C is for Compassion

I used to have compassion for some people, by whom I mean my father.

But I have learned that having compassion for, well, people who are frankly abusive, doesn't get you very far. It's a nice idea, and it sure is easy to talk about if it's not your problem, if you've got the distance to be able to talk about it in the abstract, but—

My father was a hoarder. I've only had a name for it for a few years now. Before that, it was just this completely baffling... thing. Now, however, not only do I know that what he did is called hoarding, but I know that it is a serious mental condition, in his case, something called obsessive-compulsive personality disorder.

Not obsessive compulsive disorder, let's get that straight. But a personality disorder.

And the thing with those is that the person doesn't change. The person can't change. The person doesn't think there's anything whatsoever wrong with them. It's the entire rest of the world who is wrong, in their mind. It is a fundamental brokenness in the brain. Think sociopathy, or narcissism.

I know, I'm repeating myself. Sometimes I think that saying it over and over again is simply validation, or maybe due to disbelief on my part, which I am trying to break through. It is a strange thing to come to terms with, when you grow up thinking it normal.

So people don't generally 'suffer' from personality disorders; like I said they don't think there's anything wrong with them. But the people around them sure do suffer.

If a person has something wrong with their brain, something that cannot even be perceived by them, never mind understood as something not-right, they are not going to change. They just aren't. They can't. But that person is also not going to be able to help harming those around them. They can't change that either.

I have found that having compassion for people like that, while you are one of those people around them, just means that they hurt you over and over again. And especially when that person with the personality disorder, the, shall we say, self-absorbed, or perhaps, toxic person, has trained you to consider their needs first, always. Well, that's not quite true; in my father's case it was more like his whims came first, before the needs of the rest of us. It was more important to him that he got to pile some rotton boards on top of each other in the yard, than it was to see that the water heater was installed. So compassion, in this case, just gets you hurt.

So fuck compassion.

Now, I may come back to it sometime in the future; I don't know. But here's the thing: there is nothing wrong, morally, with where I am now. Which leads me to the other C's:

C is for crooked path. And C is for curse.

I have never yet cursed anyone; I have, in the past, thought it morally wrong. But that was before I started thinking about things like my dysfunctional family and my neglected childhood.

I spent years, no decades, literally decades, trying to talk my father into cleaning something, anything, up. I memorized the littlest shadings of his moods, the subjects that would get him to open up, just a little, what time of day was best to talk to him. I learned diplomacy, when to push, when to leave things alone, what to bribe him with, how to butter him up, and I had the patience of all the saints combined.

It didn't work. It never worked. It couldn't work, because my father was incapable of change.

I have no patience left, none at all. I used it up. I also have no compassion for him, now; not, in this case, that I've used it up, but that it was coming at the expense of compassion for myself. And that must, absolutely must, come first.

And so I find my outlook has changed. I can see nothing wrong with curses, morally. They are simply neutral. Some things cannot be solved any other way. If someone is abusing you, and there is nothing you can do to stop it? Self-preservation must come first. You, I, have the right.

There is of course no need to curse my father now. He is safely out of the way in a nursing home, after a stroke that damaged what was left of his brain, after the personality disorder and the dementia he had due to age. He can do no harm where he is.

And I am very, very grateful for that.

Announcement

Just letting everyone know that my CafePress store is down right now. I am sorry if there has been any confusion. In the meantime, I also have stores up at Printfection and Zazzle, if you're interested.

My Printfection store link

My Zazzle store link

I also have a section at Zazzle just for greeting cards, here.

Again I apologize for the inconvenience/bafflement.

Couple Updates

Yes, well, B is for Busy. B is for Behind. It's been a week o' kittens around here.

Ratty is doing well, though he really doesn't care for the Cone of Shame he has to wear so he doesn't yank out his stitches. Poor thing. Grooming is so hard-wired in the little cat mind that he's been attempting to lick, say, his shoulder, and ends up licking the inside of the cone. Over and over and over.

Ratty may not be the brightest bulb.

Also, Rory is staying. And there's a long story. I gave him up, with his brother, Wednesday morning. I was expecting I'd be sad to see them go—kittens are after all cute and sweet and all—I was not expecting that Wednesday night I'd find myself bawling my eyes out over Rory being gone. I wasn't sad; I was devastated.

Sometimes, I think, you just know. The look Rory gave me when I dropped him off and walked out of the shelter said it all—it wasn't one of Don't leave me! it was simply Where are you going? A little confused, but mostly calm, and very knowing. As if, he knows the story, and he knows how it ends, and that was not it.

I mean not like I need another cat. I really, really, don't. I can do it; the house is plenty big, and I've been feeding him anyway so I know I can afford it too. But...

The nearest I can figure is that he's meant to be my familiar. I mean the others are nice kitties and all, but they're not Rory. And it's not even that he's still a cute little kitten and they're getting towards full grown; honestly I'm kind of done with kittens after this last summer and I'd really like it if they could mellow out a little already. It's just that he's him. That's the best I know how to say it.

I mean, if you'd been stupid enough to give your familiar away, you'd feel about like you'd cut off your own arm, right?

So I more or less moved heaven and earth to get him back, which is apparently a huge, huge no-no with shelters. If you surrender a cat, damned straight you're not getting it back. I'm still not sure what the logic is, but they were nearly adamant. I thought for a while it just wasn't going to happen. But it did, and the powers-that-be softened, and let me have him. Well, I had to officially 'adopt' him, fee and all, though that included a neuter and lots of shots, so it's okay. Sure, I feel like an idiot, but I don't care. Because I've got Rory back.

It was a very long drive (Friday night Boston rush hour, oy), to the shelter, in of all places Salem, Mass; even without traffic, the drive back was like an hour and a half. He mewed a little here and there on the drive back, but was mostly quiet. Finally I pulled into the driveway and shut off the car.

And in the sudden quiet I heard something else, this low but loud thrumming.

It was Rory purring. He knew he was home.

What C is Really For

Because every time I sit down to write one of these Pagan Blog Project entries, I get this song in my head. Thanks, Ms. Pendragon.



So I figured I'd share. No reason to be going quietly insane all by myself, now is there?

C Is For Cinquefoil

So, in The Temple of Shamanic Witchcraft, which year-and-a-day course I've been following along with, one of the visions takes you to your Inner Temple.

Mine turned out to be a small square building with a column at each corner and a perfectly hemispherical dome leafed in gold; inside was a main room, the same size, more or less, as the outside, maybe thirty by thirty feet.

Of course though there were rooms off it and it was as they say bigger on the inside than the outside. One of those rooms lead to a library.

When I stepped into the library I caught a flash of a small yellow flower with five petals. Something little, and wild; it looked like a rose, or a primrose, maybe. Though if it was a rose it was a species rose, not a hybrid; maybe Father Hugo's rose, though that yellow is on the pale side.

I've done some gardening, though it is a damned frustrating experience in this yard what with the abundance of groundhogs and deer, not to mention both wild rabbits and the giant domestic one from across the street who keeps getting out of his cage and hanging out in my yard. My neighbor, like Ratty, may not be the brightest bulb; half the time when he comes over to retrieve his rabbit, he brings his dog. Because the surest way to coax a rabbit to come walking up to you is to bring a wolf with you. We've taken to calling the neighbor Mr. Fudd, as the rabbit is obviously smarter; the rabbit herself I'm calling Cunny, after the old pronunciation of coney.

Anyway. I have not, in this Witchy journey of mine, so far done much with herbs and plants, though last season I did manage a functional herb garden. It hasn't been my field, I suppose, and it's a little intimidating as I know it's just a huge subject. At any rate I have never sat down and tried to commune with plants.

And I'm not sure it's the season to try. Most everything is asleep, up here in New England, I'd think; it strikes me as the height of rudeness to go knocking on doors waking things up to say Oh hey tell me about yourself okay? So I'll wait on that, I think.

But I can at least look up some book-learning. I think the plant I saw is cinquefoil. I know it grows wild around here; I've seen its little yellow flowers about my yard as long as I can remember.

It's called potentilla, in the Latin, cinquefoil is. That name, as you may have guessed, means powerful. 'Cinquefoil' itself means 'five-leaved' and refers to the way the leaflets are arranged in a cluster like the five fingers of a hand. An older name, tormentilla, from the Spanish, means 'little torment', as in, it relieves little pains; and medicinally it was used to relieve stomach ache and diarrhea.

Here's a picture of it, courtesy of Wikipedia:

Photo by Hans Hillewaert

It's a very, very familiar plant. I know I have yanked it out of my cultivated garden on more than one occasion. Was that rude?

It is also known as five-leaved grass, or five-fingered grass. Culpeper (1653) says it is an herb of Jupiter, good for treating the quinsey, sciatica, St. Anthony's fire, and the bloody flux; mainly though he says it is good for inflammation and fevers 'whether infectious or pestilential,' and gives several ways to take it, usually by boiling it in wine to make a sort of tea.

I know I have seen plenty of cultivated varieties under the name potentilla; I think, come spring, I shall see how many of them I can find, to put in my garden. Then I shall sit down and see what they tell me. I'm interested in seeing how the wild version of a plant differs from a cultivated hybrid in what it has to say.

At the very least, I know it has said hello.


Sources: Wikipedia (yeah I know), Culpeper's Herbal

Ratty Update

Got a call from the surgeon this afternoon; the surgery went just fine, all is well, Ratty'll be home tomorrow or maybe the next day. He also said that it looked like an old injury, judging by the damage surrounding it.

Ratty's only seven months old. How old can an injury be?

I am still completely baffled as to how he did it in the first place, though I do recall that his feral mother gave birth to her kittens on top of a pile of wood under one of those little high-up windows in my downstairs garage. And I also remember scooping kittens up off the floor and returning them to her (as well as trying to make it safer by rearranging the boards so there was at least a little bit of a wall in the front).

He certainly hadn't been limping any earlier than the middle of last week.

I really don't know.

Quick Note

Well I've caught up on the Pagan Blog Project posts; but since I backdated the second A entry it's down a ways under all the kitten pictures (both visible rays and X-rays). Just wanted to point that out so it doesn't get lost. My own fault, I suppose, for backdating them.

Oh Ratty

Oh Ratty. Oh, oh Ratty. How on Earth did you manage this:



Let's get a bit of a close up:



Even a layperson such as myself can tell that that left hip-joint (his left, our right) is seriously out of whack. One of the vets I talked to today said she doesn't usually see something like that without some serious trauma—being hit by a car, falling out of a third storey window. Not that Ratty (or any of them) go outside, of course. Last week I did hear a loud crash coming from the cellar; when I got there though, not a single thing was out of place save an empty laundry basket, which was tipped on its side. All four of them just sat there looking at me with their heads tilted, wide-eyed, innocent, calm.

He'd been limping a little since about last Wednesday or Thursday, but he let me poke around and move his leg a bit. Silly me I didn't follow it up the rest of his leg until Saturday night, when I did finally notice that there was a big lump on the same side up by his hip (I couldn't really see it because of the fur; he's long-haired and fairly fluffy). And guess what—that turned out to be the head of his femur in a place it really shouldn't be, namely, completely out of the hip-socket by something like an inch and a half. Though otherwise he had seemed more than fine—despite the little bit of a limp he was running around, jumping up on things, frisking with his brothers like a crazy kitten, and purring up a storm as usual. Even today, when one of the vets (there were several) went to listen to his heartbeat, she had to put his heart rate down as 'purr'.

So Ratty gets to spend the next couple days in a cage, which he doesn't much like, keeping off it until he has his scheduled surgery on Thursday. Where they will, and this is completely counterintuitive, actually chop off the ball of the femur and just let the end of the bone rest in the socket. I know. I would have thought that putting it back in would be the right way round, but the vet said if they did that it would be prone to just popping out again. I guess something must be permanently damaged. Of course I was like well won't one of his legs be shorter than the other then? The vet said no, actually; he'll be pretty much completely normal, running around again in no time.

So that's all good, if don't-even-ask pricey. But there's nothing for it, of course; rest and home remedies aren't going to cure something like that.

Still, I'd like to know how he did it.

B Is For Bastet

So Bastet (or Bast) is the Cat Goddess of old Egypt. Those Egyptians, they had their priorities straight all right.

Her name means She of the bas, a bas being a type of ointment jar; in the exceptionally dry climate of Egypt moisturizer is an absolute necessity. I like to call Her Our Lady of the Salve.

Her cult center in Egypt was at the city of Per-Bastet ('the domain of Bastet' and now I'm totally cracking up at the I assume coincidental resemblance of Per to purr) up in the Delta; it was the capital of the 18th nome (administrative district; something like county, state, province) of Lower Egypt (lower of course meaning downstream in the case of the Nile, so that lower=northern, and upper=southern). It was famous for a particularly merry festival dedicated to Bastet, which involved lots of alcohol.

As you may well imagine, I've been petitioning Bastet left and right around here lately.

What? you say. Why is that?

All right; for those of you who have not been paying attention, I'll try to keep this brief.

Once upon a time at the start of last winter a little grey and white cat showed up on my doorstep, looking plaintively in at the glass door. That was Spot:



But of course she wasn't alone, oh no of course not. She had in tow three little kittens, who I reasonably enough named Splotch



Smudge



and Stripey



Crap, I thought. I could instantly tell that two of the three at least were female by the tortoiseshell color schemes. And I've been around the block a few times and so knew exactly which direction that was going to go in.

So I asked Bastet for help. I asked Her to make sure that they had someone to look after them, and to find them a good home with enough food to last them through the winter.

What do you think I am doing? She purred.

Crap, I thought.

So I fed them, because it was the beginning of winter in New England and knowing they were there I could not let them starve.

I will admit I hemmed and hawed about the next part of it, though, because I could see what was coming and how much work it was going to be if I chose to do it. I mean it doesn't take the Sight to know what will happen when three (at least) unspayed female cats show up on your doorstep.

So I started looking around on the internet. But it took a while. For one thing, with the crap economy charities have very few resources nowadays. One particular cat charity, just last year, would come to your house, trap the feral cats, take them away to be neutered, deal with the aftercare and then bring them back to be released (as trapping, neutering, and releasing feral cats is really the best bet at population control, plus, you know, it avoids killing them); this year though they couldn't be arsed to even call me back, never mind lend me a trap or two. And it's true, I procrastinated a bit, because I knew it was a big job and it simply took time to get my brain around it. But in the end, yeah, it was my responsibility.

In the meantime, the Stripey kitten went missing. We found one by the road a few days later; maybe it was that one, maybe not. It had been there a little while and I honestly couldn't tell. We buried it.

So what with the hemming and hawing and lack of help with the traps (which I simply cannot afford to buy myself), and tracking down someone who would spay feral cats on the cheap, never mind psyching myself up to trap what is essentially a wild animal (I am, I suppose I should admit, a rank coward in more than a few ways), by the time early spring came around Spot had reproduced again, giving us this guy:



This one I managed to socialize, as his personality was fairly open to it (Splotch and Smudge were really skittish from the start). Plus the weather was nicer; it's hard to have much patience standing out there in January trying trying trying to coax a shy kitten to let itself get anywhere near you. So I ended up adopting him myself and now he's my Aleister Meowley, Frater Purrdurabo, the Lesser Beast (333). I've been calling him by his Chinese name lately, Miao Li (apparent younger brother to this Lady). I also sing him this song:

Well I hear you're just a kitten now
And I can see your pretty whiskers getting
in the tuna fish
You've got me right in your paws
Yes I'll put more in your dish

Aleister
I know this world is thrilling you
Oh Aleister
Meow meow meow mew

Then of course before I knew it it was Splotch's turn, and she had these four, named after the place she gave birth to them, an old MG in the downstairs garage.

There was Austin



Healey (you can see she inherited her grandmother's spot)



Spridget



and Morris Minor



By this time I'd been talking to the local cat shelter and knew I had to bring them inside. But before I could rearrange the dining room to accommodate them Morris Minor was killed, probably by a coyote. The bastard pretty much tore him in half and just left him there. So I buried him. Nature, sure. Child of the Goddess, sure. Still a bastard in my book.

So I got the other three inside, and socialized them. They all got adopted out, eventually.

Not, however, before it was Smudge's turn. She also had four, though one of them died at three weeks as it just didn't thrive (something like one out of four kittens don't make it for whatever reason). I buried that one too.

The other three, though, were Maurice (named after Morris Minor)



Danny Lyon



and of course, Ratty.



Oh, Ratty. That's the one I bottle-fed. And after all that work, he had to stick around too.

Then there was Danny and the long saga of him, which I haven't shared before and which is frankly rather a nasty story, involving a mother who insisted that she could handle taking care of him while I was away for a couple weeks; but one day I called to check up on them and was told that six-week-old Danny had 'broken his neck.'

Of course he hadn't; he was, instead, really, really, sick.

And my mother didn't see any reason to take him to the vet. She just sort of threw up her hands and said, O how sad! How terrible that nothing can be done!

It is a long story; basically I had to frankly bully my own mother from six hundred miles away into calling a goddamned cab to get that kitten to the emergency vet. She didn't want to. But she did. I swore a lot, and for some reason that worked.

When I later picked Danny up (after cutting my vacation short) the vet there said he was '95% dead' when he was brought in. They were, frankly, amazed that he recovered at all; one of the vet techs said she almost had a heart attack when she saw him trying to sit up the next day. A couple of weeks ago I stopped by the emergency vet to give them an update. The lady there said they don't usually remember animals since they come and go so quickly through there, but she sure remembered Danny.

One of the first things I did when I got home from my vacation was make an appointment with my lawyer, to make sure that, should something happen to me, my mother, specifically, is absolutely NOT to be the one making decisions for me.

I did say my family was dysfunctional. Yeah.

But anyway so then of course Danny stayed (you should see that vet bill, hoo boy).

I was going to put Maurice up for adoption, I really was. But he has this sort of chronicish respiratory condition which is well under control but still there, and I didn't know how adoptable he was going to be. Plus, he absolutely worships his Uncle Aleister. You should see it. He follows him around, rubs himself against him, gets in his path to head butt him, the whole thing. I suspect Aleister is a little annoyed with it all, honestly, but he tolerates it. So he stayed too.

Now, through all this summer of course there were eye infections going around, and no one could leave here until everyone got the all clear. Which meant putting this nasty ointment (why there's that word again) in their eyes. Plus there were some antibiotics in there for Maurice, never mind all the stuff Danny had to have, and honestly it's all kind of a haze now. It sure as fuck was a lot of work.

I did eventually scare up some traps, though I had to go pretty far afield (Boston, actually, which is not particularly local). And I caught all three of the mommy-cats, though I had to let Spot go the first time because she was obviously still nursing yet another batch of kittens. Now those are:

Rory (named after the marvellous Rory Pond, of course)



Flufius Maximus (that's Latin don't you know)



and their really quite exceptionally shy sister, Mademoiselle Zéphirine Chattonne-Gris.



(That's the best picture I have of her so far). All three of those are now in my dining room. Rory and Floof have been good to go for ages; they socialized fairly easily, though Floof took a little longer. But they are still here, because their sister is really very, very, very shy; I'm only just at the point where I can pet her a little while she eats without her freaking out. The two boys are a help with her; when she sees them come out and climb all over me purring I can see the wheels turning in her little cat head, that maybe, just maybe, I'm okay. So for now they're here.

And in the meantime Spot has been spayed. Which means all three of the mommy-cats are missing the tips of their left ears, as well as their reproductive organs and man I can tell you that makes me so very happy. Because this last batch is it.

Well, so much for brevity. But that's been my life lately. It's a lot of work. Oh sure, I know, sounds awful, doesn't it, hanging out with kittens and making sure they get enough cuddles and playtime; but, really, what I've been doing is transforming eleven wild animals into eleven tame animals. Holy fuck is this a lot of work, especially given my lack of mothering proclivities.

So I've been, like I said, bending Bastet's ear a bit this past year. And She has come through. I've always (eventually) gotten help when I needed it.

But I've been too busy to make any proper offerings. The most I'd done was offer some incense, and keep Her statue on my altar dusted.

Yes, well.

That's not actually how it works, is it. I have been making offerings. I have been making sacrifices to Her. All this, all this work I've done, this Work I've done, this real-life hard slog feed the kittens medicate the kittens drive the kittens to the vet, the shelter, the place to be neutered, trap the mothers, but no let that one go because she has very young kittens and she can't be away from them that long yet, trap her again later, get them all spayed and release them and keep feeding them and trap Zéphirine before it's too late and socialize them and tame them and pay attention to them first because they need to eat now and I want to go to bed but I have to clean the litterboxes first—all of it, is all an offering. It's all many offerings, over and over again, to Bastet, to the Goddess of the Cats.

I know this is true, and I know it is what She wants. Because when I look at Her now, all She does is purr.

A Is Also For Ancestors, Again (An Addendum)

So one of the other things I've been up to lately is taking one of Max Dashú's online courses, this one called Spiritual Heritages of Ancient Europe, part two (I missed part one). Today Max gave a web seminar (also called a 'webinar' for all you techno-kids out there) about megalithic statues of Europe, mostly western Europe if I'm remembering correctly, like in present-day Spain and Portugal. Especially, of course, the stones that are identifiably female.

Many of the stones have very similar faces: a highly stylized straight browline, a squarish or pointed nose depending from that, with two circles for eyes. And, in most cases, no mouth. Like this one, from neolithic Provence, dating to the end of the fourth millenium bce, though it's not technically a megalith, being just shy of a foot tall:

I scanned that in from Gimbutas's The Language of the Goddess (drawing by Patricia Reis); Gimbutas calls it a depiction of the Owl Goddess, a form of Death Goddess, as the owl is long associated with death and the night; Max was saying though that she thinks it more likely as representing the ancestors, the dead, because the dead don't speak. In fact she'd titled the lecture 'Grandmother Stones.' You can see some more of these type of stones here, at her site.

So I thought that interesting, not just in general but in the timing for me as well given yesterday's post, since as far as the rest of the course goes we're talking about Rome right now. So it got me thinking.

As you may have guessed from my last post, I've got some issues, shall we say, with the idea of the ancestors, at least the immediate ones, what with the rather dysfunctional upbringing and all. Also, though it is hard to explain succinctly, thanks (or no thanks) to said upbringing I have always felt like I am starting from scratch; I've always had the feeling that nothing I accomplish ever sticks. Like I said, it is hard to explain, and I suppose I should refer you yet again to Tetanus Burger where you might be able to get more of an idea as to why. And feeling like I'm always starting from scratch means it feels like I've never had anything to build on, which is what the idea of ancestors is all about, isn't it. That there is an unbroken line going back and back. That you are not the first. That you have something to build on, something that is yours, because it is your family, your blood.

So maybe I need to think of it a little more distantly, more abstractly. Fuck these few generations I can see; after all my line, because I am here, on this Earth, now, goes back and back and back. From what I know I am of British blood, by which I mean, of the isle of Britain: English, Scottish, Welsh. But before that there has to be continental Celtic, and Anglo-Saxon, and Teutonic in the middle of Europe, and whoever else was there first before the migrations and invasions and it is perfectly plausible and in fact likely that the ancestors of my ancestors were the ones raising stones like that.

So then I thought: this is basic, basic stuff. This is not about grandmother's apple pie recipe (or, rather, Depression-era chocolate cake made with bacon grease, gah); this is simply about living long enough to have a healthy child, and that child living long enough to do the same, and so on and on. And I thought: what would she be called then, this old, old ancestor? She would be called She-Who-Survived.

She-Who-Survived. That is a powerful name, a powerful idea, for a kid who was frankly neglected, whose survival was not exactly guaranteed. I mean I'm here, so I did, and I can't even say it was really touch-and-go, properly, but... We had no hot water growing up, because when the water heater broke my father couldn't be arsed to fix it, and due to the OCPD he wouldn't let anyone else fix it; and, because he was a miser he never let the heat get more than fifty-five degrees in the winter here, in New England. And trust me, your brain and your instincts do read being that cold all winter as a threat to survival. That's the kind of cold that sinks into your bones. It's the kind of cold that becomes the default state in winter; being warm is the exception, the brief foray into comfort. It always comes back to the cold in the bones.

So. She-Who-Survived. I think She might make the best kind of ally.

A Is For Ancestors

Ah yes, where to start.

I don't think I like most of my ancestors. I mean, I can't help but acknowledge that they are my ancestors, I mean duh. And while the fact that I am here can tell me some things (like for example somewhere along the line they survived the bubonic plague long and successfully enough to keep the line going, as I am of European descent and I simply wouldn't be here if they hadn't), I've never really understood what the fuss is about. I think, most people just automatically, of course, how could you think otherwise, honor their ancestors because they come from decent people.

My family isn't close. I realized for the first time not that long ago that I actually have three Cousin Toms. The generations are skewed, and long, and so growing up none of my cousins were any where near my age. That also means that I have pretty much no experience of grandparents, besides maybe a single blurry memory of my mother's father when I was very young.

If you have been over to my other blog, Tetanus Burger, you know that my father was a hoarder. You will also know that that was caused by what can only be a serious case of Obsessive Compulsive Personality Disorder, which, before you go thinking you know what that is, is most emphatically not the same thing as Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. OCPD is a personality disorder, which as far as I can tell, pretty much just comes down to a fundamental brokenness in the brain. The person with it cannot see that they have it, and in fact, a lot of the time, will not only deny that there is anything whatsoever wrong with them, but will also adamantly insist that it's the entire rest of the world who is wrong. And they believe it. With my own eyes I have seen my father confronted with a reality that did not fit with his belief. He looked at that reality, and then repeated his belief, over and over, louder and louder, though the proof that he was wrong was right in front of him. In his world if reality and belief were in conflict reality lost. This also means that people with personality disorders kind of don't get that the people around them are people and not extensions of their own world, or rather their own selves, since that is the same thing to them. And when you come right down to it that rather precludes empathy. Don't forget, other personality disorders include things like narcissism and sociopathy.

Speaking of narcissism, yeah. That's the other one that runs in the family. It's been fun here, lately, and the word that keeps coming to mind is unfortunately toxic, as in, my family is toxic.

So, if you're a family member and you're reading this, well, that's what you get for snooping on a Witch's blog, isn't it. Well, unless you're Cousin L, you're cool. You're about the only one, though.

What I know of my grandparents isn't good. I suppose I should confess straight up that I have no problems speaking ill of the dead. I've been rather enamoured of truth, lately. My father's father, well, he might have been all right, but he died young, and by that I mean in like 1934. My father's mother, well, I'm pretty sure I know where the hoarding gene came from. I've heard some atrocious stories about the state of her house.

On my mother's side I don't know much about my grandmother, though I have the impression she was pretty controlling. As for my grandfather, well, I don't really care if it was accepted practice at the time to hit your children with your belt, or to give your daughter bread soaked in milk for dinner, while you sat there eating steak; I consider that abuse and neglect, and so I consider you a bastard.

So really, I don't want much to do with them, my literal ancestors. I certainly am not inclined to put up an altar to them. In fact, my father in particular (though he's not technically dead yet) was such a miserly bastard that I really don't want anything to do with him again, ever. Not in this life and not in any other lives. I've considered, even, some kind of ritual to sever myself from him, karmically, I guess you'd say. I don't want to bump into him ever again.

I don't care if that's harsh. It's true. One of the things you don't get growing up in a hoarder's house is space, not physical space, not personal space, not emotional space; there is no ease at all to anything. It is all, always and entirely about the hoarder. And so there is certainly no space, none at all, for a voice.

I've found mine now. And I will scream and curse if I feel like it.

Away

I have been away, I guess you could call it, for a time lately. Well, not really away; but very much preoccupied with the little mundane things, which around here make little mewing noises; I'm nearly there with them. (At least I think that's a light at the end of the tunnel.) Three out of three feral mother-cats have been trapped, spayed, and released, four out of four new adopted nearly grown by now kittens have been neutered, two out of three little kittens have been captured and are socializing up quite nicely in the dining room (they purr and come running when they see me now). That just leaves one single kitten still outside, born to a feral mother who has since been spayed. This single feral kitten worries me a bit, though; it is solid grey and very very long-haired, especially given the wintry weather. It is also very shy, unlike its two brothers who are in the dining room now. And I suspect it is female. It is of such a color and fluffiness that I cannot tell; grey isn't sex-linked, like say calico, or even marmalade, and honestly, its butt is just too damned fluffy to see if there is anything there. So I worry. I did get to pat it a little today for the first time, by putting a plate of wet food just between my feet. I had been trying to seduce this one with toys but wasn't getting very far, and it is getting older and older day by day and further and further from being able to be properly socialized. It does not help that I don't know exactly how old it is.

The other thing that is going on is rather deeper, deep enough I'm not sure how much I want to get into here. Let's just say there are some, well, issues with my family, ones the holidays are not helping at all. I have also been exploring the past, and with that and the current not-so-fun shall we say present, I have been processing a lot of stuff. And I mean a lot. And it's only the beginning, probably.

I used to be really big on Tarot; that has gone into a bit of a lull for the past few years. But I still like to figure out my Tarot year, which you do by adding up the numbers of your birthday and month, plus those in the current year. And for me, 2011 was a Tower year.

I am not surprised, not at all. This past year has been exactly that, and it's not over yet. Though it does help, I think, to know this. Instead of lightning randomly striking my life, unexpectedly smashing apart this structure to fall down on top of me, I have managed, somewhat, to pull it down myself. I think that makes a world of difference, though I am not saying I am having an easy time, oh no, nor that I am in any kind of control, really. But at least I know what I am seeing.

So. Next year is the Star for me. I am very much looking forward to that little glimmer of light, as per the story in the last post, though that wasn't on purpose. I am also glad, very glad, that the darkness of the year has turned now, though I still feel like I can't see in the dark, which is disconcerting, because I usually can.

Question

Oh, I wanted to ask:

Did anyone else experience that blinding brightness this summer? I had asked around, a little, to some Witchy sensitive sorts I know but they didn't know what I was talking about. I'm sure it's got a lot to do with where I was, but at the same time it really felt like a bigger phenomenon than just me, like a few years back when the Veil felt really thin.

Like I said it felt like this: like I was looking through a pane of dusty glass, upon which the sun was shining so brightly that everything was just this haze of brightness, and I couldn't see, See, much of anything.

Anyone know what I'm talking about?

Memories

So I was wandering about the 'net today in between feeding/medicating kittens (I've brought all seven of them in the house as fosterlings, to eventually go to the no-kill shelter in of all places Salem, Massachusetts, to be adopted, where they will hopefully make very fine familiars to some lucky Witches. Ratty and Danny Lion and Aleister Meowley, of course, are staying here) when I found my way to this article by the Skeptical Historian:

Satanic Panic: an Incident from the Witchcraft Panics of the 1980s

Scroll down to the third picture. See that pasty dark-haired chick in the pale green gown? That's me.

Ah, what memories. That was my first taste of just how fucked-up and abusive police can be. I've never forgotten it. I'd say, in fact, that that incident was instrumental in making me the devout anti-authoritarian I am today.

Funny thing is, that though I'm pretty sure that I am the person referred to here,

Most recently, the wife of a local resident reported "a girl with a witch costume on" walking along the road. This was in reality one of Eagan's friends, who happened to be tall, thin, and wore a long dark cloak.

I didn't even identify as a Witch, or as a Pagan, at the time. Back then I would have said I was agnostic, or areligious, or even an atheist. (Also, last I knew five foot three wasn't exactly 'tall'. Ah, journalists).

I of course was outraged at the time, though at nineteen years old I could not articulate even a tenth of what was so fucked up about it all. Now reading that article I see so much more of it. For example, I hadn't at the time cottoned on to the fact that only us girls got frisked; but now that they mention it why yes, come to think of it, that is true. Lovely.

Now I know that compared to some of the fruits of the Satanic Panic of the 80s what happened to myself and my friends is hardly a blip on the radar. No one did jail time; no one was even 'officially' arrested, though if you don't feel you are free to leave while the police question you is there a difference?

It is still, however, outrageous. And looking up some of the key players, the police officer who led the whole 'raid', and the 'reporter' who pretty much just made shit up, it does appear that they both still have jobs. Assuming that the policeman of the same name who works in a town not too far from the original incident is the same man; the 'reporter' now works in PR, where, fair enough, I suppose the job requirement in large part is the ability to lie. I am not surprised, I suppose, but I do like the idea of justice. No one ever got an apology, after all, even when they finally got it through their heads that none of what they were accusing us of, or 'reporting' on, was in the least bit true.

I suppose there is a lot more I could say about all this, and maybe someday I will go into it in more depth, but right now I will say that what happened at Wompatuck State Park is one of the big reasons I am so out about my religion now. Because I've seen what deliberate ignorance can do.

Also, it still pisses me off.

The Mother

I have never wanted to be a mother; that is just how I am. I have enough to do in attempting to see to my own needs, never mind those of a dependent child. I am furthermore so introverted that the mere presence of an ordinary dog will drive me up the wall because of its constant expectation of attention.

So when I think about the Maiden-Mother-Crone archetype that middle bit, for me, is just sort of a blank. Even as a little girl I was uninterested in baby dolls. Dolls that looked like little girls, like friends, like me, sure, but ones that were like babies? I just didn't see the point.

So I've never much understood the Mother archetype. Oh I've been able to sublimate it when say thinking about my artwork, or the way I have nurtured aspects of my life. But the direct, hands-on experience of having actual children? No, and no thank you.

Now. You may have heard there is a kitten 'situation' in my yard at present. Without going into too many details (as it's all a long convoluted story) let me just say there are already some Plans in the works involving the local trap-neuter-release people. Because the phrase 'spiralling out of control' does come to mind.

As part of that long story (and if you would like more details I have also written about it at Tetanus Burger), one of the feral kittens out there looked to have been wounded. So I took her to the vet, where it turned out it wasn't a wound after all (which is good, because in my state the rabies laws will kick in if you don't know where a wound came from); instead it was these horrible things called cuterebra.

I know. The Goddess cares for all Her children. All of them. That includes both kittens and parasites. That in fact even includes parasites that squick me right the fuck out. You can google that word above if you're brave, but ai yi watch out for the pictures.

But the vet cleared it all up and got rid of the nasty things; and he gave me some antibiotics and instructions to keep her wounds clean. Said wounds are however rather deep and will take some time to heal, most likely.

So here's the thing. This kitten is just over three weeks old. She is still suckling, and is not weaned. But I'm pretty close to positive that if I just put the kitten back with her mother that one, she'll move them some place I can't find them, and two, that place will inevitably be down in the dirt and rust, which means the wound will never stay clean. And given what that kitten's been through already it seemed counter-productive to just put her back outside.

So I decided to bottle feed her. At three weeks old it's not nearly as much work as it could be; newborn kittens require feeding at three-hour intervals. Still, at three weeks she needs feeding something like five or six times a day.

Any of you who are mothers, does this sound familiar?

Now I know it's not like a human baby, not really. For one thing this stage will not last very long at all and in two weeks or less the little thing will be on solid food.

But still. It's amazing, and crazy. I have to get up at six to feed it, and so there I am measuring formula into a bottle, taking the chill off it by putting the bottle in a bowl of warm water, then measuring the temperature by putting a drop on my wrist. My mother laughed when she saw the bottle standing in the bowl; just like a baby, she said. Well, how else are you going to do it?

I've also started going through towels very quickly. There seems to be an awful lot of laundry all of a sudden. How does that work? It's a kitten, for crying out loud; she's not soiling any nappies, or drooling on her onesies!

It is remarkable how much of this Mother energy, this Mother archetype, is about the very basics. Yesterday I made a chart so I could keep track of how much she is taking in at each feeding, since she needs to eat a certain amount by weight. I bought myself a little food scale so I could see how much she weighed (ten ounces yesterday; eleven today). That chart of course also has a space for what comes out the other end, because that is very important too.

Young kittens can't eliminate waste on their own; in nature the mother will lick the kitten to stimulate it. This means that I've had to gently rub the kitten's butt with a warm damp paper towel until something comes out.

This morning when I looked in the carrier where I've been keeping her, I was happy, yes, actually happy to see a proper turd in there—that means that the kitten is able now to do that on her own. So I was all like, OMG milestone!

Holy cow.

Though I'm not sure I'll be winning any Mother of the Year awards. The poor thing is rather a hot mess, honestly, what with the gruesome-looking wounds on her neck and the fact that she's pretty much completely coated in sticky formula because there's just no neat way to do it. I've tried to clean it off as best I can but she does wiggle. Because despite the wounds she is very much alive: she's talkative, strong, fat, and gaining weight, which is good, very good.

And she has learned to purr. Yesterday it came in little fits and starts; today she's got a nice steady rumbling going. She's also started to play, a little, I think, though it's hard to tell; she's pretty uncoordinated yet.

And even though I have no desire to be a mother, here is this kitten on my lap, so small she fits into my curled hand, purring and looking up at me with those big dark eyes. She does, it is true, look a little confused: What's wrong with my ears? Why don't I have fur? Why am I so freakin' huge? But none of that really matters to her, I guess, because I am her mother now.

Here is a picture. It's rather blurry, but you can see how small she is:



Goodness.