I have really enjoyed the years Iâve been on this website and appreciate so much the support Iâve received from so many of you. Iâve learned from people whoâve been kind enough to share and interact, and Iâve just had a lot of fun. The last three years have been hard; I lost my career and marriage due to an alcohol addiction and mental illness that nearly killed me. I ended up in a sober home for two years and let this blog sit basically idle while I got my shit together, but I really have enjoyed being more active recently. I had a surgery that ended forever my dream of becoming a mother. I bounced back and Iâm rebuilding. I have a wonderful therapist and have really benefitted from Dialectical Behavior Therapy. For any of you struggling with bipolar disorder, borderline personality disorder, trauma and abusive childhoods, and/or substance abuse disorder, I recommend checking that branch of therapy out. Itâs changed my life. Iâve also grown and changed spiritually. I waffled around for a while, not really sure what I believed and where I was going on my path, but I feel surer now.
Unfortunately, this is no longer a space in which I feel comfortable. There are many judgmental people in my life who would like to dictate how I live my own, and I find that in sharing this blog with someone Iâve actually opened myself up to criticism, ridicule and harsh judgment, and have the additional threat of being exposed to my broader community and family before Iâm ready. Thatâs just not something I can deal with, considering everything going on in my personal life. Iâve shared quite a bit of information that could easily identify me, including linking to other social media accounts, so I never intended to be fully anonymous, but I find that someone cyber-stalking and cherry-picking my posts and denigrating my practice and beliefs has worn me down and turned something I once so enjoyed into something that doesnât feel good anymore. I might be attaching too much sentiment to it, I tend to be kinda dramatic, but it was special to me. Iâve always wanted community and to meet and interact with likeminded folks. Itâs lonely sometimes, where I live, and building community has become something very important to me. I donât go into a lot of specifics about how I practice or what workings Iâm doing at any given time, but I always planned on sharing more about whatâs worked for me, when itâs worked. I regret that I feel like in some ways Iâm going backward, retreating, but I donât really see a way around it.
I donât know that I wonât change my mind about this retreat or regrouping, but Iâm going to take a break. Goodbye! Blessings and well wishes to anyone reading. I hope that you find community, peace, acceptance, and that on your journey you find yourself in a position to never have to stand down, back into the shadows (unless thatâs where youâd prefer to be), and hide any part of who you are.
Iâm leaving everything the way it is, because there are some things Iâve shared (like those posts from a while back of Appalachians sharing folk healing and folk magic stories) that someone might find encouraging or interesting or helpful. Those stories will die away, if we donât preserve them. Our culture is changing, and weâre losing many things - some should be lost, but others are so special. I can only hope that in the future I might be able to look at my niece and nephew, since I canât have kids of my own, and see an interest in where they come from and the ways our family and others like them believed and made magic and medicine and found their resilience and their livesâ meanings. I hope they love and protect the land, and cherish those stories wherever in the world their lives take them off to.















