#liminalblessings

[yorubaby]

Have the day you deserve, Anna.

Edit: AND ADDITIONALLY.

[breelandwalker]

What're you most looking forward to next year? It can be spiritual / religious, or magical, or just completely mundane!

Tbh, I'm most looking forward to spending the year in a house instead of an apartment. I'm looking forward to having a yard that I can cultivate for both planted herbs and vegetables and useful naturally-occurring species, which my husband has taken to calling "witch weeds."

I have a whole little seed vault ready to go and diagrams for a small raised-bed garden. Husband wants to tidy and till the whole yard and install a french drain and a stone firepit, so he's got plans as well. (And the man is HANDY, so this should be a fun project.) We're really leaning into the stewardship and improvement of our grounds and I'm excited for it!

I've also got a handful of live speaking engagements on the docket for 2024 and that's...actually kind of terrifying because public speaking is not my forte. (You all heard that right - the perennial podcaster and online presenter still gets stage fright when speaking live.) It's something I've been working on and I'm just going to try and power through it the same way I powered through social anxiety and imposter syndrome in order to do sales pitches at markets.

It feels weird to have this many plans for next year already, but also...kind of nice.

[verdantlyviolet]

What do you find most beautiful about your faith or practice- or, alternatively, what do you wish people knew about it (or you can answer both)?

You know rose coloured glasses? I feel like I have theoi coloured glasses.

They are in everything and are everywhere. A thought followed by a breeze, the stunning colours of nature, the fierce wind that blew through and tore down tree limbs near me. Someone’s smile at just the right time, or the scent of incense as it burns in offering.

I lean heavily into the animist aspect of this religion and it makes the world shine.

[thegodthief]

What're you most looking forward to next year? It can be spiritual / religious, or magical, or just completely mundane!

Every time I have looked at this ask, it has been a different time of day, and my answer will have changed accordingly! Let's see... since it looks like I'm going to stick around and make it everyone else's problem, what kind of problems do I want to get into?

LASAGNA! Garfield had it right, a good lasagna is a reason to keep going. Not the modern thick slabs of barely cooked pasta with meat flavored "sauce" and whipped cellulose cheese substitute. I want something that Baba made after sending us kids to all the grocery stores for just the right collection of cheeses. I want a lasagna slice so dense with animal proteins, a deep-dish pizza is going to spill itself in the oven in jealousy. I want a lasagna that requires a steak-knife to cut, none of this "press firmly with a spatula" bullshit. I need my ribs spackled!

Finishing Book Two. Really. Seriously. It's time to let the guilt of falling down go away and get back up and get back in it. When I look back and see what had happened that year, that so many people at work saw that I was spiraling in a bad way but chose to get popcorn, or worse, do nothing, so that when I crashed and openly broke down it was to no one's surprise... when I look back and see what I fucking lived through... Fuck it. Melissa's story is not going to get told unless I tell it. Even though I don't expect anyone to read it. I've noticed that stories set during the height of the pandemic are vigorously avoided. And I get that. A lot of people don't want to be reminded of what happened. But some of us don't have the luxury of forgetfulness and if finishing Book Two (and eventually, the planned series) is what helps me heal, well, it's cheaper than anything the medical system can offer me.

Change of Address. Last year, I had the opportunity to purchase a house. Between credit score and income, it looked like I was going to be able to do the thing after all. I had the help of some competent agents that were frank about what I could afford and what kind of neighborhoods that looked like around here. I almost jumped for it at the time, but did not. Staying put was the right thing to do after all that happened, but I haven't forgotten the opportunity is still there. I just want a better launch pad to go from. (Besides, if all works out, I might even get to host a dinner.)

Connecting with others. Because of what had happened to me at the local Well-known Pagan Occult Shop (they don't like being called pagan because SEO) a literal decade ago, I had given up on any local meet-ups, seminars, or even just safe places to hang out. I was well played and was being set up to be the Bad Person™ when I walked away and I knew that any attempt to tell the truth would just result in me being targeted harder for retaliation either by the asshole that took advantage of me or the people who thought he walked on water such that he was incapable of being a sexual predator. Just when I thought I could start again in other areas, the pandemic showed up, and in the midst of that, a Big Name Occultist revealed what all the outsiders knew about his leanings and getting away from all that left me stained and crushed because I thought I had learned my lesson from the first grifter, but apparently not. But. I survived that, just like I survived everything else, and learning how to make friends is going to be harder than learning how to live, but I'll give it a try.

MOAR BITCHING! I have become competent enough in Spanish that I can speak it at work and hold my own to the point where some of the native Spanish speakers look at me funny when they realize that I'm conversing with them because it's fluid enough for them to forget that it's not my first language. It feels like I've hit a critical milestone in that my lessons now are about the more obscure words, phrases, and topics to round things out. I'm not going to throttle down on the Spanish, but it's time for me to begin on a few other languages that I've always wanted to learn but my childhood teachers said I was too stupid to pick up. Spite is an incredible motivator. My goal is to be able to bitch out a cunt in at least three different languages in the same breath and still be parsable to any eavesdropping native speaker.

[birdwizardofficial]

What are you most proud of this year?

That's a good question! I have to say I'm proud of me recconnecting with my spirituality, due to events in 2020 i felt like i lost any sense of purpose and didn't want to practice any more, so this year i dedicated myself to practicing again. Progress is slow, but it's progress.

I'm also proud of how I handled the financial dire straits i was in for the better part of the year. My boyfriend got injured at work so things were really tight for awhile, he did get worker's comp but it wasn't very much, and there were multiple times where I was buying groceries and I had to choose between basic essentials, like rice, flour, and sugar. But he started a new job and they want to promote him so things should get better soon! And if they don't I'm busting out my green candles and money oil.

[vine-black]

What do you find most beautiful about your faith or practice- or, alternatively, what do you wish people knew about it (or you can answer both)?

There's so much I find beautiful in my faith - the way it seems to constantly unfold and reveal new layers of resonance and depth. I might preform a ritual or acknowledge a concept one year and not have it really sink in until the next, and when it does it VIBRATES.

I also love cycles, rhythms. I love myth making. Its a largely self and spirit led practice which means there will always and forever be a layer of the unknowable to my practice. The mystery (that is unsolvable but still so seductive) is certainly a beautiful element. What lies in that velvet darkness?

Also - I am a bitch that enjoys a symbol. I have been fortunate to enjoy a path that is laden with imagery. Euuugh give me a visual metaphor that works on like three levels and you will have a happy little ghoul on your hands.

[garlic-gurl]

what's your wrapped #33?

33: final girl / chvrches

ask me a number and I’ll post that song from my Spotify wrapped playlist

[syncretic-scathach]

-boops gently- Name three things that's made you really happy lately <3

This is so sweet @liminalblessings, especially after a bit of A Month (hence the quiet around here). Let's see...

I've finally been reading again. Long, proper books, and really enjoying them. When I finished my MA I never wanted to look at another book again, and more recently work kept me too frazzled to focus on something like a dense novel at the end of the day, so being able to tear through a book a week again is lovely. Fall! Yes, I'm a fall/winter person. I love the foliage, I'm excited to pull out my scarves and sweaters... The area around me is kind of at its best this time of year and it's hard for me not to get wrapped up in it. It's going to sound stupid, but I've also been on a small personal project to unpack a lingering scarcity mindset this year. I work in a sector that pays well but jobs tend to be short-lived, so I have a bad habit of putting off essential purchases for arbitrary "it feels right" dates. I just bought a new hairbrush for the first time in ten years, it genuinely makes me happy every time I use it.