Category Archives: Life and Friends

Decision to be free

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Those of you who have been entertained enough to follow me for some many years now will know that this is not the first incarnation of my blog. I started many years ago in livejournal then in 2005 moved to wordpress, Weaving The Web, because I wanted freedom of expression and to get away from folks I thought were trying to limit me. God/dess knows I do that enough my own self, don’t need any help.  Then in 2008, though staying with wordpress, I created this third incarnation, Love Not Fear.  I brought all the old posts over, even a few from livejournal, so this site is a mostly complete record.

The name Love Not Fear overrides the actual account hidingplainsight.  I’ve been Hiding in Plain Sight for a few years now. I have written a lot about my own personal process.  At times it has been, ahem, CHALLENGING, to stay honest when I am not presented in a flattering light. Like most of us, not all of my personal growth has been pretty. Some felt hurt by it. I’ve had a lot of growing pains in the last 5 years, more intense and deeper than usual.

One of the things that has also been difficult is that I have indeed been hiding in plain sight. My ex, The Forgiven, and my brother were very upset with me over some things I posted. Some of my friends in the SCA would write, oooh don’t say that because imortant  people are watching and you might not get a Laurel (Big damn award, uh huh). I said no to the SCA, no to the Laurel (not that it was offered but I stopped yearning for it), and no to the friends. I refused to be censored and that is how my current incarnation here began.  Hiding to be free.

All of this might lead you to think I’m going away.  But I’m not!!!  I have, however, decided to start anew.  I want to be able to share my work and my thoughts and my writings with people who are close to me and have been for years.  I have not wanted to share all of my process with them.  I have been considering for some time that I have a book in me and I think of it often.  One day maybe I’ll do it. For now though, I want to be able to continue writing and teaching and creating and I want to be visible.

When I was going to the channeler of Jeshua with the ex, it was quite validating.  One thing Jeshua said to me was that I had spent many lifetimes feeling invisible and that this was the lifetime where I overcome that.  I want to be seen and it hardly supports that when I am hiding my self away afraid that those who know me shouldn’t read my thoughts.  I’m still not sure I want them to read the archives.  I’m not ready for that but I am ready to have them see me now, as I am now.

As you know, I have reconnected with old friends through facebook and for me it has been very uplifting.  I don’t friend just anyone, only those I know and with rare exception those I would like to know.  But many of them I will never send here.  I don’t publish this url anywhere.  I want to share now.  My latest status update said this:

As I get to re-know my friends from days long past, I realize how inherent my feelings of separation are. How I never knew anyone loved me. I see now that I was wrong, I was loved for sure, but it kind of blows my mind how different my life would have been if I had believed from the start that I was lovable…

We pick up from where we stand…

I’ve been uncovering myself this past year. I have purple hair now!  It suits me. I’m drawn back to some of my roots.  That free spirited girl I used to be, the one who thumbed her nose at conformity and the status quo wants to fly again.  The self-destruction isn’t welcome but there was much that was good about me and the way I lived my life and refused to conform for the comfort of others. It calls to me.  But in a healthy, embracing, loving, and creative way. Something that builds… If you build it they will come.

Reveal #1…

I have this fear of heart attack.  Two of my women friends have had massive heart attacks in the past 3 years. Serious widow makers.  They both survived, one of them quite amazingly since the hospital was a long drive and a ferry ride and another long drive away.  They are both disabled for the rest of their lives.  With that in mind,  2012 I want to nurture my spirit more than my body, work the muscles and see if they remember my hurdling track and field days. My God, I do not have a double chin, it just happens when I reach back to look up at the guy and laugh, but boy I do have some extra pounds.  Introducing MR. FURNACE! Who loves me just as I am as I do him.

American Goth(ic)

Not pitchforks! Cake.  The cake has got to go…

Reveal #2

With that in mind, I’ve created a new blog.  A place where I will share some thoughts, some tutorials, and lots of creativity!  I won’t post as often as I have before but more than lately.  I think that what I do post will be worth the waiting for.  I thought that since I own stitchwitchcottage.com I might as well continue in that vein. Maybe I’ll even update that site.  I have a few tutorials in the thought bubble. While the blog won’t be entirely witchy there will be some of that too.  Right now my spiritual path is in flux,weaving and bending and flowing and I’m not worrying too much about what to call it or me. But I do have projects galore to share.  And joy! I have joy to share!

So.  Watch for a new post in a couple weeks (I have a LOT to do to get ready!! like new masthead and site design and a couple posts in the queue)…  Stitch Witch Cottage is coming soon to a puter near you!

Taking It

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Well, here I am. Taking it. That’s good news really. My emotions still resemble a roller coaster ride but this is progress.  It could be all mucking around in the pits and no high peaks with great views. Just an update on the personal side to catch you all up, I know I’ve been a bit silent.

Mr. Furnace and I talk every day.  I understand his motives for what he’s doing regarding his ex. He is a good man with a good heart and good motives. Whether she is up to the challenge or deserves this from him is neither here nor there. He has to live with himself and his actions and this is something he must do for himself to feel that he’s tied up all loose ends. I get that, I applaud that, but I still zapped those sheets. I am what I am. And he laughed. He loves me just the way I am, warts and all. While this is very challenging right now and some of it really pushes some of my buttons, I’m feeling really good about the work he and I are doing together and individually. I feel very good about he and I.

While I have not been offered a job yet, so far nothing has come to happy fruition, I’ve had more interviews in the past couple months than I had in the previous two years. Many interviews and all in my field. I’m still applying for jobs at places like the local Fred Meyer and would be glad to have one there but the interest is all in my field and there is a good amount of it I think. I had a phone interview today that went quite well and had three applications accepted this week and pushed to the next level. Things are flowing and as long I stay as positive as I can something is going to change soon. Not IF I get a job but WHEN I get a job as a friend pointed out to me last week.

I’ve made a lot of new friends this year. People who really do seem to enjoy my company. I’m asked to chair meetings, join others for lunch, participate. I’m invited. I needed that so very much. To feel some sense of belonging in a time when I was feeling very left out.

I’m really moving in the direction of making big changes in my spiritual life and practice. I will always be a tree hugging dirt kissing nature lover and worshiper but that’s about all I can commit to at the moment. We shall see how this progresses. I’m not feeling the lurve in anything but the most simple living moment by moment.

My mom and I are doing well, ever since I shared my story about the adoption inventory, she’s been on my side and very supportive. Dad is becoming more confused as the days go by but he’s really keeping his good attitude and is a pleasant guy to be around. His situation really touches my heart. Bro and I are doing very VERY well, our relationship is quite solid and mutual and it feels good.

I made almost all the Yule presents I’m giving this year with a couple exceptions like the books I got Dad and the Polar Bear on a runaway sled that poops jelly beans for the nephew. I am a great auntie, one of my favorite roles ever.

So it isn’t all sadness and processing of old damage, not by any means. My needs are met and met well. I have a warm safe place to live, plenty of food (too much this time of year! so I’ve been able to share that with those who have much less), I have the love a good man, the love of many friends, Miss Mitty is doing well although I’m keeping an eye on her, and there are job prospects. Life is good and I am grateful. If this is taking it I guess I can be grateful. Twist my arm why don’t you…

And with that I leave you with TED’s  _The Three A’s of Awesome!!!

Speaking of Friends

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and once again being a few days ahead of my horoscope…

Is it true what they say — that you can never have too many friends? If you don’t think so, it’s a good time to re-evaluate your position. And if you do agree, then you should go out and get busy. According to my reading of the astrological omens, you’re likely to be extra lucky in attracting new connections and deepening existing alliances in the coming weeks. The friendships you strike up are likely to be unusually stimulating and especially productive. To take maximum advantage of the favorable cosmic rhythms, do whatever you can to spruce up your inner beauty.

I’m working on this quite a bit actually.  I’m going to different meetings, I’m taking a new sober woman to a meeting every week, I have a new weekly Greenlake walking partner, and I’m connecting with an old friend I haven’t seen in a couple years for coffee tomorrow morning.  I’m trying to set up a date with this guy but he’s busy and elusive and has his head down.  But I’m working on it and we chat a lot, have much in common, trying not to put any pressure (I get the sense that this time I need to move very slowly, more will be revealed).   I’m getting out there and yet still doing the other stuff, sorting boxes, looking for work, doing work for that unemployment benefit to get here very soon, starting to run low on funds.  The new friends are definitely coming into my life and filling the void left from last year.  It feels really good.  And these friends, while there is no pressure to be anything truly connected as those connections can take time, it feels nice to be having conversations with kindred spirits and interesting people.

I’m reading a lot.  I ran out of Charmed so haven’t been stitching.  The final season has a waiting list at the library unlike the previous seasons.  You didn’t think I actually spent MONEY on this stuff did you? I was very curious.  I don’t have TV as some of you might remember and I wanted to see what that show was all about.  I can’t dis something I’ve never actually watched now can I?  I don’t recommend it myself.  I’d rather know what Im talking about and besides I *love* candy.  Can’t help it.  The glossy pouty lips really got on my nerves, I mean REALLY.  But I do like to have a long stretch of fairly mindless video for stitching. Xena is a favorite.  It occurred to me last night that perhaps I should try some stitching without video and see what comes from that.   My reading is everything from total juvenile witch candy to a Christian journalist’s year of interviewing Wiccans (I’ll let you know how this goes) to inspiration books on handwork and on handwork and magic.  Slowly continuing to work on my Book of Shadows illustrations.  Doing a lot of work in pencil right now eventually to be colored.

A lot of thinking about how to use my Book of Shadows.  I’ve never been one for writing in journals.  Turns out I’ve not been writing down any of the magical work in my book.  Not that he told me or anything.  But we were talking about magical work and keeping a BoS and I said well I just don’t do much except my daily devotions.  He went around my new place (this was last week) and touched all kinds of things I have made and said, these need to be written about in your book.  You need to note in your BoS all the illustrations you’re doing too.  Date it.  Ah. Okay then.  All of this is magical work.  I knew that, really I did, but it never occurred to me that it went in the BoS.  Truth is, I’ve been a very lax BoS person in general.  I’ve not kept much record of what I’ve done except here.  Time to turn over a new leaf.  Get it?  New leaf?  New page?  Start.  Just start.

The spring rains have been here and the sun has been hiding a lot lately.  To cheer us up, the pink dogwood is in bloom and it’s just gorgeous.  I think that the Pink Flowering Dogwood is my favorite spring tree.  Right after the Lilac.

Cancer This Week

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Which metropolitan areas in America have the most brainpower? Not the best sports teams or the richest businessmen or the most powerful politicians, but the smartest people? “The Daily Beast” did a study and declared that the top two were the Raleigh-Durham area in North Carolina and the San Francisco Bay Area. Now it so happens that those are the two places where I’ve spent much of my adult life. It doesn’t mean I’m brilliant, but it does suggest I have an instinct for knowing where the brilliant people congregate. And I’m quite sure that they have been a very good influence on me. My recommendation to you in 2010, Cancerian, is to cultivate this knack. Gravitate toward genius. Surround yourself with deep thinkers and innovative dreamers. Hang out in the vicinity of brainstorms.

This describes my old gang of peeps to a T.  Brilliant and innovative dreamers and thinkers, they are muscians, performance artists, wackadoos, all living a life on a very interesting fringe, even the ones who have jobs and bought houses still live on the fringe in certain ways.  And I feel all inspired hanging out with these artistes.

I’m having dinner with a woman that I’ve reconnected with lately.  We went to high school together and got along like a house on fire.  She is sober too so I’m looking forward to nurturing this new found friendship.  Next Thursday hopefully several of us women will get together for dinner.

Mercury is retrograde so communications aren’t going well and work is glitchy, hard to be happy here with the crazy, both figuratively and literally, but I’m still grateful to have a job.  I hope Mercury doesn’t mess up proposed plans too much, still haven’t gotten together with potential chicken man but perhaps he’s had second thoughts.  I think the timing is just having a bit of a difficulty but we’ll see.

Still having fun with the reunion aftermath.