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For me, prospering financially, emotionally, and spiritually requires fully engaging in life, not backing off from whatever’s occurring. Being human, I readily forsake the moment, but if I move into the now on a somewhat consistent basis, abundance comes, accompanied by serenity. One of my blocks to being in the moment is finding glory in self-pity. I try to avoid it, even when things are at their worst, because self-pity makes my defeat more likely. For example, when we thought I had only months to live, trying to avoid self-pity and instead committing to the moment and being of service to it allowed triumph; now I have another 20 years in me.

I want to feel my life is of epic proportion. However, I don’t want to create that feeling by constantly dwelling on my problems, making them grow in my mind, so that I view myself to be an abandoned, struggling hero. 

The term witch’s ladder has a few meanings, but here I use it to designate a spell made by tying knots in a length of cord. Various items, such as feathers and beads, might be tucked into the knots.

It occurred to me that perhaps a witch’s ladder could be made not by making knots and inserting items into them, but by spinning a cord—actually creating a cord using the ancient art of spinning fibers together—while spinning into the fibers a length of strong thread onto which beads had been strung. 

After all, there must’ve been a time in history when a witch’s ladder was not necessarily made by tying knots in a cord, but by actually creating a cord using the ancient art of spinning fibers together. That seems inevitable, given the magic inherent in spinning.

I could no longer stand the hate I felt for people who hate. 

The night of July 5, 2018, I had the strangest dream. Instead of living in my sweet house, I was living in a large apartment, and Donald Trump was my flatmate. We weren’t lovers, we were buddies. The degree to which I have loathed the 45th and everything he stands for makes the dream quite strange, given that he and I got along quite well in the dream.

In the dream, we were talking, and then I accidentally bumped up against him, and it seemed like his little penis was hard, but he didn’t even blink. Of course, Trump would not blink because he is a sly, awful man. He‘d leave me in that oh-so-awful-and-prevalent feminine quandary of endlessly debating with oneself, wondering things like “Am I just imagining things ...?" But I brushed his behavior off because neither his slyness nor anything else about him was bothering me. Remarkable dream for me!

 I pray: 

I will not live drawn and quartered by the hate and fear around me. I will not respond to hate and fear with hate and fear, thereby ripping my body apart myself, but will remain whole, loving, confident, present, and happy.

When in action, I will not be disjointed. I will be integrated.

When my arm reaches out—to give, to heal someone, to bless, to receive—God the Father’s hand supports my arm so its mere and insufficient human strength is upheld by His endless power.

Self-love and self-expression threaten tyranny. Perfectionism threatens self-love and self-expression. 

Perfectionism is a demon that oppressors invoke and send out to harry everyone but themselves. The demon haunts someone until that individual sees no merit in their own accomplishments, is paralyzed by insane expectations of themselves, and loses self-worth. 

As soon as I tried to capture the moment,

it flew away.

Traditional lore can inform, gently point to mysteries, and outright open gateways. But, nowadays, in the Pagan community, rigid interpretation of lore often becomes a stranglehold on magical and spiritual practices.

I’ve spent years learning lore, meditating on it so it can inform shamanic lessons I give, and creating ritual based in lore. So I’d be the first to insist that, sometimes, lore provides definitive, irrefutable facts. However, common sense is needed.  

My mother taught me to think for myself. It was one of the greatest gifts a parent can give.