The older I get, the harder it is to answer this question. I've enjoyed a range of satisfying accomplishments in my life, but it's hard to single out any one as a "proudest."

Although when it comes right down to it, I guess I'd have to say that I'm pretty darn proud of the job I've done raising Wolfling so far -- because it's required such stretching and growth in order to do it well.

But I'm also very proud of both my theses and the degrees that came with them. I'm proud of directing The Abdication and stage managing Hamlet, and the other shows I've done. I'm proud of being good at being Director of Marketing for the rocket company and helping it earn one of the best reputations in the field for customer service. I'm proud of winning two top awards at FormerMyCo that admins don't usually get. I'm proud of persisting in my priestess training and reaching the point I have. I'm proud of being self-supporting, and for continuing to strive to be better able to be a good material provider for myself.

One of my self-indulgences is paying for extra icons here on LJ. Between that and the loyalty icons I get for each year of paid membership, I have quite a collection.

The problem is that when I look at that collection these days I feel uncomfortable. Most of these were added three or more years ago, when my life looked and felt very different. There are several I haven't used in more than a year. It's time to do some thinning and replacement.

The thing is that I have a weird desire to maintain the integrity of the old posts where these icons remain appropriate -- even though even I don't go back to look at most of them anymore.

Just typing that puts the situation more in context.

This is just another opportunity for me to release the outgrown, the no-longer-useful.

Except that the word "just" is almost never appropriate in such situations. It minimizes the real emotional weight of such a shedding, dishonors both the meaning the things once held and the significance of the growth that the release makes necessary.

My current Freewill Astrology horoscope.

Sagittarius: I hope that by now you have finished scrabbling along on your hands and knees over burning hot shards of broken glass. The next and hopefully final phase of your redemptive quest should be less torturous. In this upcoming chapter, the operative metaphor might be assembling a jigsaw puzzle with 200 pieces, all of which are red. Amazingly enough, you actually have it in you to accomplish this improbable feat -- as long as you don't spread out the puzzle pieces all over the burning hot shards of broken glass. Find a nice, clean, quiet place to do your work.

Yes, I would -- and I would hope that there is at least one person in the world who would do the same for me.

I strongly believe that quality of life is more important than length of life, and it is the right of the person who lives that life to make the decision regarding when continuing to live is no longer desireable.

I believe there should be processes in place to safeguard the vulnerable but also to honor and make easier the way for those who are making the right choice for themselves. No one should have to endure death by gunshot or poison or starvation because the law would punish someone who helped them to a gentler and more dignified ending. No one should have to endure the trauma of inflicting an ugly death on a loved one in order to spare them further suffering.

This is just so perfect.

Offering my respect and gratitude to all those who have put themselves in harm's way for the sake of others.

May the souls of those who have fallen be at peace.
May the grief of those who love them be comforted.

May the wounds of the living -- those of the body and those of the soul -- be healed.
May they receive their just compensation for the service they have given and the hurts they have endured and still endure.

May they be upheld by love.



May peace prevail.

It's called "The Men Who Stare at Goats."

The Men Who Stare At Goats is about warrior-monks with psychic powers, who call themselves Jedis over and over again. But the movie's structure also echoes the original Star Wars trilogy, and it's full of fun Lucas riffs. .


I was looking forward to seeing this movie anyway, but this article means that I must go!

Any hour with Him.

And I wouldn't change a blessed thing.

Wolfling has been down with the flu since Monday night.
It's not as bad as it could be, but flu is never fun.

Today is my Friday for work. I'm very, very glad.

All kinds of major spiritual motion in my life. A huge transition is occurring that is startling but welcome. Tuesday was one long theophany after another. Yesterday I got to rest and process -- although I haven't really had the bandwidth to process the way I need and want to.

Tomorrow is more scheduled than usual: good things, but they're going to take time and effort. I'm hoping that I don't get sick.

I should be heading out the door for work right now and I'm still in my pj's.
Better get going.

I was walking to the cafeteria at TempCo today, looking at the rows of nameplates belonging to people I still don't know after almost well over six weeks on the job, and I was suddenly struck by a startlingly intense wave of nostalgia for FormerMyCo.

As most of you may remember, I left in April without a single look back, didn't even stop to shake the dust from my sandals. But one thing I have to say about the folks there: I always felt valued, welcomed, and liked. (With the exception of Miss V, of course.)

I still don't know anyone at TempCo besides the four or five folks I work with directly, and two of them are temps as well. I'm not a part of anything there. I was often frustrated by my job at FormerMyCo, but the people were always great.

Today, I really miss them. I miss the conversations, the laughter, the regard in which I was held.

And really, that's kind of nice. It's nice to have the good memories.

Comes around every so often, most recently seen with eryn999

The problem with LJ: We all think we are so close, but really we know nothing about one another. So I want you to ask me something you think you should know about me. Something that should be obvious, but you have no idea about. Ask away.

Anonymous queries okay.

Last night I went to a meeting of the 40-something peer group of the large intentional community I've recently discovered. It was a small meeting: just three regular members, one of the community elders, and myself, but that was for the best as far as this introvert was concerned.

As with the women's circle, I felt like I had found a piece of my tribe -- and this one was perhaps even more compatible. There wasn't a spiritual overlay to the meeting; we were all the same age; there were both women and men. As I listened to the men talk (which was in proportion to the amount that the women talked), I realized how much I've been missing male energy simply on a friend/comrade level.

( Values are more important than beliefs )

As I drove home, I had another important realization about myself. This is the first new group I've been part of in the past several years. I've done a lot of growing and changing during that time, and it was interesting to reflect on the evening and my observations of myself.

Both last night and Sunday (but especially last night) I felt calm, confident, grounded. I could see the interest and response in the way people listened to my words, and I was able to remain focused on others as they spoke. I felt like I spoke and kept silent appropriately. I felt like I was poised and relaxed at once. In short, I felt like a grown-up who was comfortable in my own skin, who was able to engage from a place of relaxed strength, wanting to be courteous to others and respectful of established norms, but not in the least bit worried about "being liked" or making a misstep.

And that was an amazingly good feeling.

Okay, I know that the urban fantasy genre has become increasingly popular (right along with supernatural romance). And I understand that not every author can be a Charles de Lint or Neil Gaiman. But I can't seem to find words to describe just how mind-bogglingly outlandish this plot description is:

When a serial killer targets fairy prostitutes in a Boston neighborhood known as the Weird, Connor Grey, a crippled druid and former Guild detective, discovers that the killings are part of an ancient magical ritual that could bring about the apocalypse.

I mean, if I were an editor and this was the lead-in for a book proposal, I'd think one of my colleagues was playing a joke on me and hit the delete key.


Please understand, I like Harry Dresden and the Nightside, and those can get pretty over-the-top, but I don't think that they've ever managed a combination like this. Not in such a brief synopsis, anyway.

I strongly object to any and all terms which characterize women's bodies and beings as being "less", with being a failure -- especially when explicitly contrasted with warrior culture. I particularly object to women's genitalia being used in this way. Make any case you like criticizing the current state of our culture (or anything else), but do not use women, women's sexuality, or femininity to characterize what you think is wrong.


Criticizing individual women is as valid as criticizing individual men, of course. My objection is using the "idea" of women, of feminininty, as inherently derrogatory.

Yesterday I attended a women's circle meeting for the first time. (I've sat in more than a few women's circles over the years, of course. This was my first meeting with this group.)

The other members seemed to all be lovely people: present, committed, really striving, friendly, warm, and quirky. I felt very comfortable there, like I had found a previously unknown pocket of my tribe -- a rare occurrence. I'd had a phone conversation the night before with one of the leadership team, and had been delighted by the resonance between her use of language and my own.

But when the circle actually got underway, I struggled a lot.

( Goddess-y Generalities )

I am a new person.


There is continuity with who I was before, but today I am feeling an intensifying awareness that I am new.

My current guilty pleasure:

http://flipnote.hatena.com/54FECA601E18C8D2@DSi/movie/18C8D2_093180D700745_003


It's about 30 seconds worth of video.

Belated Happy Birthday wishes to queenofhalves!

Have another one today on me!

Wishing you many blessings in the year to come. . .

Thinking about how others will react to my fiction is the worst thing I can do to myself when writing. I completely shut down the creative process on my novel because I stopped writing from my gut and started thinking too much about appealing to a hypothetical future audience.

Getting input from friends didn't help either. At first it was fun engaging my friends in the story, seeing their enthusiasm about it, enjoying their ideas -- but over time I found myself struggling with one or two of them about their interpretations of certain characters.