, shortly after my declaration to cast a changing/protection on the family home, accidently sliced my finger, immediately went outside to circle the house, chant, and flick blood in strategic places. Home ground is a strange place.

Came to the family farm, saw it was black and bad. Sitting the house, claiming it for the day. Setting what I can. Our wounds are deep. I am forever mitigating, bandaging, coaxing, cajoling. I'll do what I can.

I think I might be a literal landlover. Or the land I grew up in has a literal claw in my soul.

*choke* *cough* Cascarilla powder, you say? Ayeh ... I was smart enough to put something to weigh the powder down in ... like salt ..

I've been tiptoeing around my mugwort stash forEVER, but first time I get my hands on vervain I dive right in, like *yesssss ... hello, Vervain.* It makes me want to paint. is that strange? And I maybe finally get the sleep I so so need.

The weird tickley feeling right before your sleepy leg really burns. But in your head. Or the drop in your stomach as you anticipate falling off an edge. That's the moment the spell was Go. Seeing ghosts is usually accompanied by adrenaline, so heart things, natch. Cursing: the fever started and it built. The fever stays for the night. Chills. Meditation: Bad at that. Strange headspace. Floating. Don't possess me. Only I am here. I'm gonna Weatherwax this. Leave the meditation to Magrat. That is all. Oh, possess *you*? An interesting idea.

I feel like I'm developing a snake fixation. Does it make sense? There's a lot of instinctual fear involved. I seem to remember getting dream-bit by one and waking up with the fang placement burning on my ankle. Does "white snake at the crossing/river" make sense to anyone? I'd like to think there's some significance to the inspiration to draw this kind of shield/heraldry. Or it could be pure mind junk. Always an underlying uncertainty.

I feel like I have to pull back my artsy side sometimes because I'll just be like "I'm gonna make an egregore because ART DESERVES LIFE." Gonna be Witchenstein if I go down that road.

I woke up at some point in the AMs as the weather was changing to rainy and thought, "That is some seriously sexy weather."

This is the problem, on further reflection: I always *wanted* the study and the magic to be ~play~, and always treated it as such. I wanted friends that treated it like play, shared our reading, this was our thing ... Instead I have a workshop in another store, and in the confines of this town I've never felt less connected to the earth. And I feel like I've never gotten enough play. Then my depression really dragged me down ... for years ... And I'm still trying to recover my capacity for empathy and openness, that ability to see the connection is still possible. It's not like I had trouble seeing everywhere through magical lenses as a child, even in the city.