Mab of Dream

2005-07-15T09:48:00.000+01:00

I'm going to move semi-permanently over to here:

Mab of Dream

now that I've learned about the private and public versions.

yours
Mab
xxxxx

Wandering and Dreaming...

2005-07-11T06:27:00.000+01:00

*runs in to grab a drink and spots the thick dust hereabout* Ooops, I haven't been telling of any of this in here for a while, have I?

I was going to tell you of Branny's initiation; and the final days of Pixie and Dirk being in Britain. I haven't yet mentioned Yoko Ono and a beautiful garden; Barrow Hill and the Maiden; Glastonbury Festival; the conference; London bombs; two REM concerts; nor my MA. I'll tell you of them in a minute, perhaps in ink polaroids as the mood takes me. First I want to tell you of last night's dream.

I dreamt that Kate and I were about to buy a cup of tea on the HP. Kate questioned this logic, asking why we can't just pay for them outright. I responded that I couldn't, because I'd just bought a field of amethyst. I turned then to show her and the dream went into glorious technicolour, like Dorothy opening the door on Oz. As far as the eye could see, there were slabs laid in perfect symmetry, with equal spaces between them. If they were supposed to be amethyst, then they were the wrong colour. They were a milky green, almost blue; their colour gave them gentle depths, which swam like something serenely alive. It was awesome. Then I awoke. In waking retrospect, I wonder if it was a field of Flourite.

I mentioned two REM concerts, that I've been to in the past few days. The first of these has been reviewed for Bob's Between Planets. Here's the link to save the retelling here. That was July 6th, the birthday of the beautiful Georgia Langley. *runs to hug Georgia*

The other was today, July 10th, birthday of another great Cancerian in my life, Eric. *gives Eric the little nod of respect - not too much, in case he gets ideas - that silently says, "Did you do that or was it me?"* So yes, I celebrated both birthdays having absolutely amazing days... without the birthday people. Though I did 'phone Georgia, while the concert was on, and let her listen live to two songs. I couldn't cant at her, because it was too loud for me to hear; and it's taken me until today to phone her properly. At this rate, Eric will get his birthday phone call around the 14th.

As REM were playing in Cardiff today, Kate and I got up relatively early (for a Sunday) to make a day of it. I love daytrips where the journeys are great in themselves and both of these were. Us singing and bopping around to the like of the Kaiser Chiefs, Killers, White Stripes, The Strokes etc, through that pretty countryside, with the sun blazing. (By the time we reached there, the temperature was 25 and rose to 30 during the day. I have no idea what those temperatures mean, because I think in the one that goes up to the 80s and 90s. It was bloody hot though and I regretted the jeans.) Kate drove, because Steve (mechanic) told me emphatically several times that I can't drive Rebecca. Normally he says things like, 'You'll be ok, just take it steady and I'll pick it up Friday night.' This time it was DO NOT drive that car. Honestly, Jo, you can literally move that back wheel a foot! Don't drive the car. Ok.

We meandered around Cardiff the leisurely way (ie stopping at every other bench/cafe for a fag break), which was great, because while the pair of us had been there loads of times for concerts, neither one of us had seen the rest of the city. Cardiff feels like Wolverhampton. You know how, regardless of what you can see, each place has it's own 'feel'? This is the first place I've been to where a) the place in question feels the same as another place; and b) that place is my 'hood.

We got into the Millennium Stadium ten minutes before the rest of the audience, because Kate is a member of the fan-club and got us wristbands. It was fascinating to watch the interactions thereon. Though all of them wore nun smiles, canting to fellow fans as if they were all friends together, the competitiveness for the best views was fierce. Once held, their positions were not to be lost, even if it was more sensible for a little shuffle around. Pairs would create a pincer movement, in an attempt to squeeze an interloper out from where a friend could be standing. The person who had, minutes before, offered you an Opal Fruit, would now be 'accidentally' elbowing you in the face.

Kate was at the very front, leaning on the barrier, and I was just behind her. As the stage was only about 20 foot away, we were close enough to see and hear every tiny gesture by or amongst bandmembers; and be seen and heard ourselves. Kate spotted a member of the crew, whom she'd canted with in Birmingham, and managed to talk him into giving us both backstage passes.

I think that that corridor, tucked away in the innards of the Millennium stadium, and our walk down towards a VIP Room and the REM aftershow party, will stay with me always. It was surreal. Kate looked at me and I looked at her halfway down, and she murmured, 'Tell me that this is really happening.' 'It is.' I don't think that my mind had even registered as far as 'by the way, you'll be having drinks with Michael Stipe in a few minutes', except in the vaguest understanding. It had happened too quickly. Instead, I was enjoying the down the rabbithole sensation of it all; partly drifting onto the realization of how big this is going to be for Kate; partly pondering in astonishment, glee and thankfulness, that me and Kate don't half find ourselves in some bizarre situations.

It has a dreamlike quality. A security guard holding open a door with VIP Lounge written on it and some of our 10-20 strong group of seemingly random people with passes going on through. Me, in a bikini top and my jeans rolled up to my knees with my unshaved legs exposed; glistening, drenched with sweat after the hottest day in the history of the world in Cardiff, followed by six and a half hours standing in a mosh. Recalling all Georgia and Andrea have told me about gentile, Southern gentlemen... The ghost of nerves across Kate's face as I say, 'I'm just popping at the loo'; momentarily, both of us almost like children looking for an adult to tell us what's best to do. If we miss them being in the loo... if we meet them smelling so offensively... and Kate has no lipstick. After drinking a couple of pints of water, and not having been to the loo in over six hours, I'm mildly surprised to find that I don't piss my own version of Niagara Falls into the toilet. I must have sweated it all away in that searing heat out there.

We wash (but no deodorant nor perfume...), then walk from the toilet to the VIP Lounge next door, entering the room as if we always belonged there. The pair of us oozing confidence, taking a glass each of red wine and talking to strangers. It was good to be sitting down, on those large settees; and we seemed more self-possessed and comfortable than 90% of the people in there. We made some friends. Then the news came, about a hour on, that REM were unable to attend. They were dispersing to three different locations, after all, this should have been the end of their tour, but for the Hyde Park concert cancelled on Saturday because of the London bombings. Now there's a week twiggling their thumbs, until they play again on the 16th.

Kate admits her disappointment, but is still in awe that it nearly happened at all. I'm still in that state of half glee, half gratitude, generally with no focus, that I'm me; and we get to live these moments. So we walk back, through the quieter streets of Cardiff, still hot, though it's gone 1am; back to the car park by Bute Park, where I rub sycamore leaves on my feet and in my pits, so I can travel home shoeless without Kate wanting to throw up at the smell of me. Singing and dancing, laughing and canting in the car all the way home, with the night sky so clear that you could see the Great Bear accompanying us all the way.

I mentioned the London bombings above. That was Thursday. The first thing that anyone should know about my Thursday is that I'd only had about three hours sleep. Leaving Nottingham the night before, we'd hit roadworks. Not just a hole with some cones around and we're off; I'm talking about roadworks stretching the entire length of an A-road, while 30,000 people are leaving a concert. It was 1am before we'd even left the county and gone 3am before I went abed. At 6am, Kate woke me with a cuppa. She'd managed to pass through the room where I was sleeping, then boil a kettle in the next room without waking me, bless her. She went back to bed, while I caught a train to Stoke. We had our annual conference there - the most high-profile event in the Aimhigher West Midlands calendar, full of directors, partners, heads and other influential people. And me, surviving on Yaruba, coffee and willpower.

You know, I'm really proud of myself for Thursday. The feedback from people who can tell it as it is suggests that the day progressed like a swan; full of grace and impressive from the outside, but underneath the water, the little legs are going like the clabbers. The feedback from other delegates, who perhaps have to be a little more diplomatic in their dialogue with us, is gushing. I dealt with such a lot - from fielding messages about unaccounted for loved ones down in London (and clearing the decks of duties for the person who had a whole community, family and friends, to account for, as she hailed from Aldgate, where one of the bombs went off); to a fishbone stuck in a throat; to creating a selection of credible questions to be asked of a student panel (one of the main focal points of the day), because I'd left the ones written by the regional director in the office; to dealing with the reception and registration of a huge number of the delegates alone, because my colleague had disappeared, and getting them through professionally and quickly, so that I'm certain that none, if any, actually knew that I couldn't hear a word any of them said to me, because I'm deaf in one ear and they were all talking at onceto successfully blagging my way through the working of a lap-top and projector (though I hadn't encountered either before), because the workshop leader looked to be on the point of nervous collapse; to covering any number of potentially big fuck-ups on the day... and there were a lot.

If someone is afretting, I become calm. For most of Thursday, I was in a dead calm, which gives you a barometer for the sheer level of utter panic going on amongst some of my colleagues. The others just faded into the background and were practically delegates. I want to record this here, because for the consistently smooth passage of that conference on the day, despite all that happened, I take the credit. I'm proud of how brightly I shone that day and one day I may need to remind myself of this. I record it here because it probably wasn't evident to the rest of my colleagues who, if they witnessed any of it at all, would have seen bite-sized pieces of it each; but mostly, they would have entered serene waters all unknowing of the rapids that had been there only minutes before. I could ensure that it's known in the office, but others need the glory more than me. I wear my own crown, one which I'm going to do my damnedest to keep from blinding me in spotlights. There is one person who deserves the largest share of that credit. I've already had a quiet word with Viv, ensuring that she knows how invaluable she was, but carefully worded so she wouldn't (in theory) know the rest of the picture.

We knew there about the bombings in London. There was a television on in the bar area showing Sky News all day. You'd be amazed at how many delegates had someone in London, be it family, friend or close work colleague. I'd creep into the back of workshops and whisper to the delegate to step outside, then pass on the messages - such and such is safe; such and such needs you to call them urgently, they're stranded; the Summer School has 30 children to return to the Midlands tomorrow, but they've closed down the entire London transport system, what do we do?

What struck me was how remarkably unfazed everyone was. People went on to workshops and lectures, fully participating, like London gets bombed every day with *insert name of spouse, family member, friend or colleague* down there. Only two people had stronger reactions - one from Aldgate, who looked shocked to the core, but was already rallying by the time I discerned the rant, '*****'s supposed to be helping with this, but she's just come and gone straight in there to watch the telly and make phone-calls on her mobile phone', but actually heard, through the filter of my mind, 'The wench from London, who's normally highly efficient and professional, has chosen telly and phones over the conference. I wonder where in London she's from...' Her expression, when I found her, was stricken, but she wasn't crying. She was trembling, but she had dialled a number on her mobile. I reassured her that I'd cover everything work-wise; she should sort out her people then, when it was time for the waiting game, she should join me. She did. Then I listened as she told me about them all, and their status on the missing/ok stakes, and who was contacting whom. Within half an hour, that dark, British sense of humour was peeping out with her. She's too down-to-earth to have wobbled far off her centre; her panic manifested as practicalities and what can I do about this... I suppose that I was part-colleague, part-friend, and covertly part-dark priestess for all the time we talked, but fundamentally, all I was, was there.

The other was already so stressed that there was no discernable difference, saving the focus, when her brother phoned to say that her Dad had caught a train to King's Cross. That was a relatively quick panic. Within the hour, he'd checked in. In the meantime, I calmed and reassured, preparing to cover her role in the conference too, though ultimately that wasn't needful. It was after she'd gone away relieved that Val Yates, sitting across on one of the bar settees, caught my eye as she watched me. "You are a really calming influence, you know. You have a really serene aura about you." Right then, I silently agreed with her; then meandered away to the next bit of fire-fighting musing on the fact that, in some specific incidents from the past, if I'd been half so calm as I was that day, then things would have been much better in the end. I forgave myself the learning that necessitated those mistakes; then let them go.

On the way home, I had a few telephone conversations or exchanges of texts, mostly with some of my dear American friends. They'd known I'd been galavanting the night before, but didn't know where. They just needed to know I was safe. I was on three stations during that journey, Stoke, Wolverhampton and Dudley Port. In each of them, there was a noticeable police presense, two officers on each platform; and railway workers, three at each station, each of them with hand-held equipment that I didn't recognize. I wondered if they were for searches of some description.

I was so exhausted once I reached Dudley. I drove to Kate's, had a brew with her and watched BBC News (more measured and less sensationalist than Sky. I saw a snippet from the American CNN too; that made my jaw drop. Their reporting made it all look like a trailer from a film, complete with a spikey, terror-enducing soundtrack. I half-expected their reporter to finish his ricochette voiceover with 'starring Brad Pitt and Angelica Jolie...' This wasn't one of those moments where the enormity, horror and reality of a situation hits, because I could relax, concentrate and see it on the news. I'd already had that, when the London woman, waiting to tick off half of her community from the list of the unaccounted for, had spelled it all out for me. She could envisage only too clearly consequences and complications which simply wouldn't have occurred to me, 140 miles away from London, who still gets excited at the notion of riding on the tube. Plus we'd had most of these images all day on the telly at the conference.

Someone on it said that Londoners were shocked, but unsurprised. I'd extend that to the British full-stop. It was predictable. We've all talked about it as something that's going to happen one day; not in paranoia, but in the resigned, 'this is just the way it is' tones of a nation that's been bombed like this since 1972. It's now Monday and the only people for whom we could justifiably say that the world has stopped, or altered course, or otherwise registered as anything other than a slightly faster heartbeat and sadness, are those still missing and those missing them.

One of these is Liz Daplyn, the 26/27 year old friend of my friend, Ian Anscombe. There was still no word when I last spoke to him and he's starting to get really concerned now. The fat lady hasn't yet sung; she may be lying in a hospital somewhere not knowing who she is or unable to communicate this. Or the Dark Lady could already have her. The not knowing, for Ian and her loved ones, is excruciating, but there's always hope. She's mentioned on the list of 25 people still missing. Ian contacted me to see if I would raise the Grove over it. I have done so and sent energy into the search myself; he's since sent Cerr a photograph to help them focus on her. I just wish I could magic her safe and sound or, at least, located. I wish that for them all.

Birmingham city centre was evacuated on Saturday night. The country is officially on high alert, however 'business as usual' our population is.

Eventually I've come to the politics. The bombings being predictable and us being generally unfazed about it doesn't make it any more acceptable. You have to add disclaimers like that, because so many people see only in black and white or else unquestioningly accept nonsensical equations handed to them by politicians and the media. The example which springs to mind is the giant leap from 'you don't support the war on Iraq' to 'you support Saddam Hussein', which I had to deal with several trillion times a couple of years back. Even now, I'm still hazy on the workings out leading from one to the other, but I'm certain on the point that it bypasses the infinite number of other stances on this issue.

Duncan McFarlane pretty much speaks for me too. If a dam is breaking, it's much better to look at why and repairing the damage, than keep firing at the cracks.

Talking about Ian Anscombe, he and I met in London on June 17th, so we could go and watch Yoko Ono at the Queen Elizabeth Concert Hall (I may have the name wrong). It seems so strange, looking on a calendar, that this was less than a month ago. I feel like a different person and that weekend was when the shift finally made it over to the positive. I remember being a stressed thing that left work that Friday noon to drive down to Hillingdon. A week before, Viv had sent me home from work, because I twice nearly fainted and I'm not the fainting type. The office was cool, I'd eaten and I'd had enough water that day. But I was going under with burn out and stress. The only major difference between that day and going to London a week later was that I was being gentle with myself now. I'd withdrawn permission for me to brutalize my own mind.

I still caught myself red-handed afretting on things or prodding mental wounds on the journey down. I made it down to Hillingdon quite quickly and caught the tube to meet Ian and our friend, Pete Ramsdale, at, I think, Charing Cross. We had coffee and cake, then Pete left us, while Ian and I aimlessly explored London. We found a Corpus Christi Roman Catholic church that was... just there. It was somewhere in the vicinity of Covent Garden, though that doesn't mean much when put beside me and Ian on an epic meander. It was a peaceful, undoubtably lovely place. Whether exposure to the DiVinci Code or my own Paganism is to blame, we spotted a LOT of overtly Pagan symbolism in there, including, inexplicably, a framed picture of Pan on the wall. We blessed ourselves in the holy water, which presumably makes us Catholic now.

Meandering on, we found ourselves in Trafalgar Square and climbed up onto a ledge on Nelson's Column. It was so hot. Really baking us, when I spotted a sign over the road. Ice cream. I was actually pointing it out so we might go that way next, but Ian, bless him, climbed down and ran over to get us a carton each. Nice! After scoffing that, we climbed a lion. Well, more to the point, Ian climbed the lion, then pulled me up after him, because the thing is slippery and much bigger than I am. We must have sat on our lion for an hour or more, playing at Narnia, talking crap or seriousness, cogitating how long we would have to sit on there before everyone who we knew in the entire world would walk by below. It was on that lion when, in retrospect, I crossed that line between resolutely coating everything with a determination to look to the positive to actually living my life in a positive world. I wasn't looking that closely at the time. I just know that I was happy and we were both blissfully content up there. We also knew that a week later, we would be at the Glastonbury Festival. We noted the time, 7.05pm, that's when, whatever we were doing at the festival, we'd look at each other and send a nod back to ourselves on the lion.

(I did remember this. For much of the festival, my phone was switched off. Apart from friends, this is my only source of GMT time, and festivals enduce a sense of the meaningless of time anyway. I was with Loz, and some others, when it occurred to me that it was Friday night. I had no idea what the time was. It could have been anywhere between mid-afternoon or sunset. So I dug into my bag to find my phone, switched it on and looked at the time. It was 7.05pm. I was gob-smacked, but there was no-one with me who'd get the coincidence of that - unless I'd just been whacked in the face by the 'hello' sent by me and Ian the previous week. I phoned Ian straight away, but his phone was off then. When he rang back, I couldn't hear a word he was saying over Elvis Costello. LOL)

We moved with glacial slowness down Whitehall - me discovering some anti-racism wristband, which are £20 in Wolverhampton and £1.99 in London (?); and Ian checking on his cat, Charlie, who's been ill, then negotiating with Kate whether we could stay at her house that night - then down to the Thames. On a previous visit, Ian had found a beautiful garden. A bit of investigating later, we found ourselves sitting on a bench in Embankment Gardens, looking across at the tallest trees I have ever seen in my life. However, I was a little concerned that time was getting on and we had yet to find the place where Yoko was performing.

It was close by, but she started promptly and had no support acts, therefore she was already 20 minutes underway by the time an elderly lady shone a torch to find our seats. To be fair, I was there because Yoko is in Ian's personal pantheon. I bought him his ticket as his birthday present and neither of us knew what to expect. It helped that I'd seen a video of her performance art from the '60s earlier this year; instead of viewing her as a singer, I saw what she was doing as art. Once I'd made that shift in my perception, her performance that night was compelling. I can't say I understood it, but I'm glad I went there. She does something with voice and ambience that takes you somewhere. I know you could say that about any singer with a song. It's different, but I haven't the vocabulary to explain why.

It did spark inspiration for a story in my head though. Next day, I was scribbling away totally lost in it. Kate and Ian haven't seen me like that for a while, oblivious to the world because I'm writing. It felt really good.

We caught the tube from Westminster to Hillingdon, then I put my foot down to get us home at as reasonable a time as I could. En route, we put the world to rights; and talked about spirituality. Ian said that my outlook on life sounds very Buddhist. He said a lot of other things too, which helped put some things in context. Then we were at Kate's, unknowing that the next two days were going to be so amazing.

I won't repeat it, here's how I told the Grove:

Cabochon:

**What's everyone doing this year for the Solstice? :-)**

I'm going to have a thoroughly amazing day, in the sunshine and a wood. Around
sunset, I'm going to lead my two friends into a chasm and spot the ledge we need
to be on at the top of it. I'll then climb up the face of it in order to show
them that it's easy. Both of them will follow me, then we'll walk along the
single-file, overgrown track to find a huge tree stump.

We'll sit on it, facing perfectly to the West. Only then will one of these
people remind us that he has vertigo. Pride will swell in the other two,
because he climbed that chasm and he's sitting now with it underneath him. My
friend will ask him, 'Are you ok with this?' He'll respond, 'Yes, but if Jo
would stop dangling her legs over the side, I'll feel a lot happier.' I'll
point out that there's a tree root protruding and my foot against it, then, when
he's stopped looking, carry on as normal.

The sunset will be stunning, with our view covering three counties and as soon
as the sunset goes down, fireworks will flood the horizon in five different
directions. I'll begin celebrating my solstice a day early. Then, around
midnight, we'll leave our perch and, surprisingly, it'll be the other two (inc
the one with vertigo) who advocate part climbing, part sliding and part falling
down the side of the chasm (I'd prefer to see if there's a path just up here...
it's fine, I have great night vision...).

We'll descend, me last, topless and with a short skirt now riding up around my
waist, not entirely graceful in the darkness! LOL Then we'll reach the bottom
and they, with torches, will meander on ahead. I'll go very, very slowly,
because I can never see anything at night when I'm blinded by torchlight.
Through the trees, harking once something which might have been a badger, might
have been a bird. Then I'll turn a corner and watch my friends standing
canting. They'll turn, see me and both simultaneously gasp. I'll ask if
they're canting or waiting for directions. Kate will breathe, 'Tell me you just
saw what I just saw.' Ian will respond, 'It depends on what you just saw.'
'I'll tell you when we get back to the car.'

I'll lead the way through the moonlit woods, the torches turned off behind me;
down Barrow Hill and onto Vicarage Road. At the car, Kate will say, 'Ok, what
did you see?' 'A woman in white...' 'Me too!' But they saw slightly
differently. Kate saw a dress like Alice in Wonderland, complete with Alice
band, all pure white. Ian saw white robes. An inner light. It came from
me, walked four feet or so in front of me towards them, then sank back into me.
Then I walked towards them as myself and said, 'Are you canting or waiting for
directions?'

And I'll think back to Beltane and me, lost, in Wareham Forest,
'It was Beltane and I figured that this was all part of the Great Universal
Game. Very early on, I was looking up and saw torchlight up a ridge and what
sounded like Kate and Pete. I got my torch out and flashed them. One figure
waited at the top, while the other came down the track. In the torchlight, I
could make out Kate's orange blanket/coat, then, as I watched, the apparition
changed and became a Maiden, all in white, complete with white cloak. She went
behind a tree and never came out again. The torchlight had gone from the top as
well. Later, Kate and Pete told me that they'd never gone away from the fire
together.'
http://mabofdream.blogspot.com/2005/05/isnt-it-good-to-be-lost-in-woodsisnt.html

And decide that the Maiden is definitely after me. *grin*

Then we'll sit on a wall, in the moonlight, talking about our holiday next week.

(PS I'll start it a day early too. HAPPY SOLSTICE ALL!)

yours
Mab
xxxxx

The Glastonbury Festival... it was unadulterated amazingness. *grin*

Pictures!

Yes, there are stories, moments... maybe another day.

And finally, on Friday 8th July 2005, I received word that I've not only passed my Masters degree in History, but with a higher grade B. A-E are passes.

:-D

yours
Mab
xxxxx

From Vera Lisa

2005-07-02T18:53:00.000+01:00

Understanding the energetic human form

Rivers of light

The luminous energy cocoon is a mirror of the Earth's magnetic
field.
Energy streams from the North Pole and circumnavigates the planet to
re-enter again through the South Pole. Similarly rivers of light
travel out of the top of the head and stream around the luminous
body
forming a great oval the width of our outstretched arms. Our cocoon
penetrates the Earth 12 to 18 inches. The rivers of light re-enter
the body through the feet.

Along the surface of the planet run flux lines, similar to
acupuncture meridians, connecting the major chakras of the Earth.
These meridians traverse the globe, transporting energy and
information from one part of the planet to another. Seers can
communicate with each other through the luminous matrix formed by
the
flux lines of the Earth. Trained seers are able to sense and
sometimes see the luminous grid of the universe, extending beyond
the
Earth and into the galaxies.

Like the flux lines running along the body of the Earth, the rivers
of light run along the surface of the skin connecting energy points,
which are in essence very small chakras. These rivers of light are
the circulatory system for the luminous cocoon. Seers can learn to
extend fibers from any of these smaller chakras, as well as the main
chakras. One who 'sees', can perceive these rivers of light and
readily see locations where the light is choked, stopped, or
rerouted. Certain stretching and pressing techniques are quite
effective.

The 10 major light arteries in the luminous cocoon pass through the
fingertips. A profound balance ocurrs when we touch our
fingertips...
thumb-to-thumb, index-to-index, etc. Seers can learn to extend these
rivers as a defense force, first in dreaming and later with the
physical self.

Imprints

The luminous c! ocoon contains information that can kill us or heal
us.
It holds a blueprint of our body just as an architectural drawing
holds the design of a house. But unlike the house, which remains
intact as it ages, our luminous cocoon is continually informed by
the
incidents we experience. Unresolved psychological, emotional, and
spiritual traumas becoming engraved like scratch marks in our
luminous field. The blueprint that shaped and molded us since we
were
inside our mother's womb contains the memories of all of our former
lifetimes -- the way we suffered, the way we lived, how we were ill,
and the way we died. These imprints contain instructions that
predispose us to repeat certain events from the past. We want to
learn where these energy imprints are located in the luminous cocoon
and how to erase them so that the body, mind, and spirit can return
to health. This is sometimes called Recapitulation.

The outermost layer of the ! luminous cocoon is the membrane
or "skin"
of the luminous body. This membrane serves as a defense shield in
the
same way the skin is protective of the body. The imprints of
physical
traumas and diseases are etched onto this membrane like designs cut
into glass. When a person is suffering from a prolonged illness,
there is an energetic imprint that is depressing the immune system.
If the imprint is not cleared, recovery can take months or years,
and
a person not only will be predisposed to a recurrence of the same
condition, but will carry the imprint into her next lifetime. The
imprints etched into the emotional layer of the luminous energy
field
predispose us to live in particular ways and to become attracted to
certain people and relationships. These imprints dictate the course
of our emotional lives. It is very difficult to change our lifestyle
without clearing the imprints in this layer. The imprints stored in
the psychic l! ayer inform and organize our physical reality. The
imprints in the spiritual layer choreograph our journey through life
including the kind of spiritual fulfillment that we will attain.

Imprints are formed when negative emotions that accompany trauma are
not healed. When an imprint is active, it pulsates within the
luminous cocoon. An activated imprint launches its programs, fueling
them from the energy stored in the luminous cocoon. It's nearly
impossible to stop. It's toxic energy spills into a chakra, wreaking
emotional havoc or compromising our immune response. If we are able
to heal the emotional component of a painful situation as it
happens,
an imprint is not created in the energy field. And active imprint is
recognized by the dark energy around it. When it begins to play
itself out, we gravitate to people in situations that will allow us
to relive the circumstances of the original wounding in an attempt
to
heal it! , a subconscious attempt to recapitulate. The imprints can
arrange strange and apparently unrelated events in the world. They
can orchestrate our meeting love partners who have all the same
toxic
personality traits. They can strand us in the oddest places to come
upon someone we are destined to meet.

Seers believe that intellectual cognizance (talk therapy) rarely
scratches the service and is not enough to bring about true healing.
One must clear the imprint or be predisposed to reenact the
situation. And old imprint is activated the through a traumatic or
emotional experience. The seer is interested in draining the toxic
emotional energy around an imprint and then erasing the imprint
itself. This is called an "illumination".

from the talks of Alberto Villodo

A Handfasting is Held!

2005-06-03T09:47:00.000+01:00

The whole group of us, minus Bex, Branny and Aud, set off from the George and Pilgrim to work to the Tor. Pete, bless his socks, had only held my bag (containing all the tools for the ceremony) for two seconds, but refused to give it back. I'm not used to gentlemen, but he carried it up there for me. Most of the other blokes were out of view very quickly, having much, much longer legs than the like of Pixie and I. At one point, I said, 'shit, does Dirk know the way up there? Who's he with?' Froggie. Ok! LOL

It was really pleasant walking up. The sun still shining but lower in the sky, coming up towards the sunset. I was sorted until we reached the Tor itself. I maintain that the Pilgrim's Walk is far worse than the other side. It goes on forever, gradually getting steeper and steeper; the other side starts steep, has two stops, but is over quite quickly. You don't notice the Pilgrim's Walk getting steeper, you just suddenly realize that you want to die or rest, whichever comes first. The other side is bad for those with vertigo, as there's a definite being on the edge of the world sense; but I'd still recommend it over the Pilgrim's Walk. Naturally it was the latter we were climbing.

I was going up cursing (not seriously) Andrea for over-estimating how cold it is in Britain. My robes are beautiful, but very, very hot going up that Tor. Pixie and I were more or less together, stopping every three seconds for a rest, particularly towards the end. St Michael's Tower was in close sight, the path had been taken up for relaying and I'm crying out, 'I need a rest! I'm a smoker!' Pixie the asthmatic was several steps ahead! LOL But eventually we were up there, fighting for breath inside the tower.

It might look from photos that the tower affords some shelter from the elements. Nope. Two open arches to the north and south ensure that any wind from those directions whistle straight through. There's no roof. The only thing you are protected from in there are the direct hits of east and west winds. That was enough. I sat on one of the slab blocks (are they tombs or benches?) and got my breath, with the help of a bit of water. I soon recovered and stepped out into the wind to work out where to hold the ceremony. Pete and Froggie were with me. The place were I would ordinarily have done it was fine, but the work on the path would have been in the background of photos. Two alternatives were to the side of the tower, which was sheltered from some of the wind or on the open plain to its north/north-east. In the end, I fetched the bride and had her decide. She went for the latter, which would have been my choice too.

Then it was backwards and forwards getting the tools and working out where everyone would be. Cabochon joined me and the nerves were showing on his face. I took his hands and was able to do the calming/bonding thing. I'd already done my panicking half an hour or so before. The wind was as blowy as it always is up there. We gave up on the pouring of water etc into the chalices, giving Pete a bottle to hold instead. Then it was time.

Everything there had something to do, be it hold an element, hold the cake or mead, photograph/film or get handfasted. We quickly all got into position and raised the circle. That was stunning. Cabochon did the actual spoken calling, but it was a joint effort raising it. Perhaps we should think on that in future - me, Cabochon and whomever was holding the element ALL concentrating on it, on the Tor... Bex held Air. Soon as we'd called Air, I could feel the wind picking up. I just figured that it was how the wind was rising anyway.

Three times round with Bex, then we're in the South with Aud. I'd lit the candle inside a lantern to give it a change of surviving (Bex had created candles for everyone, with ribbons in case wind stopped flame. They all held them and the ribbons did the job. They were really beautiful!). Aud's candle-flame survived the calling and the first lap, then went out. It wasn't needful. As Scott had called, there was a pause, then behind Aud, on the Levels below, I saw the world get lighter. It was a brief second, as if the sun had come out over the site of the Glastonbury Festival, but definite, and around we went. I whispered to Aud on the second lap not to afret on the loss of the flame. She is fire, concentrate on the flame inside her. She did, you could see it in her. (She was singing 'we shall not, we shall not be moved' when it came to take the circle down later! LOL)

Onto Ian. The rain is spotting and we call water... We got water! Look at the picture, no discernable rain there. When it came to take it down again, the back of Ian's coat was drenched, while the front wasn't too bad. We all knew that the rain was coming from the west when we tried to leave the Tor, but the back of Ian's jacket was my clue right there. *grin*

Still each of these were made to feel hard to raise in comparison to Earth. Bex, Aud and Ian were air, fire and water sunsigns respectively. The only two earth signs there were myself and Branny - one HPS-ing and one to take the pictures. Froggie, an air sign, was happy enough holding earth, so he got the job. Normally you feel the subtle up as the element is raised, not so here. Cabochon and I went, pulled and it was like tensing yourself to lift a heavy box only to discover it's light. I nearly did the energy-raising equivalent of falling backwards. LOL

The ceremony itself was beautiful. For the first time ever, I had the words colour-coded and bullet-pointed into a book (which Aud had bought me), but the vast majority of the ceremony was improvised right there and then, as these things should be. Then a beautiful moment of synchroncity...

Earlier, as Froggie and I had left his shop, he'd picked up a staff. He asked if I wanted to use it in the ceremony, but I had my stang for that. He opted to bring it anyway and was holding it during the handfasting. Cabochon and I managed to handfast Pixie and Dirk together, then I turned to find the stang... I'd left it in the tower! I was just about to cut myself a door to run and get it, when Froggie chucked me his staff. I laid it down, the couple, handfast, leapt over it, and there! They were Bride and Groom. I loved it! I loved the pure synchronicity of it! Loved it!

The food and mead were blessed by Bride and Groom, then taken around to share with all. By now, the wind and rain are really starting to lash down. Pixie and Branny look frozen to death, but most everyone else have huge grins on their faces. Once they were back, I announced,
'For those who think that they may die of hypothermia, I'm about to cut a door in the circle. Everyone else, all that's left is to take the circle down.' Branny left quickly; Alan left after Aud kicked him out for 'farting about', everyone else stayed. Pixie and Dirk both looked so cold that I expected them to run too, but Pixie told me later that she didn't think it was right with the rest of us stuck out there.

Me? I was perfect. I was dry. The elements threw their worst at me and my robes kept me completely dry. Afterwards, I was to walk into a room of sopping wet people and announce, 'Ladies and gentlemen! Twin Rose Designs!' as only I and Dirk (in Cabochon's cloak) were dry. Only the people who had been wearing clothes made my Andrea. Aud and Bex both told me later that they never wanted to leave that circle ever, for all the weather. Cabochon was downright intoxicated on the energy by now as well. Ian was running around like a wild thing soon as he was able too. There must have been something in holding the elements or being clergy that got to us. It was such an amazing feeling. Still, I didn't know that right then and I know my own capacity for loving wildness doesn't always translate, so I ran to close the circle as the rain thundered down. Three times round, as Cabochon led those holding the points. I was high as a kite on the energies by then.

We hurriedly packed up, Cabochon asked me what to do with the last of the cake and I suggested that he crumple it up as an offer to deity and the spirits. He went outside just in time to see forked lightning on the horizon behind where fire had been raised. He came back even more hyperactive. People 'fled' (insofar as they were able, with the wind so high and the rain lashing down into our faces), but Ian and I were the last to leave the summit. Even though we just overtook Branny and Cabochon (poor wench had a torn ligament and Cab was helping her), we were only ever a few paces in front. I was only halfway down when I saw Aud go arse over tit near the bottom. She did her knee in, but was apparently on the floor for so long because she was laughing so much.

Laughing about covers us too. In truth I wanted to stay up there, which sounds strange to say, given the weather right then. I was just high, really high. No actual chemicals had entered my body, nor was I drunk. I was just loving every second of this. Beside me Ian was running wild too; behind us, Cabochon was bouncing around and in our little gang, only Branny was being cautious, though that may have been ankle related. She couldn't afford to slip!

Partway down, the path snakes around to face the south-east and I couldn't move! The wind was so strong that I couldn't walk against it. I held out my arms thinking that I could start flying in reality, riding on the wind. Ian and I did that in Wales once, during a strong wind on Cader Idris and I wanted to do it from the Tor; but I must have been too heavy to lift up, even though it was too strong for me to walk into. Like a solid wall, that wind, until Ian grabbed me and pulled me through and us laughing our heads off.

We eventually reached the bottom, getting to just by Dion Fortune's house before Branny went over on her ankle. She just went pure white and you could tell she wanted to cry, but she didn't. I was expecting to learn some new Dutch swearwords, but she was very restrained. Very slowly, covered in two Cancerian males and me, she breathed out and her colour came back. There was nothing we could do, short of her waiting while I fetched the car. That could have been up to half an hour in that rain. She braved the walk over the pneumonia and we went on, swigging mead and whiskey; me and Cabochon being told to slow down every 100 yards, as we got over-excited and started Tigger-ing up the road. Ian kept pace with Branny, with us running backwards and forwards. It was so much fun! (Obviously not for Branny...)

Back at the George and Pilgrim, Froggie was in the bar, but everyone else had gone upstairs to dry off or get changed. We got Branny sat down and I ran to get a stool to put her foot up on. I can't really remember much else, I think I was just way too hyper. I know that I raced up to Pixie and Dirk's room and Pixie asked me to gather everyone up there rather than in the bar below. I did that then, running up and down stairs, trying to get the message to everyone. That took some time! In the finish, I was in the bar gathering Froggie, when Bex and Pete arrived down. I was trying to shepherd them upstairs, when Pixie and Dirk turned up. I was just bouncing around, happy to have a drink anywhere.

We did end up upstairs again. By now, even the outer coating of my robes were dry. I was in shock, because they had no right to be. I had to call Andrea! I did so and the phone went around the whole room, with Pixie trying to intercept it because it was running my phone-bill up. It came to me, I said hello and passed her to Branny. I think Pixie gave up around then. Bless her.

The standing, half-serious joke of the evening was Pixie, every 20 mins or so, hushing us all up. She'd read the blarb on a sheet which came with the room. 'This is a 700 year old building and, as such, has no soundproofing...' Pixie would get us told with that line and everything would go into low voices for all of 30 seconds, then rise and rise. I had no hope of hearing. I was lip-reading and bouncing around a lot.

The call went for food at around 11. No restaurant in a small town is going to let you in at that time, particularly 11, reasonably drunk people. You'd get fed in a city, but not somewhere like Glastonbury. However, Aud and Bex managed to wing something over at the local Italian restaurant, but only if we seated now. I turned to find no people behind me. I wrapped my shawl around me and headed off back into the rain and night, so loving that rain! (Really, that's not sarcasm, that's why I volunteered to go!) I found the Bride, Groom and assorted stragglers in their room, still in the George and Pilgrim. Then Alan appeared behind me, they were refusing to feed us unless we went NOW.

Off we toddled for a beautiful meal there. Came to pay and found that Cabochon had paid for us all. He's such a wonderful man.

We were up until the early hours, making way too much noise for a 700 year old building with no soundproofing; drinking mead, wine and whiskey, eating cheese. I felt like I could stay up all night, but married couples might need to go to bed... Crank calling people... probably on my phone bill, but I was way too drunk by then to notice. ;-) It's still cool, if it was.

Branny and I had us a cup of tea in our room. I offered to read her a bedtime story from the free Gideon's Bible, but she declined. Almost as soon as my head hit the pillow, I was asleep.

Five children questioned after boy, 5, left hanging

2005-06-02T10:23:00.000+01:00

'Kin hell...

Journeying to Avalon

2005-05-30T14:08:00.000+01:00

Saturday 21st May 2005:

We were setting off in several cars, but had it all worked out beforehand. I got off really lightly, as I didn't have to pick up anyone, just take Pixie and Dirk from the house I was in too. Everyone was leaving at 9, except Aud and Alan, who were setting out earlier in order to pick Scott and Ian up from Birmingham, that way we'd all meet up in Glastonbury at roughly the same time.

It was a great journey down. Last year, I'd learned to detest driving. This was three-fold - I had whiplash, which made driving really painful; also I was one of only a few drivers in a large group, which meant that I had to drive if we were all going somewhere. In the past, Kate's been one of any group we're with, so we've taken it in turns, but she wasn't part of this group; and also by the latter half, Rebecca wasn't a well car, so I lived in fear of her breaking down or worse. I spent a lot of last year driving along, in a lot of pain, stressed over the car, really wishing that I wasn't driving. This journey down to Glastonbury, with Pixie and Dirk, reversed all of that. I thoroughly enjoyed not only that journey, but all the others too. (Even the final, mad journey to Gatwick on the Wednesday, I didn't dislike for my own part. If we hadn't been battling against the clock, it would have been a good journey too.) This is one of the huge gifts that I brought out of Pixie and Dirk's visit, this renewed okayness with driving again. Plus Dirk and Branny between them identified the two remaining noises that Rebecca is making, so I can get them sorted.

I've never known the journey to Glastonbury pass so quickly (excepting the time I did it in the middle of the night at 100mph). It was almost a disappointment to reach it, almost, I say, because then the excitement of being in Glastonbury took over. We stopped at Froggie's shop for ages, before meeting Bex and Pete at the Blue Note.

There were still minor stresses though, because we'd all managed to keep Branny's arrival a secret until now, but things didn't quite go according to plan. We sat in the courtyard of the Blue Note, Bex and I purposefully sitting side-by-side at the other end of the table to Pixie and Dirk, so that the text messages between Aud and Branny and us could be kept away from them. Aud and Alan had dropped off Scott and Ian, who'd joined us, then gone for Branny at Castle Cary. I'd have gone, but my absense would have been too noticeable. At first, Ian said that they were 'parking up'. Then time stretched out and out. The texts said that Branny had hitch-hiked to Shepton Mallet, while Aud and Alan were at Castle Cary. They were going for her. By now, Pixie was getting very suspicious. I ended up lying through my teeth, saying they'd gone up Clarke's Village for flares for on top of the Tor. Behind Pixie, Ian was giving me that 'you lie way too well, Harrington' look, so I was ignoring him. *grin* Then I remembered that I hadn't bought the pay and display for my car. My mind had been so full of the Branny situation that it just passed me by. My job was to get Pixie and Dirk into the Blue Note and keep them there; somewhere along the way I simply forgot about buying the parking. Pixie and I ran back to my car, but there was a parking ticket on it. (Oh! Shit, I still need to pay that!)

There was no way we could stay together at the Blue Note any longer without giving the game away. A glance at the time showed we'd been in Glastonbury nearly 2 hours anyway, so it was nearly time to check in. Off we all went to the George and Pilgrim, each of us (except Pixie and Dirk) watching entrances and waiting on the next text messaged progress report. If we'd split up now, then we didn't know how we'd spring Branny on them. Then, as Pixie signed for her room, Branny turned up. I remember looking at her, thinking, 'there's Branny'. No reaction. Looking again, 'yep, Branny'. Then the third time, 'SHIT! THAT'S BRANNY STANDING THERE!' Dirk saw her and she put her fingers over her lips. I surreptiously got my camera out. Pixie turned and it took a second to register, then she screamed and ran to hug her. LOL Two seconds later, we had an Aud and Alan too and all the surprises were over. We'd all nearly slipped up as well. The night before I'd said to Pixie, Dirk and Kate, 'Shit, I didn't get myself some pyjamas and I'm going to be... sharing a room...' Then covered it with reaching for my drink. It had sounded well suss to me, but no-one had picked it up. I'm just amazed that Pixie hadn't counted on her fingers and wondered who I'd been sharing a room with!

The George and Pilgrim had fucked up. I triple-checked since first booking the rooms months ago. Two twin rooms, two doubles and a four-poster bridal suite. Yes, yes, yes. Then, last week, I'd checked again, suddenly all of the rooms were doubles, but being charged at twin room prices... There was nothing we could do about it. Branny and I shared one double room, while Scott and Ian shared another. Branny and I originally had the four-poster room (charged at the price of a twin room.... mmmm...), but we took one look and went to find Alan. This should be his and Aud's room, as this amounted to their second honeymoon. Aud herself was over the Blue Note. She needed food urgently (medical reasons rather than plain hunger) and a breather before coming out to play. Branny and I were in the Nun's Cell. LOL Alan and Aud got the Henry VIII room, where he'd stood to watch the desolution of Glastonbury Abbey. Pixie and Dirk got the huge Abbot Selwood room, which is the room you always stand on Glastonbury High Street looking up at and wondering what it's like to be in it. Ian and Scott got the Priest's Cell, I think, or it could have been called the Confessional. It was directly above me and Branny anyway. Bex and Pete were in a newer part of the building, so their room was called 'number 10'.

Afterwards, we all split up. I nipped to the loo and discovered that I'd come on, so I went hunting Glastonbury for sanitary towels. It started really raining, in defiance of the Grove spells on the subject. Every so often, we'd all meet somewhere, like the time when most of us were crowded in Froggie's shop, buying him out of stock. Now Branny was here, my mind was onto the handfasting, which was the next biggie. I'd got all of the tools for that, but Scott was getting cake and wine. I'd walk about and think, 'Shit, I needed to ask Scott that...' twice I did that, looked up and he was in the shop as I was walking by. I did that once with Aud too. I was beginning to suss that I could call people to me, so I turned into the alley by the Blue Note and called Ian with my mind; walked out the other end and heard the word, 'Wolverhampton'. I looked across and there were Branny and Ian sitting having a brew. :-D

We largely sat there for the afternoon, with folk coming and going, which is how we usually do it. Usually I do more running off and coming back though, though there was a bit of that too. Bex asked on the arrangements for the evening and I arbitarily said to meet at the George and Pilgrim, dressed up, at half 6. Pete, Alan and (I think) Dirk were in the King Charles watching the FA Cup final, though Dirk may have been with Pixie looking around. Glastonbury is tiny, so we always tend to split up. If you need folk, you only have to stand by the Cenotaph and look around, soon enough you'll have everyone. LOL But on this occasion, soon enough everyone had passed through our bit of courtyard, so had the half 6 thing. We needed a definite time, because some needed to have a head start, as that climb is extremely steep. For a start, Branny had a torn ligament in her ankle.

Around five, I went up to Froggie's shop to see if he was joining us. I ended up staying in there until closing, canting with him, then we meandered down to the George and Pilgrim for a pint with Dirk, Ian and Aud. Time was getting on and I realized that I still hadn't had ten minutes to quiet my mind before the handfasting. It was still full of - has everyone got their room? Do Scott and Ian want to move rooms because of the leak? Is Branny sorted with her ankle? Are Pixie and Dirk having a good time? Have Aud and Bex chilled into Glastonbury? Did Pete and Alan get to see the match? Have I got everything for the ceremony? Is everyone happy and alright? Why am I stressing? Am I happy and alright? etc etc. The usual internal dialogue of a Virgo who's accidentally vaguely 'in charge' insofar as anyone is. This sounds like I was stressing far more than I actually was. In reality, I was having a great time, just very conscious that I was supposed to have a quiet mind in a circle very shortly. I'd meant to pop into the Goddess Temple for all of this, but by the time I was ready, the place had been shut ten minutes.

So I went upstairs and found Branny in our room. Got my robes on, which felt beautiful, and, though I knew the bag had everything needful, I double-checked it. It didn't have the oil that Aud had made from Chelle's recipe. I slid into utter panic attack. I thought I'd been doing well. At one time I'd said I'd never do another handfasting, Wiccaning etc because of how panicked I got, but that was so last year. I crouched by the side of my bed in utter terror, mind just flashing with random shit; Branny walked out of the bathroom and I said, 'Branny, I'm panicking now.' She said, in her precise English accent, 'You'll be fine', and disappeared back into the bathroom. I just laughed. I got the Bach Rescue Remedy and the Quiet Life down me, picked up the bag and called that I'd meet her downstairs.

Once downstairs, those who were going early hadn't gone. There was talk of calling a taxi, so I volunteered to run them up, then walk up with the others. Aud, Bex and Branny wanted the head start, so I drove them to the Tor, then turned around in Wellhouse Lane feeling the panic really rising again. I was getting well disgusted with myself. I knew that Ian has dealt with a million panic attacks of mine, so he could sort this one; I knew that Pixie has dealt with them on the phone, but this was her big day. Aud could mother for England, when it comes to it, but I'd just dropped her off. I put on some jingly, jangly Celtic music and drove back to the George and Pilgrim. By the time I got there, I was very calm. The final panic was all over. I'd just needed that five minutes alone with Celtic music. I abandoned the car, joined the others and we walked up to the Tor.

*to be continued*

Pixie and Dirk Came to Britain!!

2005-05-30T13:02:00.000+01:00

Thursday 19th May:

I'd set my alarm clock for 9am, but woke up at 20 past 7 and bounced out of bed so excited. I didn't have to be at Aud's until eleven, so there was time to kill. It had been noon until the night before. I tatted on the computer; cleared all my e-mail folders; watched a bit of telly. By 9, Aud was worn down by my incessant bouncing around via e-mail and said I could go to hers at half 10. I made a cuppa, I did a few repairs on the Witchgrove website. I wondered if there were spells for making time go more quickly.

Apparently there are. The clock was out on my computer. I only sussed when an e-mail arrived from the future! It was 40 minutes later than I thought it was and I was already late for Aud. Arrrrrrrgggggggghhhhhhhhhh!!!

Aud and I abandoned my car at FT Kate's house, while Alan and Harriet came for us in his 7-seater mini-bus. I'd chucked my keys through Kate's letterbox before I realized I'd left my handbag, in full view, in my car. I retrieved my keys with frightening ease, even for a Wulfrunian, which caused me to poke them halfway across her floor with a piece of wire I found in the gutter. I then took the wire with me in my handbag, in case any thieving Black Country dude had witnessed it all. And off we went on our adventure.

It was well cool being chaffeured down the motorway. I got to see lots of pretties that I wouldn't have ordinarily seen. Aud pointed out Chilton in the distance, where she grew up; then we stopped in Rugby, which was her 'hood before she moved into my 'hood. I got to see the field where William Webb Ellis committed handball and deserved a penalty against his team picked up the ball during a football game, thus inventing the game of rugby. I also saw the church where Aud was married to her training husband, before she married Alan. Then it was off to Heathrow to pick up Pixie and Dirk.

We only just got there in time. Roadworks and all kinds of things held us up, but we'd just parked up, had a fag and crossed the road to arrivals and there was an almighty Pixie-like screech. They had just that second arrived too, so we ran, hugged them, and Aud and I put Wolverhampton Wanderers scarves around their necks, like Hawaiian people put flowers around the necks of their visitors. Of course, until then, it had been red hot. I'd taken my jacket off in the car and was still boiling, so I didn't expect the scarves to see much wear. But soon as we left the airport, it started raining. Only showers, but the sun had just disappeared while we'd spent those five minutes in Heathrow Airport.

We drove around looking for somewhere to park up, that was reasonably secure (because of the luggage), but also on the tube line. That became a magical mystery tour and I saw parts of London which I've never seen before (which isn't that hard...). I'd originally jumped in the back, on the basis that Aud knows London to direct Alan, but the further we went the more my stomach was turning. I got to the part where I thought I'm going to throw up any second now, when Aud noticed and got Alan to pull over. I was mortified! But I suppose it would have been far worse if I'd vomitted all over Pixie in Alan's car. Once I'd had a few gasps of air and gagged a bit, I was fine. I got into the front then. It was safer.

We parked up in Hammersmith and was walking to the tube station when Cerr 'phoned! Dirk had just been speculating on what Yoda's penis looks like, which amused Cerr greatly. LOL I handed her to Pixie for a short cant, but we were nearly at the tube station, so was going to lose signal. I got to say goodbye, then ran after the others. Alan paid for all of our tube tickets and refused point-blank to have any money off me for petrol. I did try to sneak him a twenty via Harriet when he later bought a round in the pub too, but Aud caught us and sneaked it back into my pocket. Git.

The voice on the tannoy didn't say 'mind the gap' to the disappointment of me and Pixie. ('Neverwhere' by Neil Gaiman...) We landed at Westminster, which was strange. Every other time I've landed at Westminster, I've had a banner or a candle and I'm about to protest something. It was bizarre seeing it minus thousands of people chanting! We had us some crepes from a stand beside the Boudicca statue, with Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament over the road; then headed towards Westminster Abbey, which was closed. It had started to really rain by now, so we sheltered in the Abbey shop. I nearly bought an American-English dictionary, but Pixie and Dirk assured me that they'd never heard of half the American words in it.

We walked in the rain to Regent's Park, then under the sheltering canopy of trees to Buckingham Palace. The flag was up, which meant that the Queen was in, but we didn't ask to go in for tea, because the rain was belting down. Instead we found the nearest pub and went into it. That was fun AND surreal. Pixie and Dirk, wearing Wolves scarves, sitting with us in a pub... but also like old friends just nipping over for a visit, which was precisely what they were. But, for me, there wasn't that 'stepping out of a story-book' feel that there was in Vegas, which I reckon was because they were in my 'hood and because I'd met them before.

The rain wasn't about to let up, so Pixie and Dirk decided they'd seen enough of London and we should head back. On the tube was a woman who looked completely wrecked. You could smell the booze a mile off and the businessman holding her up looked so embarrassed. The only space in the carriage was around her, as folk were waiting for her to throw. He practically carried her off at their station. Back in Hammersmith, poor Harriet got packed into the luggage; Pixie had a near miss with a toilet stop; and we all bounced around a lot, generally over-excited.

We phoned Georgia once we were back on the road, because it was the anniversary of her divorce and also because I'd written an e-mail before I left (and posted it to mods) suggesting that Britgrovers meet Pixie and Dirk on Tuesday night in Seamus O'Donnells, but I didn't want to plan their holiday for them, so I wanted to ask them before sending it. They agreed, so I asked Georgia to do so. We all loved her up and wished she was there... though where we would have put her in that car... *giggle* I'd have had her on my lap.

We stopped off in Beaconsfield for a meal at the Greyhound pub. We snuggled around a table and that got a little surreal. *grin* It was so lovely to look up and see my friends there, especially Pixie, who I know so well but rarely see. She got a round in and went to pay with her Visa, but it wasn't signed, which is illegal here. She got all American on the landlady and the wench just accepted the card! LOL Pixie explained that no-one signs their cards in America, in case of having their signature forged. Everyone does here, so a blank one would just end up with the thief's signature on it. It's all crossing over to pin numbers anyway now.

There was a no mobile phones rule in there, so I blushed my head off when FT Kate phoned me! The whole pub cheered and catcalled, while I dashed outside. I had no idea how long it would take to get home, so I kept texting her ETAs as I got my bearings. When we got there, she opened the door in costume from her play ('Murdered to Death'). She plays Miss Maple - a spoof on Miss Marple - so was an elderly lady. LMFAO! She kept it on all through making us cups of teas and coffees or getting the beer open, then ran upstairs and came back transformed into herself.

We were up until the early hours then; opening presents; sampling peeps. Pixie's dad had sent me a little Yoda action figure, with a gun, so we executed a peep to test it. LOL Very loud and raucous, we were, but Nick (Kate's housemate in bed above us) forgave us.

Friday 20th May:

There were no real plans, but I woke up at half past 7 and heard voices in the other room. Pixie and Dirk were already awake. I remembered where I was and what was happening to me, so bounced out of bed. Understand that bounced and half 7 in the morning is relative. I bounced inwardly until I'd got two cups of tea and several cigarettes inside me, then I was awake enough to bounce outwardly too!

Aud wanted to play and Pixie and Dirk wanted to sample a traditional English breakfast, so I killed two birds with one stone and added a bonus bird for myself, by picking Aud up and going round the corner to The Lunchbox. I used to go in there every dinnertime until about four years ago. They not only remembered my name, but also the double-decker egg, beans and cheese toasted sandwich that they'd invented for me. :-o Pixie and Dirk had the full English. I thought it would turn out that despite the name it was known the world over. Nope. They had never seen the like before. Americans don't even have baked beans for breakfast. In what became a trademark of British meals, they found it much more greasy than they were used to. Dirk, in particular, was talking very wistfully about American food (and weather) by the end of their visit here. Poor cariad.

We set off for the Black Country Museum, via Morrisons, and it was really good fun. I've been there millions of times, so I thought I would just be going to show Pixie and Dirk, but in the event, I learned things about my 'hood that I hadn't known. It was visiting for my own sake then! LOL Before we went in, I'd told them that they wouldn't find the Black Country on a map, because everyone has their own idea of where it is. When we were in there, there was a short presentation over three screens telling folk all about the Black Country. A professor-type bloke pops up on one screen saying, 'The Black Country is where the coalfields were' and up popped a map of this on the middle screen. On the far screen another professor-type bloke pops saying, 'No, no, the Black Country is where the steel and iron were, the industrial areas...' The map shows a bigger area, then disappears. Up pops Ayli or Aynok, saying, 'Tha' Block Contrees we-ah a Block Contree mon seys ittis...' It became a standing joke after that, with Pixie keep saying, 'Tell, where is the Black Country?' I guess you had to be there...

We wondered around the museum then, in and out the houses, down on the tram, and taking a tour of the ironworks. The bloke doing the door really couldn't cope if something went off-script. At one bit he picked up a length of iron and Pixie jumped forward to touch it. The look on his face! LOL I actually thought he was handing it to us, but evidentally not. He told us some interesting things though. Like how the workers used to punch in their presense on a huge dial, which looked like a clockface, hence 'clocking on'; and how they used to be paid by their wages being poured from little pots into their caps, hence 'coming cap in hand'. We also nipped into the little cinema and watched a Charlie Chaplin short film, before going into the pub. We walked back up via the cake-shop - beautiful home-baked cakes, but a bit too sugary for the Americans - and the precious stones shop. I'm sure that hadn't been there last time!

We dropped Aud off then went via the garage to fill up on petrol for the next day. Dirk and Pixie had gone into the shop by the time I finished. I walked in to find that they'd paid my petrol! :-o (Pixie did this again on the Tuesday night, plus bought me Red Bull etc for the journey down to Gatwick.) That was so lovely of them.

We made our way back to Kate's and caught a taxi into Stourbridge, eating at Chicago Rock (apparently it didn't look like Chicago, even if you closed your eyes. LOL), before walking down to to the Stourbridge Rock Cafe to see Chumbawamba. We were well early, so watched Bleeding Hearts doing their soundtrack. They were quite good! Kate's brother, Andrew, and all the Stourbridge posse joined us, including Stefan, who I hadn't seen since 1993. Bleeding Hearts were brilliant, but had got us all ready for dancing, when Chumbawamba came on - minus Alice Nutter and Danbert - performing a largely accoustic set. It took a while to adjust, because we kept thinking that they'd start on the more raucous songs. They were still good, but completely at odds with the mood in the place.

It was all way too smokey for Pixie in particular as well; Dirk told me afterwards that he was shocked at just how many Britons smoke. By that point, every single person he'd met smoked, which was proving to be hard on their lungs. He mused that it might be that Americans are more educated about this, until I showed him the cigarette packets, all telling us just how bad for us they were. Branny was there when we had this conversation and she confirmed that the Dutch are also well informed. It seems that all three countries have the anti-smoking adverts too. Maybe there's something more fatalistic in the European mindset, I don't know.

Back to the Friday night, we caught a taxi home and then partied on at Kate's house. This was her night out after a long, long hard stretch of working every weekend and rehearsing for her play every night. She'd been gutted when she'd realized that the dates clashed (thus she'd had to drop out of Glastonbury, which had really upset her). I knew that she wanted to party on all night long, but Pixie and Dirk were wilting, Nick was asleep upstairs and I had to be driving a car at 9am. I felt really sorry for her, but by 1-2am, we had to call it a night and go abed, which was a shame, because I was loving it too!

I'm....

2005-05-18T17:22:00.000+01:00

ON HOLIDAY! ON HOLIDAY! ON HOLIDAY! No more work for a week! And I'm meeting Pixie and Dirk tomorrow! And I'm going to London! And it's so exciting!

*bounce bounce bounce*

yours
Mab
xxxxx

"So it's not so much look back in anger as look back in a slightly bad mood."

2005-05-17T00:06:00.000+01:00

The heading quote doesn't relate to anything. I just heard it in a trailer for 'Coronation Street' and giggled my head off. Ian McKellan is in it. Gandalf canting with Ken Barlow... on-screen druid with off-screen druid. Looks like fun!

Our David and his girlfriend have had a son! Owen Edward Peach Miles, born on May 12th. *happy dance*

I have been such a productive wench this weekend. I figured that I ought to muck out Rebecca and my room just in case Pixie and Dirk come and visit here. That escalated as these things do. I've got my life on an even keel again, except at work, where I'm never going to have all my jobs done by Wednesday afternoon. Oh well, what gets left, gets left.

Major excitement this end though. I've had a bit of a breakthrough with my Prangnells. I've been looking for them in Middlesex, then I was looking on Dennis Prangnall's site and noticed that the Isle of Wight Mark and Louisa have an eldest son of the same name and DOB as my Mark and Louisa. Also he's lost track of the family after a certain time. I looked at the Middlesex Prangnells, and got in touch with a descendent of Robert. She and I were canting all evening, comparing notes. Robert and Mark are same generation, same job etc. Then I looked at my Mark and Louisa's children - the second eldest boy and girl are named for the IOW Mark's parents, though these names are John and Mary, so common enough. However, Dennis thinks the IOW Mark remarried.

What needs to happen next is that I get the 1851 census in Brummagen to see where Mark was born. That's going to be massive. For a start I've got to go to Brummagen Archives and the search could take days. If I'm right though, I've just broken down a massive brickwall in my genealogy AND that branch of my family is back to 1657.

You should see the grin on my face!

I'm feeling generally more settled these days. Really looking forward to Pixie coming. Aud keeps making me go over-excited by sending me e-mails like 'three more sleeps to go'! She's coming with me to pick them up from Heathrow. We're fighting over who gets to be the quiet and shy one; I mentioned this to Pixie, but she also wants to be the quiet and shy one. Looks like it's down to Dirk then. *grin*

yours
Mab
xxxxx

Oh...

2005-05-08T21:43:00.000+01:00

I'm catching up with e-mail and finally made it onto Kindly Ones. I found these comments:

I have recieved several mails the last twenty-four hours supporting
me, telling me they don't want to repeat their support publicly (in
the grove), "because they fear repraisals".

followed by

Well, I am not really attached to "the grove" like many of the
others, so I am not afraid to speak my mind.

I was away in Dorset when the incident this pertains to blew. Since then I've been firstly floating ethereally through a Beltane forest induced state of spiritual bliss; busy at work; then doing dissertation, so I haven't had chance to read all of the ins and outs of it. I skimmed it at the time, realized there was no-one hurting who couldn't look after themself and anything needful was already done. But didn't read through everything properly.

The person saying that was someone whose views I have occasionally shared, while other times totally disagreed with.

That hurt.

I work so bloody hard on the Grove. I'm often up until the early hours feeling like the last lines of 'Lazarus' were written for me and the other Mods:

"Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

And any who thinks that that is hyperbole should see our inboxes on an average day. Additionally, I sit for hours html-ing away, that the achievements of Grovers would get some publicity, that browsers might buy their wares and those passed over won't be forgotten. All five of us read every single solitary post, so that no-one will ever feel that their posts were missed and their voice not heard. We try so hard to create a welcome, a safe sanctuary just to learn about Paganism and be part of a Pagan community, and to ensure that no-one ever feels themselves outside some bloody clique.

I don't begrudge a second of it. I'm no saint. None of us are. I know that it's not just the mods who get this and the Grove wouldn't be what it is without the members. I'm not afraid of negative criticism, in fact it's welcomed because without knowing what is wrong, it can't be put right.

But to have it just dismissed like this and to be left with the feeling that our carefully crafted sanctuary, maintained through no few battle-scars of our own, is viewed by 'several' Grovers as sanitized crap. Does that mean that two years of bloody hard work on my part (three years on the part of Cerr and Anna) wasn't worth it? And to be told that by someone I'd got pegged as a friend?

Yes, it hurts. I understand a little better now why Cerr felt the need to ban this individual. She's taken the flak for far longer than I have. Anyone who wants to scream 'fluffy' should take their turn at being a WG or KO mod for five minutes, then see how long they still hold that opinion.

Part of me wants to just give up now. Tell Cerr, sorry cariad, this amount of blood, sweat and tears just isn't worth it. But that's never been my way. I learned about torture and joined Amnesty International. That's my way. I learned a long time ago that it 'takes great control to be angry', just as Joolz said. I still believe in what we do there and if that makes me fluffy, then so be it. Name-calling is always the last refuge of those who have run out of defendable arguments and so I've found whenever I hear the words 'fluffy Wiccan'. I look at those spouting such sentiments with pity, because they've reached the end of their imagination.

To those 'fearing reprisals' on the Grove, write to me mab@witchgrove.org. Please don't be afraid. You would never believe the knocks each Mod takes in secret for you, we're not about to deliver one for your insecurity. We're neither Messiahs nor monsters, just human beings trying to do our best; and I'd like to explain just why it is that we try to keep the deep waters of the Grove so calm.

yours
Mab
xxxxx

The Sound of Bodhrans on Rannoch Moor

2005-05-08T20:49:00.000+01:00

*posted to Witchgrove today*

Hi all,

I know you're probably sick of hearing about bodhrans today, particularly when it involves you having to read long chapters shortly afterwards, but I want to tell you something else.

On Samhain, 2004, as I reckon it (ie it was before sunset on November 1st), I started writing up this dissertation. To say I started it then is to bely months and months of reading and brainstorming, which really began around September 2003. Nevertheless, on Samhain 2004, I started writing. On that date, I put on the soundtrack to 'Rob Roy', which has a tune called 'Rannoch Moor Suite: Scorched Earth/Rannoch Moor Retreat/The Mists/Rob'. In amongst the soaring pipes, there is a bit where the bodhran goes beserk. In listening to it, you have to stop everything. Eyes closed and you are upon the moor, or in a forest, or up in the skies flying, running, dancing, anywhere or any place that your Celtic mind can take you. You have no choice, it's in the tune.

Back in November, in my mind's eye, I was back on a stage at a Vegas Ren Faire, dancing while a significant number of Grovers looked on. Just as I did then, I stopped wondering how I managed to be up there, I just closed my eyes and felt the music take me. Something of the substance of the Gwynedd mountains and the wild Irish sea, the old Dolgellau road, and the slate caverns, and the utterly stunning magical assault to the senses that is Uwchmynydd, something of that filled me and took me. I danced and when I opened my eyes again, it wasn't with the shy anxiety of a Mab dancing in front of hundreds of people on a stage, it was with the momentary disorientation of a Mab returning from a purely Celtic flight of spirit. You can imagine that I had a few rude awakening, when my headphones got yanked off my head during November, dancing again in layers - from the bodhran to the Ren Faire to flying somewhere else. Of late, I've just sat still. These past two days, I've closed my eyes and been in last week's Beltane forest, walking the labyrinth, seeing wonders or off on Haworth Moor, drawing down the full moon and being filled with the beautiful Mother of All.

If I was ever asked what kept me sane during the writing of this dissertation, then I'd probably respond 'nothing, I went mad, just ask the mods...' But a few raised eyebrows later, having got 'was I sane to start with?' out of the way, I'd produce a list. It was my friends and family, it was Witchgrove, it was those day-trips out to Glastonbury or Lincoln, it was the certain knowledge that one day it would be over. But if I was to be asked what was an absolute, like little beats of sanity injected into my spirit every hour or so, then it was the 'Rannoch Moor Suite'. In particular, it was the bodhrans going beserk and those little mental flights of fancy which told me, 'Yes, you might be pretending to be an academic here, but witchcraft won't be found in all your research there, it's here, on the moors and in the forests and the wild Celtic dancing.' The bodhran did it. I kept the 'Rob Roy' soundtrack on repeat for the entire writing of this dissertation and the bodhran took me once an hour.

I couldn't have planned it. I guess only fortune, coincidence or the goddess herself could have done so, but just now, after I'd written my last word and was just completing the last of the cosmetic amendments, 'Rannoch Moor' came on. I didn't close my eyes, I didn't fly. I just let the music fill me as I tidied up the page. As the last echo of the bodhran sounded and the pipes brought me back down, I typed in the last full-stop and saved the work.

Unless Cerr, Draig or Laurie have anything to add to what Anna already said about the chapter they are all reading, then my dissertation is finally over.

yours
Mab
xxxxx

State of Grace

2005-05-08T15:11:00.000+01:00

I've just been to Mass. This time I managed not to disgrace myself by adding the extra line onto the Lord's Prayer. I was however shocked to find a prayer starting, 'blessed be...', in the service... It went beautifully and the children all looked so sweet. I ended up with tears in my eyes and I can only imagine what Bella would have been like. Father Pat was wonderful with them, tailoring the entire Mass to an eight year old level of understanding.

After his first Eucharist, while everyone else was receiving their's, my nephew sat next to me. I looked for the state of grace and asked, 'How do you feel?' He grimaced (which I wasn't expecting) and said, 'I really need a wee!' So I sent him quickly to the loo...

Bit that I can't stop tittering about though. After the Holy Communion, all of the children sat around a table to eat their breakfast, with us family members hovering around giving them their cards and presents. Mum had bought this wind up (well I thought it was a butterfly...) dove to put in my nephew's card, so when he opened it, it would fly out with a whammy. Anyway, I'm in position to take a photo of this happening, when the head-teacher announced that Father Pat needed to rush up to St Mary's to hold the usual Sunday Mass, but he was going to say grace first. Then he stood behind our Jordan.

Thing is that Jordan was halfway through opening Mum's card at the time. While we watched on horrified, he carried on opening it and there we (Mum, Nan, Grandma and Auntie) are with visions of this paper butterfly/dove hitting Father Pat in the face at great force halfway through grace. I'm desperately trying to signal him to stop, but we were saved by a Hail Mary. Jordan stops to repeat it and cross himself, Father Pat steps away, Jordan opens the card and the thing whizzs up straight through the air vacated seconds before by the Father and off across the hall. I can't stop laughing.

For my next trick, as Jordan's Godmother (stop sniggering), I'll teach him to do nothing during grace but concentrate on the grace.

Kids!

I have got a gorgeous photo of him though. He's there with his brand new rosary beads counting his Hail Mary. It was supposed to be a video, but when I finished waiting for him staring off into the distance and said, 'You know I'm recording this, don't you? Start whenever, cariad...' He reliably informed me that you say that in your head and he was. So I took a photo instead. It's as close to holy as you're going to get with that one. He's not walking ten feet above the ground with a practically visible halo above his head, like his brother was after his confirmation.

yours
Mab
xxxxx

Desiderata

2005-05-03T10:20:00.000+01:00

Go placidly amid the noise and haste,
and remember what peace there may be in silence.
As far as possible without surrender
be on good terms with all persons.
Speak your truth quietly and clearly;
and listen to others,
even the dull and the ignorant;
they too have their story.

Avoid loud and aggressive persons,
they are vexations to the spirit.
If you compare yourself with others,
you may become vain and bitter;
for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.
Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans.

Keep interested in your own career, however humble;
it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.
Exercise caution in your business affairs;
for the world is full of trickery.
But let this not blind you to what virtue there is;
many persons strive for high ideals;
and everywhere life is full of heroism.

Be yourself.
Especially, do not feign affection.
Neither be cynical about love;
for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment
it is as perennial as the grass.

Take kindly the counsel of the years,
gracefully surrendering the things of youth.
Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune.
But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings.
Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness.
Beyond a wholesome discipline,
be gentle with yourself.

You are a child of the universe,
no less than the trees and the stars;
you have a right to be here.
And whether or not it is clear to you,
no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.

Therefore be at peace with God,
whatever you conceive Him to be,
and whatever your labours and aspirations,
in the noisy confusion of life keep peace with your soul.

With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams,
it is still a beautiful world.
Be cheerful.
Strive to be happy.

Max Ehrmann, Desiderata, Copyright 1952.

'Isn't it good to be lost in the woodsIsn't it bad, so quiet there?In the wood'~'Octopus' by Syd Barrett

2005-05-02T15:35:00.000+01:00

WOW! OH! WOW! OH WOW! :-D I'm still sitting here grubby as hell and badly in need of a bath. It was PeteFest and it was brilliant.

Friday

We stayed at Birchwood Tourist Park for the occasion of Pete's 30th birthday (which gave me the shock of my life when I did the maths there... that means that he was only 18 when I met him! :-0). Folk came from all over the country to pitch our tents in the whole section of the camping park, as Pete had booked for us, though I think that Kate and I came furthest.

It took us 6 hours to get there. I was supposed to get the afternoon off, but I couldn't get out of a conference. That was supposed to finish at half 3. At 4, Kate was in reception waiting for me. It was still 20 past 4 before I fled and the conference still wasn't over. Thing was that we had to get to the site by 9pm and it was about as South in England as you can get without ending up in the English Channel.

We hit rush-hour. We hit road-works. We hit major miscellaneous conjestion (probably brought on by the bank holiday). Kate had contact lense trouble, which looked like conjunctivitis at that point; then got cystitis. A few miles down the A350, we hit fog and very slow cars. By quarter to 9, we were going through Blandford Forum thinking that we couldn't make it, so I 'phoned the site and a very reassuring man on the other end of the phone told us that it was ok. It was raining by the time we pulled up on the site and I told Kate I'd get someone to help me put the tent up (it's a mansion of a tent), but they'd all disappeared. We could see their tents but no people. There was also no 'phone signal. Kate looked ready to burst into tears. We put up the tent and it was mysteriously wonky. (It's only today, after taking it down that was discovered why - the ground underneath was wonky! We've spent days tatting with the tent trying to correct it! LOL) And as we were putting it up, a pole ricochetted off and hit me across three fingers, I thought I'd broken them at the time, but gritted my teeth and just got on with it.

Soon as we were up, Kate had a lie down, then went to war on the cystitus with water. It lessened slightly, but wasn't knocked into touch until the next day, when we got some stuff from a chemist in Wareham. After a half an hour or so, she was in much better spirits. The gang returned from the pub and Pete popped in to see us, but mostly it was a case of getting set up and settled down.

Saturday and Sunday

There were about 30 people there by Saturday. It really did have a festival air about it, we each had to keep reminding ourselves that this was a camping field with families on it. The 30 people came as a bit of a shock to the landlord of the Duke of Wellington pub, in Wareham, when we all turned up within an hour of each other after a full English cooked breakfast.

We basically set off in bits and drabs as another carload of people were washed and dressed enough to go. By the time me, Kate, Pete and two others arrived, the first carload had been there 40 minutes and still hadn't got their breakfast. The group after them were on the verge of saying, 'fuck this for a game of soldiers', cancelling their order and going up the road to a cafe. We'd already ordered by then. The concept of vegetarians hadn't been introduced to the landlord either. Kate had to explain it. We decided not to prosecute, because we're nice. (It's illegal in Britain not to have a veggie option on the menu.) When our food eventually came, two hours later, it was patently obvious that the tomatos had been fried in lard. It was horrible.

The lads who went to the cafe reported that they met the landlord out in the street with a newly purchased toaster under his arm. Kate overheard him on the phone telling someone to get out of bed now and get into the pub to help out. On average, the breakfasts took between an hour and two hours to arrive and got less and less as time went by. Pete had a single mushroom, not a big one, just one single button mushroom. My egg wasn't well-done. People were counting ten baked beans etc. None of the meateaters had the advertized two sausages. My tea tasted like it had been stewing for a week.

Funniest of all though was the Toast Lady. You were supposed to get your toast with your meal. Even after the landlord had bought a toaster, it still arrived an average of half an hour later. The old lady bringing them would put it down on the table, look around nervously, whimper, 'toast' and flee. One of the lads did complain three times, but none of the others did. Usually Kate would be the first up doing it, but I think that we were just having fun and it had become hilarious rather than annoying.

After a mini look around Wareham, we drove back to the campsite to chill out even more. There was talk of going to the beach later, but as time went on, it was obvious that there weren't enough drivers still sober, so we scrapped that in favour of the surrounding forest instead. Some of the others played cricket, while the rest of us sat watching and enjoying the sunshine. It was great getting to know folk like that, because it was a lot quieter than it would be later on, while smaller groups meant less people talking over each other. In short, I could hear them! LOL I also watched an Australian lose at cricket, which I understand is quite rare. Mind you, she did do 16 of those run things, before she was caught and had to come out.

After a while, though, the forest was just too enticing. I'm amazed it took me until Saturday late afternoon to do it, but I went exploring on my own. It was so cool in there, under the green, grey and black shade.I wandered and dreamed. I avoided the beaten paths whenever I encountered one and made my own, even if it involved using a tree as a convolutated bridge over a patch of nettles. I looked at pretties and meditated on Beltane. I got as far as a swamp to the north of the campsite, then came back. Everyone was still at the cricket, but Kate was about to go off to see the forest too. I let her go alone, because it was the sort of place which is lovely to explore alone. Not that I realized then just how big it was.

Wareham Forest, I know now, is 14 square miles. It encompasses marshlands, watermeadows, a fir and conifer forest, heathlands, as well as your bog-standard forest. It is BIG.

I sat another hour chilling out, then went for another adventure. This time I wasn't priestessing, I was out playing. I passed a field (heath?) which was full of rabbits. I mean hundreds of them. I gasped, thus alerting them to my presense, and as I struggled to get the digital camera out, they all disappeared down rabbit holes.
About fifty yards down the track, I saw another rabbit who darted into the forest. I looked to see where he'd gone. Now I don't know what you see on this picture, but I saw a gateway. 5ft 3" people can pass under it just as well as rabbits can and ALL the rulebooks are very clear on the subject of what to do when rabbits run past you... 'Alice in Wonderland', Syd Barrett, Jefferson Airplane... all VERY explicit. So I followed him into densest forest, though I had to stoop quite considerably a little way in. That was worth it. For a start, I saw a hobbit's house and, after a while, came out on heathland to discover a bonfire ready made up but not lit... on Beltane...

Which reminded me. I have a really good sense of direction, given enough clues, and I looked up at the sun to find my way back. I hadn't gone too far out, but the camp was relatively difficult to find. I made it back well before sunset though, so rejoined everyone at the camp to have a little sit down. As we were all present and correct, it was time for the cards and presents. Sue, Pete's girlfriend, had organized a bush survival week for him in Sussex. (Nothing to do with American presidents, a surviving in the wild thing instead.) We'd all put together to pay for it and signed the big card. He opened it and couldn't work out what it was from a brief glance at the list of things he had to take with him. Sue told him and his face was a picture. She knew her man. You could just tell that it was the perfect present for him.

Sunset wasn't far off, so I meandered back to the tent (which has a large central area) and opened my circle. I've never done a circle in a tent before, but one side was open to the west (and therefore the sunset) and the energy within was unbelievable. It was top-of-the-Tor level of buzzing. I sent a bit of it to everyone I knew who needed it, then was halfway through those who didn't need it, but should have it anyway, when Kate came back. I opened the circle to let her into her bedroom area (*giggle*), but she waved it off, saying she'll go at the toilet block as well, but wanted to warn me that folk were getting ready for our bonfire in the forest. I closed the door again and finished off. I'd just closed the circle when she returned. It was a beautiful atmosphere in there and, having seen the bonfire made up on the heath earlier, I fully expected us to run into a group of pagans out there with a fire already going.

It was quite an expedition. 30 people, some with chairs, some with lanterns, some with beer, all heading out into the forest. I kept having to run ahead or behind in order to avoid the torches. I have excellent night vision, which gets blinded by the torches. One torch in particular blinded just about everyone. I couldn't understand why so many people needed their torch when the night wasn't so dark yet, but Kate told me that people's eyes are different and some really do need it. We went quite a way into the forest, way past where I'd seen the bonfire, and I began to get a tiny sense of the size of this place.

A lad named Ben and I were up front when Pete called for a fag break. We stopped and that was proclaimed our place to stop for the night. We each took turns to forage for wood in the surrounding forest, while Pete and Ben created our own bonfire.

I love that picture. At some point during the night, I came across Pete and Ben canting and asked, 'Is Ben your Kate?' (meaning your best friend/partner in crime), Pete replied, 'No, Ben's my Ben, man.' LOL

It was really chilled out. Sitting around drinking, talking, then someone got a portable music system (of some sort, I didn't look closely enough) and all chance I had of hearing was gone. I didn't mind that, I'm used to it, but when Ben was trying to ask me about Paganism and Jim was trying to talk about... something... I had no chance. Also it's very hard to lip-read in that light. I had to keep apologizing, but I was having so much fun. Everyone was. You could see it in their faces and Pete's face was great to watch. He kept looking around and getting this little grin on his face, which I translated as 'look at my people, who came all this way to share this beautiful moment with me...'

Then IT happened. It started with a couple of flashes behind me and Kate, which first I caught and asked what that was. Then Kate caught. By the third, we realized that we were looking at a storm. It grew and it was stunning! Forked lightning, sheet lightning and not a drop of rain... Someone said that it was probably over the Solvent and we could see it because of our vantage point. But later I learned from one of those who'd returned to camp earlier that they saw it all around us, spinning around the sky, but not touching us in the centre. It was amazing enough for them, but for us... WOW! Every few seconds, the trees would light up or forked lightning would zap across an opening in the trees.

One of the wenches next to me was afeared that it would strike us, but Ed reassured her that the trees are taller and it would strike them first. But what if we were under it? I replied that we just don't sit under it. On retrospect, telling her to avoid being under trees while in a forest... She was among the group who left shortly after that. Then there was Jim, very drunk and wanting to talk to me. So he sat on a chair right in my view of the storm. I ended up talking to him like a three year old. 'Get up... move your chair there... here!' *picking it up and moving it for him* 'I can't hear you... I still can't hear you... there's a storm, music, people talking and I'm deaf... I can't hear you... I'm just going to watch this storm... I can't hear what you're saying. Shut up.' Bless his cotton socks. I met him for the first time this weekend and he was generally lovely.

I was so energized by it. Downright high! The place, the setting, the company, the storm AND it was Beltane. As the storm died down, I wanted to run wild. I did a lap of the little bonfire and was about to tell Ben about the leaping over it, when I realized that he was missing. Looking up the track, I could see the storm still going on further up and a little incline in the track, which I could only tell by silouette in the lightning. I asked Kate if she wanted to come a walk up there, but she was too comfy. I was wanting the walk and two seconds of silence just to kiss the goddess's skirts for letting me be me and be there.

I wondered on up the track, being careful not to deviate from it, because it was dark and even I recognized that I could get lost. A little way up, I found Pete and Ben collecting wood. Ben was considering the walk too, but he needed to take the wood back. I told them that I'd only be five minutes and walked off along the track, transfixed by the lightning in the distance, the moment and the forest all around. Very careful to stay in a straight line along a single track... the irony...

I reached a gate and from there could watch the storm in the distance. As I sat, I heard a scuffling and a little yelp. I strained in the darkness to see and made out a fox about ten feet away. OMG! I just stared and as I did, it came towards me, right at my feet as they dangled from the gate. I barely breathed, but I could hear it panting. It came to me suddenly to wonder if foxes would attack... you'd think that I'd know by now, wouldn't you? But no... then, as I watched, it seemed to become transparent then ran away. I sat there half in shock. It was either an hallucination (I wasn't entirely sober...); a real fox (this was the early hours and everything in darkness pixelates greatly with all the buzzy, golden lights (phrenozones?); a ghost fox; or it was my totem/familiar showing itself. I didn't know then and I still don't know.

I thought I'd consult Kate or Pete on the subject, so meandered down the track again. Partway down, a track forked off and I nearly took it, then remembered - Stay on the straight line, so you don't get lost. I looked down and the track very distinctly led one way, but there was a slight curve which made it look like a fork. That other was a track going off it. I walked on. What I failed to notice was that I'd never once, on the way up, walked around even a slight curve. That had been my track and I was now walking along another track which led at right angles away from both where the others were AND the camp-site. We reckon that was around half 2. I made it back to the campsite, utterly exhausted, at around half 8 the next morning after spending the entire night walking around the forest trying to find my way back.

The first question anyone asks, if their look of horror hadn't already asked it, is 'weren't you scared?' No. I was never once scared, even after it became obvious that I was lost. I trusted myself and I trusted the Goddess. Besides I had enough cigarettes to last me. It was Beltane and I figured that this was all part of the Great Universal Game. Very early on, I was looking up and saw torchlight up a ridge and what sounded like Kate and Pete. I got my torch out and flashed them. One figure waited at the top, while the other came down the track. In the torchlight, I could make out Kate's orange blanket/coat, then, as I watched, the apparition changed and became a Maiden, all in white, complete with white cloak. She went behind a tree and never came out again. The torchlight had gone from the top as well. Later, Kate and Pete told me that they'd never gone away from the fire together.

I didn't have time to contemplate that, because just on it there was an almighty shrieking howl very close by. I still had my torch in my hand, so swung around with it on. There was a huge electrical pilon and I wondered if something had been electrocuted. I moved over there and the howl continued. I remembered that sound from the Wyre Forest - foxes! It moved away, getting quieter, which is how I know it's moving away. Putting my witchy, hippy head on now, would that have been my animal guide warning me that I was on the wrong track and to follow now? Seeing that pilon was the first time I wondered if I was on the right track, because I didn't remember seeing it on the way up. Then I pointed out to myself that I wasn't sober AND I'd been watching the storm in the other direction at the time. I kept going.

Eventually I arrived at the camp-site. Now I knew that I'd taken a wrong turn, but serendipidously, because there were a couple of things we'd forgotten which I could pick up and fill up with water. I did the latter, went to the loo and then looked for the tent. Or any tent would have done. There were no tents. I walked all the way to the main gate having spent about half an hour in there and discovered that this was the wrong campsite. Being so late, there was no-one around to ask directions, so I set off again. I didn't know then but that site is separated from ours by a thin wall of trees. It was about 10 mins away from Birchwood site, but, as we'd approached each time from the other side, I had never seen it.

As I said before, I have a good sense of direction. I usually only have to go somewhere once to memorize it. Folk find this hard to believe after Saturday night, but it's true. What my downfall was was that it was cloudy, therefore I had very little to go on; I didn't know either the lie of the land or the forest, as I'd never been to Dorset before, let alone Wareham; and I was in a totally different part of the forest from where I'd been earlier. The few clues I had, I utilized. I looked up and found the Plough and the Pelaedes. I remembered staring at them before the storm and where they were in the sky, then I faced them and headed in that direction. I also thought I'd seen the pilons to the north of the campsite (no, they were telephone wires, I learned later), so I kept them to the north (the pilons were actually to the south of the site...).

I found the A35 four times, but the first time didn't go near it because there was a van parked at the gate of the track and I didn't want to have to hurt anybody. The second was when I was at the gate of the first campsite. I decided that a main road would be better than a forest, insofar as I could get a clue to where I was, phone a taxi to take me to my campsite and then find the gang from there. I walked up it, pondering where I was going to find the taxi number from, when I saw the van at an entrance to the forest. I remembered that! I wasn't long lost when I first saw it, so I still must be close! I walked further up and re-entered the forest (I was actually moving in the opposite direction to both campsite and gang here.)

I passed a hillfort and noted it for returning and taxi purposes, then went on walking. It was around this time that I texted Kate to announce that I was lost. I didn't want Pete to think I'd disappeared in a huff or something. There wasn't much network coverage, so it took a while to send it. She didn't get it for an hour or more later. By then I'd been as far as a sign to Bloxworth (one and a quarter miles away) and a sewage works. This gave us later the scope my walking - probably a three and a half mile square of forest. Along the way, I saw definitely three foxes, none of which disappeared and all of which started howling at me.

It was around this time that Kate got my text and phoned me, but her battery was going. The moon had just come out and she just had chance to tell me where the moon was from her view from the fire, when her battery cut out. She didn't think I'd even heard that, but I did and it was crucial information. Thank you Kate and thank you Lady. I had been walking towards the moon, now I knew that I had to walk away from it. This was all going well until I found the hillfort again. My spirits sagged then for the first time. I knew that the hillfort was near the wrong campsite... I just didn't know that the wrong campsite was next to ours, so I turned around and walked back to another main track. This still kept the moon behind me and, I reckon now, would have taken me near to the fire.

I stood at a crossroads and I could hear a car on the road. I listened and I could hear music and voices. In short, I could hear my friends. This hadn't been the first time, but it had been the first time in a couple of hours. Unfortunately, I can't tell direction of sound. I was also getting tired by then. I was seeing wondrous things and having quite an adventure, but I wanted to be with the others celebrating Pete's birthday. Frustrating, to me, is wanting to punch something. This wasn't frustration, but some kind of milder cousin. I figured it would give folk a laugh back at the fire and it wasn't my fault. Pete would understand that (and he did and they laughed after they'd got the being concerned over with). I had no concept of time, I didn't realize how long I'd been gone. I looked at the moon; I discounted (foolishly) the road as not being ours; and, as it was getting lighter by then, I looked around at the landscape - the first time I was able to over any distance. Across two fields was a bit of forest which looked like ours and it kept the moon in the right place. It never occurred to me that even though I couldn't tell sound direction, there was a fireside gang of people who could. Why didn't I just shout? I thought of phoning Kate and getting her to shine a torch into the sky, but her phone battery had just died.

I headed over the fields, then saw a flash of yellow - gorse bushes. Our campsite was surrounded by gorse bushes. From the gorse, I could find the fire! I walked over to find a beautiful sight, a massive stretch of gorse, a maze of it. I had a toilet break, but had already noticed the main road behind it. I knew it to be the road that I should be dismissing... and didn't trust my sense of direction AGAIN. So I turned around and made my way across some bracken and wetlands, then, climbing up onto a bank of a brook, I felt something slip from my pocket. Looked down and couldn't see what, checked fags and lighter... checked 'phone... shit. I ended up with everything out of my bag looking for it. It was gone. Thing is, nothing else was missing, so I don't know what the slipping sensation was. I even climbed down into the brook and peered through bracken and ground nests looking for the Ddraig Goch of my mobile.

Decision time. I knew I had it when I spoke to Kate. I knew where I'd been since and it was light enough to retrace my steps while searching. I only had vague clues as to where 'home' was. I decided that the sensible thing was to see if I could find the phone on the basis that if I got injured or collapsed that might be my salvation. Also, if I gave up and went for the road, then I'd need it for a taxi, unless I wanted to add 'finding a phone box' to my list. If I'd thought that I knew where I was for definite, I'd have said sod the phone, it's replaceable. So I retraced and found it in the gorse-bush place. It must have slipped out as I squatted for a wee.

I made my way back across the wetlands and across the bracken. As I crossed a heath, I saw a patch of forest turn into the most magically beautiful colour. I turned and welcomed a glorious dawn. That's when I stopped walking for the first time, sitting on a rock at the edge of the forest, thanking the dawn for coming. You see, I'd celebrated Beltane in a circle during which I'd watched the sunset. I now knew precisely where east was and I knew where west had been in relation to the camp-site. I walked, and walked, and walked.

I stopped. Deer! Remembering the lesson of the rabbits, I didn't fumble for my digital camera, I just watched and loved it. There were four of them, so graceful. Each froze and watched me, so I did too. It seemed to go on for an interminable amount of time, until my legs screamed to sit down, so I moved and they fled. They weren't like deer as I imagined, either grey or red with white spots. They seemed dark grey to black, very small with white, broad, stumpy tails. I entered a forest trail and ended up on that same damn road.

The really stupid thing is that each time I'd followed a clue, I'd ended up back in the vicinity of the campsite, but upwards of ten mins walk further south-east. Had I just trusted that, or got the message, and persevered, I'd have got there, but each time I turned around and ended up approximately three miles too south at one time. This time I was too tired, I decided to stick with the road on the basis that it had to lead somewhere and if I collapsed from exhaustion, then a passer-by would see me. I stood there and looked up and down this forest road. No clues. I looked at the sun, I chose north-west. :-D

After about 20 mins walking, and wondering if you could call 999 over being lost or report yourself as a missing person or something, I got so despondent for the first time. I knew Kate's battery was dead, but I'd half-sat, half-lay on a grass verge at the side of the road and just wanted to pretend I could call her. So I did. Her phone had been off long enough to get some charge in the battery. Looking back, I was so pathetic a figure there! LOL I didn't cry and there was nothing she could do to help me (I knew that and told her), but I just wanted to hear a friendly voice. Why the fuck I didn't phone one of the Americans, I'll never know... but then it was good canting with Kate, because if something did happen, she'd know that I was last on a proper road somewhere in the forest.

It gave me heart enough to get on my feet and carry on walking. A few minutes later, I saw the van at the end of the track and knew that the wrong campsite was just up the way. They would be open now. I could get directions or a taxi. I walked in there and just fell onto a bench. I got my phone out to tell Kate where I was, but the buttons wouldn't work. I figured it had been damaged lying in the dew, but it worked before and since.

A man came by with some dogs and I asked him where Birchwood was. 'Just there, through the trees'. I stared at him. 'Pardon?' He gave me directions, but I couldn't take them in. I wrote them in my book and just blurted out, 'I've been lost in the forest all night!' He said, 'All night?' 'Yes, I got separated from my friends.' I was losing my voice and I could hear the knackerness in it myself. He replied, 'You should get better map-reading skills.' I nodded and got up, thanked him and followed his directions. I still managed to take a wrong turn, but within sight of the road. I decided against his short-cut beside the sureity of the road.

Within five minutes, I was at the entrance to our campsite. That was such a beautiful moment! As I walked down the driveway, I saw my guide from the other campsite coming out of the short-cut he'd sent me down. I waved and called 'thank you' again, touched that he must have followed to see me alright, but carried on walking towards my tent. There was no sign of anyone. (They were all sitting IN tents, I found out.) I was too tired to think what this meant. I opened our tent and Kate called out, 'Who's that?' She sounded really scared. 'It's Jo.' I mustered. 'Are you alright?' 'Exhausted, but sorted, ta.' She didn't say anything else, and I thought she was gone to sleep. Moving as quietly as possible, I removed my sopping wet DMs and socks, revealing white, wrinkled feet. I sat down and had a fag. My phone told me it was half past 8 in the morning.

I needed fresh water (a cup of tea would have been better, but there was no easy access to one) and the loo, before I lay down. I found Sue in the toilet block and told her what had happened. She'd been abed and didn't know. She looked at all my cuts and scratches and said to wash them. I told her I could deal, I have a first aid kit in the tent. I asked her if there was a cafe on site, because I was desperate for a brew. Nope. I went back to the tent, opened my bedroom section and just crashed. Then heard a beep, beep from Kate's half. 'Are you awake?' 'Yes' Kate opened her section and we canted for a bit. I'd just got to the 'and I could die for a cuppa', when the tent-flap opened and there was Sue with a huge beaker of tea. I nearly cried.

2005-04-26T14:19:00.000+01:00

I've up-dated my book blog.

yours
Mab
xxxxx

'Your mind, your mind, is so full of it...'~ 'Somebody to Love' by Jefferson Airplane

2005-04-24T01:19:00.000+01:00

Rare moment here. I've slept - 11 hours last night - so for the first time in memory, I'm not half-exhausted, running on whatever there's to run on or imbibing something to run on.

I've been so behind on my e-mails. Ian said earlier, 'Why don't you just block delete them like I do?' I could... *smiles thinking of the conversation that Griselda Tello and I had about responsibilities, and that our responsibilities are only to survive and then only what we accept*...

During the course of last night and the 12 hours I've been awake today, those e-mails have involved a handfasting; an initiation; a Grandad at death's door, another two whose Grandad has just passed through, and now another whose father has passed through too; a possible pregnancy; a disappeared girl in Korea; a trip to Britain; a celebratory meal in Wolverhampton; a distressed daughter in London; a five-year-old's visit to Disneyland; three people who feel that they are losing their minds; a haunting; a recommendation (and conversation) about Pagan books which a publisher is considering reprinting; dyslexia and the Pagan academe; the deployment of a friend to Afghanistan and my cousin to Iraq; the birth of a daughter for one of the Kindly Ones; information about Fair Trade vital to a GCSE exam for another friend, and news about her future; and information I held vital for contacting a lawyer in Spain for another friend.

Some responsibilities I'm happy to accept. I'm a different person to who I was this time last year, or maybe more of the person from then. Much calmer, much less easily rattled, but also with far less patience and compassion with those who're just taking the piss.

I have an empty inbox, an empty Witchgrove folder and an empty Kindly Ones folder. How often can I say that?

What's really exciting is that there's a wench on Witchgrove, who Georgia's spoken really highly of, who says she'll teach me. *shivery grin and happy dance*

I'm off to bed with Pratchett's 'The Thief of Time' feeling very accomplished.

yours
Mab
xxxxx

Stolen from Georgia's Blog

2005-04-23T22:39:00.000+01:00

You scored as Celtic Pantheonic Pagan. Your answers leaned very close to that of the Celtic Pantheon. Very popular now among pagans, the Celtic Gods seem to draw those who are sensitive and insightful, but also very passionate about their beliefs. Many Pagan Holidays are named for this pantheon and here is where you'll find many stories on Horned God, Green Man, and Druids. You likely either have been or want to visit Stonehenge one day. Many Arthurian legnds include references to the Celtic faith, as well.

Celtic Pantheonic Pagan

100%

Ecclectic Pagan

70%

Zoroastrian Pagan

65%

Egyptian Pantheonic Pagan

55%

Roman Pantheonic Pagan

45%

Shamanic Pagan

40%

Greek Pantheonic Pagan

35%

Catholic (Pagan?)

30%

Kabbalistic Pagan

30%

Sumerian, Babylonian, and Mesopotamian Pagans

25%

Norse Pantheonic Pagan (Asatru)

25%

Eastern Pagan

20%

What kind of Pagan are you?
created with QuizFarm.com

'And ah, when you work out where to draw the lineYour guess is as good as mine...'~Coldplay

2005-04-22T10:31:00.000+01:00

My Wolverhampton is looking so beautiful today. The trees in blossom, white and pink, and so many trees now green with their leaves opening up. There's still a chill in the air, but the sun is trying to shine. I take visual deep breaths of its beauty and dive back into life again.

Life is going on at the speed of knots. Yesterday I kicked ass in different settings, different ways, different skills, from 20 past 8 in the morning until half 1 the next morning. Though there was one situation in the middle of it where I really wished I could have done more - like live half a planet away, within hugging distance of a friend.

There is so much going on right now. Someone I'm particularly proud of is Aud. She's standing up in front of college students, on Tuesday, speaking about Fair Trade. She's getting to the final stage with her GCSEs right now, which is such hard work. I wish her all the luck in the world, though she doesn't need it. She's going to sail through.

Oh and last night I went to see Derren Brown! He was brilliant!

yours
Mab
xxxxx

2005-04-19T13:07:00.000+01:00

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Some trade justice and a cup of tea please.

2005-04-17T14:37:00.000+01:00

Hiya,

This is what me and FT Kate did on Friday night-Saturday morning: Protesters call for trade justice. There's also a video link on BBC News, but I can't find the URL to it now.

We asked a policeman in Whitehall how many people he estimated were there, he told us 20,000. The news reported 7,000. We haven't heard from the organizers yet. The rule of thumb is usually to go for the halfway point between what the police say and what the organizers say.

It was a disheartening start. I'd had a bad, draining day at work and just wanted to sit quietly somewhere and either find some energy or go to sleep. I walked into Kate's after having listened to the situation in Longbridge on one station after another for an hour. I listened to workers and their families being interviewed - 20,000 people are going to lose their jobs in my area - thought on the miners' strike and had just wiped my eyes when Kate pulled up. She had just been to see her Grandad, who is extremely ill and incoherent. He was begging her to take him home, though he was home, and wasn't rational enough to tell her which home in his personal history he meant. She was upset, fleeing into the house to sob her heart out. On top of this, it was raining. Not just raining, tipping it down, can't see four yards in front of the car raining.

We dallied. We had something to eat, had a cuppa, canted, looked out of the window. Thought about it. Would the world actually end if we didn't go? But we went. Complicating it all too was the fact that I had a family party on the Saturday night. This involved getting to London, staying up all night, driving home after staying up all night, trying to grab some sleep, driving home, going to a party. Kate offered to drive. By Warwickshire, the weather was so bad that we even very briefly considered the idea of turning back. Extremely briefly, more unsaid than said, but what if it was washed out and hardly anyone went... By Oxfordshire, the rain stopped and the night became a little better.

We parked at Hillingdon and caught the tube into Westminster. We'd set out at quarter past 8 and didn't reach Westminster until nearly 11pm. I'll not forget the sight that met us. As far as the eye could see there were people with candles. Young ones - babies in arms, toddlers on shoulders, teenagers - and the elderly, young people, middle aged people, people who look like your parents, people with plums in their mouths and tailored suits, people who look like they could be at the Glastonbury Festival. Banners were there in English and in Welsh. Everyone you spoke to had travelled quite a distance to be there. I don't know where the Welsh lot were from, otherwise me and Kate had travelled the furthest of all those I spoke to. The night was quite mild. It was beautiful.

We'd missed the speeches in Westminster Abbey, but that only held 5,000 people anyway. That had been full and so had the area around it and Parliament Square. We marched from there to Whitehall... ish... We actually marched about 50 yards up the road, because we were so late and the sheer number of people meant that that was as far as we could go! There was an unbelievable moment at midnight. Big Ben chimed at the end of the street and we had a minute's silence. I stared into my candle's flame and channelled all the energy around into the cause with goosebumps up my arms.

I'm trying to get pictures of myself in my Fair Trade top outside famous landmarks. It was extremely cold when I took my jumper and coat off for this one outside Downing Street (behind the row of policemen and the black gate), in Whitehall, after the crowds had mostly gone back to Parliament Sq, Leicester Sq or Trafalgar Sq for the various events. Kate had the sense to keep her coat on!

After that, it was a case of wandering around, soaking in that amazing atmosphere and doing a bit of sightseeing, like the permanent protest in Parliament Square:

And trying to peer through the railings at Westminster Abbey, which was now closed to the public but had its doors open, so I could just about see the tomb of the unknown soldier and some of the paintings. That was a pity, because I was well up for going in there. There was a huge queue outside St Margaret's Church, mainly of families with children, going in to catch some sleep before the dawn march. The Sanctuary Square was full of people with their candles, staring out over Parliament Square at the Houses of Parliament, or trying to queue for coffee outside the Methodist Chapel (huge place) or the Women's Institute. Kate and I gave up on that one when we discovered there was an hour's wait just to get in the door. We decided to go up to St Martin's in the Fields, by Trafalgar Square, where coffee was being served in the crypt.

But first got another famous landmark in my Fair Trade top pic:

I was soooooo cold! I'd taken my contact lenses out an hour earlier, because my eyes were hurting. But took my glasses off to get my coat and jumper over my head. I couldn't see my glasses when Kate said to pose (there were lots of people around, so we had to pick our moment) and I'd just dropped my lighter off the curb. That is the smile of a freezing cold, blind person, who is scared of a car killing her lighter. Picture was taken, I started dithering and got my clothes on VERY quickly. Then we set off up Whitehall to track down the coffee at St Martins in the Fields Crypt.

That's Whitehall by the way. And this is me and Kate in Whitehall, as a friendly policeman took the picture:

Whitehall was beautiful. Thousands of votive candles lining the curb right up to Trafalgar Square, though the photo of those didn't come out. The queue up St Martins was huge. Easily an hour and half wait until you even got the inside of the building. Kate and I sat on the steps to decide what to do next, it now being very obvious that we weren't going to get into anything, but pleased by that, because it meant that the event itself was far better supported that the organizers had planned for. Some Londoners joined us, wanting to know what Fair Trade was all about. I took one of them and Kate took the other two. They seemed enlightened as they left. Mine had a candle off me and promised to join the dawn march. Kate and I decided that somewhere mainstream in London HAD to sell Fair Trade. So we walked.

And walked.

And walked.

Every coffee shop between Trafalgar Square and Tottenham Court Road, Leicester Square and back through ChinaTown, was asked, 'Do you sell Fair Trade?' Those nearest had a long-suffering look and tone, 'Sorry, no Fair Trade...' As if 20,000 people had already been in, asked, and left again without buying anything. By the time we got back to St Martins, our legs felt like they'd become short, painful, worn-down stumps, but the queue was slightly shorter. We joined it, having walked about 4-5 miles round trip, and as we waited a man came out. At first, I thought he was the vicar, but as he reached us, I realized that it was just that he had a white shirt and black jacket. He pointed to us (as he had everyone in the queue) and said, 'You are one in a million. You are special.' Then went on. I actually felt the cockles of my heart warm up. Yes, we were prepared to wait for hours for coffee which had been fairly traded and which gave a chance to those producing it, rather than cross the road and instantly get a mug of Nescafe. We were one in a million (well whatever 20,000 is of a million) and we were special. I was so proud of us and it was nice to meet a bodhisavata.

Eventually we were in. Warmth, seats, coffee, soup... do you know how precious these things are? 'kin Hell. So much taken for granted but right then, right there, I knew their worth. There was even a toilet. My back was so stiff that when I sat down, it wouldn't give. I had to lean forward in my chair until the pain went away, rubbing vigorously until I got feeling back. Slowly, but surely, unthawing and unstiffening until I could sit back and relax my muscles slightly. Also, all around London, we'd encountered drunk people, some half-dressed and shivering, but looking lovely, crowds of folk having a good time, but bumping into you because they weren't looking where they were going. We went back to what, in effect, was an area of London taken over by the Trade Justice people, all of whom smiled, were considerate, looked out for one another. The atmosphere was so peaceful and beautiful there, especially in contrast. 'A tremendous sense that whatever we were doing was right...' as Hunter Thompson would put it.

We had soup and a bun, I had latte and Kate had two black coffees. We couldn't finish the soup - beautiful as it was - because there was just so much of it and very filling, so two girls on the next table polished it for us. All around were people wilting, half-asleep or just staring into space, but still that huge mixture of backgrounds, ages, cultures etc. People every so often just thanking each other. By now it was past 4am. We'd missed a vigil out on Whitehall, because we'd just that second got our hands on our coffee when the call went out around the cafe. Kate and I just looked at each other. There are times when you do need to be selfish, that was one of them. We got our seats and did our vigil in them!

It felt wrong lingering in St Martins for too long, with folk needing the seats and warmth as much as we had. So soon as we'd finished our coffee and soup, gone to the loo and warmed up, we went back out to have a fag. We just needed a nice seat. Halfway up Nelson's Column was the place! It took some getting up there, but there was a wonderful view. That was so surreal, like a scene out of 'Dogma' or 'City of Angels' or even 'Charmed', where a couple of friends are perched atop a famous landmark looking down on the city. It was too dark for decent pictures, even by my standards, but I did my best:

The latter is a lion's arse, btw, just in case you're really struggling there. I also took a pic of Kate still sitting up where we were, but it's just too dark. I'm going to have to see if one of the professional photographers can lighten it. Up there though, we came to the conclusion that if we were going to make it home awake, we ought to slowly leave now. So we made our way back to Whitehall and I managed to keep my peace candle alight ALL the way down there! It took some doing, some slow walking and nifty cardboard action to keep the wind off, but it kept alight. I was well proud. There was a queue the size of Bournemouth outside the public ladies' toilets, so Kate and I went in the Gents instead. I've seen a dick before and I'm sure they've all seen ladies.

Then a slow meander into the tube station and back. By slow, I mean slow. There was a tube line down, but we didn't know until we'd been standing on Baker Street platform for half an hour. We had to go to an entirely different station and there was a bus laid on. The bus-driver didn't know the route, so one of the passengers had to stand up front and direct him to Harrow-on-the-Hill. One time, he took a wrong turn and tried to reverse, until a van (whose stupid driver... think nice thoughts about the stupid driver) had tried to get up the side of us. We missed him by inches. I watched from the back-window to direct us backwards, while another passenger opened the door and directed us within the four inch gap beside the van. We got out without further incident, couple of other detours, then onto a train to Hillingdon which sounded more dangerous than my car. All told it took us 2 and a quarter hours to do the 40 min journey back to Hillingdon. Kate then put her foot down and we covered half the country in an hour and 10 minutes, collapsing onto her settee in Brierley Hill with sherry to knock us out.

I had a grand total of two hours sleep. I'd just started to drop off when her housemate woke me leaving the house. He'd forgotten something, so came back. Three times I had a blast of cold air from the open front door, then he was gone, silence reigned and I got those two hours. Up again, and slowly woke myself up with coffee and Pro Plus, before canting with Ian for an hour on the 'phone and then driving home.

EXCITEMENT! I had had two certificates back from Wolverhampton Registrar's. One got me another generation back on my Nan's side; the other FINALLY after ten years told me who my Dad's grandad is. The elusive Thomas Ayres is now definitely Thomas Silvanus Ayres, born in Wolverhampton in 1876. I didn't have time to research it fully before we were out the door and up the TA in Fallings Park, me, Mum and Dad, for my cousin Sarah's 40th birthday. We walked in between an army guard of honour. It was a good night, me practically rattling with Pro Plus. I got to have a look around when my cousin, Andrew, ran at me while I was dancing, threw me over his shoulder and ran the length of two corridors to drop me into the officer's mess. That's one way to see the place, 6ft 5" off the ground, trying not to giggle as you're trying to tell the bloke off. He'd sat in something, so I did get to smack him as I whacked the flour or whatever it was off. Git.

We didn't leave there until quarter to one in the morning. Let's just say I slept last night!

I'd like to thank everyone who was in Whitehall on Friday night; or one of the similar events all over the world. To everyone who refuses non Fair Trade produce, I just want to say that YOU are one-in-a-million. YOU are special. Thank you.

yours
Mab
xxxxx

To All my Friends with AOL

2005-04-15T10:00:00.000+01:00

This has come from the University's IT department and will explain why I can't e-mail you:

Urgent IT Announcement: e-mail to AOL blocked

This problem affects all University e-mail sent to AOL e-mail addresses (@aol.com).

The University domain has been blacklisted by AOL due to receipt of spam e-mail from the University. All University mail is blocked even though the mail was sent from a school server not the main University servers. Emails sent from a University email address (@wlv.ac.uk) will not reach any AOL address (@aol.com) and an error message will be returned.

AOL has been asked to lift the ban but they have informed us that there is a 3 day backlog before they will contact the University. We cannot advise when the problem will be resolved.

Please see the ITS news web page for updates www.wlv.ac.uk/its/news

Purdy

2005-04-14T12:18:00.000+01:00

Glastonbury Festival (tattoo)

Stonehenge

Avebury

Hoover Dam

www.maketradefair.com

Ronan Keating

2005-04-14T11:51:00.000+01:00

Just want to write a big YAY to Ronan Keating. It might be partly my war of attrition on the subject of Fair Trade, but a wench whom I never thought would show the slightest bit of interest in prompting Fair Trade is suddenly very interested.

Why?

Because I was mentioning that I'm not going to get a whole lot of sleep at the weekend, what with one thing or another, mainly the all-night Fair Trade event down in London. But I need to go there, because this is happening and that's happening, and I was going anyway but... somewhere along the way, I must have mentioned Ronan Keating, because suddenly Fair Trade is really cool and 'tell me all about it'. The wench is perusing www.maketradefair.com as we speak.

Should I quit while I'm ahead? LOL

Na... I wouldn't be me else. I'll write about it in my blog instead.

RONAN KEATING SUPPORTS FAIR TRADE!

And so does Colin Firth, and Coldplay, and REM, and Jamelia, and Alanis Morrisette, and Antonio Banderas, and Pete Postlewaithe, and Vanessa Redgrave, and Razorlight, and Radiohead...

Here's some more: Celebrity supporters

Ok, I'll go and do some work now.

yours
Mab
xxxxx

'You're telling me it's in the trees, it's in the trees,It's not, it's inside me...'~ 'Green Cell Grey' by Ned's Atomic Dustbin

2005-04-13T12:49:00.000+01:00

I feel well dodgy today. I feel hungover, even though all I had last night were: one vanilla milkshake, two Red Bulls and one J2O. I got home feeling dodgy and all through html-ing the weekly discussion, I felt nauseaous and faint. I just been in the bathroom gagging, came back to switch the computer off, when TygerCub e-mailed to say that I could use her picture, 'The Reading Room', for it, so I finished it off. But then had to dash an e-mail off to the Mods to ask someone to add it to the blog before I fell over. Anna, bless her socks, did it for me. Then went abed, shut my eyes and got a sudden image of a bloke there with me. He wasn't entirely alive. I did want anyone would do in this situation, I screamed mentally for Georgia.

Poor Georgia. I think that stems from the first day I was back after my car accident, when I hurt my neck outside. I sent an astral SOS for pain relief, then realized that, out of Temenach, only Georgia would be awake. So I screamed for Georgia and felt the pain receding. I think it's now a reflex action - something bad is happening involving astral/supernatural etc and my first instinct is to go GEEEEEEEEEOOOOOOOOOOOOOORRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGG
GGGIIIIIIIIIIIIAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!! The fact that there are dozens of others who could help me by-passes me completely.

Anyway, screamed for Georgia and the sight of the thing disappeared. I was alone then feeling freezing cold, gasping for breath like an asthmatic and wondering if I could make it to the loo before I threw up. And that's the last thing I remember.

This morning, I've woken up feeling exhausted and hungover... despite about six and a half hour's sleep (I overslept) and the fact that I didn't touch a drop last night.

Work is downright yampy. But I think I'm getting somewhere with this website. I've been working on this section for two days.

yours
Mab
xxxxx

"There you stood on the edge of your feather, Expecting to fly."Buffalo Springfield

2005-04-06T12:05:00.000+01:00

I am having SUCH A GREAT LIFE AT THE MOMENT!

*bounces around like a bouncing thing on amphetamines*

Yes I was tired, but as I said last night, that was a busy at work and not sleeping thing. I actually listened to Cerr and went abed about half 11 last night and slept as soon as my head was on the pillow. I've woken up this morning so awake. And greatness happened, first off Mum 'phoned to say my cheque had come! Then she 'phoned again to say that I'd had a big parcel from Twin Roses Designs! Then one of my colleagues went up Wolverhampton and popped into a shop for me to save me the trip (I don't actually work in the centre anymore, so it's a git finding somewhere to park, and expensive too).

All of this ON TOP OF THE FACT THAT I'M GOING TO THE GLASTONBURY FESTIVAL! I'm going, I'm going, I'm going, I'm going... 'kin Hell, I'm going! *happy dances, then just sways in entranced happy, long-sighted wonder* It had only hit me by Monday. I'm driving along, with Celtic music blasting out of Rebecca, and my eyes are filling up.

I'm so chilled out these days. I swear.

yours
Mab
xxxxx

'"Come to the cliff," he saidThey said, "We are afraid.""Come to the cliff." he said.They came, he pushed them,And They Flew.'

2005-04-05T23:06:00.000+01:00

I'm so bloody tired. But it's work-induced and lack of sleep tired, rather than crisis tired. I'm literally swaying in my seat and Cerr's just sent me to bed on Witchgrove. I'm going to because part of my jumping off cliffs and discovering I can fly is via me accepting that I can't stay up until 2am working hard on millions of projects. Because I'm so bone-tired, I've gone all emotional.

So far tonight, Anna got tears in my eyes by posting something to the Grove - every week I html people's weekly discussions and write something like, 'your name's up in stars', to let them know that it's up on the website now. I was joking around yesterday and said that, because it's mine this week, no-one will tell me that my name's up in stars etc. I guess you had to be there! *giggle* Anyway, tonight, Anna's posted on the Grove the link and said it to me. I started off laughing aloud at it, then the more I thought on, the more emotional I got. I didn't really need her to do that, as the original was just us fooling around; but that she did. I don't know, it just touched me really deeply after I'd stopped laughing about it.

Then Cerr and Tarna wrote nice things about me, which got me blarting. Then I've just had an off-list:

'I have been re examining my stance on death row because of your words and the links you have sent. Your words are powerful and so are you......'

I'm really blarting now. Really blarting.

I should do as Cerr said and go to bed.

yours
Mab
xxxxx

PS Other than being tired, I'm having such an amazing life right now. AND I'VE GOT A TICKET FOR THE GLASTONBURY FESTIVAL! :-D

PPS Ok, bed.

Of Moors and Moonlight

2005-03-30T19:28:00.000+01:00

On Friday morning, Fair Trade Kate and I were up early. She drove us to Haworth, where the Bronte sisters lived. Bit of background here, I've been there twice before, but on both occasions there was some reason (both times a person) why we couldn't go to Top Withins. The last time, Kate and I promised ourselves that we would go back. We kept that promise. Part of it was a great idea for a day out; part of it was keeping the promise - a birdie in the faces of those two who stopped us both going before and me going alone the time before that; part of it was reward for the shitness that was 2004.

'Oh, I'm burning! I wish I were out of doors! I wish I were a girl again, half savage and hardy, and free; and laughing at injuries, not maddening under them! Why am I so changed? Why does my blood rush into a hell of a tumult at a few words? I'm sure I should be myself were I once among the heather on those hills. Open the window again wide: fasten it open! Quick, why don't you move?"

"Because I won't give you your death of cold,"

"You won't give me a chance of life, you mean... However, I'm not helpless, yet: I'll open it myself."
~'Wuthering Heights' by Emily Bronte

Some say that Top Withins is Wuthering Heights. It's the ruins of a house high up in the moors, but within walking distance of the house where Emily lived. I've been there now and I believe those that say so. It looks like Wuthering Heights, the building itself and its terrain. It felt like Wuthering Heights.

I'm ahead of myself. First we wandered around Haworth itself. I've been there too, twice before, but the main road is steep and cobbled, and my companions couldn't handle it. I went to the bottom on one of those occasions, but not for long. I was called back up the road again. But this time, Kate and I split up and lingered where we wanted. At one time, I was walking down from a bookshop and an envelope fell onto the path in front of me, with my name on it. Kate was sitting at a bench, smiling. I opened it to find a card with Da Vinci's Vitruvian Man inside a Celtic border. She'd written inside: 'To my Jo. Thank you for the promise of a great year. May this be only the beginning of many, many more big adventures. Love you. Kate xxxx' Later, I was in a witchy/New Age shop and a wench was enquiring about reading Tarot. I went into my purse and found Froggie's card with The Witchcraft Shop contact details on it. I gave it to her and said to contact him and ask to be put in contact with Mab. Then she'll get some lessons e-mailed free to her. Having just been in the shop, it didn't harm to big up Froggie's shop too.

We dumped our shopping back in the car; double-checked our supplies (sweets, Kendal mint cake; water); and I did my usual last minute 'Ok, one of us is badly injured on the moors, out of sight and we could be there for hours, what would we need...' And put in an extra packet of cigarettes, just to be on the safe side. Then we set off. It even stopped raining after the first fag break about halfway up the road, overlooking the reservoir.

We'd started at a right pace, but as soon as we were actually on Haworth Moor, off the road, and past the first ruined building, we started to slow down. The wind was giving it some and there were occasional showers, but by then I was sweating so much with the walking that all of that was a relief. It brightened up considerably the further we went.

It was unexpectedly quite busy. Not as busy as the last time, when we'd got as far as Bronte Falls before the call came to go back, but there were a steady stream of people down there. Half wanting to avoid them and half wanting to see the pretties, we kept going on little meanders off the beaten track. The first of the best of these was the waterfall. Kate likes waterfalls. We often find ourselves pulling over on car journeys to better see one; or detouring to climb up one.

Kate spotted this one and was partway up, while I was reading the plaque at the bottom telling us that this was Bronte Falls. I don't know why this picture has come out so dark. I've just lightened it and reloaded it, but it's gone dark again again. :-( I was going to say that I'm not that good a photographer, so you don't get the height here, but the top of the waterfall is roughly what you can see just above the second branch of the tree. It was muddy and Kate had her wellies on, so she fell behind slightly... hence it was me who fell up to my lower calves in a swampy puddle near the top of the falls. LOL I had DMs on, so I was able to climb, practically vertically in places, up to the top of the falls. There the view was wonderful, but more wonderful was that seemingly secret place.

I found magic in everything I saw:

A Fairy Throne; A pool where Celtic warriors of old threw in their swords that the Lady would keep them safe; and, you can't see it here, but there and in the picture on my digital camera, there appears to be a lad peering out from the picture to the top right.

Of course, climbing up there was one thing, but going down again? When your boots have kicked down some of the foot-holds in climbing and the mud has made everything slippy? And the rain is still softly falling... *hugest grin ever* That's why the Lady made heather. We went along until it was obvious that all we were going to get were vertical drops, with the rocks and water far below, then it was every wench for herself. I SO LOVED IT! Lying back against the bank, holding onto the sturdy heather with my hands above my head, sliding down until my heels found some purchase, then letting go. Sometimes I dug with my heels until the mud slipped and a niche was formed. By the end, it was sod that, I fell until the heather itself held me. I got to the bottom giggling like a kid and looked for Kate. She was about half a second behind me, giggling her head off herself. She had to wade across the falls themselves though and catch me as I leapt, because I'd have been well buggered trying that in DMs! LOL

We didn't get very far then, because the breck itself was just around the corner and that takes some getting past. Not so much in physical difficulty, because the maintained, well-trodden track and bridge sort that out, but in sheer prettiness.

We were probably there for hours or minutes... time doesn't really mean much, does it? Everywhere I looked, it was just beautiful. The breck cuts through a ravine, so the moors sweep upwards on both sides, with all the heather, sheep grass (and sheep, twisted trees and dancing trees, the bridge and rocks. It was typical of us really that Kate waded into the breck, taking pictures of the rain-swollen water rushing under that bridge, while I lay dreaming amongst the roots of a tree using, as a pillow, a tuft of grass which grew where the ground met its trunk. As she found her seat on a rock at the edge of the breck to watch its flowing, I stared up at broad broughs and then, through their extremities, the slopes of the ravine cut through by some ancient thawing ice age. And that's me and Kate in a nutshell.

Eventually we started off again though, up the opposite edge of the ravine, slowly following the signs to Top Withins. Stopping, of course, for Kate to photograph a stone wall; or me to gush over another copse of trees or another view. We were high up now, so that's always perilous when it comes to getting me to go anywhere quickly. I love heights. I love the fact of being high up; I love the views; I love just sitting there looking and looking and looking, not thinking anything, just drinking in through my eyes the scenery below. Kate had seen Top Withins though and had us practically racing the last bit, until my thighs just went to jelly and I had to sit down! A cigarette later and it was sorted out, but I think my body had just noticed how many miles it had walked thus far. I'm not known for being fit. Five minutes on, around the corner and there was Top Withins.

'I see a repose that neither earth nor hell can break, and I feel an assurance of the endless and shadowless hereafter - the Eternity they have entered - where life is boundless in its duration, and love in its sympathy, and joy in its fulness.'
~ 'Wuthering Heights' Emily Bronte

I climbed upon one of the walls and got the book out of my bag, with every intention of reading it, but the sheer beauty of the view got me. I sat there, transfixed, not knowing which way to look and, just as soon as I'd stopped my vision to see one wonderful scene, I had to move on, looking, just looking, because I couldn't see it all at once. I felt everything that hadn't yet been blown away by the fun and beauty below just drain from me now. A sense of privilege at being me in that place and time that I haven't felt since the Vegas Wiccaning. Kate stepped down off the wall, to find somewhere more sheltered from the wind to roll her fags; and her passage brought her down below my wall. I threw a paper bag into her path. It had in it a little book of Bronte poems and a postcard of Top Withins, which I'd find in Haworth. I'd written inside, returning the sentiments of her card. I stood then, wandering the walls, reading 'Wuthering Heights' until she came back. She has a picture of me doing it, one of the best I've ever seen of me, half-wild, half-studious, looking so calm.

Others came along. A German family, then later a lone woman. One of the German ladies took our photograph.

Then we climbed down and sat on a bench outside, reading passages of 'Wuthering Heights', until a poem grabbed me and Kate skim-read the entire book to herself, while I wrote.

In a little while, we were alone again, so climbed onto the walls to watch the sun go down and darkness start to fall. A beautiful peace; and such silence. Kate got cold, so climbed down. I heard her cry out, 'Oh fu....!' but nothing else, so I didn't jump off, just stared at the sun until she called me. 'Can you come here a moment please?' I meandered out and she was facing the sunset. She pointed, 'Just look at that... the colours... look at the blue, the pinks, the red...' I was looking, grinning, in awe. Then she said, in an echo of the book itself, 'And now turn around.'

So I did. And the Mother Moon was full and bright, filling the sky between the sweeping crags and slopes the ravine; all the land was silver, from here across to the far distant lights of Stanbury and Haworth, the trees in deep silouette and, by the Lord and Lady, it was one of the most beautiful, magical, wonderful sights I have ever seen.

'"Close your eyes and turn around. If it is fair, then so shall be your life..."'
~'Wuthering Heights' by Emily Bronte

I got it! I got it! Talk about telling me in my language on my terms. I just stood there bathed in moonlight, as if face-to-face with the Mother Herself, and it needed no circle to draw down the moon in that place and time. It filled me. It was as if everything made sense. Not just 2004, but everything before that too; everything which had driven me to that moment. I made sense. I don't know how long I stood there or what Kate did. I just know that if I never have another moment of grace like that again, it will be enough to carry me until it's time to go to Annwn.

The eventual walk back took almost as long as the walk there. Not because the whole round trip was between 7 and 9 miles (depending on which source you consult), but because we detoured and meandered and explored and sat for long whiles just being there. The moors, at night, were transformed again in silver and black; everything had a magical air. We didn't bother with the beaten track until we'd found the bridge again and crossed it. Before that, we were cutting across wild moorland, over rocks and fences. I told Kate to listen for the breck, because we couldn't go wrong, but without torches and in the brightness of that full moon, we could see for miles anyway. I didn't need her hearing to get us back and neither did she, really.

We sat for the longest time just up from the breck, where a scattering of huge rocks could have been a stone circle, or might not. I looked across and saw a rock turn into an old woman wearing a shawl. After a while, a whitened, dead stump, which looked like it had been struck by lightning at some time, turned into a dancing maiden. I grinned and wondered where the Mother was, then looked up at the full moon illuminating them both and laughed aloud.

We kept to the track after the breck, but probably only because there were fewer places to deviate from it. That final walk back will stay with me forever. The moon to our right, seeming low enough to reach out and touch, looking at Kate silver in it, knowing myself to be the same. Stopping to look at Orion, the Great Bear, Draco, the twins. Stopping every so often for a cigarette or just to stop and look.

Reality faded in slowly, a mile after coming off the moors, when the road wound around past a pub. There were voices and music, like a distant world, just as magical in its own right, though I think that both of our hearts and minds were back on the moors in the moonlight.

We stopped in the Black Bull, where Branwell Bronte used to drink, and briefly considered staying in Haworth. But a few coffees on, Kate declared herself fit and ready to drive home. That suited me. I was craving the solitude and silence, away from people, just me and Kate journeying somewhere. In a way, I wondered if, had we stayed, and no doubt been enticed onto the moor one last time in the cold daylight, the magic would have evaporated somehow. I wanted it safe inside me and I wanted to be out in the moonlight again. I didn't say any of this to Kate. It was her call, being the driver, and I said I was happy whichever way she jumped.

We drove home and, in the lanes, the song which reminded me of arriving in Vegas, 'King of Birds', came on. It will remind me of that journey now too, linking the two. *pause to grin at the computer screen* We were back in the beautiful Black Country (which has it's own kind of magic, if you've the eyes to see it) by midnight. Still giggling, still full of the everything of it all.

I feel as though I blinked and it was nearly dawn and Kate saying, 'Let's go chase the sun.' We went in Rebecca, seeing the sun rising over Netherton as we drove down by Merry Hill, but we wanted to find a good, pretty vantage point. We ended up in the Wren's Nest, up Dudley, the sun long up and us peering through trees trying to find somewhere for next time. Then sat on a log talking bollocks for ages. We found a totem pole for her garden though, which kicked off a whole adventure in getting it into Rebecca.

The day was spent in Kate's garden then. She and I bouncing ideas off each other in re-structuring the path, then her happily working in the soil, while I played with words. I'm assuming that no-one's still reading by now, seeing as I've gone on so long, so I'll record my poem here - started at Top Withins and finished in Brierley Hill. It's not meant to be 'good' as in sounding good; because it was the wordplay I was messing with. Making it harder and harder as I went along, repeating themes and syllables etc. This is me having fun! LOL

There was a moment when silence
Passed through my soul
And put out the light on
Sleeping troubles; when I,
Quietly smiling, gazed upon
A world of beauty
And knew it for my own.
This hushed, still mind, grateful
Beyond measure, drank deep,
Through eyes wide in
Sweeping wonder, and knowing
Not which way to look.
Lingering, breathing, delight.

There was a trackway where sunset
Paused me; my hills
Crowned with colour, dark
With long shadows. Then I,
Turning slowly, gasped aloud
At the full moon; the
valley flooded silver.
That magic feeling, honour,
Privilege, awe, sank deep;
Sense and psyche
Reeling touched. It healing
The witch within me,
Drawn down to earth by moonlight.

There was a journey on the moors
Placating the core
Of me and the roles that
Make up the whole. Could I,
Pagan, miss when gazed upon
By the world's beauty,
Its claim that I'm its own?
This studious brain, playful
Free from working, banks deep
The wild respite;
As the poet, inspired
Now finds the words to write.
Beautiful, transforming day.

That's going to sound so crap if you can't see what I was playing at! LOL But it was fun writing it. It was more like doing a puzzle than writing a poem. I really should write one properly about that journey; or at least the coming home part up at Top Withins.

After putting the pad down, I did something which is so rare that I was making Kate nervous. I did nothing. I just sat there watching the energies around the plants; the clouds; the sheer enjoyment that Kate was taking in her gardening. I was enrapt in watching the deep blue aura of a daffodil when Kate finally downed spade and asked if I was alright. Bloody yes! :-D :-D :-D So I made a cup of tea for us and then read half of 'The Da Vinci Code' to make her feel better. Mind you, I got into the book, so that was hardly the bind I've just made that out to be. *giggle* And I finished it the next day. The entire of Saturday and Sunday was mainly spent sitting in Kate's garden, writing, reading and just dreaming, unbelievably calm and happy.

Monday was a little weird though. I had a couple of hours reading 'The Old Straight Track' by Alfred Watkins, then craved a full English, so instead of going off out (as I'd vaguely planned... emphasis on the vague there), I went with Kate up Sainsburys. While she shopped, I ordered my breakfast (she didn't want one and I was on a timer!). I'm nose deep in the book, when one of the Sainsbury's ladies came over and told me that the lady in a wheelchair has been trying to get my attention. She feels like she knows me and would like me to go over there. So I did. I didn't know her, but as soon as I approached, she burst into tears and cried out, 'Jo!'

She could hardly speak and was often so frustrated that she sobbed, bouncing in the seat. She'd had a very severe stroke and was mostly paralyzed. I desparately searched the memory banks, wondering who she was, because it's very unlike me to forget anyone or anything. One of the most notable things about me is my bloody memory. I was there a while, still no wiser, while her husband gave me her history. I got ascertained that she had a history degree from the University of Wolverhampton and that she knew me. All those facts were present and correct, but if it was 1993/1994, that would explain the loss of memory, just not the fact that I'd obviously made a very good impression on her. She mustered all that she could and got out the words, 'I wish to see you again.' Though they took a long time and many tears to come. I held her hand, looked into her eyes and willed all the energy and calm I had for her to get so far. I said I would, then my breakfast arrived. Halfway through it, so did Kate. She didn't recognize her either.

Her husband wheeled her over and handed me their address, before showing me a photo of her in her robes. Armed now with a name and what she looked like, I placed her with a whoosh of memory, facts and figures. I told Kate, 'This is Rose, we share a birthday. August 30th... we did Irish history together.' And Rose sobbed her heart out, clutching my hand. This is Rose... she was so vital, energetic, her mind sharp and out-doing me every time in rushing about. Her mind will still be vital, just slipping, with blanks. That is frightening. But if anyone will overcome this, Rose will. I remember her now.

There was a gap in time between Kate going out and Jim coming home, in which I just hung around Selly Oak. I was aiming for the Lickey Hills, but I don't know Brummagen and Rebecca is in danger of losing a wheel, so I didn't want to push it. Instead I wandered around St Mary's Church, then the park, perching on gravestones and under trees reading 'Prince of Annwn' by Evangeline Walton, until I was too cold to feel my fingers. Then I wandered back to Rebecca and sat in her. I had the seat lowered and was half asleep, when the book hit me in the face and I noticed the sunset. But the houses were in the way and, for the first time, I was really bored.

So I 'phoned Georgia. That was fun. That's what I needed, to be canting with mates instead of sitting in a Selly Oak street falling asleep. I told her as much as I was able about the moon on the moors, but probably told her more in the sighs and squeals than I did in words. We were still canting away three-quarters of an hour later, when Jim appeared down the lane.

I thawed out in his house, having a brew and generally having him (my oldest friend, in terms of how long we've known each other... 20 years now, our Jamie...) raising eyebrows at how chilled out I was, until the news told us about the earthquake in Indonesia. I watched, willing the Grove to be roused and sending. I won't tell you who I targetted on the ether to tell, because I have no proof, but it was she who alerted them. Then I sent myself, 'No tsunami... no tsunami...' Watching and waiting until it was time to pick up Ian from New Street.

We spent the night thereon watching three episodes of 'Most Haunted...' which I really got into, then deciding to stay the night. Mind full of ghosts... night-time... driving home... do you blame me? LOL We had a Chinese take-away and talked about Mara, the Buddhist Puck-like being, before going to bed around 3-4am.

Tuesday tipped it down. It was raining from the moment I woke up (with three cats using me as their bed, bless them... quite proud of that actually) around half 1, until the moment I went to bed back in Wyrley Bank at 2 the next morning. In our office today, everyone was canting about what a let down yesterday was and how their plans to garden or go out were thwarted by the weather. I've just sat there silently, smiling to myself and remembering how Ian, Jim and I went hunting pumas up the Lickey Hills. Not with guns or anything, just going to see if there were any, as the rumour goes that there's one running wild up there. We saw several, but they were the size and shape of squirrels.

We got off the main path as soon as possible, climbing up into the trees to see where we would find ourselves. We found nature's own art, or some enchanted lizard turned into wood by a passing baddie; and lay down on the forest floor looking at the hidden lands in the topmost boughs and the kingdoms on the branches. They created a canopy above us, sheltering us from all but the occasional drops of rain, and these we watched falling towards us - not enough to drench us - but making a game of trying to see them furthest up, before they landed on us. There were sculptures in the forest too, a snake lady and two green men. I was enjoying getting muddy again. I do love the earth, it has to be said. LOL

We left the forest for tea and cake, ignoring the horrific screeching that Rebecca made as we turned into Warren Lane. I really am thinking that her back wheel is about to fall off. You can actually see the buckling of it now...

Finally we reached Jim and Ian's house again and I changed clothes into the only things left which weren't either caked in mud or slopping wet from all the playing outside I've been doing. Ian offered to massage my shoulder, which has been hurting since the 1980s. He's a trained masseur now - Indian Head Massage and Swedish Body Massage. I had the former and an hour later was so ethereal and floating, it was unbelievable. Even today, over 24 hours later, I can't click my spine like I normally can and the clicking of my shoulder isn't half so loud. Then I drove home in the pouring rain very, very carefully.

So now, a day later, it's still there. That sense of happiness and freedom, lightness and ethereal nature. In some senses, it's so needful; in others, I'm not sure I can function as I was without that hard shell around me. I read a thread on Kindly Ones earlier that had me feeling sick and crying. I tried to respond and there's a half-finished e-mail in my draft folder waiting, but I pushed it too far and actually did end up throwing up. So I stopped. This time last week, I wouldn't have stopped. I'd have mentally whipped myself into finishing and ended up flaying myself alive in the attempt to save just one more micro-spot of the world. But tonight, I wiped my mouth and came in here instead. Spent nearly three hours re-living those beautiful days. I must be getting better (or worse?). I've ignored all those e-mails in my inbox.

I'm still on the moors really. It has to be said. I'll go to the Grove in a minute and see what's happening there. I've lingered here long enough.

And I still don't know the answer to Anna's question, on the Grove, what is a priestess. Perhaps that is the answer... I don't know, but I'm loving the finding out.

yours
Mab
xxxxx

2005-03-30T19:20:00.000+01:00

Which Oh My Gods! Character are You?
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Running to Stand Still

2005-03-17T12:30:00.000Z

For some strange reason my last blog was there three times! LOL But it's only there once now.

I seem to be leading a very full life again right now, but mainly in a way which doesn't seem very productive, but is tying up a lot of loose ends. The biggest of these came when I had Tuesday off work to finish my dissertation. That involved sitting there with three different annotated versions of my dissertation and trying to integrate all of the comments made. Some of these were fair enough - despite me and Pixie both having copy-read it half a dozen times each, Caroline still managed to find some typos! Mainly these were when words had been missed out or duplicated though. Viv had raised some brilliant points, but incorporating those meant that I was forever in danger of going well over my word-count. In truth, there was scope for a whole new chapter in the dissertation just to discuss those, if not a whole new dissertation. By far the most infuriating though were Mike's comments. Sometimes because I felt I was idiot-proofing it way too much, eg writing 'as will be discussed below' all over the place; but also because most of his comments involved the structure of it.

All told it took me 12 hours on Saturday; 4 hours on Sunday; then about 8 hours on Tuesday to rewrite, restructure or generally tat with this dissertation. I started off excited about it again, proving that the break had done me the power of good; but by Tuesday, I was having bad thoughts again - anything do just stop me having to do anything else with this. I didn't care if it ended, I gave up on the MA, I ended or the world ended. It was pure, unadulterated torture.

I was more sensible this time though. Instead of pushing myself to break on through when I was close to tears with it on Tuesday, I walked away and watched 'Men in Black II'. By the time I came back to it, it was still frustrating, but I wasn't taking it all in as a personal attack.

That's the trouble with something like this. You tear apart your own religion, kick it around and batter it to death; then, if your research is similarly attacked, it doesn't feel like it was worth it. You neither have religion or intellect left then, so what's to rely on? I can see now why I really lost the plot in November and again in January. This was only the briefest return, but those were prolonged.

I'm so glad that it's over now. I'm half suspecting that it's no longer coherent and that the original dissertation was much better in terms of structure, but I've promised myself that I will never have to go through that again. I'd rather walk away from the MA than have to rewrite another word.

In the other news, I had a wonderful night last night. Aud, Bex and I met up and went for our tea in Sylvari's, in King Street, Wolverhampton. It was beautiful. To be honest, I was so hungry by then that I could have eaten a scabby 'oss sandwiched between two mouldy mattresses, but it was great food anyway. I don't tend to eat out very often, so this was doubly a treat.

After that, we drove up to Ruiton to the Old Mill. My gt-gt-gt-grandad, John Hyde, built the pub and this was the main reason that I suggested it. We sat in there for ages, canting, catching up, putting the world to rights. The one time I actually wanted to see a ghost (on the basis that I could be related to it) there was nothing to be seen. The cider was gorgeous though and we found the perfect little alcove to all sit in, so I can see us going there again.

The best thing is that we could do it again next week, as we're going to see 'MacBeth' at the Newhampton. So meeting up at the same time and place and probably eating at the same place! *happy dance*

I'm also meeting Kate Morgan in town later on today (I haven't seen her in a year!). I've just come off the 'phone with her. We're meeting in the same place and I suggested we go to Sylvari's, then onto an Irish pub, seeing as it's St Patrick's Day. I don't think I've ever been out so much in my life AND in pubs too. I normally avoid them because I can't hear and I'm driving so I can't drink, but the Old Mill was quiet last night. I can't see the Irish pubs being quiet tonight though! LOL

yours
Mab
xxxxx

2005-03-14T11:52:00.000Z

I've had a very productive weekend, though some things weren't precisely as planned! Woke up Saturday morning, in a very quiet house, as my parents have gone on holiday. I'd had me a brew and put the computer on, before I realized that it was only 20 past 8! :-( What happened to sleeping in Saturdays?

So I went through, clearing my inbox and the WG folder, before going up the garage and taking Rebecca to be made less dangerous. A mechanic named Lee (...) drove me back home, so I didn't have to wait around, then Steve brought her back later on. She's now safe to drive, but still needs some work. The important thing is that her squirty-up-the-window thing is now working again. Had me something to eat; watched 'Charmed'; Alan came over for a disc for Aud; then it was time to get onto my dissertation.

That wasn't nearly as bad as I'd anticipated. I'm glad I waited so long before picking it up again, because now I'm actually excited about doing it again. I was at it for 12 hours, using the comments from Caroline, Viv and Mike, and basically tinkering with it. Unfortunately, I also spent those 12 hours feeling very ill. I kept having to run to throw up; or because I thought I needed a shit, but nothing was happening. My stomach was rumbling like an old generator and there was a lot of wind. Caroline, having heard this, is screaming food poisoning.

There's still a fair bit to do on my dissertation. It isn't so much the amendments I was advised to make, but the other tatting I've been doing with it since. I need to do it this week, else my parents will be back and there won't be the hours of uninterupted peace and quiet to do it in.

Sunday morning, for some stupidity I woke up after only 4 hours sleep and felt so rough. I sank a pint of water as well as my brew. Did another 4 hours on the dissertation, but was still throwing up, though not as bad. I had me something to eat and cogitated telling Aud that I was too ill to go out, but after food, I went ok again.

Alan came and picked me up and that was fun in itself. Being driven through those Black Country roads as I could have driven blindfolded, I know so well. But I'm not usually the passenger, so I got to see fields and the such as I didn't even know existed!

We fetched Aud and he dropped us off down the pub. That was great! We were in there for an hour or so, catching up on the gossip and getting drunk. I was quite tipsy by the time we went to her friend's house for the tarot readings. Then I was drinking wine all afternoon. I had a brilliant time, but suddenly started feeling ill and tired again about half 6.

Aud and Alan dropped me off at home and I went to start looking at e-mails, but nearly fell over. I went for a lie-down and fell asleep. Woke up at 20 to 10 and realized I was missing the drama-documentary about Yellowstone Park. I put that on, after nipping out of bed for another pint of water and to switch my computer off, but watched the whole thing (and the documentary on BBC2 afterwards) feeling really ill and half-asleep. The concluding part is tonight. I did get to see a lot of Mount St Helen's and Anna's 'hood though. :-D

I think I was asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow again. Woke up at 25 to 4 feeling like there was someone in my room. I remember murmering, 'I'm ok, Georgia', though I have no idea what made me think that Georgia was in my room. There was a definite sense of someone standing over me and slowly I thought through the implications of that and sat bolt upright. No-one obviously there. Saw the time, noted that I now felt better and thought on getting up and doing more disseration, then went back asleep.

By 7am, when the alarm went off, I was sorted. I've got out of bed feeling very well and very refreshed.

yours
Mab
xxxxx

2005-03-11T09:50:00.000Z

I thought I'd have a little whizz through my world, so folk don't think that my relative quietness on the lists these days is another way of saying overwhelmed and stressed.

What's happened is that I took that typical day thing I did to heart, plus all the comments of everyone else. I've been experimenting with doing the things that I want to do, for me, first, and when I'm bored of that going onto things that I would have ordinarily started with. It seems to be working really well. I'm coming to things fresh and full of energy, instead of completely drained. I've also spotted that when I don't jump into things, other people will get them covered first. Cool!

The last couple of nights, I've been researching my own family history. Last night was helped by the fact that Frome sent me two certificates, which gave me a maiden name for Eliza Pike - Davies. Davies... that's heading into Wales again, isn't it?

I've come across two brick walls, which I need to either think my way past or find more information. But I'll put them here just in case I'm two close to it to see the clear answers:

Edwin Bradeley

Here's where this one fits in: Edwin Bradeley. Now, straight off I'm going for his surname being Bradley, because that's just written phonetically in Black Country dialect. Not so much today, but definitely back then. There's an area of Bilston, locally, which is written Bradley, but pronounced Bradeley.

All that is known about him is from his daughter's marriage lines. He was deceased by 1886 and he was a brewer. Mary-Ann herself was born in Lower Gornal or Gornalwood in 1862, so that places him in the vicinity at least 9 months before. I've previously asked Dudley registrar to find her birth certificate - Mary-Ann, daughter of Edwin, born 1862 - and they can't find it.

My contenders:

Edwin Bradley - born in Birmingham in 1818; living in Coseley (two villages away from Gornal) in 1851; married Elizabeth Robinson in Birmingham in the 1850s, before moving to Ashbourne in Derbyshire by 1881. He was a successful grocer and tobacco manufacturer there. I've scutted through the censuses and can't find him with a Mary-Ann as a daughter; however, he wasn't at home during the important 1871 census and I'm yet to discover where Elizabeth and the kids are. My major contender is still in Brum and hasn't a Mary-Ann.

Edward Bradley - born in Gornal in 1830-something; living there, working as a brewer, with a daughter called Mary-Ann, who is the right age, during the 1871 census. I've checked the BMD and there were only two Mary-Anns born in Gornal at that time, one is daughter of Edward and the other is the daughter of a John Bradley.

There are other Edwin Bradleys, but all too young to have fathered Mary-Ann, as in MUCH too young.

Actually the other brick walls are more information type things, so I won't add them here.

It's typical. I write a lot to Patrick Cormack, my MP, because I have views and he's representing me in Parliament. Usually, I get a mass-produced letter, signed by his secretary, with my name hand-written after the 'Dear...' part. He and I are finally in accord on an issue and I get a personal letter, signed by the man himself, with a copy of Hansard for Feb 28th 2005 inside. When Mum told me over the 'phone that I had a parcel from the House of Commons, I was like, 'well, is it vibrating or ticking?' But no, it's the recordings of the day.

That made fascinating reading, mainly along the lines of 'is this English?' All the MPs talk in a strange kind of code. I wonder if, when they get elected, their first mission is to learn the language. But the debate did show just how fucked the Government is over the Anti-Terrorism Bill.

Talking about politics, I had a bit of a rant on Kindly Ones yesterday, after receiving notification from Amnesty that we'd lost one. He'd been executed by the American state of Ohio, which now makes it well over 900 people killed there since 1976. *sigh*

I noticed that a lot of people had responded to my rant, but I haven't investigated yet about what was being said (being side-tracked by genealogy and all). I'll pop my face in there again tonight.

Talking Amnesty, I know have two people requesting readings with donations to the Zheng Enchong Fund. *huge grin* I'll make those donations direct to the fund.

And talking about readings, I haven't a clue what happened this week. I asked Anna to alter the database to put me as accepting readings now and suddenly, whoooooosh! I had an unprecedented number of requests that meant that within 24 hours, Georgia was sneaking in and putting me on 'not available'. Anna jumped in to take a couple of the later ones and I'm just sitting there thinking, 'what the fuck just happened?'

I don't even consider myself to be the best reader on that list. Anna, Cerr and maybe Ivy, at least, have all got the edge on me. Roxanne and Pixie are at least as good as me, if not better; and there are a few people who remain untried on list. So it's not a merit thing. Is it a placing thing? When I'm choosing who to ask for a reading, I get the database up, close my eyes and stick my finger on the monitor. I was thinking that it could be that. As I'm 'Mab' on there, my placement is more or less in the centre of the list.

It has got me worried though. As only three requests were actually on-list, it's not apparent just how many were off-list. It wouldn't have even come to the attention of the Mods had I not been one myself. I'm big and ugly enough to turn around and say, 'No, sod off', should I so wish; but if it happens to another reader, would they have the confidence to do that?

We haven't really had chance to debate this in the Mods lounge, but I know it's worried Cerr as well. She's written me a long e-mail telling me NOT to feel pressured and to tell any that I want to that it'll have to go through the proper channels, ie via the Grove. The reason that these things are openly done on there is precisely to forestall this kind of situation. I would be setting an example if I did that, which I'm supposed to do as a Mod. But on the other hand, I'm happy enough to just do the readings, which currently stands at 7 or 8 (I've got to check on one) readings; two of which are part of the Zheng Enchong thing. :-D

yours
Mab
xxxxx

Me at Work

2005-03-11T09:47:00.000Z

'We always shone brightestWhen no-one was watchingNow I'll kiss the linesOn your beautiful face...'New Model Army

2005-03-10T23:36:00.000Z

Sometimes you catch whispers on the wind of pure compassion and beauty, which were never intended to be spotted, just there, inate.

Andrea Wakely belongs on anyone's roll of honour. (Right up there with Anna Alexander, Georgia Langley and everyone else manoeuvring away in the background to make the world a better place.)

And {{{{{{{{{{TygerCub}}}}}}}}} Thank you for helping to light the candles of hope for Zheng Enchong. They might be surrounded by barbed wire, but they don't half shine brightly.

yours
Mab
xxxxx

Are you Strange?

2005-03-09T11:55:00.000Z

Space Cadets needs YOU!

I was minding my own business, floating through space on the bridge of a really funky space-ship, when a call came over the tannoy - recruit a stranger for Space Cadets!

So I'm looking for a stranger. If you are strange and even better if you are stranger, then please feel free to come for a fly around on our ship!

It's called The Spaceship Funk and it's lovely! Just say that Matilda Mother sent you. This is me.

*grin*

Where do you go to my lovely?

2005-03-08T18:53:00.000Z

This one's for me. I'm constantly shocked when it's knocking on midnight and I'm not sure where the evening's gone. Then I'm scrambling to do all the things that I wanted to do, before going abed around 1-2am. I want to see what I do of an evening. Though this is going to take twice as long as I'm recording it here as I go along, but I'm not going to do anything else that I wouldn't ordinarily do.

5.30pm: Got home from work and immediately went back out down the chippie.

6.30pm: Finished flicking through Valiente book, eating pizza and so came on-line.

6.30-7pm - Read through all WG e-mails and answered a couple.

7pm: E-mailed MP about Terrorism Bill after Amnesty (and Duncan) gave me an extra nudge. Kicked myself for not doing this sooner, but didn't have time to go into ordinary e-mails last night.

7.08: E-mailed Amnesty to tell them what I'd done; e-mailed Kindly Ones about it. Read Duncan's article.

7.15: Started scanning through ordinary e-mails to see if there was anything screaming. Sent e-mail about www.zaytoun.org to Kindly Ones; saved a Yahoo group I'm owner of from being deleted; found a pressie off Pixie and asked her questions about MP3s; forwarded some Wicca news alerts to Positive Paganism, which I keep forgetting to do; taught Yve a bit of Welsh; started on the less easily responded to ones.

7.35: Maggie phones to see if I want to sponsor Jordy. He's doing spellings to raise money for the NSPCC. He gets a fiver out of Auntie Jo and another fiver out of Grandad. Grandma's in London, so he gets nothing out of her, though no doubt she'll be tapped tomorrow. I remember that I was going to offer tarot readings to raise money for the Free Zheng Enchong campaign... it's a little close to the Witchgrove raffle to advertize it there... *bites lip* Ok...

FREE ZHENG ENCHONG

Yes, I know that if you're Witchgrove, you get these free anyway, and it's 99% Witchgrove who read this, but... but... I am willing to do tarot card readings for a donation, which I will then pass onto the Free Zheng Enchong fund. I haven't got one of those funky pay-pal buttons, but if you send your donation to mab@dreaming.fsnet.co.uk, with a note saying Zheng Enchong Tarot Fundraising, then e-mail me with your name and birthday, I will do your reading for you.

This is an independent thing and I do not represent either Amnesty International nor Witchgrove, unless representatives of either of those tell you that I do in the comments section.

7.45: Get back to e-mails.

8.00: Friends of the Heroes are thinking about printing an anthology. Consider my take on that and e-mail them, also thinking of all the issues that Andrea et al raised while we were working out the Witchgrove fundraising. Notice that the Grove URL is out-of-date on the FotH website... open ftp...

8.20: Having now got side-tracked into doing some tatting with the WG web-site, having spotted something that needed fixing earlier, I nearly overwrite a WG page with a FotH page, thus illustrating perfectly what Pixie warned me about in an e-mail about half an hour ago regarding the naming of files.

8.28: Having added a link to Wild Mountain Gryph's poem on the WG 'Bards of the Grove' page, I'm now adding another poem, 'Trees' (ie a brand new page). Then think about the Andy Charnell poem. It's a brilliant poem, but he wrote it especially for Deedra at the loss of her mother. Ordinarily, I'd just pop on and say, 'Can I put this in Bards?' but that seems a bit disrespectful. At the moment, I haven't the confidence to know if my asking that is perceived as me on the nick on the behalf of WG, which would make that a VERY disrespectful question to ask him. The reality is that, yes, Bards does provide some interesting content for the web-site, but it's largely there to big up those who submit their work. Until I work this one out, the poem is in my 'to be up-dated' folder.

8.38: Whizz through the rest of my 'to be up-dated folder', they are all reviews, which another Grover does and so I don't touch to avoid duplication of effort. They are there as back-up for her really. Then items for March's 'This Month in the Grove'. I back away from the html and ftp software.

8.39: Notice that Cecilia's picture has disappeared here two seconds AFTER I close all the software. Decide to ignore it until tomorrow, THEN find it, THEN e-mail the Grove to see who writes elsewhere and wants bigging up here. I know there's Branny and Gryph for a start.

8.49: Computer AND blogger back up after the crashing of the latter led to the crashing of the former. Deleted all my temp. files and cookies and now it seems to like me again. Naturally all that wiped the half-written e-mail I was writing to Clive... Back to e-mails.

8.53: Realize that I forgot to get the other measurements for Andrea, but no-one's in the house to get them. :-(

8.55: Dry Cell, in my headphones, serendipitously sing:

'Is it ok to be myself;
why do we always have to fight?
It's alright.'

While I'm responding to an e-mail where that could be the soundtrack. I instantly become the lead singer of Dry Cell, though they'll deny it if you ask them.

21.03: Miss Mike. Then Korn sing,

I'm over it
Why can't we be together every day?

It doesn't help.

Take my hand now
And be alive.

They sing on helpfully, that's slightly better. I half compose a story where you can hold out your hand and bring people, Lazarus-like, back to life. Then I catch myself watching myself experiencing emotion and inwardly going, 'Oooo! I can write that emotion in a story!' That's the writer in me, just as Neil Gaiman uncomfortably pointed out in the 'Sandman Companion' last night. Git.

9.08: I have only a handful of e-mails left now, excluding the groups. Four are off-list requests for readings; two are from deities sorting my head out (this is a true story); three are asking me advice on witchy or tarot matters; one is a dear friend asking me if I'm alright. Six of the above say 'I know you're busy, don't afret if...' Aud texts to ask if I'd be available to do readings on Sunday afternoon. I am. I think about Zheng Enchong.

9.19: Blogger crashed again. This time it was because I tried to save this, forgetting that I didn't save it before I deleted the cookies. Fortunately, I'd copied it before I tried saving. I'm wise to this bloody computer. I've just been called 'tarot hero to the masses'. *grin*

9.25: Try to determine what to do next. Two sorting out my head; five readings (inc the one actually ON the Grove); Kindly Ones; or go and respond to some Grove posts. Or have a cup of tea.

9.26: Georgia is a scary, psychic witch-woman. I'm going for a cup of tea.

9.33: Return with cafe latte and decide that Pixie is bloody fantastic! The 'Queen of the Damned' soundtrack is one step closer to being in my car, thanks to her! *happy dance* Download my pressie and Aud texts to say that she's got an A in her English exam. Sit back and love life.

9.44: My non-group e-mails are now down to the ones I need to get Tarot cards out for. En route, Laurie and Minerva Ravenwing have both given me a lot to think on.

9.55: Up-to-date on WG Mods group and latte finished. I'll start on the readings now.

9.57: Defended someone, who'll never know they needed it; but nervous about that. But remembered 1985... now I'll do the readings.

10.40: Finished the first reading.

11.06: As I was sending the reading, Outlook crashed. It froze on the reading itself and so I had to delete it; this after 'phoning Shonna (practically in tears) to see if it had turned up on the Grove, on the outside chance that it still sent even though it had frozen in that white, yucky, no frames, nothing way. It hadn't. I saved this, which took about five minutes to do; interupted the download off Pixie's site, then ctrl ult del until my computer closed down. Just want to cry.

11.13: OMFG!! The reading just turned up on the Grove! Shonna's just e-mailed me to tell me and I'd been too busy being a weener on the settee to go and check after I got Outlook working again. I haven't a clue how it got out, but it did. Ok, I feel daft now.

11.18: Realized the 'defence' e-mail that I sent earlier was taken in totally the wrong way by someone else. Re-read what I'd written and realized how that happened. I wasn't very clear.

11.23: Stare at all the remaining group e-mails, after reading them and getting delete happy because I know there will be a hundred more tomorrow. I know what I want to say to them all, but my mind feels frozen. I do the whole What Would Roxanne Do thing; then start thinking myself in circles. Tell myself that this won't look so bad tomorrow; tell myself that I'm not a bad person; tell myself that I should take a break now. This is the point of daily meltdown. I want to see what it is that I'm doing that's keeping me away from looking at my genealogy, which is generally what I plan to do every night on the way home from work, but never actually get there; and also why I seem to be feeling like I'm on the verge of panic/meltdown every night at around this time.

I'm going to publish this, then go back to find out if there's answers to those things and, if so, what I can do about it.

yours
Mab
xxxxx

I NEED the Queen of the Damned soundtrack on tape for my car....

2005-03-05T00:50:00.000Z

It seems what's left of my human side
Is slowly changing ... in me
(Will you give it to me?)

Looking at my own reflection
When suddenly it changes
Violently it changes
Oh no, There is no turning back now
You've woken up the demon ... in me

Get up, come on get down with the sickness(x3)
Open up your hate, and let it flow into me
Get up, come on get down with the sickness
You mother get up
Come on get down with the sickness
You fucker get up
Come on get down with the sickness
Madness is the gift, that has been given to me

I can see inside you, the sickness is rising
Don't try to deny what you feel
(Will you give it to me?)
It seems that all that was good has died
And is decaying in me
(Will you give it to me?)

It seems you're having some trouble
In dealing with these changes
Living with these changes
Oh no, the world is a scary place
Now that you've woken up the demon ... in me

CHORUS

*breathing*
And when I dream!(x4)

Interesting... Dec 8th 1866

2005-03-04T14:55:00.000Z

Wolverhampton Archives Gallery

All around me darkness gathers, Fading is the sun that shone; We must speak of other matters:You can be me when I'm gone 'The Kindly Ones'

2005-03-04T12:04:00.000Z

Of late, I've been working my way through the Sandman books again - not really through the novels themselves, because I haven't got most of them (they were lent out and are still making their way back), but through 'The Sandman Companion' by Hy Bender. It's an interesting book, if you really do know your Sandman, because it's full of interviews with everyone from Neil Gaiman to the editors, artists, inkists, letterers etc. You can see where their heads were as they were creating this thing, so it's interesting on that level; but it also brings out the philosophies and issues, which I'm finding fascinating. In an indirect way, it's helping me work some things out here... an exercise as it were. Not insofar as believing I'm IN this story, but taking the ideas and... applying...

There's a bit of background here. In 1994, I was taken to the house of a couple of friends, who were basically watching me very, very closely for a while. We don't need to go into the sordid details here, but I was in a bad place mentally, emotionally and physically, and this was the aftermath stage. Another friend seized on the fact that 'The Doll's House' had actually engaged my attention and so acquired all the other Sandman novels for my birthday. Early September 1994, I sat on a bed in a box-room, with a ghost sitting on a chair and me studiously not looking at her, concentrating on the book; a wardrobe, a dressing table with a mirror, and that was it. It was only recently, during a conversation on Witchgrove, that I realized just how important Sandman had been in re-establishing me mentally and spiritually in the world. I've generally half suspected that I'm a Methodist Alexandrian Jedi Knight, but closer to the truth is that all of this is washed over with the ideas from Sandman.

So I'm going back, trying to find my roots as it were, because I've lost sight of what they were. I've always said that I might look like Death (enough people said it for me to finally stop blushing and just accept it, though I think that's in the hair more than anything), but I've always been Delirium. Ian, who's read these books, generally nods sagely in agreement at that point. What I've not realized until now is that a subtle change took place over the past couple of years - I turned into Dream. It should have been bloody obvious, even my name switched from predominantly being Matilda Mother to being Mab of Dream. Trouble is that no-one told me, I've been wondering around thinking I'm still Delirium; or I didn't tell them, one of the two. *grin*

I've been following the story, even slipping it out of my head to a certain extent, around 'Seasons in the Mists', when the Three-in-One give their advice, which so underlies the future storyline. I've been thinking very deeply about what my own goddesses and god said to me; I'm yet to respond because I'm yet to finish reflecting on it.

Of all the novels I've been re-reading, 'The Kindly Ones', is the one most loudly resonating - perhaps ironically, given that I am still nominally the owner of Kindly Ones, though that's in name only. Ian Alexander is undoubtedly king there now. Extremely ironically, given the storyline of Sandman's 'Kindly Ones', the climax of which is summed up here:

'When (Death) turns up, Dream asks her if she'd like to throw bread at him again, but she answers with resignation, 'It's much too late for that.' More angrily, she adds, 'The only reason you've got yourself into this mess is because this is where you wanted to be. There's personal responsibility too, y'know? Not only the kind you're always talking about... Destruction simply left... and took off into the forever. You could have done that.' The Sandman replies, 'No, I could not.' His sister pauses, lays her head on his shoulder, and acknowledges, 'No, you couldn't, could you?'

Dream then says, 'I have made all the preparations necessary.' 'You've been making them for ages,' his sister responds. 'You just didn't let yourself know that was what you were doing.' More gently, Death says to her brother, 'Give me your hand.'
'The Sandman Companion' by Hy Bender, p 188

Sometimes I wonder if I'm looking for Daniel and sometimes I know I am; and yet others, I know I'm Daniel too. That's pretty much the whole point, isn't it, that Dream and Daniel are simultaneously the same and different people; just like the Three-in-One.

Something happened this morning - wench who left yesterday in tears, arrived today in tears and I, by sheer dint of being the only one here to deal, sat with her and talked with her. I watched her change before my eyes, over an hour or so, until she was bouncing around the place full of hope. As we left the room, she thanked me and told me I should have been a counsellor. I thought, 'I'm a priestess'. It wasn't just words I was up to in there, there was more witchcraft than pure headology at work. I listened to her, a few hours on, canting with someone else and every few minutes it was, 'Jo said that!' or 'Jo's given me some great advice on that.' And for the first time in months, I realized how bloody good I can be when I put my mind to it.

We'll see what happens when it's time to wake.

yours
Mab
xxxxx

Paper

2005-03-02T11:11:00.000Z

What is it with some people's absolute inability to read anything on a computer screen? In the worst extreme, I've had people printing off e-mails, not to file them somewhere as hard copy, but to simply read them in the first place.

Is it a lack of intelligence? Or something physical gone wrong? I know that I can copy-type much easier if the text is to the left hand side and the monitor to the right hand side. For some reason, it's like there's a blockage in the stream of information if I do it the other way round. Is it like that with those who can't read on a screen? I've just researched and written an entire 15,000 word dissertation and managed not to print anything off. If I can manage something as tricky as that without printing, then why can't people manage the smallest amount of reading?

If it's lack of intelligence, then I pity them, but feel that they shouldn't be in the jobs they are. If it's physical, then I want to understand this. If it's pure laziness, then I'm going to curse their arse. If it's ignorance, then I'll educate them.

Right now, I just want to stab them.

yours
Mab
xxxxx

'I paid the union and as times got harderI looked to the government to help a working manBut they bought prosperity down at the armoury'

2005-03-01T12:31:00.000Z

There seems to be a recurring miners theme in my life right now. It's hardly surprising on one level, as it's the twentieth anniversary of the Miners' Strike, but some of it has been coincidence. For example, going out just now for a fag and seeing a coal train go up over the viaduct. I haven't seen one of those in years. It was empty.

On Saturday, Kate and I went out for the day. It was born of my whinging that I hadn't been anywhere outside the Black Country for months and I needed a holiday. I probably had Vegas in mind at the time, but realistically it was going to be a day trip. This was the first date that we were both free, but right up until the morning we were setting off, we didn't know where we were going. It was Kate's choice for the Big Pit, in Blaenafon, but I wasn't exactly adverse to that one. My gt-granny is from Blaenafon and I still have family there. The night before going up Kate's, I'd been working on my genealogy and discovered that practically every Hurle in the town is related to me and the rest probably are too, I just haven't found out where yet.

I've received a cheque in compensation for the crash I was in last year. It's paid off all my debts, though it's probably not worth the year of intense agony to get it! Of course, I'm still utterly confused when it comes to my finances, but I got that sorted last night. I just moved everything into another account and that left me with only my wages in this account. Hurrah! Now I understand what's what. I get so confused by money that's there, but isn't really (and vice versa). It really does have to be kept simple with me.

I've also made a list of things I want to buy and that wasn't as huge as I suspected. I might even be able to buy them with what's left over. *happy dance*

I am still crap at actually buying anything though. I stood there with a REM album in my hand for 10 minutes before giving up and replacing it on the shelf. I made up for it afterwards though, by buying a couple of Sandman, a couple of DVDs and a video.

*yawn*

I really need to get a decent night's sleep tonight. I haven't slept properly in days again and the staying awake has just got chemical.

yours
Mab
xxxxx

Are There Jedis on Mars?

2005-02-22T09:23:00.000Z

YES!

Bob from Between Planets took this picture on that day when me and him went to Mars.

:-D

Actually there are loads of credits for this picture:

Andrea from Twin Roses Designs made the robes. Cerr gave me the lightsabre. Both of these beautiful ladies, plus Anna, Bella, Georgia, Puffernitty, Pixie and Dirk, and Roxanne bought me the robes.

I really am spoiled rotten!

yours
Mab
xxxxx

'And what it bringsIs everything...' REM

2005-02-21T12:30:00.001Z

HELLOOOO!!

I've had a great weekend and it's kind of clicked everything back into a better world now. It started on Friday, when I got in and fixed the fish-pump, then thought I'd better clean their tank out while I was about it. That was about half 5; at half 11 I finally finished cleaning, tidying etc the ENTIRE ROOM! Six hours of it will give you an idea of just what was involved there. When I say that I cleaned, I do mean that I cleaned. There are bits of that room which haven't looked like that since 1995; and bits that have never looked like that.

Saturday daytime, I started doing my dreads while watching 'Queen of the Damned'. The film finished and I was still only partway through doing the dreads, so I watched the film again with the film-makers' commentary switched on. I still hadn't finished after that, but was only about four dreads short. I got them done and started to tidy up the blue room. That's when I fucked my wrist and elbow up on a window. Two and a half hours later, it was still killing me, so Maggie kept reminding me that I'd broken it before and not gone up New Cross... twice... So off I toddled. Of course, it wasn't broken this time, just bruised. It bloody feels bruised right now, I can tell you.

I then started on e-mails. At one time on Saturday/Sunday morning, I had the Witchgrove and Kindly Ones folders both cleared and about 90% of my ordinary inbox sorted. If you'd seen what they all looked like before you'd be applauding by now! I went downstairs for a cup of tea and ended up cleaning my car.

This is me on Sunday:

after cleaning the car. Of course, I needed to sort out the software on my computer before I could upload it. I was working on that ALL of Sunday evening and it's still not sorted. I've had to bring the digital camera to work in order to get them on.

I'm feeling much, much less mithered now. This is what I needed. I made a list of the things I needed to do before I could stop feeling mithered. It's the 'Task List' somewhere -------------------------------------->

Thing is, I've only done a few things off there, which is designed to be done over the next couple or three months (look, I've even prioritized!) and I'm already feeling a lot less mithered. That's well overdue. Looking at the pics of me in my Jedi robes and after I'd stopped bouncing with excitement, I looked a bit more carefully and realized how heavy the bags under my eyes are and how puffy my face has gone. Compare and contrast a pic from last October:

when I actually WAS tired, and even I can see now what I'm doing to myself here.

Operation Chill Out is underway!

yours
Mab
xxxxx

On the Day Fox-hunting Died

2005-02-18T08:47:00.000Z

Today, fox-hunting in England and Wales became illegal. There are some get out clauses, for example, they can still hunt as long as they shoot the fox, after having the dogs flush it out, instead of letting it be torn apart by the dogs. Breakfast TV was full of people, who obviously don't realize how psychopathic they sound, being interview in full hunting regalia yesterday.

"Foxes are vermin!"

"We will continue hunting within the law until such time as the law is overturned and we can return to traditional hunting."

Trouble is, last time I heard the word 'vermin' was in the lecture by a holocaust survivor, in which she was saying that she and her family were considered vermin. It's not a word I really encounter elsewhere. I'm not trying to compare the two here, just pointing out that the word 'vermin' is only ever used by a person trying to justify the taking of a life somewhere.

Yesterday, the Surrey hunt alone tore apart seven foxes. All the hunts were out to enjoy the last day when they could sadistically kill something within the confines of the law.

I thought I'd be more ecstatic than this, because it's something I've been fighting since I was 12-13. I am smiling here, but... seven foxes were torn apart by the Surrey hunt yesterday... *stops smiling*

Also this week, Kyoto has come into force. Everyone is really happy about this one, but each news report, each conversation etc has the line in there somewhere - the world's biggest pollutor has refused to ratify it. The underlying part of this is that you now no longer have to be in Iraq or Afghanistan for an American to kill you; it's global, it's real and it's all America's fault. Everywhere you look, it's being spelt out PRECISELY what Kyoto is trying to forestall. Britain is evil too, but we signed up to Kyoto, which makes us less evil than America. America is trying to kill us. All of us.

I think that's the basic underlying message being rammed into each and every one of us now. The jokes have been doing the rounds for years, but they are really picking up this week. And I AM desensitized now. I spotted that this week... well... this morning... and I hadn't even noticed. On an academic level, that's fascinating; on a human level, that's shameful.

When the jokes first started coming out, I'd sit there thinking, 'You're dehumanizing the Americans, this is bad. This is how genocide starts, just a scale of things.' But these many years down the line, it's occurred to me this morning that I must have some mental division going on in my head. American does NOT mean any of my friends (who happen to have been born and bred in America), it's the others. I think that when I consider them as Americans, I have a whole different meaning than when I think of Americans per se. I no longer look at the jokes and think bad/dehumanizing/genocide, I might instead have a wry smile, then delete them without passing them on.

What's just given me the wake up call of the century is that two of these jokes made it to a group where I didn't know any of my American friends were. Morganna Skye has just delurked for the first time ever to defend her country. And she's right. It's like a wall has just collapsed in my head - if Morganna feels like she has to make a stand, then she's offended. She can only be offended if she's American. That joke is about Americans full stop... not just the Bush administration. Not just the Republicans. It's about people I love to bits like Morganna Skye as well.

'And what's one more dead soldier in the endless scheme of things?
It means one less pair of eyes which are open, and cannot shut,
In the kingdom of the blind.' (Joolz)

I think I've been sojourning in the kingdom of the blind. Now I just have to re-learn that people whom I love to bits are also American.

Talking about great Americans, other than Morganna Skye, who made her point very well. There's also Pixie, who, having read my previous blog, e-mailed me and ended up looking at my finances. She pointed out several places where I was not only over-complicating things, but where I couldn't possibly work out reliably what was in there and what needed paying. By the time she'd finished with it, even I'm not confused anymore. :-D I managed a whole day yesterday without spending hours in utter confusion and frustration over money. YAY!

I also had Andrea, Seren Lleuad and Aud offer to help too. I have some great friends! :-D But Pixie's sorted it.

Talking about great friends, I'm still loving my Jedi robes. I've now got my eye on the tunic for underneath. Things to buy plan: * Fix car * Get three certificates for genealogy * Then order the tunic. I'm going to try and save up to get it before August, so I can wear it at Shambala.

Talking about Shambala, I think I need a holiday. I've had half a dozen people, from different places, tell me to stop worrying or stop stressing, within the past 24 hours. I didn't think I was. Georgia reckons I'm being more intense than normal and that just looks like stress to the uninitiated.

Hey! I'm intense!

:-D

Mind you, the thing I was aiming for was hedonistic and laid back... I've set off in the wrong direction again, haven't I? Mmmm... u-turn!

yours
Mab
xxxxx

Money, Money, Money

2005-02-16T18:01:00.000Z

It's like thinking through sludge. Me and maths fell out years ago and to me the epitome of sheer hardwork is trying to understand my finances. Wiser people than I simultaneously pushed very hard for me to keep a track of my accounts last month, so I did and I am... I haven't existed for so long in a state of utter confusion, ping-ponging between smugness and terror (depending on what I think is happening with the sums), since the last time I attempted this.

Here's the latest that I've just spent an hour trying to puzzle over:

* I've swopped my Visa card to another one, because I couldn't afford the interest (and the new one is more ethically sound and gives money to Amnesty International; as opposed to the old one, which was dodgy as Hell <--- argument I understood when being talked into this. The first part was the argument Mum started with. I nodded in the right places and got it at the time.)

* I transferred most of the balance to the new one, but there was a period of a couple of weeks where I needed to pay things in America, which I can only do via Paypal. Paypal is linked to the old card, so I added things to it after transferring the balance. I then went onto the currency converter and worked out what the sterling was for the dollars I'd just paid, then paid that off the old Visa. Unfortunately the dollar must have crashed even further, because I'm suddenly £6.53 IN CREDIT there.

* I figured that I needed to pay for something with that to lose the in credit bit, so I paid my VERY overdue phone bill. So overdue, in fact, that I've just paid for two months in one go. It came to nearly as much as it would cost to fix my car. So I've been onto Orange to see if this can be done any cheaper, as the bills are so high because I keep 'phoning America and staying on the 'phone forever. He checked and in the past month, I've called America 11 times, each time staying on for over half an hour. He's found a plan thingie, which means it's still 15p a minute, but I get a percentage of free minutes if I buy in advance. I've just paid a tenner for £12 worth of calls to start with. I can also have these in bulks of £25 for £30 worth of calls and £50 for £60 worth of calls. I've thought on and I'm not even going near my normal monthly 'do not call America' pledge, because if someone's screaming somewhere, I'm not sitting here thinking, 'Ok, is that worth £4.50 for a half an hour cant or will Georgia get onto it?' I'm thinking, 'Ok, let's see if anything can be done.' And it saved so much time canting over the phone with Andrea when she was taking over the fund-raising. That was priceless in terms of peace of mind.

* Trouble is, I've paid that bill on my old Visa card, but the money originally allocated was in the current account list of figures and it was less. I don't want to pay it immediately, until it shows up on the old Visa bill, just to make absolutely sure I don't go in credit again. I understand enough to know that in credit on that one is bad. I now haven't a clue what column or sheet to record this on nor what to do with the original amount.

* In the meantime, Rebecca is losing oil even more quickly than usual, so I think my original plan of waiting until after the brakes are fixed on March 5th might be more stupid than my usual thinking. The squirty thing has packed up completely as well. Plus I was going to pay for that next month, but now I have the phone bill paid on Visa to pay off next month; which I think leaves more money this month, because I haven't really paid anything as it's on the Visa card. Eeeeerrrrrrkkkkkk!
*bangs head on calculator*

* On top of all of this, I can't use my on-line banking as my accounts anymore, because there's £200 in there which is destined elsewhere. I'm not sure whether I'm supposed to treat that as invisible, not really there money, or include it somewhere.

Now, if I was doing this the old way, I'd have just paid off everything that needed paying off, and assumed that the rest would just fall into place. Every 3 months or so, I would have a panic attack, because I couldn't see what was happening or where it was all going, and someone would take it all off me, do some sums and just tell me pay that, leave that, job's a good 'un. This way, I know precisely what's where; but I have a car dripping oil with a filthy windowscreen and a 'phone bill where I get hit for two months worth in one go.

I'm not showing Mum my accounts ever again, because she just goes through saying, 'Well why have you paid that? How come you're this much in debt there? Why did you use that, when you could have used this?' And other such helpful stuff, which leaves me completely depressed and assuming that I'm nearly bankrupt. Aud's up to her neck in exams. Time to see how busy Ian or Seren are.

yours
Mab
xxxxx

'Watch me crawlWatch me breakWatch me crawlWatch me throw it all away''Headstrong' by Earshot(from 'QotD' soundtrack)

2005-02-15T16:01:00.000Z

I'm having a great time at the moment, really getting back into my genealogy. This is something I've been craving for months and when I eventually had the opportunity, I found I wasn't as into it as I'd expected. I just needed to give that time. I'm well there now! I have a list of certificates as I need to send off for, to go on the 'want' list, soon as I have some disposable money again.

I've finished adding the names to my Tribal Pages, which is brilliant! I can work through and see where the gaps are more easily. A couple of them I did have the information, just not in my main folder. I'm looking forward to going through things now and putting it all in one place.

Next day - OH WOWOWOWOWOWOWOWOWOWOWOWOWOWOWOW
Ohhh WOWOWOWOWOWOWOWOWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW
WOOOOOOOOOOOOOWWWWWWWWWWWW

You won't believe what was waiting for me in a box when I got home from work last night! Unless, of course, the 'you' reading this is Cerr, Anna, Pixie and Dirk, Brianne, Georgia, Andrea, Bella, Roxanne or Heather. JEDI ROBES!! I'd nick the picture off the Twin Roses Designs site, but Andrea would probably brain me, so you'll have to go and look at it there instead: My Jedi Robes modelled by a 6ft bloke with a beard, who looks nothing like me, so you'll need a bit of imagination. The brown ones on the left. :-D

That cheered me right up! I've been inputting at work, so I arrived home braindead through all the concentrating and determined to do some genealogy tonight. I'd skipped into the house the night before full of the joys of Tribal Pages, but then had to stop to send the raffle info to Andrea, then do the weekly discussion for the web-site, then I got caught up in trying to plough through the backlogue of e-mails (on Grove, personal, Kindly Ones etc); and in short, never made it. Tonight, I was determined, but was just waving a lightsabre around basking in the first glow of having robes, when Mum started nagging about fixing the digital camera part of the computer (I deleted the programme in an over-zealous spring clean back in the autumn).

So I sat there for two hours. It still isn't working. Only the fact that I'm a Jedi Knight and have decorum stopped me putting the bloody thing through the window. Checked the Grove and I'D WON A PRIZE!! The raffle has been drawn and I've won four bookmarks from the very talented Phoenyxa. They are beautiful too and one has a picture as she did for Mike. Cheered up enough to think, 'time to do the genealogy, no matter how many e-mails or how fucked the photo programme is.'

That was the right decision. I've skimmed e-mails and know that there are some important ones I should be reading carefully and answering, but sitting doing that genealogy... it's for me, innit? Therefore it was the first thing given up when I started to get busy five years ago. I think I'm that used to knocking myself out working bloody hard for other people or for duty things, that I feel so guilty doing genealogy, because it's only for me. But, 'kin Hell, I'm loving it. I could honestly say I was happy then. Which is a turn up for the books for me.

Sitting there until 2am, in my Jedi robes, hunting through on-line transcripts for clues to my Prangnells... I figured I'd have to go to bed then. *sigh* I'll do e-mails tonight, then have another night doing genealogy.

Went abed and lay there until half 2ish reliving Vegas and other greatness. I've found it again, in my memory, safe and sound.

yours
Mab
xxxxx

'Anything to thin the bloodThese corrosives do their magic slowly...''E-Bow the Letter' by REM

2005-02-11T12:29:00.000Z

Ok, I'm slowly but surely working my way through bits of paper now. One bit of paper looked more important than the rest, but my philosophy is that if it's on paper it's not urgent. There's a whole built-in period of me considering the fate of the rainforests, the eviction of forest people, the starvation and exposure of indigenous wildlife etc, then getting pissed off and ignoring it for a while. If you want my attention, then it comes electronically. Everyone who's ever worked with me knows that, so surely it's logged the message with the Universe by now.

'VEHICLE SAFETY RECALL NOTIFICATION', it said on the top, before whittling on about 'corrosion of rigid metal brake pipes'. It only came on December 17th, but I've got round to 'phoning them now. Bring the car in between EIGHT OR NINE AM on a SATURDAY!!!! :-o On March 5th.

At least that one's free, the other work that needs doing is around £160, now I just have to embezzle the Witchgrove funds* find the £160 and, at least, have a safe car by the time Pixie and Dirk come. There might be a grain of truth in Kate's assessment of me as someone who doesn't hold onto life very tightly, but I do try to make it safe for everyone else.

But I think that's enough bits of paper for one day. I'll get back to my e-mails now.

Someone remind me to pay my 'phone bill. That's been due since the beginning of January too.

yours
Mab
xxxxx

* This is a joke.

We're having a raffle!

2005-02-10T13:55:00.000Z

If you think this looks great - www.witchgrove.org - then please buy a raffle ticket here: Raffle Page to help us pay for it.

Thank you!

yours
Mab
xxxxx

"I might've lived my life in a dream, but I swearThis is realMemory fuses and shatters like glassMercurial future, forget the past"

2005-02-10T13:37:00.000Z

I am a plant.

Apparently. According to the catering staff here anyway.

I woke up feeling much, much better today. Really the turn around came yesterday, starting with that e-mail from the person I'd been so paranoid on; then clicking through me getting an idea how I could re-structure the dissertation; then onto listening to 'E-Bow the Letter' on repeat all the way home - which reassured in the way that lyrics often do, when you've forgotten that the singer has never met you and didn't write it for you; and landed into an evening where I didn't HAVE to do anything. My inbox still has a few unread e-mails, but I'm working my way down them. I actually got up-to-date on the Grove for the first time in ages.

'E-Bow the Letter', Kate called it the answer to 'Country Feedback'. I can see that.

But things are really looking up now. :-D

yours
Mab
xxxxx

'Aluminum, tastes like fear...''E-bow the Letter' by REM

2005-02-09T13:57:00.000Z

Dad said that I woke him up in the night, talking in my sleep. It must have been loud to be heard through a closed door in another room. He couldn't make out what I was saying though.

I can't remember my dreams last night, just that I woke up feeling like I'd been in a warzone.

Ok, I'm trying a different tack. Until now, I've been fighting against everything I'm thinking and feeling, because I know the ideal of how I should be, but I'm just not like that anymore. It's all well and good trying to be a child of the Universe, but not when you can't be trusted with not pressing the button should you have its care. I have Anna and Andrea in e-mailed stereo pointing out that I'm a human being. So I'll try that.

Strangeness - I've had the rune Tyr in or next to my bed since about May. Last night, Anna e-mailed to say that she's done a bit of work magically, which was related to this. I decided to co-operate, so went to move the rune. I saw it there in the usual place at the weekend, but it's gone now. I haven't moved it! I figure that that's Anna's magic kicking in, along with a strict message that someone else has the distraction of Fenris now. I'm free.

Andrea says that you don't fight the flames. You let them burn brightly, then you move through them and deal with the embers and ashes afterwards. I'm going with this now. The reason I'm being so angry right now isn't because I'm a completely irritating failure, it's because I feel angry right now. There's cool, in a fucked up way. Thing is, now I've accepted that, I can feel it going down another level.

I've finally looked it up: Burn Out and taken it seriously. I didn't think I had any right to still be burnt out, because it's been going on too long now. Then I thought on. What did I do with my break from WG modding and the website? I wrote an MA level dissertation. What did I do with my break from the dissertation? I uploaded nearly 1000 files and photos into the WG website. I have a very warped idea of what a break is.

As something comes up and sticks, then I'm trying to resolve it. There's one person whom I've been feeling guilty about for over a year now. Over the past couple of months, this has turned into unadulterated paranoia. As this is a friend, I finally got round to e-mailing this morning and asking on it. If it isn't paranoia, then hopefully we can sort it. If it is, then I can stop afretting on it.

Georgia says that all this shit is actually due to us ascending. I'm thinking on that one a bit too. Ascending sounds too much like hard work to me right now. I think I'd rather regress back to a time when it wasn't all so hard.

Just been into the stats for the Witchgrove website. Since Saturday (ie 3 and a half days), there have been 87 unique visitors. They aren't all WG members either, some have come from Popex and some from Between Planets, none of which are me. One has come from Georgia's Yahoo profile, while another has come from Cerr's. So I updated my Yahoo profile with the link too. Otherwise, they have all come from Witchgrove itself. (These are just those within the past few days, many more sites have been involved before that.)

This all makes me happy. It feels like all that work was worth something. Every visit to the site is a potential sale for those members listed in our Shopping Mall; or a potential viewing of our members' art or stories; or another person getting something out of our weekly discussions. It gives me evidence, to my mind, that it is valuable, you know? And for that I'm glad I did it.

Later - the person I e-mailed confirmed internet paranoia. Not only that but proceeded to big me up, telling me that I have no idea how highly she thinks of me. And I worry too much.

I'm smiling. :-D

yours
Mab
xxxxx

Some Stats

2005-02-08T21:50:00.000Z

Only 1% of the population of the world have a University degree

I have a BA (Hons) in History and Philosophy. I am a few minor amendments (and a pass, of course) away from a Master of Arts in History.

You are least likely to go to University if you were born in August, in comparison to any other month of the year. You are 20% more likely to go to University if you were born in September, than if you were born in August.

I was born in August.

In 2000, it was still the case that those from the top three social classes, in Britain, were five times more likely to go to University than those from the bottom three social classes. Only 19% of those in the latter group have A-Levels.

I am in the bottom three social classes. I have three A-Levels.

In the entire of Britain, you are less likely to go to University if you are from the West Midlands region (which inc. Shropshire, Staffordshire, Birmingham, Solihull, the Black Country, Herefordshire, Worcestershire, Coventry and Warwickshire), than in any other region.

I am from the West Midlands.

Within the West Midlands region, the area with the lowest number of people with degrees is the Black Country.

I am from the Black Country.

You are less likely to go to University if neither of your parents has a degree.

I am the first person in my entire extended family, both maternal and paternal, to get a degree.

In 1994, only 15,699 students in UK Universities had a disability or special needs.

I was one of them.

The drop-out rate for those undertaking a degree in Britain can be as high as 40% in some Universities.

I did not drop out of University.

So what am I saying? That this, right here, is ammunition against myself to sit back and think about the odds of getting where I am now, academically. Instead of glaring at the dissertation and seriously considering not doing the minor amendments. This isn't even a MacBeth 'I am in blood steep'd so far, that should I wade no more...' moment. This is honest to goodness, 'Johnny, what the fuck are you on this time?' I REALLY piss myself off sometimes.

I hate it. I hate it. I hate it. I hate the fact that the dissertation is hanging over me like some thick, black, monster's wings, just waiting to bite me. I hate the fact that writing it took Vegas away from me; and contributed so viciously to the 'bends' state I had at the back end of last year. I hate that it was there when all I wanted to do was get the website sorted and away; and that it put a deadline on it beforehand, that made me get so AAAAAARRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHH afterwards. I hate the uncertainty it left me with, spiritually; and the precipice it's left me on now; when I don't know anything that's happening in the world, with my friends, and who I am now, and where this is all leading me and what I'll be when I get there, and if it's too late now not to go.

And what limbo land it's left me in AGAIN. So THAT'S why academics don't declare their religious leanings, for all the talk of reflexivity and the call to arms for Pagans? And THAT'S why the more spiritually wise Pagans run in the opposite direction.

And I hate this paranoia. And I hate the fact that no-one's alright. And I hate the fact that I'm too fucked-up to save the whole world. I want to be back where it was all certain; where I knew the difference between self-confidence and arrogance; and where I felt like I knew some answers. When someone looking on would be more likely to see me in Tyr than in tears. When I didn't feel this constant sense of dread that I've given up on some big, almighty cause. When it wasn't all just a long and bloody battle.

Every day I work with the statistics. I do everything I can to raise aspirations; provide opportunities; help the Aimhigher students stay in University, once they're there. Every day I look at those statistics and occasionally think, 'that's like me', but don't take that in. My whole job revolves around the fact that it's going to be hard work for these people; and yet I fit ALL of those categories and don't allow myself to believe for one moment that it could just possibly be hard work for me too. I didn't even acknowledge that doing an MA fullstop is hard work, until Anna e-mailed me to tell me one afternoon. So it's hard work; and I do it with all that baggage, PLUS a full-time job; then still beat myself up because the trillion other things couldn't be done. Juggling writing 1000 words with uploading pictures onto the website and wondering why I was so stressed.

Wondering why I'm going so beserk now.

One day, I'm going to give myself a break and when that happens, and stays happened, you can bet that there will be a resounding cheer heard from here to the Pacific coast.

Mind you, I will probably have just dropped dead at that moment in time. Thinking on it and knowing me.

'kin Hell, I fucking hate myself right now and that's the truth. Sooner I get my act together, the better.

yours
Mab
xxxxx

'It's quiet nowAnd what it bringsIs everything...''Leaving New York' by REM

2005-02-07T13:26:00.000Z

I haven't been remembering my dreams of late, but last night was very vivid. I was both working for a large company and also the daughter of the boss, or someone very closely related, and there was some kind of deal going on. The heads of each department were to be kidnapped for 24 hours, but we knew in advance and had volunteered to let it happen in order to stop something else happening. After the 24 hours were up, we were going to be released. Everyone else had packed an overnight bag, but I'd got a full suitcase. I was asked why and I replied that there was no way I'd be released after 24 hours, once they'd got me. Also in the suitcase were lots of scrap paper/old envelopes and the such - nothing important and the sort of thing you'd ordinarily be sending off to be recycled. A bloke had put them in there to try and save me, though how was never explained.

I can say precisely what I was wearing, because I could see myself as well as being myself. I had on my green 'festival' skirt, with the buckles; my long, green jumper; white socks (?); and green, what looked like hiking boots. When I went to the place where we were all to be kidnapped from, there were all the department heads, including YODA!! He called me over to the booth, where he was sitting with others, and gave me a lot of advice - which is the only thing that I can't remember! :-( I took my seat and looked across the room. Nadia out of 'Big Brother' was there with her tits out, and I was wondering why she's half-naked, when everyone else is dressed, when I saw a red dot light travel across her to the person next to her.

I leaned over to the person next to me and said, 'And there it is, we're all going to be shot.'

Then woke up.

Ian and I had a really good cant yesterday, which was cool, because it unwound me a lot. Even as late as early afternoon, my mind was still racing and I was getting stressed over something I've been organizing. Ian just let me rant and vent and get a lot of the shit out; after which I definitely felt myself come down a level. It's madness because I feel like I've been bordering on yampy for at least a year now, so with those around me, it must be like, 'what the fuck's up with her now?'

I'm starting to work it out. It's circumstantial stuff - I'm angry that I spent so much of 2004 in so much pain; I'm angry because I had to work so hard and take so much time out for the dissertation; I'm angry for all those moments when I couldn't play. I think that once I've sorted this lot out, I really will be able to drift back down to earth.

I do still need a priestess, methinks. Someone who can wear the face of the Goddess and isn't too busy to hear this out; isn't prone to go off on feeling guilty, so I hold back and don't say half of it for fear of their feeling bad; and who can actually hear the words Paganism, Wicca, Witchgrove, witchcraft etc come out of my mouth without wanting to scream and run away. Can you tell that I've been doing a tremendous job of wearing out my welcome with random precision? ;-)

Ian was great and I think we would have got a lot more sorted, but for interuptions, then finally someone's presense which made it impossible to carry on canting. Not for the fact that they couldn't hear, but for the fact that we'd have had to start from scratch or summarize and there was just so much of it.

But things are much much calmer in my head now. I'm no longer quite so jaded anyway. And there's probably a really fucking good witch underneath all this, if I'd just allow myself to calm down enough to tap into her.

I got gonged on Popex! :-D Impressed me, anyway. :-D I'm now a millionairess five times over.

Real moneywise, the cheque came, which has helped a lot. Fingers crossed on the other three cheques now, but Osran has bought me a Prosperity candle off Alfynda Morgain, so it's looking hopeful. That was downright scary for a second there, but it looks like it's going to be ok now. Eventually.

Kicking and squealing Gucci little piggy

2005-02-02T17:23:00.000Z

I've been told that it takes a little bit of bravery to actually waste paper, food or anything of that ilk with me in the vicinity. I didn't realize I was that 'bad', but apparently I can not say something very loudly. There's fine. We each have our passions and mine are manifold, but right up there in the Top Ten is an intense hatred of apathetic people. The people who retain the child's belief that if you can't see something it's not happening. These are the people who I'd dearly love to grab by the hair and throw their faces into the shit that they are ignoring, but instead I smile sweetly and begin the war of attrition.

Today, something came to a head... well, a mini-head... when I was asked how much I'd pay someone to start recycling paper.

How much I'd pay them to do it...

She changed the subject - you can order tea-bags with the stationery, you know? I replied,
"Is it Fair Trade?"

And she rolled her eyes.

Save or Delete

Film

Fair Trade Federation

Fair Trade

It takes great control to be angry. Right now, I have no control and I'm just getting angrier and angrier. In the last five minutes BOTH the printer and the photocopier have broken. I didn't touch them; I didn't leave my desk. But I smiled.

I haven't the eloquence to even rant now. Just click the links above, while I try to calm down enough to actually do something about it.

Oh and a bit of Radiohead:

"Paranoid Android"

Please could you stop the noise, I'm trying to get some rest
From all the unborn chicken voices in my head
What's that...? (I may be paranoid, but not an android)
What's that...? (I may be paranoid, but not an android)

When I am king, you will be first against the wall
With your opinion which is of no consequence at all
What's that...? (I may be paranoid, but no android)
What's that...? (I may be paranoid, but no android)

Ambition makes you look pretty ugly
Kicking and squealing gucci little piggy
You don't remember
You don't remember
Why don't you remember my name?
Off with his head, man
Off with his head, man
Why don't you remember my name?
I guess he does....

Rain down, rain down
Come on rain down on me
From a great height
From a great height... height...
Rain down, rain down
Come on rain down on me
From a great height
From a great height... height...
Rain down, rain down
Come on rain down on me

TThat's it, sir
You're leaving
The crackle of pigskin
The dust and the screaming
The yuppies networking
The panic, the vomit
The panic, the vomit
God loves his children, God loves his children, yeah!

10th Anniversary of the Disappearance of Richey Manic

2005-02-01T10:19:00.000Z

I've been waxing lyrical on Between Planets about this: Between Planets.

yours
Mab
xxxxx

Lucky Thing

2005-01-31T13:49:00.000Z

You know thinking on it, I get absolutely spoiled rotten! I've never stopped to think on it all together before, because material things tend to end up at the periphany of my vision. I'll remember forever what's been said or done, and when I think on it, I do remember what was materially given too, but the latter tends to need prompting. I'm not explaining this well at all.

Ok, material things are the least important things in the world to me, compared to friendship; companionship; understanding; taking something off me when I'm overwhelmed; listening when I'm ready to erupt etc. For example, Andrea Wakely allowing me to whinge in her direction last night, safe in the knowledge that I can just vent and that'll be it, that to me is worth trillions of diamonds. I wouldn't know what to do with a diamond anyway. While Anna really has started to develop a sixth sense with me, knowing when to suddenly e-mail me with a description of a brighter day in Portland, just when I'm about to go one of two ways - take it in or spit it out. These things are priceless and fortunately I'm so rich in friends like them.

So back to the material things. I was looking around me the other night, after posting that about the artwork and photography, and realized just how spoiled rotten I am! My entire altar has been made up of things gifted to me, including the altar cloth and altar set. There are statues, pentagrams and all sorts on there. The stang beside it was a present too. Candles; jewellery; a beach-in-a-bag; a lightsabre and a Yoda who speaks to me, in the minutes before Anna sniffs the ether and decides she really ought to go on damage limitation with my fucked up mind, and tells me that I should trust the Force. Even what I'm drinking, the cafe latte has come from Cerr.

I'm literally surrounded by gifts from people, which can come at any time, regardless of birthdays, Christmas or deserving it. I never know when something is going to arrive and when it does, I'm so delighted and touched beyond telling. :-D People really don't have to, but they occasionally do, and I've only just taken stock of all of that. I'm a bit slow, aren't I? And spoiled rotten.

One day... one day... one day... I'll have the lack of debts and money to be able to just surprise folk like that. I can't wait!

yours
Mab
xxxxx

Of Foxes, Ravens and a Wulfrunian Witch

2005-01-31T13:18:00.000Z

After reading my previous blog, the wonderful TygerCub drew this of me:

I've already had one person, who's met me in life, tell me that they can see my eyes in this fox's! I'm just stunned by it. I keep looking and thinking, 'Right, it's a picture of a fox... so why does it's face look like mine...' I can't work out how she's done it. For more of TygerCub's art, click here.

This is the third time something like this has happened. First time it was Draig Athar, whose art can be found at Third Roar, who drew me as the Morrighan:

Then also on the Grove is Hilde Bakering, the photographer responsible for Life Thru a Lens, whom I met last year, and so ended up with my photo taken by a professional as well:

I am so bloody lucky! When these three appeared on Witchgrove, several months apart, I was touched each time to the point of tears and showing everyone I know. But it's bigger than that, all of these ladies are very talented artists and they've drawn/photographed ME!?!

:-o

I don't underestimate for a moment just how lucky I am in all of this.

yours
Mab
xxxxx

The Hope of Foxes

2005-01-28T22:45:00.000Z

'She had found a tiny fox kit that had somehow wandered too far from mother and den and had frozen to death in the night. Its small cries must have been too weak for the vixen to hear - or perhaps the proximity of humans had frightened her away.

Now, Maeve held the tiny body in her two hands, cradling it against her breast as if to give it back some of its vanished warmth. And she was crying...'

'On Ravens's Wing' by Morgan Llywelyn

I remember last summer, when Georgia entered my room for the first time. She had a quick glance into the room, then I saw her gaze drawn to the fish tank and, around it, the foxes. She looked up at me, with that fondly quizzical look I've come to know and love in her, and just said, 'Foxes?' I nodded and replied, 'Yes'. I could have explained more, but I didn't know where to start, and it wasn't needful. She just nodded and that was that. I felt as though she knew something instinctively that she hadn't known before and it saved me the words. A little part of me had never loved Georgia more than at that moment. I've never asked her on it. She might have just been distracted then; or she might have 'got' it.

So I'll start there and I have no idea where this blog is going or if it's even worth the reading. But I'll start there, with a passage from a book about the Morrighan where she, in her aspect as Maeve (Mab), shows that she too is capable of human emotion and caring; and with Georgia spotting the foxes and knowing enough to both ask and not ask. Of course, I was already a priestess of Morrighan when I first read 'On Raven's Wing', and the thing with the foxes had already been going on for years.

There once was a time when what happened to the fox happened to me too. Friends would distract me away from kills on the road, so that I wouldn't see them and freak out over my own mortality. But I'd forgotten my own name then. Before that still, at school, I was writing to government to try and get fox-hunting banned. It was always the fox above all other. Back in the early 90s, things got mixed up in my head - I thought it was me the hunters were after. A woman once told me that I'm not human to the soul, I'm half-fox, half-fey, and when people look in my eyes it's the fox they see, but don't get it. They expect human; the witchy types half-expect fey; but they see the fox and that's why I get so many comments. I still don't know precisely what she meant, or if it was the drugs, or real, or madness, or a dream. Mab'd know. She does dreams.

I have a story. Once upon a time, when the Celts were invading what is known now as Britain, the greatest of the Temenachs got together to oversee a Great Rite. It was supposed to produce a child to save the fey from the Celts, but mid-rite a vixen appeared and her essense got mixed into the energy too. The child was born, raised as priestess and warrior, but was killed too young. Too young to have actually stopped the occupation of the Celtic tribes and so the fey went underground and much was lost. Pulled from the ether instead of from the higher soul as ordinary people are, still this soul went on and on, from one incarnation to the next. And I'm it.

That's the short version anyway. I'm not sure how I feel about it. I've known that story for a decade now and it was told to me at just about precisely the wrong time in my life. I'm not sure I believe it. I'm not sure I don't. But there it is. I mainly don't even think about it. If it is true, then it's not a very good story - I didn't get to save the world whatever the fuss and palaver of my creation; plus it's a terrible idea. There's no-one more cursed that those who believe they are unlike all the rest.

So there's the madness, the activism and the mysticism covered. The collection? I can't remember how old I was when I bought the first one, but I was a child. There's not actually that many foxes here... I can see 18 from here, without moving to count them properly... but looking around the shops it's quite uncommon to come across a fox in anything. You tend to get cats, dragons, pigs and the such like, but only occasionally a fox. I seem to have been collecting them all my life. Oh! And my nickname at school was Foxy, because one of the teachers reckoned I look like Foxy from the 'Topper' comic. Thing is that was a complete coincidence, because he didn't know about all the foxes and I hadn't started with the fox-hunting petitions then.

Then there's the something else. Very, very occasionally you'll see a fox out on the streets here. VERY occasionally. If it happens once every two or three years, you're lucky, but they have always turned up at moments when I should be paying attention. There were was a fox one night in the grounds of the Vicarage; there was that time over in Kiddie, when the foxes in the Wyre Forest all suddenly starting calling, a ghostly, eerie sound filling the night and having the four of us just rooted to the ground staring at the forest and listening; there are the handful of times when one has run out over the road and I've emergency stopped.

But most of all there was the time that the vixen trusted me with her kit. The weirdest summer of my life and me up a tree, reading. I looked up to see how far the sun had got with its setting, when a shape darted out of the grass. It was a kit, with the fox right behind it. I watched, absolutely spellbound, as they played there for ages, then the vixen appeared. All three came towards me, still up my tree. The kit and fox running, the vixen just trotting along, and they all stopped, right below me. The vixen came to the foot of the tree, with her family totally oblivious to my presense, and she stared up at me. For the longest time, we were just there, looking into each other's eyes, with about ten foot separating us, and me willing the message with everything I'd got that her kit was safe from me. I wouldn't hurt any of them and I'd protect them. All the time the sun setting beyond us. It was magical, a time between the times. After a few minutes or a year, she turned and walked the other side of the clearing, the other side of her family, and for about five or ten minutes, they all carried on playing. Then she barked, looked up at me, and led her family into the trees.

A couple of days ago, I was trying to find the Goddess and cursing the world for being the scientific cardboard that some folk had always said it was, devoid of the Mysteries. I was driving down Streets Lane, when a vixen ran out in front of my car. I slammed the brakes on and missed her completely. She waited for a few seconds at the side of the road, staring at my car, but it was dark and by the time I'd turned around to see her properly, instead of through my mirror, she'd fled into the estate. Until then, the only thing connecting me with the Mysteries, Wicca, any of it was the list I was doing for the Witch Lessons - things which make me feel witchy. I was coming to the conclusion that I ought to hand my athame in, in exchange for a white coat and bunsen burner, but that vixen gave me pause. I went to Witchgrove instead. A couple of blogs back, you'll see that I couldn't find the priestess or the hope I was after. Last night, I did.

But that night after the vixen, scouring the Grove for any sign that the Goddess still existed, I whispered my, perhaps (in the circumstances), final question to the Goddess. It wouldn't make any sense if I repeated the question, for it needs all the things I can't tell, because I haven't the words to. But in a nutshell, is there any hope for the fox now?

I thought she'd responded. The Grove came through for me last night, and I woke this morning feeling like the world was back in its place.

Then tonight, Tarna posted that she has a new dog called Foxxie Seren. Foxxie Star... Foxxie Hope. Foxy hope.

I hope I got enough in here for those who need to know what I'm saying to have heard it. It's not something I've really tried to tell before and it sounds like madness or illusion at best; arrogance or hyperbole at worst. I'm just trying to tell things that I don't totally understand myself. But it's deep inside me, very deep.

yours
mab
xxxxx

In a Grove, far, far away...

2005-01-28T13:58:00.000Z

Witchgrove really came through for me last night. I'd reached the point where it was ALL anger and wanting to kick the head of the world in, then Grovers came one by one and brought me back to the fire. I just can't get over how different I feel, like someone took a pin and went 'pop'.

I've learned some lessons. Most of them were lessons that I already knew, but had forgotten. Most importantly, I've learned that some really kick-ass priestesses live in the Grove and they are there for me too.

I'm not saying that it's all better now; just that it's going to be. I can see more clearly what it was I was so angry about and also the way back to the beautiful places. It's going to be a good year, soon as I can enter it again as a sentient human being.

yours
Mab
xxxxx

'And the house that Johnny builtIs just ashes and sand... ashes and sand... ashes and sand...'

2005-01-27T13:28:00.000Z

I told Kate, a couple of weeks ago, that my grip on my faith was slipping. You can't batter it so brutally and expect it to come out whole and untouched the other side.

Right now, I can't feel the Mysteries, can't see the Goddess, can't even touch that part of me inside where once it all was. I look at all the things left when I was so full of dissertation that I couldn't deal with them too; I'm struggling to find a single thing which didn't stop dead right then. That leaves questions - did I not build them strong enough to survive my no longer propping them up? Did I care too much for things which no-one else cared for? There's a lot of anger and bitterness inside me, as yet unfocused. Do I blame the dissertation? Do I blame the people in whose care they were left? Do I blame myself for listening to all of those who said that for my own sanity I should walk away? Do I blame those who dared me to let them go?

I don't know.

I went to the Grove last night looking for something. I don't know what... a priestess? Some evidence that the Goddess is alive and well and sending someone to tell me that there still are Mysteries in the world. But the Grove was full of people feeling much the same as I do right now. No comfort or solace. I even dared the Maidens and Sons to come and tell us that it's alright. None did.

I sat outside having a fag earlier and looked across at the trees and the sky beyond. Just so much wood and... well, Shakespeare said it better:

I have of late--but wherefore I know not--lost all my mirth, forgone all custom of exercises; and indeed it goes so heavily with my disposition that this goodly frame, the earth, seems to me a sterile promontory, this most excellent canopy, the air, look you, this brave o'erhanging firmament, this majestical roof fretted with golden fire, why, it appears no other thing to me than a foul and pestilent congregation of vapours.

I have this tremendous sense of loss, but so much bitterness and hatred overwashing it all. I want to scream out to the Goddess, if you are really there, come and get me! At least show yourself, prove that you exist.

So much to say.

But I reckon I've run out of credits now.

yours
Mab
xxxxx

Dance of the Mad Bastards

2005-01-24T13:05:00.000Z

I'm bloody knackered today, but through having lots of fun again. It was Kate's birthday on Friday, but she was out with family that night, so I went up on Saturday. I got her a ticket to see Derren Brown and a REM interview CD; the look on her face for both told me that they were the right presents! :-D Then, after a mad dash around Merry Hill, we went up Brummagen to the Poppies gig at the Academy (ex-Hummingbird).

Now that that great! We all regressed to our early 20s (but without the neurosis) and I became honourary Stourbridge for the night. We canted with one lad who'd come down from Manchester so not to miss it, so it wasn't just a Black Country people-of-a-certain-age reunion. We danced so much that it hurt the next day. My feet were killing me! I'd got new boots to replace the broken ones that morning, and they have an inch high heel on. I'm not used to heels... so I wore them to a Poppies gig and danced like a mad bastard in them. Sensible as always. ;-)

Poor Kate hurt the same day. We were on the train home when she started getting a headache. By the time of the taxi, it was a full-blown migraine, complete with flashing lights and vomitting. She was so embarrassed and saying to the driver, 'I'm not drunk! It's a migraine!' After sitting in the kitchen in darkness for a while, she pushed through the pain/light barrier to get upstairs and into bed. The poor thing appeared again at around 4am, and I heard her so came out.

It was really good actually. It's not often you have unexpected middle of the night meetings like that, but she'd slept a little and awoken with the migraine gone and I was wide awake by then anyway. We sat and had a brew and a fag and put the world to rights for an hour or so. Thinking on, it must have been later, as I didn't go to bed until about 7am; then the alarm was set for 10.

Up we sprang, from our respective rooms, like little spring lambs on a bright Sunday morning... well, it was a bit like that... *grin* However, several coffees later and we were at least able to stand for whole seconds on end without needing to sit down. We met Ian in Birmingham and visited the 'This was Tomorrow' art exhibition. I'm really getting into this art malarkey. I was actually coming out with comments about the art that Kate and Ian were taking seriously, despite the fact that they've been the ones teaching me!

This was all art from the Sixties, including a huge gallery of David Bailey original photos. Several things stood out for me, but the thing I've come away very impressed that I saw was the Yoko Ono footage. It was originally live and involved her sitting impassively on the floor, while members of the audience came up one by one and used scissors to cut chucks of her clothes off. It really did make the point that women were seen as unfeeling, unthinking sex objects at that time, particularly when a bloke got up and instead of sedately taking a chunk (which by then was becoming uncomfortable watching), he cut the whole of her top off, then cut through the straps on her bra. All the time he was grinning at his mates in the crowd, seemingly totally oblivious to the fact that he'd just made her point for her! Yoko carried on looking impassive (occasionally slightly scared), but for one brief flash, you saw her smugness creep through, before she went back to impassive. Then she started to get annoyed, but still held her ground. It was so obvious that she was thinking, 'You tosser', even as she was smug that he'd walked straight into doing exactly what she'd wanted to make her point. It was a great piece of art and powerfully executed, though it was disturbing to watch it by the finish.

After that, Kate took me to see the Bridget Riley painting, 'Fall', that she'd fallen in love with. It was impressive and she was right, it had to be seen rather than described. A series of black and white wavy lines doesn't do it justice. I sat on the floor in front of it and before too long, all three of us were sitting there just staring for ages. It distorted our vision for a couple of minutes afterwards, so the world really did look like a different place.

After the art gallery, we were just 'phoning Jim to see where in the world he was, when he walked down the street towards us! :-o Ok, we were impressed. He didn't even know that we were going to be there! The four of us ended up on the Birmingham Eye, a huge ferris wheel from the top of which we could see the sun setting over the Black Country, whilst also having a very beautiful view of Brummagen.

By the time we'd been to the pub, then back to Ian and Jim's (where Ian and Kate wrote their own Bible), it was nearly 1am by the time we were back at Kate's and nearly 2am by the time we were abed.

'kin Hell, I'm knackered today!

yours
Mab
xxxxx

Going up!

2005-01-20T13:00:00.000Z

You know the post-Vegas excitement and gushing that I was scheduled for mid-October? Well, it's finally hit.

I keep going into google to search images and last night, lying abed, I was so totally reliving the journey from landing to arriving at the Gariepy's house, that I was too excited to sleep! I went abed around half midnight (after writing an article for Candace), but must have lay there for about an hour at least just picturing everything, what I saw, what I felt, what Stephane said, what I said. :-D

I've just been back and re-read that blog and the one for the day after. Love it! Love it! Love it!

I've already written a long, gushing e-mail to Stephane and Shonna, which possibly has them looking in horror at each other saying, 'We let this wench in our house?! We left her alone with the children!'

*bounce* *bounce* *bounce* Over-excited doesn't cover it!

yours
Mab
xxxxx

2005-01-17T13:34:00.000Z

I have had such a great weekend. I think it was even better for the fact that it was unexpected and just happened. Last week, FT Kate and I spoke about when she had an evening free for me to come and collect her computer. It turned out to be Friday, so my 'popping up for an hour' lasted until Monday morning leaving for work!
But there have been so many different people and places, that it's felt like I've had a week's holiday in one weekend.

Friday evening: This was mainly Kate and I playing catch-up, then ending up in a deep discussion about belief systems. We put the whole world to rights.

Saturday: Up at 8am and Kate had to go to work, so I brought her computer back to my 'hood and put it in the shop to fix. I hadn't been in my inbox for a couple of days (usually I start with Witchgrove. If I'm particularly behind or it's very busy in there, I might not get to my inbox at all), and answered everything in there. Kate 'phoned and I met her in Wolverhampton. There was brilliant, because I got to be taken around the art gallery by someone who speaks art. There's so much more to it than I thought. I just figured that it was a good picture or a bad one, created by a good artist or a bad one; I didn't realize that there were all these tricks and symbolism etc, which explains why art critics can spend so long in front of a single picture.

The one we took most time over, as there was a bench, it was a big picture and Kate was having to start from scratch with the explaining things, was 'A Portrait of the Lee Family' by Highmore. That link will take you to some official blarb, because I don't even count as an amateur after one lesson!

This is what I learned: You can fold the portrait into four. The more people in one quarter, the less important they individually are. You can see who the most important person in the portrait is by seeing which quarter is less populated and also seeing who everyone else is looking at or framing. In here, it's the bloke on the right hand side. He's got clothes which stand out in colour; he has two sisters framing him; and there are only three people in his quarter, two of whom are looking at him. If you accidentally stop looking at him, your eyes naturally go to the sister who is holding his hand. Her hand draws you to the group, backed up by the lad behind looking in that direction. Then the line of the Mum's arm, plus the lad behind her, draws you away from the group again, via the little girl on the floor and back to the lad you should be looking at. Then there's the fact that the Dad has died, so he's in a portrait; and another child died, who's now a cherub up the top.

There was loads more, but those were the biggies, I think. This picture was massive and took over a whole wall of the art gallery. The picture I really wanted to see ('The Deluge') wasn't there, but one of the curators reckons it's in storage as they're doing some refurb.

Oh! This was another one, 'The Landing of Louis XVIII at Calais' by Edward Bird.

There was loads in this one. You look straight at Louis XVIII, but you keep being drawn away to a group of people canting on the left-hand side. Then you look at the crowd and find that half of them aren't best pleased at all.

I'm now cultured, can you tell? ;-)

Ian met us in there and we ended up having a meal in Sylvari's, down King Street, where Jim met us. Then we popped into the Moon Under Water for a drink. Wolves had just won 4-2, so Wolverhampton was in party mood. *happy dance* Before I dropped Jim off in the Lunt and, picked up Kate and Ian, now in Brierley Hill, and drove to Selly Oak. We then spent the night there, hours of deep conversations about beliefs and realities etc. They were great!

Back to Kate's on Sunday, watched a couple of History documentaries, then visited a dying lady in hospital, before having some tea and watching Derren Brown's programme 'Messiah'. Both Ian and Kate had individually said they'd like me to watch it, because they'd be interested in my take on it. It was perfect in context!

Then came to work today to find that this week's weekly discussion is by Ivy Wolfmoon and is entitled, 'Losing My Religion', about beliefs and leaving the Pagan path!

Weird timing!

yours
Mab
xxxxx

Thine Eyes Have Seen the Glory...

2005-01-13T12:27:00.000Z

I'd be really worried if I worked in our office and I wasn't me (or Sarah), as things tend to come in threes.

On Sunday night, I cracked my contact lens. As it was a minute split, and not all the way through, I thought it would be ok. Note to everyone: It's not ok to put a split contact lens in your eye EVEN if the split is on the outside and it doesn't hurt when you initially put it in. That's the optical equivalent of standing on a wall watching the pretty tsunami coming in. Let's just say that I was very glad to get home from work on Monday evening to remove the said contact lens from a very sore, watering and scratched eye. Tuesday and Wednesday, I wore my glasses, which is all well and good, except I haven't seen the inside of an opticians for about four years, which means that the glasses weren't quite right prescription-wise. I was constantly leaning closer and closer to the computer in order to read it. So Tuesday evening, I raced up town and got into the opticians shortly before they closed, made an appointment for the next day and chose some frames. Wednesday evening, I raced up there again, having left work slightly earlier to do this thing, and bought a pair of gas permeable contact lenses and two pairs of glasses in the 2 for 1 deal. Even with 10% discount, this was a lot more than I could afford. I paid for it in overdraft (which is already more overdrawn than I was hoping), went outside for a fag while they made up one pair of the glasses (they luckily had one set of the lenses in stock) and looked in the travel agent's window next door. Special deals on flights - New York £282 Las Vegas £334... ie both less money than I'd just spent on the glasses and lenses...

Strike two: Sarah got off the train in Wolverhampton yesterday and the wind blew dust and grit into her face. By the time she walked into work, her eye was bulging, bright red and she was in some considerable pain. I had a firk in it and found an eye-lash, but its removal did nothing to lessen the pain. An eyebath dislodged a tiny piece of grit, but still nothing. It took me over an hour to convince her that she needed to go up Compton Eye Infirmary, but eventually we went. There was another piece of grit right up in the top/back of her eye-ball, which was attached to the inside of her lid. No wonder I couldn't find it!

So there's two down with eyes in our office, now resolved. I always distrust two similar things happening together; I hold my breath waiting for number three, then relax.

Money, money, money...

I think I need an accountant urgently. Both my current account and my Visa card have horrific debts on them, but another voice in my head says that it will all be ok with patience. I've had a lot of sending out without any coming in, but there are things to come in. I'm crap at maths and crap at getting my head around this stuff.

Happiness is...

I am having such a great time at the moment! I'm getting used to the idea that I don't have to do anything (except go to work), so I can get home of an evening and think, 'what do I fancy doing?' I've added a load of names to my Tribal Pages, which is so brilliant! *happy dance* My genealogy was the first casualty of my having way too much to do, because it's something which only pleases me. If there's only me involved, then I'm more likely to drop it than if it's something benefitting one or more other people. It feels deliciously selfish to be working on my Tribal Pages. *grin* I've also transcribed a load of information for the Black Country Hartills group (and shown where me and Caroline are related), which I eventually had to stop because I'd done so much that it was doing my head in.

Other than that, I'm dipping into the Grove as and when; if someone mentions something on the telly, I might go and watch the telly for an hour; I'll sit and read a book for pleasure... all these things that folk take for granted which, to me, are precious pass-times to be savoured. I've spent over a year having to do things; now I'm spending time doing whatever I fancy. It's a beautiful gift.

Birthdays!

How many Capricorns do I know?! There are millions of them, mostly on the Grove. It's Laura's birthday today; but in the past few weeks, there's been a plethora of birthdays going on. You all know who you are and HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

'He that dares not grasp the thorn, should never crave the rose.'Anne Bronte

2005-01-07T10:13:00.000Z

It's been a while since I've been in these parts, so I thought I'd better up-date.

I'VE FINISHED MY DISSERTATION! *happy dance* Best case scenario - Mike Cunningham reads it and says it's brilliant, submit it; worst case scenario - he says it's shit, and rewrite the whole thing. Right now, folk are reading it, but I'll not send it to Mike until Monday, to give people chance to tell me of any glaring errors to put right.

Other than that, the story of my life is the flu. I thought I'd had the flu in the past, but I was wrong. I know what flu is now; I understand how people die from this. I've had it since the day after Boxing Day, but it didn't develop fully until that night. Since then there have been times when I honestly did think that I was dying. I attempted to go to work yesterday morning and even my Mum raised her eyebrows at that. Mum's usually of the 'if you aren't dead, go to work' school of thought, but when I told her on Wednesday that I was going to work the next day, she just said, 'Are you?' with a dubious look on her face. That was justified. I ended up being sent home by noon. I could have been sent home earlier, but there were a few things that I wanted to get done first.

I do look pretty white. I'm constantly tired and I've slept more in the past two weeks than I have for the previous year, I swear. Last night I had over nine hours sleep, waking up about an hour ago, but I could put my head back down now. I'm on antibiotics, called Erythromycin, four times a day. When I was in the doctor's waiting room on Wednesday, there was a big poster - 'doctor does not give antibiotics for the flu' and a list of the remedies you could get over the counter at the chemists. She listened to my chest and immediately prescribed antibiotics. It took longer for her to find some antibiotics that wouldn't kill me than it did to decide to give me some. (I'm allergic to penecillin.) I can't remember the last time I had antibiotics. I don't know if I've ever had any, other than the penecillin that nearly killed me when I was about three.

But all of this is nothing compared to last week. Then I was being taken to hospital in the middle of the night with suspected meningitis, after a call to NHS Direct, and gripping a pillow as Pixie made me every time I had to cough. I'd pulled or torn all the muscles that allow you to cough and it was so bloody painful. I also had a big temperature and very vivid hallucinations. Hours of fun, it was!

And that's my life. :-D

yours
Mab
xxxxx

The Return of the Sun

2004-12-22T10:35:00.000Z

And so the wheel turns and after all the darkness, getting darker, somewhere up there above the rainclouds in the huge, black void, the hope of summer stopped drifting away and started coming back.

It's hope, we're not deserted even here, finally in our darkest hour; that's when the cavalry of light signals its journey back to warm us again. The sun has noticed our sigils of brightly shining baubles and tinsel sparkling in reflection of the candle's flame. And some answering self from hedonistic summer hears the tone of resigned despair resonating from our hearts and reminds us, 'The days are getting longer now; slowly warming; and you WILL reach the place where I am now. Dancing beneath a Festival sky, drumming in the Midsummer dawn. And it will be beautiful.'

The return of the sun; the return of warmth and brightness; the return of hope.

Mother, thank you for your son; and blessed Solstice to one and all.

yours
Mab
xxxxx
- Still a little drunk from last night

Tu es vraiment folle...mais unique en ton genre

2004-12-20T19:48:00.000Z

That's what one of the wenches on Witchgrove just said about me. Google gave me a stupid translation, so I asked Cerr. It means, 'You're crazy, but you're one of a kind.'

I'm really touched. I'm sitting here with a right stupid grin on my face! This is three seconds after another of the Grovers sent me a congratulations card which moved me to tears. Pretty, happy tears, but tears nontheless.

I think I'm happy.

yours
Mab
xxxxx

I thought..

2004-12-18T09:24:00.000Z

... I was becoming unshockable, but this made me gag.

yours
Mab
xxxxx

'... caught in thy net of shadows,What dreams hast thou to show?'Poem from 'The Meaning of Witchcraft' by GBG

2004-12-16T11:53:00.000Z

I'm feeling so much more positive these days. It was as if I drifted to the bottom of this dark pool on Tuesday night and one sleepless night later, touched the floor and used it to propel myself back upwards towards the light.

Last night I dreamt that I was on a beach at dawn, with great swaths of water left by the retreating tide all gleaming in the golds, pastel shades and blacks of the rising sun; while the sea itself glowed like some great golden homage to the sun. I ran the length of this beach, in my dream, running wild and free.

Behind me were two people. One was my work colleague and the other was either Pixie or Georgia, I'm not sure. They walked down the beach behind me, finally meeting me in a building at the far end. It had been a pub, called the British Oak (I think), but had been renamed Papa's (new). It had (new) in brackets on the sign. I just wanted to see the place, but Caroline and Georgia/Pixie hadn't been keen. It wasn't for a drink, it was the building itself that was important. When they finally joined me there, Caroline said, 'We should have just let you look when we drove past this, because now we've had a long walk and it's going to be a long walk back to the car.' I just laughed at them, then I woke up.

And in real life? That's pretty much governed by my dissertation right now. I wrote 4000 words in total last weekend, which is nearly a third of the dissertation; then yesterday, I had a moment of epiphany, which means that I think I know what the origins of Wicca are, though I'm still researching like mad to see how watertight that theory is.

I now only have one Christmas present left to get (and running quickly out of time!), though most of them haven't turned up at my house yet. I'm hoping that they hurry up!

Emotionally, I'm up and down like a yo-yo, with occasional panic attacks, which Georgia, Shonna and Laurie mainly are dealing with on an 'as they happen' basis. Anna's in-laws have just left, so she was on the case last night. Others are also in the mix, reassuring me or posting the right things at the right time to keep me calm. I have been taking a lot of calming from the Grove; in that I can dip into there in breaks, soak up some atmosphere, then get back on with it. The difference between there and direct e-mails to my inbox is that I don't necessarily have to answer Grove ones, but I have to answer those in my inbox. I normally don't get to the latter until last thing at night, which means that I'm falling asleep while responding, but there's far fewer of those than there used to be.

I popped my head into the Mods group on Monday morning; immediately got stressed, which culminated in me doing something against my instinct, which currently feels like a huge mistake. Shonna told me that she'll deal with it and not to worry anymore about it, as I'd got to the utter panic attack stage. Since then I haven't stepped foot in the Mods group, but I'm still uneasy about it. Particularly about Shonna having to tidy my mess up behind me.

But mostly things are clicking back into place and looking good for January being a time when everything is alright again.

yours
Mab
xxxxx

Tasklist for the Weekend

2004-12-10T11:55:00.000Z

Ok, my parents are away for the weekend and so I'll have glorious quiet to work in. Here's what I want to do this weekend (starting from tonight):

1, Dissertation - work on the 'eye witnesses' account

2, Dissertation - work on the 'definitions and origins'

3, Dissertation - review what I've done so far, so I have a better idea of what I've done (it's been two weeks since I last had all that memorized)

4, Dissertation - create an 'acknowledgements' page, so I can add folk as they help instead of memorizing those. (Need to find out Carrie's surname)

5, Sort out blue room

6, Sort out bookcase in green room

7, Sort out mess where shelf fell

8, Wrap presents; order two presents as I haven't got; panic about whether folk are getting me presents when I haven't got one back for them; see Bex about the order from her;

9, See Jordy and take his birthday card and present

10, Contact BS Kate about meeting up for chat

11, Speak to Aud about tarot readings

Ok, if I do the above, I think I'll be proud of having done it all. Of course, by Monday, I'll just be thinking of what I didn't do. In which case, slap me.

yours
Mab
xxxxx

Overview for Me Update

2004-12-08T21:50:00.000Z

Witchgrove website

Outstanding

Nothing I can actually do, as I'm waiting on the nod from others.

Achieved

Since Vegas, I've transferred over 900 files from the old website to the new one. This is actually up-to-date (excepting those already mentioned in the outstanding part), as each time I've been given the all clear to up-date, I've attempted to empty my up-date folder.

Also, I've transferred 776 photos from the old site into the Coppermine Gallery.

Short of demanding the overseeing of the new site back (which would be a bad idea on many different levels, most of all that Dani and Pixie have far more knowledge in these matters!), there is nothing else I can do.

DONE!

Overview for Me

2004-12-08T13:12:00.000Z

On the basis that if you can see the overview, it's immediately less likely to send you into panic attack, here it is:

Work

Outstanding:

After CARD tomorrow and the Disability Workshop next week, all of my major things will be done this side of Christmas.

Achieved:

Two weeks ago, my 'to start' task-list alone had 79 items on it; now it has one. My 'in progress' task-list had about 20-odd items on it; now it has 7, one of which should be completed by mid-afternoon.

Since Vegas, I have organized, minuted etc nine meetings; eight major events (conferences etc); and one training day, plus got the newsletter out. In context, there's usually one major event per month and four or five meetings.

Witchgrove website

Outstanding

Several reviews and Andrea's weekly discussion - none of which I can upload until a) BS Kate sends me the former and b) Dani and Pixie give me the nod that it's ok to tat again.

Also half of Juell's photos for the gallery.

Achieved

Since Vegas, I've transferred over 900 files from the old website to the new one. This is actually up-to-date (excepting those already mentioned in the outstanding part), as each time I've been given the all clear to up-date, I've attempted to empty my up-date folder.

Also, I've transferred 726 photos from the old site into the Coppermine Gallery.

Dissertation

Outstanding

9,000 words on the origins of Wicca

Longitudinal survey of beliefs/opinions concerning the origins of Wicca

Achieved

6,000 words on the origins of Wicca in 38 days. Still managed to keep up the 'Year of...' even when I'd downed pens for a week... or two...

Finances

If I hadn't gone to Vegas, I might just have broken even in October, except the existing HPs. That situation couldn't have lasted though and I don't regret it one bit! Give me a time-machine and I'd go back for longer! *grin* Final tally for Vegas was £400, which isn't bad at all, considering where I went! (Checks Visa limit... yes, I've got room in there for another £400...)

Final tally for car was £325, MOT-ed, insured and breakdown cover. (With £160 outstanding for brakes and cam-cover and belt when I can afford it.)

Xmas and birthdays are nearly all covered. Just have about eight left to get, but three of those have price limits on them of £5 for three of them and £10 for one.

Currently: £860 in debt. It's been much, much worse. I'm not even going to tell myself when I'll be out of debt again, because it always gets so close and then just misses. I haven't regretted getting into it at all over the past couple of years. Also, come April, the HP will be gone and the student debt will be gone. Those can go into paying off the £860; and also Aud has lined up folk willing to pay me for tarot readings, which would bring it down to £660. Mind you, I haven't finished running it up yet.

Achievements

Paid off about £6000 in two years.

Why do I get the feeling that anyone reading this blog will look at the achievements tally and start applauding, whereas I look at the outstanding tally and feel like shit?

So, overall... is all that good or bad? Just as confused as when I started! LOL Who's daft idea was this...?

yours
Mab
xxxxx

"If you go up on a steep hill in Las Vegas and look west;with the right kind of eyes...

2004-12-07T13:14:00.000Z

... you can almost see the high water mark, where the wave finally broke and rolled back..."

'Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas'
Hunter Thompson

I've always loved that film, and that bit of narrative in particular. Until now, it's really put me in mind of the early '90s, when we thought we could save the world. Ok, it doesn't stop us still trying to save it, we're just more realistic about it. My mind tended to skip over the 'Las Vegas' part and think instead of the marches down London against the Criminal Justice Bill and the Anti-Fox-Hunting Sabs. Fox-hunting is illegal now. We made that difference.

But then, I went to Las Vegas. I looked up and at the end of Shonna and Stephane's street, you have a view of a mountain from which to look west and see Haight Astbury, which would have been the very mountain as Hunter was on about. I haven't watched the film or listened to the soundtrack since coming home, but when I do, I don't think I'll be thinking of marching down streets in 1993, I'll be thinking of the morning of October 15th, getting into Shonna's car and looking up; then Shonna saying, 'It's your mountain.' I'll be thinking of the Wiccaning and the Ren Faire and the Memorial...

'Maybe it meant something. Maybe not, in the long run... but no explanation, no mix of words or music or memories can touch that sense of knowing that you were there and alive in that corner of time and the world. Whatever it meant...'

And since I've been back, it's been madness. Pure and unadulterated. I've pushed my mind to the limits and it's only been the experience of me with me and the fact that the safety ropes dangled, that kept me just short of the Terrible Place. Times curled up in little balls, crying to the Goddess to make it stop, however She can do that; while the like of FT Kate, Shonna, Georgia, Ocean, Andrea, Pixie and so many others, say words that get through to me, giving me ammunition to use against myself in the same way that flyers in wartime dropped food into occupied terrorities.

And I've been back, many, many times since, to Vegas, in my mind, to the last time and place where I didn't know what was coming and the world was at its most beautiful.

But let's get me out of Vegas first and home.

Vegas October 15th 2004

The one morning in Vegas when I really didn't want to wake up, but I was up early. Around 7. Shonna was already up, Elen too, and I went for my fag while the kettle brewed. Then it was a last minute sweep around to see what I'd left and what I meant to leave. Everything was packed so tightly into that big carrier-bag, but we were all too rushed to really be afretting on what was to come. I don't remember seeing William, though I must have done. I remember hugging Elen. I remember as well Shonna saying, 'You can go up and say goodbye to Stephane, if you want' and me asking if he was still abed. 'Yes, but that's ok, you can go in.' I went upstairs and Stephane, dressed, met me on the landing. I hugged and thanked him there and he followed me downstairs.

Then it was us taking things to the car and me looking around trying to saturate my memory with all the things I could see and feel and hear. It worked, I can see in my mind's eye every room as I left it, and the street too. I was by the car, when I looked up and saw that Stephane had come outside, so I ran up for one last hug. That's when the first tears started, but I blinked them away, though I could bearly speak. That's when, looking up at the mountain, Shonna said, "Look, it's your mountain. You know the one out of the film, 'Fear and Loathing...'" "Yes, I know the one."

'... the kind of peak that never comes again.'

Shonna chattered on and I was so grateful. It gave me time to swallow down the sadness at leaving Stephane and the kids and their home. I was able to speak again by the time we were on Gilmour.

We stopped for a cafe latte and cinnamon syrup, Shonna trying to pay and me convincing her that I needed to use the currency up. Then she drove us to the last place I needed to see, Summerlin Hospital. My thinking here was that I'd clocked every other hospital in Vegas on my travels, but not that one. If a Vegas Grover ends up in hospital, I want a picture in my head to send energies too. So she took me to Summerlin.

Then it was straight to the airport. I thought she was going to drop me off outside, as she had done Anna and Georgia, and I didn't think I was going to be able to stand it. But there were other considerations too, the most important of which was my athame. Instead of posting it, as I had on the way here, we were going to try me taking it in my suitcase. If it was stopped and taken out, Shonna could take it home and post it to me. Of course, Shonna had done some more thinking ahead. Having taken note of the hassle I'd had coming here, hearing-wise, she saw no reason that it was going to be better going home. She came as my ears.

That was good. She was able to negotiate a note on my flight information and forms to take with me, designating me as a special needs passenger. The notes told each flight attendant and ground steward along the way that I'm deaf. The woman in Vegas airport was brilliant, she looked straight at me and spoke clearly enough for me to lip-read perfectly. My case went through no hassle with the athame inside. I knew precisely what I had to do for the flight back, each step along the way. Flightwise, I had no fear of what was coming.

I was starting to choke up again there in check-in. I ended up singing, 'Walk Unafraid', trying to big myself up a bit, while Shonna beside me starting singing, 'Something'. She took me up to the security desk, which was the last point she could come with me, then she left.

I broke. I kept looking back, as we had with Bella, but it was so crowded that I couldn't see her. I was sobbing and it wasn't pretty tears, it was proper snot and red eyes and those gasping noises that you try not to make. I kept trying to calm down, thinking of Syd, thinking of the mountains, imagining myself back in their yard having a fag. I tried concentrating on the commercials, but nothing. I only just got myself sorted by the front of the long, long queue, where I handed over my forms and the woman still persisted in telling the conveyor belt something which I had no hope of hearing. I guessed and must have guessed correctly, because I got through ok.

I headed straight for the smoking area, spotting my gate en route. I sat in there and calmed myself down, as in not crying, with a fag. Shonna had told me that there was something in my bag for me, to look at when she was gone. I went in to see. It was Starhawk's 'Spiral Dance', but when I opened it, a photo fell out of everyone at the Wiccaning. On the back, she'd written, 'Thank you for coming, Johnny.' I cried again, but stared at each face in turn. My Grove. My people. My tribe. I imagined each and every one of them with me, hugging me, getting my luggage, making sense of the overwhelming noise all around me. I calmed down again.

The watch of the bloke next to me told me that I still had about 40 mins. I went in search of cafe latte and cinnamon syrup. I couldn't hear a thing. Silence is much better than the white noise of airports. That's disorientating unless you sing in your head to give your brain some discernable noise to focus on.

'if I have a bag of rocks to carry as I go
I just want to hold my head up high
I don't care what I have to step over
I'm prepared to look you in the eye
look me in the eye
and if you see familiarity
then celebrate the contradiction
help me when I fall to
walk unafraid'

I was holding the 'I'm deaf' forms like a talisman, but they didn't cut any ice in the coffee shop either. There I just asked for what I wanted about three times hoping that she could hear me; then handed over about $20. She gave me $10 back immediately, then some change. It didn't taste like it had cinnamon in it, but it was a nice drink. I also had some pink lemonade, which I gulped back.

Back in the smoking area, singing 'Walk Unafraid' in my head and staring at that picture, I felt myself come down a level. I could stop with the drama and start being me again now. The watch of a lady across the way told me that it was time to go, so I went. I walked down the corridor, into the departure lounge proper, and handed my form and flight info to the attendant. She took a copy of the form and was brilliant, however, she told me that the plane was delayed because of a storm over New Jersey.

I sat and there were a couple from New Jersey there, who were great. I spoke to the lady and showed her my form (that was such a good idea, Shonna!), and explained that I couldn't hear the announcements. Both she and her husband were great. I was so under their wing! LOL Both looked at me when they spoke, both spoke clearly so I could understand, and when the announcements went off, they told me it wasn't mine (except when it was, obviously!). I nipped for another fag in the meantime and came back, so I wasn't even sitting with them after the first five minutes, but they still caught my eye and let me know what was going on. When it was time to finally go, after nearly an hour's delay, the lddy came over with me and handed me straight over to the stewardess, who had come looking for me! I'm not used to being looked after like that, unless it's close friends.

So I got on the plane, and ended up moved as a couple wanted to sit together, I didn't mind. By now, I was all choked up again, but desperately trying not to cry. From my new seat, I was looking straight at the Strip. The tears came then. We were sitting there for ages and I was looking down, finding the railway line, thinking Shonna's just there, crying turning to sobbing. By the time the plane finally took off and we turned so I could see the whole of Vegas spread out below, all those beloved streets and homes, all those beloved people, I was inconsolable. I felt a right fool, but I couldn't stop crying! I was embarrassing myself, but still couldn't stop crying. I promised myself categorically that I was coming back, but the sobs were getting audible. It was like some inner me was REALLY trying to do whatever it took to shut me the fuck up, right now! People are watching! But no, sobbing like it was the end of the world.

Then we flew over the grand canyon. I soon shut up. Shonna who? That was gorgeous! I couldn't get over the size of it! Eversince 'Thelma and Louise', it's been something me and FT Kate have always wanted to do - go to the Grand Canyon. This was before I even knew the Vegas lot. We wanted to drive through the place like they do in the film, though obviously not drive over the cliff. That would be daft. I sat there looking down on this stunningly beautiful place, thinking on when I'd be coming back. The little voice inside finally got heard, 'YOU are coming back. This is not the end.'

From there it was flying over the Rocky Mountains of Colorado. I stared down at them, going from red rocks, to bare browns and grays, to the tree-covered beauty. The little map on the monitor told me that we were going over Pueblo and if we looked over there, there was Colorado Springs. Pixie's 'hood? (I've since checked and no it's not, but as I was flying over, I thought I was looking at Pixie's 'hood.) I thought on that moment at the Shambala Festival, when I'd started to go into a dark place and a wench dressed as a pixie walked by. What would Pixie say? At Shambala, it was 'let it go, Johnny, the world will carry on without this pressure on you'; flying over Pueblo and Colorado Springs, it was 'look at my 'hood, you're coming back and I'll show it to you probably.' Both times, giving the Pixie in my head the right lines to say, I calmed right down.

During all of this, I had my personal stereo on. REM's 'Around the Sun' album, followed by the slow version of 'Leave', 'So Fast, So Numb', 'Walk Unafraid', 'Birds Fly South', 'Half a World Away' and 'Country Feedback'. REM is such the soundtrack band of this year and I hear any of those songs now and I'm either flying into or out of Vegas.

After that, we were up into the clouds, which are stunning to watch for the first 3 hours, but I'd seen those on the way there. I was also in a middle seat, or else I probably would have stared out of the window for more hours, but instead I got out 'The Onion Girl' and read that until the film came on. It was 'Dodgeball', which looked terrible judging by the trailer, but was set in Vegas. I wanted to be set in Vegas too, so I got into the film.

Before this, the steward had come round. He was great! He'd had the form which Shonna had got arranged for me and he knew EXACTLY how to communicate with me. He first gestured to get my attention, looked right at me and spoke in such a way that I lip-read him perfectly. He was asking me what I'd like to drink. I had me a cuppa. I hadn't actually had anything to eat. I was too upset when the food came round and it wasn't vegetarian anyway.

I saw the sunset while I was up there, beautiful. Normally sunsets go across one horizon, but above the clouds, it's all an horizon. The lad next to me let me lean right over to see it happen. It was indescribable. Btw, despite the fact that it had been noon in Vegas only about three or four hours before, I believed it was sunset. It very quickly started knocking on 9pm as well, which was very bad news for me and one of the lads sitting next to me. It turned out that he was on the same plane back to Birmingham as me, which was great from my point of view, because he was bolshy, a seasoned traveller and could hear. As the time came and went for that plane's boarding, with us still miles above America, he went off to see what was happening. As it was, we landed in New Jersey (which is where the second lad sitting next to me lived), just as the Birmingham plane took off. We were told that there wouldn't be another leaving for another 24 hours.

Ok.

I'm in New Jersey for 24 hours. My first thoughts involved New York Grovers. This was bad, but not too bad. As long as I could a) get a message to Kate; and b) get a message to the Grove, then all it would be was a case of waiting to see if Draig, Dani or Saoirse could rescue me. Soooo... how was I going to do that then?

There's different electricity in America, so once my 'phone's battery had run out, there was no way of charging it back up. All of my phone numbers were in it. The only numbers I have memorized are home and work. I just put a call out with the Goddess to please give me the resourcefulness to pull this one off.

Off the plane, I'm suddenly transported into a VERY NOISY PLACE. I was now completely deaf, pure white noise. The lad I'd been sitting next to was just ahead of me, when he suddenly turned, touched my arm and guided us to the Continental Airlines desk. There was another plane going to Birmingham in an hour! I haven't a clue what he said, but we were both on it. He turned to me and spoke clearly facing me, 'The plane is going in an hour and our luggage is being transferred onto it. She needs to see your papers and you need to get a boarding pass.' Then he was gone.

I handed over my papers to the wench, who first insisted on asking questions whilst leaning over her... whatever was under there. I only knew she was asking questions, because she'd look up afterwards with an exasperated look on her face. Not only did she have Shonna's form, but I'd told her three or four times that I'm deaf. Eventually it ended up with her first shouting in my face (I heard that...), then later on, as we were boarding, I lip-read her welcoming each person onto the plane, but she totally ignored me. I suppose she would have made most nicotine-starved, cold turkeying deaf people feel inadequate; I just wanted to twat her.

In between this, though, I have just under an hour. That's time to find the exit and have a fag. :-D I half wondered if Dani would be there. She'd been thinking on it and had we been on time, then maybe... I thought... but not an hour late. I just sent a massive sigil out 'DANI IF YOU'RE THERE, WAIT ON!' Then went lugging that extraordinarily heavy hand-luggage... oh, that's why it's called luggage! You lug it!... down the corridor. I couldn't see an exit sign, so I didn't know how far away I was or where I was going. I just concentrated on memorizing where I was going to retrace it afterwards.

I saw a steward bloke and asked him where the exit was. He told me and I couldn't hear him. I showed him Shonna's form, a talisman again, and he looked right at me and said, 'It's a non-smoking airport. When is your plane leaving?' 'I know, I'm after the exit to have a cigarette outside.' 'When is your plane leaving?' I showed him my boarding pass. 'You haven't got time to have a cigarette.' I burst into tears. He just looked downright lost and I just gave into utter despair. Next thing I know, he's pointing to an escalator and I blinked enough to lip-read '... quick...' I ran.

That cigarette was the nicest cigarette I've ever smoked in my life. Calm came back into my life. I looked for Dani, then realized I haven't a clue what she looks like. (I later found out she hadn't come, because the time had been just too short, so there had originally been little chance for us to have met up. Next time.) I returned in a state of grace to the immigration place, took off my shoes and got through without knowing if anyone had tried to talk to me at all.

I retraced my steps through Newark Airport to my gate; where a passenger informed me that it had been delayed by another half an hour. Ok. I'd passed a... thing... and it had said internet access. Witchgrove. I stood there forever with my Visa card trying to make this work. Then I had a moment of inspiration - Kate is one of the emergency contacts on my passport. I checked. HER PHONE NUMBER WAS THERE! I worked out that it was 2am in Britain. She'd want waking up to know she didn't have to get up at 6 to fetch me.

I couldn't get the bloody phone working. There was a machine selling phone-cards for ten dollars. Apart from some single dollars, I only had ten dollars left in American money, so I used it to buy a card. That was complicated. In the end, an elderly lady had to show me how to use it. I rang Kate and it rang out and out and out. Her answer-'phone no longer works. I found out later that she was still at JBs, not in bed at all. Whilst in getting my passport out, I found the bit of paper with the Gariepy's address and their mobile 'phone number. Those had been for emergencies on the way there, as Stephane had the 'phone that day and the address could have been for a taxi, should the worst happen. Time was ticking by, so I rang Shonna, with a view to her keep trying Kate for me. But it kept going to answer-'phone. I eventually boarded the plane to Brummagen, not knowing if Kate had the message or not.

I found my seat and said 'hello' to the couple sitting in my row. 'Hello' came back, then they started canting to each other. I stopped dead. BLACK COUNTRY! They were speaking in broad Black Country! For the first time in two weeks I was hearing my mother tongue! 'Yam frarm tha Black Country?' 'Ar, Staabridge. Yow?' 'Wulvramtun!' I just relaxed and sat me down. I know that sounds ridiculous, but there's nothing like a Black Country accent to make you feel downright safe and sound!

I dropped my contact lense; there was me, the couple from Stourbridge and a couple others all looking for it, when it turned up on the floor of the row behind. I popped that in saline, with half the plane still on it, and settled down. A cup of tea was lovely; then the food came around. I told the stewardess I was a vegetarian and she said something. I showed her the deaf form and she said something. I don't know what, she only looked at me when I didn't respond. Then she walked off. That's the last I saw of her; and didn't have anything to eat that time either.

The film was 'The Day After Tomorrow'. Ocean and I were canting about this film last night and her take is that it's a crap story attached to a brilliant concept. My take is that I still can't decide if it's utter shit or utter genius, but the fact I'm still talking about it nearly two months later is making me suspect the latter. The story was crap - son in trouble, daddy defies odds to fetch him. Slushy crap. But the rest! WOW! Kyoto was mentioned a dozen times. I particularly liked the bit when the tables were reversed between America and Mexico. I remember when the film first came out, all the British scientists said it was exaggerated but feasible; all the American scientists said it couldn't happen. It looked pretty feasible to me.

I was exhausted then and actually did sleep. I was woken by the breakfast coming around and I was so groggy. I was also absolutely starving! I peered up over the oncoming trolley to find quassonts (sp?) - French bread things which you eat with jam - and a thingie of fruit. No meat. WOW! I sat up. The quassont was beautiful! But very small. About two inches across. The fruit was... pineapple. Even I saw the funny side of that! *grin*

By the time we reached British skies, and the most amazing dawn I've ever seen, it felt as though I'd been on an aeroplane all my life. It was only about an hour longer than the journey there, but because a whole night had passed (I'd gone back in time-zones, so the night passed very quickly), it felt like it was twice as long. On the way there, I'd left Brummagen at noon and landed in Vegas, that evening, at half six; on the way back, I'd left Vegas around noon, and landed in Brummagen the next day at half nine in the morning.

One thing which REALLY struck me is how green is my country. As we came down through the clouds, I saw miles upon miles of land, scarred by the Enclosure Acts, but so beautiful. The hills of Shropshire; trees; then the concrete of Birmingham and the Black Country. You just can't help getting Holst's 'Jupiter' in your head!

I got through customs and immigration (or whatever queue I was in) so quickly; and only had to wait on about two minutes for my suitcase (remembering at the last minute NOT to look for Y Ddraig Goch! That had been left at Shonna's for Mike's altar). Then it was up and running into Terminal 1 to the pub where I had arranged to meet Kate. She wasn't there. I was about two hours late now. I asked the wench there if she'd seen a woman about my height with short red hair. Yes, she'd been there until recently, drinking coffee and smoking, but had been gone about half an hour.

Fuck.

So I surrepticiously plugged in my charger and charged up my phone just enough to get into it. I called her as all my messages came flooding through. She was in the Music Bar! ie She was about 50 yards away around the corner and had been since about 8am. I ran round there and waiting with her was a packet of Embassy Number One. GOD! I love that woman!

:-D

We drove away from Brummagen, into my beloved Black Country, with Kate bringing me up to speed with all that had happened since I'd been away. Two friends had gone under; one ended up on anti-depressants and the other we both went to sort out that night. She'd left it up to me, because of just stepping off a plane and all, but it sounded serious enough. I ended up walking into his house having stopped around the corner to strip down to a bathing costume. *grin* A British October night has never seen the like before. ;-) Me and Kate did our velociraptor sorting of heads and stayed overnight.

Before that though, Kate cooked me some breakfast, then went abed, while I caught up on my e-mails and half the Grove. I was awake at first, but got tired as the afternoon wore on, however I didn't go abed myself until about 3am the next morning. God only knows what that was in Vegas. I think I responded to something daft like 300-400 e-mails, while Kate slept, and was up-to-date on my world by tea-time.

I returned home on Sunday; with my parents away. It was so quiet in our house. I found myself listening for Elen calling or William giggling. Silence. I went back to e-mails.

Monday morning, I walked into work to be beseiged before I even had my coat off. By half 10, I thought I was the most useless person alive. By 4pm, I was beginning to suss that they'd just been overwhelmed by doing my job too. That chaos has only just started calming down now. In the intervening just over month and a half, I've lost the plot completely; fled my desk in tears; up-turned my work-trays, so there's a mess of paper on the floor; lost a whole day through losing my memory; and had a meeting to work out what to do about my conduct and constant dropping off bollocks.

Meanwhile, over on the Grove, I've three times now lost it; twice in the Mods lounge, once quite severely. It eventually came down to Roxanne and Georgia trying to calm me down long enough to get the proof that Anna and Shonna were alive, well and fundamentally ok. After all four Mods basically realized I'd gone yampy, the suggestion came (bravely I thought), that I step down for my own sanity. I tried; but Shonna created a whole new category for me. Mod on Leave. I haven't been in the Mod's lounge since, so I don't know what major crises are happening in there. I only respond to e-mails when I feel like it, with everyone aware of the situation, and people have backed away from e-mailing me, which has helped with the panic attacks greatly. Shonna has taken the web-site off me. Last thing I knew, it was being handed over to Dani and Pixie. There's cool.

Panic attacks keep coming and going; but at every turn, there are folk helping me or just saying it's ok.

You know, Kate said to me on this Sunday night, just gone, that after she saw REM at Glastonbury, she went into a year long shock. I think that might be me too, after Vegas. Truth? I've hardly mentioned it to anyone, there just hasn't been the opportunity/circumstances. Odd instances here and there, but it's my blog as has had me gushing about Vegas. It's not so much shock with me, as the bends. I dived into this awfully big adventure, into a land which I couldn't have comprehended until I saw it, with people... the people... I lived a dream come true and peeped into scenes where Witchgrove had come to real life and all that was missing were the computer screens. I rose from that into a situation where I was dealing with two close friends cracking before I even got home; into work, where it's been so fast and furious eversince and I hadn't reached my desk before I was being bombarded with information; into the intense three days of moving the website and having to learn very quickly all these things I hadn't known before, in order to try and manage the relocation to the new site. And on top of all this, there was/is the bloody dissertation. By the time my parents came home on the Tuesday, Vegas was already receding as a dream; by the time I met up with Aud and Bex and the rest of the Wolves Moot, it was a long time ago.

Nine weeks since I left. It feels like a life-time. It feels like it happened to someone else, though I can see myself in photographs. But then, at least two or three times a day, I'll close my eyes and I'll be back there, in some scene or other. There's the Memorial; there's the comfy, blue settee; there's the yard and the stars above; there's Pixie at Brianne's garden table confirming that she feels exactly like I do; there's Shonna looking so shocked; there's Georgia waiting for me at the Bellagio; there's Stephane sniggering to himself when he thinks no-one is looking; there's William grinning at me; there's Anna shrieking, 'I'm not touching you!'; there's Aaron making his speech at the Wiccaning; there's Brianne with two packets of fags from the store; there's BoJo fluttering to the kettle; there's Chelle running down the stairs to hug me; there's Dirk bringing a beer; there's Sean giving me a nickel, because I'd never seen one; there's Bella looking at me with tears in her eyes and saying, 'You're so beautiful!', then hugging me; there's Corey telling me to choose 12 donuts, because she couldn't believe I hadn't tasted them; there's Jodi looking so beautiful in her cloak; there's Barb and Lauren shaking my hand; there's Luke leaning over the bannister watching the ceremony below; there's Brian talking about moving to Italy; there's Elen organizing the lady with the corn dollies; there's Osran on a stick; there's Kate coming over to sit with me; there's Caleb coming for one last hug at New York, New York; there's Rhia running away so she couldn't be photographed; there's Brad wrestling with Luke and Sean; there's Cameron saying, 'You must be Mab'; there's Kat canting in the yard; there's me, on stage at the Ren Faire, dancing like there's no-one watching.

And there's my mountain.

"... you can almost see the high water mark, where the wave finally broke and rolled back..."

yours
Mab
xxxxx

Nicked off Lydia

2004-12-07T13:02:00.000Z

You scored as alternative. You're partially respected for being an individual in a conformist world yet others take you as a radical. You have no place in society because you choose not to belong there - you're the luckiest of them all, even if your parents are completely ashamed of you. Just don't take drugs ok?

alternative

88%

Middle Class

58%

Lower Class

54%

Upper middle Class

33%

Luxurious Upper Class

What Social Status are you?
created with QuizFarm.com

Blubbering like a babby

2004-12-01T23:21:00.000Z

Look!

I just read that, filled right up and then noticed the comment too.

*sniff*

There's a school of thought that says I'm a bit too wide open right now. But things like that are going right in. I don't know what I was expecting, 'Mab you're cool' I suppose, because that's what I thought would be the rules of the game. Then I could smile and get back on with what I'm doing. Talk about gobsmacked.

Thank you, Lill.

I really ought to do a proper blog, as I've been around a bit more this week. I'm not in the 'It's No Good Trying' Syd-state anymore, which is really the result of another major panic attack on Saturday night. This one Cerr caught and, over the 'phone, there was a long, long cant, which basically ended with me sort-of stopping the dissertation. I say sort-of, because it's more a back-burner thing than a forever thing. Just to give me chance to stabilize my world, but I am reading 'Triumph of the Moon' again, just not at the speed of knots.

The basic plot now is that I do whatever I want to do. Mmmmm... imagine the calibre of HPS and friend who can convince a Methodist-Alexandrian-Virgo the value in doing that! I'm mostly doing it as well. There are times when the guilt kicks in and the panic starts again, usually in the vicinity of Grove posts, when I afret that folk are seeing me posting and thinking, 'Why hasn't she responded to mine, the ignorant bint!' or much worse, getting paranoid about it. That's usually when one of Cerr's e-mails gets a 14 page essay response full of angst and she sets me right again.

So, the upshot. My mind is floating back down to ground. Today, a whole series of things exploded simultaneously at work and those who usually have the calm heads - who have been covering my dropped bollocks for weeks - went to pieces. I caught the ball and ran with it. As a result, the whole thing came together seamlessly and all was well with the world. I stood back afterwards and thought where did that come from! I haven't been that together in a fortnight! A very high-up academic thanked me for the day and everything, and me, reverting back to form, informed her that I could only be so lucid because I've dropped my dissertation. Later on, alone, she asked on that. She's offered to take with her my first draft (or however far I've got at that point) home with her over Christmas and read it for me. :-o

Ok.

I'm one extreme to the other though (as I always was, it just happened more slowly). On the one hand, I can't remember things as fundamental as 'did I thank Pixie for the CDs?'; on the other, I keep getting these flashes of clarity where my mind is racing as fast as it always did, nothing phasing, nothing too much to decipher. Caroline called me over yesterday. She said, 'If neither of us can figure it out... Jo, come here, we need your brilliant mind.'

Brilliant mind.

Ok.

Now things like that will have me analysing like the most Virgo-ish Virgo that ever lived. I suppose everyone else would have taken it as a throwaway comment, but I'm standing there thinking, 'Brilliant? As in 'A Beautiful Mind'? Genius? Or is she just saying that to butter me up?' And I'm back at my desk with Caroline saying, 'Come back and show me how you did that!' Did what? I don't know how I fixed it, I was too busy analyzing 'brilliant mind', I just did it! So I grin like I know what's going on and wave my mug at her instead.

I really should shut up on this, else no-one will ever say anything nice about me again! LOL

Behind the scenes, Cerr's getting ready to initiate me to the first degree. She doesn't know this yet. She'll find out when she reads this. For about three days now, she's been helping me retrace my steps, as I missed a lot of them out running up the stairs as fast as I did. She's helping me work out who I am, what I am, where this is all going. You know, the usual Grail questions. Who does it serve is probably on the agenda soon. It's helping enormously. We started with the Mother Priestesses who wouldn't initiate me; and now she's kick-started the Priestess group again. I haven't panicked in three days and the flashes of my mind being in sinc with the rest of the world are getting longer.

I've also nearly emptied the WG website up-dates folder. There are a load of pics as I can't open, so I've sent them to work to try there. I've still got to upload Brianne's photos and some of mine, then all of the Grovers Meet pics are done; all of the page updates are done, excepting some reviews, which BS Kate is doing and forwarding to me. I've got the 'Coming Home' Vegas blog half done in draft, then that's all the Vegas blogs done. Rebecca is taxed, MOT-ed and insured. She needs some work on her cam-something and back brakes, which is £160 all told, but not dangerously so (else I wouldn't have passed the MOT). Overdraft. Everything I've afretted on is slowly being sorted out and I'm finding my centre of gravity accordingly.

I think that, by the weekend, I'll be sorted; then I can look at that bloody dissertation again.

Sometime, one day, I'll be back completely and this will look like the necessary hard lesson it probably is. Hopefully, by then, everyone will have forgiven nearly a year of whinging and all will be well with the world.

yours
Mab
xxxxx

Stolen from Lill's live journal

2004-12-01T08:12:00.000Z

1. Reply to this post if you want me to tell you how cool you are!

2. Watch my journal over the next few days for a post just about you and why you rock my socks.

3. Post these instructions in your journal and give your friends a much needed dose of love and admiration!

yours
Mab
xxxxx

Vegas October 14th 2004

2004-11-28T19:06:00.000Z

My last full day in Vegas. *meep* Though I knew that on some level, it didn't permeate my thoughts all day. I mean that in the sense that it didn't ruin the day, as I was able to forget that little fact. It did seem like I'd only been there five minutes though.

Stephane had sorted out what was needful to scan his photos in. We don't know how the scanner had suddenly stopped working beforehand, though I suspect it was with me tatting the day before, pressing the icon on any likely thing which would start the scanner up. But it was sorted now and I set about scanning in the 60-odd pics that he had taken, mainly of the Wiccaning, and adding those to the shared folders.

He asked if there was anything that I'd really like to do before leaving Vegas (you mean other than work out how to stay?), and there were only two things - one was go to Albertsons to stock up on cheap things; the other was more vague - Pixie and Corey had both mentioned Mt Charleston as a good place to see, both saying that they hoped I would be able to see it while I was here. Stephane said that both of these things could be done.

So off we meandered to Albertson's, where I first bought a couple of all the contact lense solutions, to stock me up for home. In sterling, one of the solutions costs £20 here, but cost £3 there. See my point? Then we perused the alcohol section. I was going to get some Jameson's, as even that is cheaper. How come it's made in Dublin and ends up cheaper halfway across the world than it does in either Eire or Britain, I haven't a clue, but there you go. However, once confronted with several shelves of whisky, I decided it would be nicer to try whisky that you can't get back home. Unfortunately, Stephane is tee-total (or doesn't drink whisky, one of the two), while I hadn't tried any of them. Therefore it was a bit pot-luck. I ended up with a Kentucky whisky and one called Canadian Mist. They were in plastic bottles, which I thought would be better for transporting home.

(Since then, I took the Kentucky whisky up FT Kate's at Samhain. I can't remember much about it, which either means that I was too bladdered to remember, or it's unopened at Kate's house. The Canadian Mist is half-full here. It's 80% proof and both Dad and I like it. Maggie tried it yesterday and found it very strong. This is a Scottish woman with a very discerning taste in whisky. All told though, it gets the thumbs up.)

After that, it should have been a simple thing to get 200 cigarettes (my legal allocation) to take home. I'd decided (after experimenting with various types of fags all week) to either get the B&H superkings, as Brianne had bought me, as they aren't like B&H at home - there isn't that strong chemical taste with American B&H - or the Winston, which Brian had crashed me on the Tuesday. I went up to the counter and was peering over to see what they had, with the bloke next to me giving me weird looks. I just ignored him, vaguely wondering whether he was a bit weird himself. Then the lady behind the counter told me off.

Ok... found another cultural difference! :-D In America, you don't save time by looking to see what you are going to buy, while someone else is being served. They prefer you to step right back from the counter and just know what you're going to buy. I did step back and then the lady gave me a withering look, 'Please can you move THIS side of the counter?' pointing. Ok... another one. In Britain, it's either blatantly obvious where to queue or else you just queue. There it's definitely on the left-hand side. So I moved, by now thinking 'ground just swallow me, please!' Yet another look, 'behind the line!' Only then did I notice, right behind the wall a line drawn on the floor. So THIS is where they like you to stand.

By now, Stephane had finished paying for his shopping and he and William were standing there watching. He gave me a big grin, which stopped me feeling like I'd just committed a federal crime and I felt the blush dying down. Then he pointed out a sign, which was only visible if you'd been on the left-hand side of the counter in the first place, 'please queue here'. Now that would have been quite useful on the right-hand side, with an arrow. By now, it was only embarrassment at keeping Stephane waiting as long as I had that stopped me saying, 'fuck this for a game of soldiers' and going somewhere else. There was also another sign, something about 'canelling your cheques', which Stephane pointed out to make me laugh.

The REALLY daft thing was when I finally got to be served (literally about five or ten minutes later), the shop assistant acted as if she was my best friend. 'Hello, how are you?' (Me? I'm feeling extremely embarrassed, because my friend there with the baby has been kept waiting for ages; and I'm a Virgo, so telling me off three times over being in the wrong place - even though I know it's a culture thing that I couldn't possibly have known about in advance - is still enough to make me want to curl in a corner and die. We're the star-sign that has to have the right change on buses or else we feel like everyone is glaring at us. Also, I'm really thirsty and dying for a fag, but not sure if I can sneak one between now and the minivan, and I don't want to ask my friend to wait any longer over my nicotine addiction, and I don't want to smoke in the minivan where there's a small baby in the back. I know as well that if my friend Kate was here, she'd be doing the 'get a job you like' line around about now, but I'm just standing here thinking, 'how bloody false can you get? Making me feel like that and now acting like you're so glad I came to buy off you. Have you got any depths? What is it with this 'oh I love you' bloody attitude anyway, when a few minutes ago, you were making me feel like shite?!) Naturally I replied, 'fine, how are you?' Then bought the fags and left. Which probably makes me as false as she was.

I did have a fag, btw, I smoke very fast and I took the trolley back, which meant I finished it. I would have taken the trolley back anyway, just in case you're thinking, 'you devious cow', as Stephane had to strap William in, so it's just teamwork, innit?

After that, Stephane, William and I drove up to Mount Charleston. As we first left the desert (yes, I know it's probably ALL desert, but I mean the bit that looks like one), we went around a bend and I got a sudden clairsentient 'Help me!' I got a real sense of someone in extreme danger right there, then it was gone. I mentioned this to Stephane and switched 'it' on full. The feeling I got was that it was a past 'help me', a little piece of residual energy. I noted it as somewhere to send Vegas Grovers to experience that, if they weren't sure of what residual energy was actually like, or if they were developing their psychic skills. If it had been something that I wasn't sure on, or had felt current, I would have asked Stephane to stop the minivan while I investigated. I've had enough of these over the years to trust in it.

I mentioned it later on to Shonna, Chelle and Brianne, and was informed that that area (we couldn't be sure on the specific bend) was an accident hot-spot.

A strange phenomenon occurred with the landscape as we drove higher and higher into the mountain - desert turned slowly but surely into greenery. By the time we were halfway up, it was starting to look like Britain. We passed by a half-built hotel, which the locals had managed to get the building of stopped, and thereon we were in forest. :-D

I love forest. I love mountains. Get forest and mountains in the same place and I'm in paradise. :-D I hadn't any expectations about what it was going to be like up there, but I don't think I expected what was there. The smell of pine was so dense, which is great from my perspective! :-D :-D :-D It looked like I would imagine Sweden to look. Naturally, I've never been to Sweden and so that's not based on anything in reality. Maybe Austria. I've never been there either. It definitely didn't look like anything I'd come to expect in Vegas or the Nevada desert.

There were little chalets, which Stephane informed me you could stay in as a weekend get-away from Vegas. We had already driven past 10-15 really big and posh houses, within view of where we parked. It's quite expensive to live up there and though it looked very beautiful, Stephane said he'd worry about having his family up there, because it's so far from the hospitals in case something went wrong. That got us onto a conversation about herbs and knowing your first aid. I bet that someone up there knew their stuff, particularly with so much greenery to hunt down your herbs and roots. He did have a friend who had lived up there and worked at the Bellagio, which was quite a trek to work and back.

There was food on offer at the large chalet, which was a restaurant/bar/shop/estate agents, but neither of us were hungry. Instead, we bought drinks (well, Stephane bought me a drink) and we sat outside. He'd warned me that it would be cold up there, so I'd put my jeans on and had a jacket in the minivan. It was quite the opposite. My thigh actually burnt THROUGH the jeans! LOL But heat is weird in the Nevada desert. You can be equally ok wearing shorts or jeans, because it's dry heat. I didn't understand what dry heat was before I went there. I do now and I prefer it to normal heat. I now have a much better idea of what to pack for next time.

Stephane and I sat there putting the world to rights... well, the historical world mainly. He's a really interesting bloke, who taught me the history of the French in Canada, while we sat there sipping our drinks, with the smell of pine and that gorgeous scenery all about us. I learned how the Arcadians had been superceded in Arcadia by the Gaelic immigrants, who'd turned it into Nova Scotia. Some of the Arcadians had travelled south, into America, and their accent turned them into the Cajuns. I know a lot about how the Irish and Scottish ended up in Canada and he knew a lot about how the French had ended up there, though he wasn't entirely ignorant of the rest. I really enjoyed that cant. I didn't realize how much I knew about the Celtic dispora into Canada for a start!

Folk are so friendly up there. Us poor reserved Brits have to really re-arrange our cultural upbringing to cope! First there was a lady who was having a sit-down while her family went for a hike. She was from Florida and had stayed home during the hurricanes. A house ten miles away was totalled, and houses in the opposite direction were totalled too, but she had nothing happen to her home at all. She usually went travelling with a friend. Originally she and her husband had travelled, but when he was dying, he made her promise to go and see all the places that they hadn't yet seen. She had done so alone, but on one of the trips had met and befriended another widow doing the same thing. The pair of them decided to carry on all future trips together, but right now the friend was ill.

Secondly, there was a couple who walked by. The woman, seeing the carry-cot turned away from the sun, came peering in. 'Ooooooh! Isn't he just adorable?!' She exclaimed to me, Stephane and the entire of Mount Charleston, before reaching in and giving him his bottle. Now, had this been Britain, I'd have decked her. All the bristles went up and I was thinking, 'Get the fuck away from my nephew!', which is a fault of mine, I know. If I step back and look, the wench was holding a bottle in William's mouth and saying nice things. Ok, she was addressing them to me (on the assumption that I'm Mummy), while Stephane was responding, but she was actually being nice. I think there's a whole personal space issue with me going on there, particularly when it comes to the little ones. When I asked Stephane on it, after she'd gone, he was of the opinion that that wasn't unusual, though she was a little more overwhelming than most. I wonder what was going on in my stars that day, thinking on it, that was the second time I'd gone all uppity over someone's attitude, though the second was a little less deserved than the first.

I saw a troll! Stephane wasn't quite so convinced. I think he thought it was just a rock poking out from the trees further up the mountain, but it looked like a troll to me. ;-) Look, here's the picture, what do you think?

It was so beautiful that I didn't want to move, but when Stephane suggested we leave to see more pretties, I've learned to trust his judgement of what's beautiful (let's face it, he married Cerr, so I should have known this before) and off we went. It was beautiful, it has to be said. We drove further on up and east into the mountains, though the most gorgeous forest landscape. We stopped once for pictures, then carried on to a place which overlooked the desert for miles.

Stephane waited with William while I went to look. There was a miniature holly growing halfway up, with three ladies oooing and arring over it. One had seen holly in a book, but the others hadn't seen it at all. I confirmed that it was holly as I passed them, to put them out of their misery, and hoped that I didn't sound blase about it. In reality, I was thrilled to hear them so excited. I love hearing and seeing excitement like that in anyone, including strangers.

I reached the end and was looking over the desert, trying to work out if I could see the Sekhmet Temple, when a couple joined me. The bloke had been here a couple of days ago and had met a military bloke there, who had pointed out things on the landscape; so this bloke had now brought his girlfriend back to show her. Of course, there was no way I couldn't eavesdrop, so I was soon included in the conversation. The Nevada Test Site wasn't where the information board said it was, it was... and he pointed out the area for us. Beyond that was Area 51. He told us so many stories of both, things which didn't sound fantastical and things which made me WANT the Nevada Test Site book NOW! I should have listened to myself, I swear it.

What really shocked me was just how close the test was to Vegas. I thought on how they are finding traces of Chernobyl in Gwynedd (Wales) and the distance that had travelled; then looked at Vegas. I could see both Vegas and the test site from this vantage point, and it made me feel slightly ill at the thought. The bloke with me said, 'It's ok, it was all underground, by the 1990s'. But underground is what caused those babies to look like that in Iraq; and they were underground in the 1950s. I developed my theory that Area 51 is nothing to do with aliens, it's to do with mutants caused by the radiation from the test site, which is only about 25 miles away.

He was fascinating to listen to, but I'd been gone a while, so when he started repeating himself, I started heading back to Stephane and William. Another thing, I lit me a fag, took about four drags on the way back and suddenly was gasping for breath. I had to sit down on a rocky wall part-way back and put the fag out. Presumably, that is what an asthma attack feels like. I was struggling so much to breathe, but sitting there, it came back. The whole episode probably didn't last a minute. We got that one sussed though - the altitude. We were over 8,000ft above sea-level by then.

Stephane drove us the rest of the scenic route back into Vegas. I loved Mount Charleston and the surrounds. It's a definite place to visit again. :-D We picked up Elen and drove through rush-hour traffic to get Shonna. Stephane was working, so they needed to swop the cars and hand over the children, then off Stephane went around the corner to the Bellagio, while Shonna drove us home. It was strange, we'd done that routine the week before, but so much had happened, that it felt like a month or more since we'd last picked Shonna up from work like that. *sigh* I wish I was doing it now.

The journey back was a strange one, in a funny way, for me. I've always said that I only get lost in the wider Black Country, because I half know the way; everywhere else, I don't know it, so follow signs and maps, or I know it like the back of my hand. I'd travelled around Vegas so much, that I was starting to half know it. At one point, Shonna phoned Chelle and I looked up and decided that we were only around the corner and hadn't that been a quick journey. Er... nope, we were still halfway across Vegas! LOL It happened again when I thought we were on the right road to be getting a cafe latte with cinnamon syrup. Nope, we were a good 20 minutes away. LOL Because I kept thinking I knew where we were, that journey took forever, but there was cool, because I was enjoying the journey. We spotted a car with a back-window full of pentagrams and the like, but couldn't see the driver to see if it was a Vegas driver. Another idiot cut Shonna up pretty badly and was lucky that he didn't end up as a frog.

Eventually we had both cafe latte and were in Chelle's 'hood, because luckily Shonna did know the place like the back of her hand. Chelle came back with us for my last night there. She'd made up the soaps and such that I'd asked for, including a sandalwood and patchouli body lotion (which I put on last night after my bath, and wow, it smells beautiful!), and a lavendar soap that she was just developing. Everything was gorgeous! I tried to pay for them and she wasn't having it. She said that it's the least she could give me for all I give her. Give her? I'd only opened her beer for her!

A little while on, Brianne came over too, with more presents! I had a copy of her CD, 'Forever', with more to give away back home. Of course, the first thing I did was open it and have her sign it. :-D

The three of us just chilled out for a couple of hours, canting, trying not to already miss each other while we were still in the same room. We ate pumpkin pie, which I didn't realize was sweet. I thought it was something you had with a meal with gravy. I wished more than anything that I'd come for the two weeks, instead of 10 days (two of which were spent travelling). Eight days just simply wasn't long enough. With cuddles and hugs (and me determined that I wasn't going to cry), Brianne went home again.

The air was getting dense, as if every ghost in Vegas had decided to hang around. Chelle, Shonna and I were all getting it. You could see it dancing in the air, and none of us were drunk. At one point, Chelle and I went outside for a fag, doing our last minute catch-up and goodbye thing, when I needed to ask Shonna something. I got to the door, and just stopped dead. That room was alive! Shonna just looked at me and said something like, 'are you getting it too?' I could just nod. It was a little like when the electricity had gone out on me, Pixie, Corey and Dirk, the air just prickled. Every psychic alarm bell was going off.

I learned that night that I could be a medium, though if television mediums experiences are like that, then I don't know how they survive. I literally threw up afterwards and I was ill for a good hour, before it all passed. It came from nowhere, stunned us all, then went again. Maybe with practice I could do it more easily, but the way it was, I think I'd better wait a while before trying again and only then in the presense of as competent witches as Shonna and Chelle.

Shonna drove Chelle home and I nipped upstairs and quickly did most of my packing, though it was obvious that it all wasn't going to fit into the suitcase. I'd left a lot there, mainly because the bulk of what I'd bought with me was presents, but I was also taking a lot of presents back. I was on edge, feeling as though if I turned too suddenly, I would find several ghosts around the room just looking at me. I battened down the hatches inside me, but still had to check on Elen and William, just to make sure. It isn't that ghosts will hurt you, they just kick off the flight, fight or fear thing inside me, so I go on red alert. I'd already tidied Shonna's living room, full of nervous energy in the immediate aftermath.

By the time Shonna was home though, I had found that quiet place inside me and was calmly finishing off the packing. It was never going all in, so Shonna suggested I get a bigger hand-luggage. She was going to lend me a bag, but I got it all fitted in a carrier-bag well enough and hoped that would get me in. She sorted out the labels to stick on them all.

I don't think either one of us wanted to go to bed that night. Stephane came home from work and we were still up, canting. We were up until very late, but in the end it couldn't be put off any longer and we went abed.