Mab of Dream

Been thinking, it's not fair for folk to be guessing what's going on. I gave up the luxury of shutting up years ago and folk very dear to me deserve to know.

"Nobody knows where you are, How near or how far..."

I'm reeling from one of the most intense years I've ever experienced. This time last year, I was floating on a haze of Glastonbury and Shambala, full of spirit and contentment. I've had cause to look through e-mails from precisely a year ago over the past couple of days, looking for WM Mike quotes on Temenach. I wasn't happy where I was working, but not unhappy, otherwise life was fine.

Spiritually, I was your average, slightly insecure, Wiccan wench. Some months before, I'd been asked to moderate Witchgrove. I was still tentatively working out what I was and was not allowed to do; and I was desperately hoping that I'd live up to the honour of being asked to do that. We were still a month away from learning html in order to do the WG web-site. I was still reading Diana Gabaldon books and joining in on the DG group. I had just had the idea for the weekly discussions, but was nervous about mentioning it to Cerr and Anna.

Other than that, I suppose I was a little bored and after challenges. After the annual birthday tension (someone always dies, argues or something bad has happened on about 29 of the 31 birthdays that I've had so far, the 32nd has proved no exception, as the death of WM Mike came 8 days before my birthday and two days after FT Kate and I had discussed the fact that something major always does happen, but it's paranoia to assume the same for this year.) Last year, nothing happened. :-D

Here's the biggies as I remember them happening next. (I tried to do this by month, but it was confusing me, so I've deleted and started again.)

Let's start with the biggest thing (excepting family, friends etc.) in my life this year: Witchgrove.

I have changed utterly as a person due to that place, growing into my confidence and finally becoming the HPS that I was initiated into years ago. Cerr is right, titles don't matter, but I've been trying it on for size this year, as you would a new dress, and so High Priestess have been two words as big as Priestess was a decade ago.

Let me first tell you about Cerridwyn Morgainne - Cerr - Shonna. She's the listmomma, as she puts it, of the Grove and bloody good at it. She's so good at it that it's only recently and due entirely to my panic attacks, that it's quite clear she IS the owner of Witchgrove, not me. She's more the sort of leader who slots the right people into the right jobs and let's them get on with it. I've not yet worked out if she's a genius or incredibly lucky, though she's definitely perceptive. I've spent a year trying to either live up to her faith in me or trying to emulate her. I'll never be the HPS that she is, but I've learned a lot about the HPS I can be. She's an amazing teacher.

There are about 11 people in the world who get to see my panic attacks on a regular basis and she's one of them. Someone once said that you need a manual and several years of training to handle me (I'm quite high maintenance), but it's worth persevering with. I'm the officially difficult one in any gang, which isn't blatantly obvious if you aren't one of those six. I think that from the outside looking in, I look like the easy-going one. Next time anyone says, 'Mab is really lovely, calm and patient' just don't look at FT Kate, Ian, Jim, Shonna, Anna, Georgia, FtE, Fforestelf, WM Mike, Lenny, Eric or Kate M's faces. Roxanne, Chelle and Scott kind of had a crash course in that. There are others who have witnessed moments as well.

Cerr decided that this insecure wreck of a witch would make a good mod of WG. I'm still working out if she was right or not, but I'm 90% sure that she was. When I shine there, I dazzle; when I don't, then there are the others to work on Mab handling and damage limitation. I don't really do anything between the two extremes. One thing is certain, Cerr (and Anna, as I'm sure it needed her vote too) took this wench and made a HPS of her in the past year. She forced me to interact with others, when, until now, there's pretty much been a 'does not play well with others' tattoo on my forehead and told me that she trusted my judgement so many million times, that I started to trust my own judgement.

(I'll finish this later)