La Marassa (SVP).

For the last year, I’ve been paying semi-attention to the Marassa. I’ve been paying some attention to various other lwa as well, but they have unruly pair have been an ongoing amusement for me. It’s only been recently, with Papa Legba’s “learn some things” request that I decided I needed to pay closer attention to these two. After all, if I’ve been commenting on them, remarking on them, and thinking about them, it’s little more to add services to them. I’ve already prepared myself, I think adequately, with my ongoing daily services to Papa Legba. It’s little more to add a weekly homage to the sacred twins.

They have matching teddy bears, crayons, and cups. It’s not much, but it’s a start.

Last Saturday, I prepared their altar space. As I do live in a very small apartment, I am unable to provide them with what I would truly enjoy. Honestly, I would prefer to have a table for Papa Legba with a side dedicated to the Marassa. According to my readings, Papa Legba is saluted first in a Fet, followed closely by the Marassa. It seems appropriate to my uninitiated self to have the two in close proximity to each other. Unfortunately, due to that whole tiny living space problem I have, I am unable to give either Legba or the Marassa what they deserve and can only give to them what I have on hand. So, as you can see from the picture, the Marassa have a shelf. It’s the third shelf – as the Guédé and the Bawon are on shelf number two. I had a feeling this was going to be an issue, but we make do with what we are capable of. And I was quite right, I think, in how large the issue would become.

As I said, last Saturday, I set up that little altar space for the Marassa. They each have the same things. The only difference is the color of the cars I gave them as they are loaners from my son’s gluttonous box of Hot Wheels. (I’m hoping I can find two identical cars.) I want to add more, like a small pink cloth and a small baby blue cloth, but that will come later. As I tend to associate the Marassa with the childish personalities they are famous for, I provided them with a drink of apple juice as that was the only thing I had on hand. I wasn’t quite comfortable providing them with juice but only because of the day in question. According to my readings, most services in their honor are done Wednesdays. (Source: Serving the Spirits by Mambo Vye Zo Komande LaMenfo.) However, since I was getting their altar ready this past Saturday, I didn’t think it would be harmful to provide them with a sweet drink until Wednesday.

When I went to offer them something new on Wednesday, the juice was moldy.

Now, mold is a hazard of leaving out offerings. Bacteria happens and then mold happens. However, I have to admit that it has been a very rare occurrence for any of my offerings to end up going to mold like that. I’ve left out rum for weeks and weeks with it drying up instead of going moldy. (Although, I’ve add alcoholic libations go moldy on me before, too.) I’ve left cookies and bread items out for at least a week one time and nothing like this happened to it. Hell. The flowers that have been sitting on Sekhmet’s altar for two weeks are only just starting to wilt and die. We’ve all noticed or remarked before that there seems to be a certain kind of “woo” going on when it comes to how long items can last on our altars, I have to admit that I’ve been extremely lucky, I suppose, in the fact that most of my libations and offerings do not go bad.

I really try not to read too much into things. I try not to think that everything I see or think or do is a sign from the spirits to whom I serve. However, this seemed like a very real indicator that whatever I had done was incorrect and left them unhappy. Unfortunately, no one stopped by to tell me what it was that I may have done wrong. I will admit that the jumping feet of two giggling children in my son’s [empty] room have all but stopped and the batteries have run down in the cars they would set off all night in the last six months. So, it’s possible that they are just not happy with me. However, I also provided a service on a day that I didn’t feel comfortable doing because it didn’t seem right. And they could have also been upset that they are number three on the bookcase I’ve retrofitted for all things voodoo related. And yet again, they could have been dissatisfied with what I had provided.

The problem here is that there are a lot of possibilities and very little to go on.

I have to believe that the Marassa to whom I am willing to serve would not punish me for only being able to provide juice. All in all, as much as I want to provide the very best for all of the OTHERS™ in my life, they are all fully aware that my financial situation is rocky at best. And they also know that when I have the extraneous funds, I will provide them with the best of the best. In the meantime, everyone has to make do with what I have on hand. If I’ve learned anything about the OTHERS™ to whom I’ve served in the last five years, whether they be from my voodoo portion or from my Kemetic portion, it’s that they are always willing to wait until the funds are available for the big ticket items, for the organic offerings, and for the ability to provide them with everything us lowly humans believe that they deserve. So while the Motts apple juice may not have been up to a particular standard, I don’t think they’d be angry enough to mold it.

I was hemming and hawing as I added their items to the shelf the entire time. It wasn’t that I was setting things up on the wrong day, but as I had mentioned above, that I was making them “number three” on the list. The thing is that it’s really more of in numerical addition to the spirits that I serve as opposed to favorites. (Though, I will admit to having a certain cache for Papa Legba.) But there is also the possibility that my wants and desires are overshadowing things. I want to give them a big space. I want to provide them with a shelf higher off the ground so I can leave them with sweets and not worry that my dog will snatch them away. (Though there really isn’t any guarantee that a higher shelf would prevent that, honestly – if the dog wants it and the spirits don’t prevent her, then she’ll get it, sadly.) It’s not as though I am a mambo or anything and I have no desire to become one, either. So, as important as the Marassa are in the world of a society, does this mean that I should serve them with the same sort of gravitas and stipulations as institutionalized services?

On the one hand, I have to go with “no.” I am not part of anything aside from me. I can only do as well as I can with what I have to offer, which includes where a spirit may or may not end up in the grand scheme of altar-bookcases. While both Papa Legba and the Marassa are very important lwa to whom we should be very aware of, those of us with a solitary practice cannot very well be limited by the aspects designated by a society. However, on the other hand, I can’t very well go ahead and ignore everything I’ve read on the subject. Papa Legba is the very important first lwa of awesomeness and the Marassa are a close second, practically a one-and-a-half in some places. Since I am obviously conflicted on the subject matter, I need to pay closer attention to what my intuition is telling me here, but unfortunately, all I can get out of that quarter is, oh shit, oh shit, they’re mad at me.

Maybe I really do need to just pay attention to the days that I say I will do something. Even though I was setting everything up and it didn’t feel complete without a libation, I shouldn’t have done so. I mean, the offering is all well and good, however if I’m going to start seriously paying attention to other lwa in my life, then I need to pay closer attention to the days. Papa Legba gets every day of the week, like the netjer, except for Sunday. (Nobody gets anything on Sundays, ever. It’s my day off.) While I wanted to at least get everything set up and started, it’s feasible that I shouldn’t have gone beyond what I was doing: setting up. By shifting this work to a different day, it’s possible I threw something out of whack. After all, Saturdays are the day that I give attention to the Guédé, so by giving them something on a day reserved for the dead. This is a very real concern that, I think, I need to think on further.

But, there is also the fact that, as I mentioned, I haven’t heard from them in a while. They would play the sirens on some of my son’s more obnoxious toys to all hours of the day and night, irritating me and amusing me at the same time. I’ve heard them bounce around on my son’s bed when he’s staying over his grandparents’ house. I’ve heard them bound down the hall when no one is in the hallway and even seen them playing hide-and-go-seek from the corner of my eye. None of this has been happening in recent months. It could be a cause for concern, but I’ve had long periods where such intense contact has waned previously and it’s always started back up. So, while it’s feasible that they are upset with me over something and have yet to make me aware of what that is, this is something that I believe I would have been made privy to already, if this was truly the case.

And I don’t think it is.

I honestly have to wonder if the main cause of the moldy juice was merely because I went out of order here and screwed up on that front.

Just to be on the safe side, though, I’ll be looking into habitual offerings (aside from the sweet items) and see what I can purchase specifically for them when I go grocery shopping.

Hopefully, I’m reading too much into a situation. I try not to, honestly, but it can be very difficult when you are traversing an area that you are far from expert in. It’s also incredibly difficult when such things as regular communication is entirely based on such things like divination, intuition, or an active godphone. As things in my [mundane] life have made it difficult for me to do much more than go through the motions, none of those other options are currently fully functioning at the moment. All I can do is hope that I haven’t truly angered the spirits of some of the more important lwa out there and hope that this upcoming Wednesday, they enjoy what I provide.

Atoure (SVP).

To surround.

Papa Legba by Larissa Clause.

Much of the time, when I am directed to learning something by Vye Legba, I am given a rather oblique and general communication on the subject. Point in case, he wanted me to do some research relating to my previous post and adding celebrations to my religious calendar. His exact wording for what he required of me on this search? “Pick up the book and read what you need.” There really wasn’t a lot to go on when it came to this. I had to decide which book he may be talking about and hope that I was correct. The first book I chose was wrong. Since I had no compulsion to open it until two days after I decided to utilize it for the research necessary, I rather figured it would be a failure on my part. And it was, but I still had to double and triple check that intuitive knowing that I had chosen incorrectly. I stared at my bookcase, thinking long and hard about his instruction before thinking of what I needed and what books I hadn’t read as thoroughly. Maybe he was talking about something I haven’t delved into as heartily as I have with some of my other voodoo books? It would make sense that whatever he wanted me to learn would be in a place I haven’t found it yet, hm? So, I grabbed Serving the Spirits: The Religion of Haitian Vodou by Mambo Vye Zo Komande LaMenfo. And on my second attempt, I found what I was looking for.

The thing is that I’m pretty sure he wanted me to pick up this book for numerous reasons. It wasn’t just the research he’s asking me to look into relating to calendar related items, but also because there were other items I needed to read and learn. And this book really helped me with that in a way that I wasn’t expecting. This particular epiphany related to the Guédé, of all nachon to be epiphany-ing about. And was thoroughly unexpected. (Yet more proof, to me, that Papa Legba is the string puller in the background.) The other thing relating to this book is that a lot of the items she mentioned when discussing the nachon of the Guédé was not something I had heard before and was not something the Bawon found particularly pleasing, either.

While I have done as much research as my little typing fingers can convey and as much reading as my thirty-year-old eyeballs allow, there have been a lot of items that have slipped through the cracks. A large part of this isn’t just my own human frailty but also the fact that there are just going to be things that I am simply incapable of learning because I have not been inducted into a society. I have, mostly, made amends with the fact that the information I have is going to be anthropological in nature – so couched in the terminology of a lot of theories and possibilities – or based on a single person’s practice. While anthropological tomes are pretty damn important to the Kemetic part of things, a lot of my practice with the lwa can be simply stated as “UPG.” I may not know what it is that I am doing, or the specific why of the matter. Sometimes, later, I find out that there is actually a word for what it is I am doing or that there is a specific action that is relating to what it is I have already been doing to serve my spirits. But, for the most part, I’m being pushed and prodded in a way that is completely outside of a standardized frame of reference, or so I believe. While this is, obviously, a problem in numerous arenas – I mean, really, can you imagine talking to a practitioner about some of the shit you do as a non-initiate and not being laughed at because of it? It’s something that I find easier to do because of the Kemetic background that I have.

What it comes down to is that I like the structured reliability of a community to fall back on. However, because I have a functional gateway of communication between myself and the various OTHERS™ who have entered my life, I don’t necessarily require it.

This isn’t to say that whatever I end up with is the proper choice. I can only go so far with rather vague instructions – please see Papa Legba’s commentary above – before I come to a stopping point. But there are days where the fact that I can surround myself with the lwa is infinitely more preferable than having to stop and learn under the tutelage of a human being who is as fallible as myself. By surrounding myself with the lwa and by embracing their entrance into my life – as much as someone as caustic as me can anyway – I think I have it a lot easier. While I know that many established practitioners would read what I write and scoff heartily or would shake their heads or accuse me of something or other, I feel a certain type of safety in these kinds of moments. In learning based on what the lwa themselves desire and have in store for me versus the tried and true message. And as Papa Legba is so fond of telling me over and over again, “Sometimes, you just have to go and fuck up the status quo.” While I’m not quite sure what that means to Papa Legba, I can see what he means. Sometimes, the tried and true methods take a good deal longer than the lwa are willing to wait on.

Something of interest that I found in this section of the book related to how the Guédé and the honored ancestors need to be kept apart when you honor them. This really made me sit back and pay attention to something that had been niggling me in the back of my head. The thing is that when it comes to the akhu veneration that I do, I tend to consider all that I do, from the grave-tending to the minor rituals in home, as a part of that. I also tended to view what I was doing for the akhu as part and parcel with what I was doing with the Bawon and the Guédé. The statements relating to this within the book made me sit back and seriously take stock in the various aspects of my practice and how differentiated they actually are.

Baron Samedi by Veronika Unger.

When I am grave-tending, this is in honor of the Bawon, Maman, and Papa G. I am not doing this for myself. This is how I offer them service each week. This is also why much of what I do when I am in a graveyard stems from bits and pieces I’ve put together in my readings relating to the Guédé. All of the offerings, everything I say, and how I go about what it is I do in those cemeteries is a carefully created Guédé-related blanket that I have sewn together based off of my readings and based off of things that the Guédé have asked of me. When I enter the graveyard, I announce myself, which is something that Bawon requested that I do. When I enter a graveyard, I pay my way with pennies at the sentinel grave nearest the entrance, which is something that I learned from another Vodouisant. The offerings that I leave are based entirely off of things that the Guédé have asked of me or based off of things I’ve picked up here and there in either blogs or books. Every aspect to what I do when I go to the cemetery to honor the locals here is one-hundred percent something relating to the Guédé. This is why I have had a difficult time trying to mesh my Kemetic practice into the grave-tending because, damn it, there is nothing Kemetic about it outside of the occasional cone of incense or the fucking flowers I leave.

And that’s it.

This made me realize that my constant failed attempts at blending the akhu veneration with the service for the Guédé is never going to work. I had a feeling that was the case because, well, every time I go to the cemetery and try to stay in a Kemetic frameset, Bawon comes on over and chews me the hell out over how silly I’m being. I was doing him a sever disservice and doing myself one as well by attempting to blend the two. They have no requirement to be blended. The work I do for the Guédé, the forgotten ones in those cemeteries, has to do with Bawon, Maman, and Papa G. They are not my akhu in the way that this book made me realize: they’re not my fucking relatives so I need to stop inviting them over when I’m doing the Kemetic akhu thing, damn it, because as special as they are to me, their being special has nothing to do with my Kemeticism. That special has to do with the voodoo portion of what it is I do.

Why it has taken me this long to realize this is incredibly stupid and silly and ridiculous. All I can say is that I am a stubborn son of a bitch.

Another item that was of particular interest to me was about how the Guédé and the rest of your lwa need to be kept apart. I do understand this, actually. I know how the rest of the lwa tend to feel about the Guédé. I’ve read enough to know that most of the lwa will leave a Fet if the Guédé show up, unannounced. There are different reasons for it – in this book, there was mention about how Freda will leave when they show up because the Guédé are incredibly tactless and truthful. I understand this, of course, but I have to admit that my Guédé altar is right in the center of my altars for the Marassa and Papa Legba. And of course, wasn’t it interesting that Bawon was a lot less lively around me after I had placed him up there…?

I thought about this a lot. There are some issues that I have relating to the “you have to” in this stuff. A part of it is the fact that a lot of us non-initiated don’t have a lot of time, energy, or space to have the types of altars that the Guédé may want. I know exactly what Bawon wants and I know exactly what he would like on it. I’ve seen it. He’s shown me exactly what he’s hoping to have, one day, in my home. In the interim, what he is looking for is going to have to wait due to a serious lack of space. I live in a very tiny apartment. Every available wall space has been taken up with things like furniture and altars and living space. What bits I have been able to appropriate as functional altars (such as my Anup and akhu altar that sidelines as a filled DVD case) are very small and not very functional. I had to go from a full sized apartment and all of the furniture that furnished that place into a place that is half its size. For fuck’s sake, the living room is 10×14 nook off of the dining area. So, while I understand that the lwa don’t like the Guédé and don’t want them around, there are some things that just have to give.

And that means the Guédé end up smack dab in the middle of two other lwa.

While thinking about how I hadn’t heard anything from the Bawon since I made the decision to add the Guédé to the other lwa‘s home, I felt a brush on my shoulder. It wasn’t really like… it wasn’t like someone was stroking my shoulder to tell me I was doing all right. But it wasn’t exactly not like that either. It was almost a way of saying, “There’s other stuff going on right now and I’m not angry about it and if anyone else is, they can take it up with me so don’t worry about it.” It was soothing, more than anything else, and it helped.

Again, I know that what I’m doing is probably wrong in a lot of other established practitioners’ eyes. However, I have to make do with what I got. And if that means that I’m going to have to put the services I wish to have for some other lwa, most notably the Marassa and Gran Bwa, on hold until things can be maneuvered around properly, and then that’s what I’m going to have to do. It’s not very much like I asked for them to come to me, anyway. They showed up to me, for whatever reason, and I kind of have to believe that means something to both them and to the services I am intending on implementing for each.

I think what really threw me for a loop was this quote, “I was taught that unless you have The Baron in your constellation or were born on his day (November 2) then you do not serve Him. He is too dangerous to anyone He has not chosen for himself. Even those of us who do serve him, must pay the price in the end of that service.” While I agree that nothing is given for free and that we must all, ultimately, pay the price set for us when it comes to the services we offer to the lwa and the Guédé, I’m not quite sure why people should not offer the Baron services. She hints that he is a dark and sinister figure. And while I agree he has his moments, nothing I have found anywhere has ever intimated that he should be left alone. Obviously, each Mambo and Houngan is taught in a different way from one another, which is why there is no unified “this is how it is” in voodoo. But, this statement bothered me a lot.

Yet another downfall of being an uninitiated prat? I have no one to turn to when it comes to this shit.

This was a problem up until I fell asleep when I went to see the Bawon. (Side note: whenever I dream of the lwa, they are in a forest. I know what forest, specifically, they are inhabiting, but I always find it weird that I am, without fail, in a forest and surrounded by forest noises.) He was holding reign over his Guédé and smoking a cigar. And he was quite angry with the much of the items I had taken away from that chapter. At one point, he slashed his hand in a rather sinister manner and said around his cigar, “Don’t you be worrying, baby girl. You do what I tell you to do. That’s what you worry about.” I have to say that I have never seen the Bawon as angry before (and as I told Tumblr this morning, I do not recommend seeing him angry). But he was pretty pissed off with a lot of the ideas and thoughts I was having because of this.

The lesson here (remember there was one) is that just because I find something of note or interest in a book doesn’t mean that the lwa and Guédé whom I offer my services to are going to be pleased with what I pick up. Remember that rambling monologue earlier on about how I get a lot of direction from the lwa and the Guédé because I have a functional godphone? That’s the lesson. The lesson isn’t just that I may find things that the spirits I service disagree with. The lesson is that I’ve spent so much time relying on books, blogs, and other people to tell me what to do here. When all along, I’ve been doing a damn good thing by listening to the lwa and what they’ve wanted of me.

This hearkens back to a conversation I had with Papa Legba recently about Gran Bwa. I’m going to leave off with it here.

Papa Legba You need to honor Gran Bwa. He come to you and you don’t do nothin’ for him.
Me I failed the test he gave me, remember? I figured we were just kind of done. Besides, how the hell do I honor him?
Papa Legba Haven’t you been doin’ that all ready?
Me What? No. I’ve been honoring the land spirit and leaving– Wait.
Papa Legba You been doin’ this whole damn time and you don’t e’en remember what started all that.
Me Oh, fuck.

 

A Catalogue of Weirdness, or Things To Remember.

I needed to write this stuff down before I forgot.

1. Yesterday, I stepped outside and had the most intense feeling of vertigo I’ve ever had. I don’t have them often, but when I do… The thing is that it wasn’t actually vertigo that I was feeling. It had that horrible wishy-washy feel that makes you want to throw up, but it was far more invasive and there was nothing I could do to stop it. I sat heavily down on the front steps. The reason I say it wasn’t vertigo is because it felt like the connections that hold me to my body were wrong and I couldn’t see, taste, touch, smell, or hear anything properly. The colors were muted and yet, too vibrant. The sounds were like they were coming at me from underwater. I’ve considered this experience a bit since that moment and I think it was my body and my soul trying to re-connect the joints, so to speak. I think I may have done some astral shenans in my sleep and I wasn’t as fully back in my body enough to handle the outside as well as I can the inside. Inside the house is all very controlled environment, normal things to hear and taste and touch. Outside the house is not controlled by me in any way and so, therefore, can overtake the senses especially if they’re not fully in your control again.

2. I saw a woman standing beside my bookcase last night. She was watching me from the safety, the shelter of the darkness of the hallway but peering at me around the wall in a very coy manner. This is one of the first times I have had an experience like this that didn’t end in my freaking the fuck out. I take that as a step in the right direction. She was wearing all white and her hair was carefully pinned back from her face. She was curious about me, but when I looked at her directly, she skittered out of my line of sight or perhaps, went back to the realm she is more used to. Speaking with friends about this, we’ve decided this is a visitation from a mutual astral friend of theirs, who I will call A.S. since there are some weird shenans about name-giving. This particular woman has a thing for mothers, wounded women, and children. I tend to fall into two of those three categories, or technically, all three since I do have a child. I left her some tea last night as a “HEY. HOW ARE YOU DOING. LET’S CHAT WHEN YOU’RE LESS SCARED OF ME.”

3. I saw an astral fly on a book TH bought me for my birthday. The book is Temples of Ancient Egypt. It’s one of the books that was recommended to me aeons ago and I finally received it. Anyway, it was definitely a fly body but it was insubstantial like the black bugs that I saw all those times before and assumed I was crazy. It was sitting on the book and twitched its wings before it disappeared. I was staring at that corner for so long, I was getting watery eyes and after images. I blinked and walked away. I had decided that my black bug thing had to do with a cosmic calling card of GTFO than anything else. I didn’t like the possibilities with that decision. Obviously, I was too precipitous in my decision-making in regards to the astral bugs that I see and now must decide upon their meaning on a case by case basis. (OH. JOY.) I saw the bug, again, later on the wood slats that adorn the half wall that hides TH’s computer shit from the living area. It twitched its wings at me a few times and then disappeared. I discussed this with those friends I mentioned (Devo and L). It was decided that I should probably read the book sooner as opposed to later. I said I would once I finished the short, The Body, by Stephen King. (IT USUALLY TAKES ME A DAY OR LESS TO READ THAT SHORT, DEPENDING BUT NOW IT IS TAKING LONGER BECAUSE I AM SCARED SHITLESS OF FINDING SOMETHING PAST LIFE RELATED IN THAT FUCKING BOOK.) It was also decided that the fly was either just a signpost about the book or it may have been the fae, although it was mentioned that fae tend to be colored dots as opposed to black flies.

4. To cover all my bases, I left out tea for A.S., cupcakes for each of the Marassa, and milk with honey for the fae.

5. I keep dreaming about my online friends telling me shit that I can’t understand. I think, honestly, these dreams are precursors to astral shenans that I can’t remember in the morning. I tend to feel just as tired as I do upon rising as I did when I went to bed and I always need a nap in the mid-afternoon to recoup energy loss that shouldn’t be happening. In all honesty, I don’t know where this belief comes from but it just came to me and seemed worth writing down for future consideration.

6. My sacral chakra keeps cramping like a whore whenever I try to work energy into it. I have to keep this up. I can’t stop. I know it’s working. And it’s important that I work this closed chakra. It’s important. I cannot forget the breathing exercises that are working.

A Myriad of Things… With Pictures!

So, in the last few days, I’ve had quite a few random tidbits that actually all equate to my spirituality in some way, but just haven’t gotten around to blogging about them. So, instead of making a bunch of small posts and spreading them out, I decided to do a big huge to-do (with pictures). That way, staring tomorrow, I can start working on two offerings related posts that I’ve been thinking hard about, my calendar post that I promised ages ago, and start prepping for this year’s (and my first, really) celebration of Wep Ronpet. Also, there’s some pie baking in that somewhere, but that’s not anything to do with my spirituality and more to do with the fact that my son has an awesome grandfather who loves blueberry pie and I’m the only person in the world who is willing to make it.

The first to do with anything is about the dead bird I found in my yard.

The bird I found, being put to rest.

After discussing it with K and L, we decided that I should do some unofficial rites for the passage of this bird. I remarked on how the birds were quiet that morning and decided, well, why not? I didn’t have anything to lose and my first instinct had been to bury him. While I’m not fond of doing the gut instinct thing all the time, it was remarked that I probably should. So, I went for it. I ended up going outside with my Deadz spade, a cone of incense, and a cup of water. After making the hole and burying the bird within, I lit the cone of incense in honor the bird’s spirit. I also ended up pouring the water offering in a giant circle around the bird. I felt like I was doing something worthwhile and very important. I also had to figure out what this all meant: was this a signal to begin some work more in tune with Miss Dirty or was this something else?

After take my son and one of my dogs for a walk, I ended up figuring it out. (K and L also aided in this realization, as well.) Recently, I had been driving by a shit-ton of OLD CEMETERIES. Each time, I wasn’t able to stop for whatever reason: not enough time, no camera, no enough time, child in the car, not enough time, and NO CAMERA. And I found myself yearning with each swoop by. I haven’t actually been grave tending since May, I believe. And that is one of the duties that I was taking very seriously and enjoying very much. It may seem strange and odd that what I was doing – playing around in cemeteries – was making me feel good about myself and helpful, and that I was accomplishing something. But there it is. With each click of my camera, I was feeling more in tune with myself. (And seriously began considering a grave tending business up here, in MA.) All that being said, I haven’t done it a long while and I’ve wanted to desperately. Time, energy, a lack of spoons, and various other things have gotten in the way. And it was on that walk that I realized that I’ve been getting in my own way. I need to get out of my way and do what I want. With these thoughts, I felt really at peace.

 

Right in front of the steps, there she was.

That’s when I knew I had done the right thing for the bird and that I was on the right track when it came to my thought process. The bird was pleased with what I had achieved and the gods were pleased that I was finally getting it. Sometimes, I don’t need clue-by-fours.

After a while, I started thinking about how I haven’t really been able to focus on my work with Hekate. This isn’t for lack of want. I do want. Things have just been getting in the way. I’ve been on a mad cleaning spree since I discovered just how bad my bug problem was. (I have thrown out a metric shit ton of personal mementos, never mind all of the bedding and whatnot.) I feel like I’m failing and I know that she doesn’t feel this way – this is merely my perception of the entire situation. After a while, I decided I would sit down and I would apologize to her. I was feeling down in the dumps because of the bug problem and because I feel like an overwhelming failure in a lot of arenas. (No, I’m not going to discuss what’s up with that here.) I needed a laugh.

I need a laugh? The gods obey.

I looked over because I happened to hear clicking that was out of context for my dogs. Jasmine was chasing down Sweet Pea to dominate her with some loving. (Yes, my Jasmine humps the hell out of Sweet Pea, whether she’s in heat or not.) Sweet Pea was not amenable to this and looked for the only place she could hide that wasn’t under my shirt: Hekate’s altar. Where she is trying to hide if the lower shelf on the end table I appropriated for Hekate’s sacred area. This isn’t the first time she’s done this since I pulled the table out and into the kitchen, but it’s the first time she was on there long enough for me to snap a picture. Laughing maniacally, I couldn’t help but fantasize about getting a dog pillow for Sweet Pea to lay upon beneath the altar. If nothing else, this reinforces my belief that Hekate likes dogs – like I didn’t already get that feeling. She evidently really liked Sweet Pea, though, because Jasmine hasn’t tried this yet. (Although, it would be HILARIOUS to see a 20 pound weener-dog trying this on a tiny table shelf.)

Last night, I took apart my son’s room to clean up his toys. (I can’t remember the last time I did a bleach-water soak for his things. Ugh.) So, I filled the bathtub and threw his cars, his blocks, and various miscellaneous toys into the bathtub. After a horrifying moment when I realized that there were crayon bits in there now, as well, I sat down to relax. While I was busy relaxing and watching adult television – Lost Girl is fucking awesome – I couldn’t help but noticed that some of the cars the Sister had bought my son for Christmas were going off. The buttons are extremely easy to set off. You can walk by and they’ll go off. Anyway, they were going off all night long, but the connection wasn’t made until I saw a child’s head poking out of my son’s room. This was disconcerting because the door was shut and the beings that wander my house at least try to pretend that they can’t pass through corporeal shit. But, these were children playing around…

… The Marassa are back.

I was pretty pleased since I haven’t seen them in a few months. Not since the last time I posted about them. But it began to make a lot of sense that they were playing around. Things were getting cleaned up, the cars were out and about instead of locked in their usual bucket, and there was no way I could yell at my son for pressing the same damn button over and over and over and over and over and over again if he wasn’t at home, now could I? These two planned this one out! The one that was in my son’s room came rambling out and played hide-and-go-seek with me in the hallway while the other just pressed the button on the car over and over again. After three blasts, the button pressing would stop for a while and then start back up again. It was pretty cute. At about midnight, I asked them to (nicely) stop playing around but that we could all chase one another in my dreams if they so desired. And evidently they did because I do remember chasing after some giggling twins in my dreams last night.

My birthday is coming up and I realized that I would probably not get much in the way of a birthday this year, like last year. Last year, TH was at work out east somewhere and I was stuck out here. So, I received a flower delivery at work (yes, I worked my birthday) and got FB wishes for my birthday, but very little else. Everyone else forgot. I’m trying hard not to get depressed at the fact that I probably won’t see TH on my birthday, two years running. My birthday is… kind of crappy. My ex-husband decided to get married to me on my birthday. I could have said no but I was young and dumb then, so, my birthday is an eternal reminder that I can make big fucking mistakes. So, with my birthday coming up and depression kind of nearby, I decided to buy some shit for myself. (I bought books, if you must know, but they are not here yet.) I had a promise going with Legba that I would buy a cowrie shell bracelet as well as a lot of cowrie shells for him. We compromised on just the bracelet this time around since the lot of shells I wanted didn’t have free shipping and I was worried I was spending too much, as it was.

LOOK WHAT I GOT.

So, I wasn’t really prepared to find a box in my mailbox this afternoon when I went to walk Jasmine. But there was card board peaking out. I was pretty excited – what was here?!?!? I immediately knew what it was. I also find it pretty damn ironic that the skull beads I had intended on placing on my Deadz altar showed up the DAY after I decided to dismantle my Deadz altar.

Oh, wait what?

Here’s the thing. The bed bug problem I’m going through is pretty fucking horrible. We’ve seen them in every room of our house, and that includes the kitchen. And by the way, the bugs in this house don’t know that they’re not supposed to go in the kitchen but all the literature says that they’re not. So, anyway, this is why I’ve been doing a prevalent, massive, huge clean and purge. (GUYZ. GUYZ. DON’T GET BED BUGS. OKAY.) This means that once the exterminator tells me that everything is okay, I am going to be getting rid of all to most of my furniture. Wait. I go through all the work of getting them cleaned and toss them out? Yes. I cannot and will not have the mental reminder of a horrific time if I can help it… and I can. So, my mattress and box spring, the end table, the night tables, my son’s bedroom furniture, the couches, and the two shelving units, one of which holds my Deadz altar, are all going to be going on the side of the road in two bulk pick up loads.

I seriously debated about the shelving units, actually. One holds a shit-ton of movies that don’t fit in our [broken] DVD cabinet. The other is home to my Deadz altar, which I always forget. That’s because it’s in a small corner that I don’t really pay attention to. I know it’s there but it’s not as in-my-face as the rest of my altars. I can’t miss those since they’re the first thing I do when I walk in the common area of my dining room or when I first walk into my house. (PLANNING; I HAZ IT.) And I haven’t felt my Deadz over there since Sviata Vechera. I’ve also felt that both Papa Ghede, if he was ever in my life, and Anpu do not care for the placing of the altar, or the way it is laid out. So, it goes and I wait until the day when I can put my Deadz in a better location that is IN-MY-FACE.

Oh, irony. You are my life.

Relevant Post

1. Interesting Things!
2. Sviata Vechera