The funny thing, Tigress, is that in spite of the euphoria one feels upon entering paradise, cloaked in miracles, surrounded by angels, love, and unimaginable beauty, it gradually becomes all they know, commonplace, ordinary, and then, shockingly... invisible.

Yep, I'm talking about life on earth.

Yippee Kai-Ye,
The Universe

Coincidental how the Universe brings to the forefront ideals that have been discussed a lot recently. Or perhaps Im missing out on the miracle of this nudge. *grin*

Recently I was chatting with a friend of mine who is Xian and believes Jesus is his Lord and Savior. So far, I have never had an issue with any Xians judging my Paganism in the slightest or knocking it. In fact the only people who have judged my Paganism and knocked it have been other Pagans. Kind of a Catch 22 really eh? But thats a different topic altogether.

We were discussing the ideal of Creationism being taught along with Evolution. Although he and I put our ideals out there in differing ways we both came to the same conclusion. The focus on ultimatly teaching only Evolution leaves us as humans to slowly but surely seperate ourselves more and more; and, as the Universe Message states above, the more "common place" we can make our experiences the more "shockingly invisible" the "miracles" become.

Think about what it took to put Evolution into place here on Earth. If we were just a miniscule off in our placement in the Galaxy we would never see the stars. If the sun or moon were just a miniscule off life as we know it couldnt exist. Just taking into consideration the tens of thousands of other planets out there and the excruciatingly accurate placement of all the items that sustain life on Earth it is nearly scientifically impossible to suppose that Life as we know it is actually sustainable on another planet. Scientifically speaking it is damn near impossible.

Also, taking into account how the other planets function and their placements, it is also damn near impossible for their to be duplicates of them.

Does this take away my faith that there could be other planets out there taht are similar? No, science does not deplete my faith. Does this help affirm my faith that things were set-up as such for a reason? Yes, because once again, science does not deplete my faith.

Now, Im not familar enough with the ideals taught by Creationism to state affirmitavly that I believe it should be taught alongside Evolution. I also am able to affirmatively state that Evolution is a much needed science and should be taught regardless of the need for some form of Creationism being taught.

However, I sit and question this world of conformity we are creating. I wonder how it is anyone is to be able to see the miracle and beauty of it when we are teaching (not only through our school systems but through our very societal construct) the disbelif and commonplacedness (yeah I made up a word) of the miracle(s) that are Life and our Universe and our All.

This contemplation just furthers my understanding of how easy it has become for humans to embrace hate, judgement and fear of one another.

This contemplation is also part of the reason that I want to explore other cultures besides the Americanized one. The one I have been brought up in.

I have learned through general study most of the other "industrialized" societies are just as ignorant as Americans are. The sayings of "the grass is greener" and "half dozen of one, six of the other," really do fit. I would however still like to experience it first hand.

~TigressSky~

“And nothing is ever as you want to be”
Brian Patten

You lose your love for her and then
It is her who is lost,
And then it is both who are lost,
And nothing is ever as perfect as you want it to be.

In a very ordinary world
A most extraordinary pain mingles with the small routines,
The loss seems huge and yet
Nothing can be pinned down or fully explained.

You are afraid.
If you found the perfect love
It would scald your hands,
Rip the skin from your nerves,
Cause havoc with a computered heart.

You lose your love for her and then it is her who is lost.
You tried not to hurt and yet
Everything you touched became a wound.
You tried to mend what cannot be mended,
You tried, neither foolish nor clumsy,
To rescue what cannot be rescued.

You failed,
And now she is elsewhere
And her night and your night
Are both utterly drained.

How easy it would be
If love could be brought home like a lost kitten
Or gathered in like strawberries,
How lovely it would be;
But nothing is ever as perfect as you want it to be.

Your result for The What is Your Spirit Animal Test...

The Cougar

Here's your results! Your spirit animal has a Nobility ranking of 13 out of 18.

Take The What is Your Spirit Animal Test at HelloQuizzy

I was having a truly hard time connectiong to the energy of "young adult." More importantly I was having a hard time understanding how people were seeing me holding this energy. What energy is "young adult?" How can a age biased cynic such as myself still be a "young adult?"

I admit to laughing when people make assumptions that you cannot be Maiden, Mother or Crone at any point in your life. You most certainly can, these archetypes apply at several different points in life and have nothing to do with age or social status. Yet these are archetypes, not literals. To me the term "young adult" is a literal. Someone definable. Someone 18-25 years of age, no college, in college, just graduated from college, starting out in small time jobs, struggling to figure out who they are, nearly poor, full of an enthusiasm thats makes them beleive some day they will change the world. Someday they will be important. That someday they will do something in this world worth remembering and the fame of their name will live on long after their death.

Im past all that. Im 31, Ive pratically been married twice, I have been divorced, Ive loved and lost a child, I feel like a worthless woman physically because I carry a barren womb. Ive worked my way up the career ladder from the white-trash bottom rung, I have a good job and finacial stability now. I am cynical and no longer beleive there will be something I do that changes the world. I have changed my mind from focusing on the importance of myself and the world remembering me. I instead focus on being happy and the realization that there are really only two universal laws no matter your belief:

1. Love God above all else.
2. Love thy neighbor.

God is self, so, love yourself above all else and then and only then can you truly understand and even begin to love the world, your neighbor.

I was having trouble trying to find a way to connect the cynically experienced woman I have become to that of a "young adult." However hard it was for me to connect I had to realize others were and do in fact see me this way still. Why? How? Should I be offended at this or should it be something that is complimentary?

This has truly been a month of worry for me. Ive felt really confused about things and I have worried a lot and been stressed often. Signals have been mixed and conflicts have arouse this month that made me feel torn and left me questioning the things I have put great value on in my life.

I needed to try and put things into perspective so I pulled out my deck and laid out a spread for myself. I usually do the Celtic Cross and the number one card was The Tower. Wow, significant as I have begun to truly question the things I have put great value on in my life.

I had sat down with a paper journal I have been using on and off since I was Queen. It travels with me when I go to festival or when I stay the night away from home. Before I began really reading the spread I started opening my notebook in case I wanted to take notes. I just happened to open it to the first of the year and see the cards I had pulled while at Cleda's for the New Year. For this month I pulled The 5 of Disks, Worry. Okay...

More importantly the last card for this year, The Tower. So, begins my questioning, so begins the ultimate outcome where, at the end of this year, my values and those walls crumble as is much needed. What does this all mean? Im sure Ill figure it out in January. *grin*

I returned my focus back to the spread and read the cards. When I got to the card representing the "View of Others" I looked it up in my book and finally got it. How it was people saw me as the "Young Adult." The card that lay in this position was the Knight of Wands, in my deck - The Mythic Tarot, Bellerophon.

I ODed on Vitamin C in an attempt to start my moontime early and not be bleeding while camping next week. Its worked before, often. However, this time I over did it and the back pain and dizziness I am suffering are overwhelming at times. If I remain still Im good to go. However, just breathing to deeply is painful.

Good thing Im use to extreme pain. I have a bar-b-que I have been looking forward to going to all week that I am not fucking missing. I also have a show to go to tomorrow to support a friend. Pain, I LOVE IT! Not really, but fuck it.

The treatment, drink lots of water so the kidneys have some way to dispell the ascorbic acid that is swelled in them now.

Kind of kicking myself about this right now. My kidneys are already fucked enough. I shouldnt do things that will fuck them more. As is Ill be on dialysis at 60 anyway. Lets not start that any sooner.

Anyway...

I have more to write but that will have to wait til after the bar-b-que.

~TigressSky~

So, I found out that Shannon Leto is not as young as I once thought. Suddenly my fantasies of him involve more than a 22 year olds sex drive. At 38 he becomes someone I might share commonalties with, someone who might be mature enough to make me smile as we share our thoughts on the cynicism of the world. Suddenly he becomes much stronger, more dominate and my obession with the strength in his hands and all he does with them, especially his drumming, makes more sense.

Funny how age aware I am. Why when Shannon was 22 was he off limits to my minds ideal of a man? Yet at 38 he is suddenly all man?

Weird how even my fantasies are affected by my quirks.

On a less entertaining note I learned over the weekend that my parents and sisters had been discussing how worried they are about the alcoholic I have become.

WTMFF?!?!?!

My stepsister calls me in desperate need to get into my house one randomn sunday. However I am not home. She asks me for a spare key three times, each time I explain I dont have one laying around outside of my apartment. I ask her where she is, whats going on? She says at the mall, she will talk to me later, cant talk here. I tell her to go to my parents and she says, "no I live in Tualitin." She freaks me out enough to be concerned enough to call my parents and tell them how weird she is being. They actually tell me, "oh she probably just had to pee. You know your sister is weird like that. All our kids are weird."

WTMFF?

However, the fact that I am out all the time with my friends and I have stories to tell of my drunken times makes me suddenly an alcoholic they should all worry about? Why cant I just be "weird?" Seriously?

I think my family cant handle that Im not truly crazy. I may write about my crazy blood in my journal, yet compared to my family I am so sane I could be the saint of sane. Saint Sane, the drunk.

Hi, my name is Saint Sane and Im an alcoholic. Would you like to join me?

~TigressSky~

Your result for The Ohmigod Test...

Athena - Goddess of War and Wisdom

56% Goodness, 44% Vengeful, 33% Lawful and 67% benevolence!

Take The Ohmigod Test at HelloQuizzy

"The Love I Gave You Once"
Faiz Ahmed Faiz

My beloved,
My own,
Do not demand the love
I gave you once.

For a moment, I really believed
That you alone gave meaning
To my withered life;
That the accelerating pain
Of my unrequited love,
Would make me forget
All other torments
Of this troubled world;
That your face lent stability
To the restless spring;
That nothing else mattered
In this empty world
But your deep, seductive eyes.

For a moment, I really believed
That if I could only possess you,
I could conquer Fate itself.

But all that was false,
A mere illusion.

This world of ours bleeds
With more pains than just the pain of love;
And many more pleasures beckon us all the time
Than just the fleeting pleasures of a reunion with you.

For untold centuries,
The affluent have always woven many webs of intrigue,
Dark and cruel and mysterious,
And dressed them up in silks and brocades.
And for all those years,
On every street and in every bazaar,
Human bodies have been brazenly sold,
Dressed in dust and bathed in blood,
Malnourished, misshapen and baked by disease.

Time and time again,
My eyes are diverted
To this tragic scene,
Your beauty is alluring as ever,
Your arms inviting as always:
But how can I ever ignore
All this ugliness, all this pain?

Yes, my love,
This world of ours bleeds
With more pains that just the pain of love;
And many more pleasures beckon us all the time
Than just the fleeting pleasure of a reunion with you.

My beloved,
My own,
Do not demand the love
I gave you once.

----------

Sometimes I feel quilty for actually dwelling on my loneliness. With all that is happening in this world how can I imagine that my loneliness compares. I am not wanting, I am not wavering, I am not without, I have nothing I can truly complain about.

Yet my heart still aches for love.

Love may not be the solution that will quell the bleeding of the world. However, it may quell the bleeding of my heart and somehow, in life, in this energy I am put here to present, I know that love really is the strongest of all energies placed here with us.

So maybe its empty to hope, that in the world of suffering, I might find love. Yet I also know it is not empty to love and in return fill the world with the energy so strong no one can destroy it, not even the lover gone.

~TigressSky~

“Panties in the Street”
Debra Spencer

Black lace rolled into a figure eight
at the edge of the sidewalk, lavender spandex
wadded tightly in the gutter, pink cotton
draped on a bus-stop bench along the boulevard.
On a wire fence down a back alley, on a quiet street
near the library, a single pair swept aside
by the wheels of a passing car, alone
or with a wrinkled condom nearby
like the shed skin of a snake, panties
delicate, abandoned, flaming red or cool blue
or ice white against the blacktop. They fell
from the top of the laundry bag
while she struggled to hold the kids’ hands
crossing the street. He threw them out
of the car after he dropped her off, not wanting
to leave them for his wife to find. His
blunt-fingered hands jerked them off
or her own small trembling hands
rolled them down her thighs, her eyes
on the gun or the knife. They were both middle-aged,
so drunk such niceties as panties no longer mattered,
didn't even glance around for the cops
out here under what stars still shine
through a city night, out here among
the bourgeoisie and the Republicans.
They were in their late teens or early
twenties walking home toward parents
or roommates, prurience more urgent
with every step. They were stoned or maybe
just sick of being good, the trap of school
or jobs looming ahead of them, they
shucked off prudence as quickly as the panties,
a hand up under her skirt, a furtive
glance up and down the dark deserted street,
hearts beating, the first of many heedless acts,
or the last daring thing they’ll ever do.

----------

Have I simply become panties in the street? Stealing intimacy where I can get it? Allowing the prurience to outweigh the logic as once again my panties are removed? If I were to pursue prudence would the end become less fleeting? Would I wake up under the stars in a time where panties no longer matter? A time where all my panties had all already been seen and the simple thought of me was what was really enticing? Does the man really not buy the cow when he can get the milk for free? Why should the cow suffer the bloat of milk unreleased, all so the man can guarantee, none of her panties have been seen?

~TigressSky~