Fuck Cold Porcelain

Sometimes I forget just how fucked up my body is, even when I'm doing something with the goal of making things easier for my poor, pitiful asshole of a body.

I've seen Pinterest fails like the rest of you, but cold porcelain, a DIY polymer clay, looked promising. The only reason I was looking at polymer clay is because I need cheap handles for my crochet books. Why? Because maybe if I can grip the damn things, it won't hurt so much to use them. So I gathered my ingredients...

...and now I'm sitting on the couch crying because my stupid fucking hands hurt. I don't like the texture. I only mixed the shit up because I figured it was cheap enough to warrant the work of mixing it up. How absurd it is: I get hurt trying to save money because I hurt too much to hold down a job.

I'm sure some of you are wondering why I didn't just do a quick money spell. Obviously I'm wondering it too now. It's demoralizing, though, to feel like I can't even mix up a simple craft item, and I still don't think of myself as disabled. My brain is a thousand miles ahead of my body.

And now I'm seeing something on the news about a family friend whose body has been missing since spring. There is not enough sage in this fucking world to make me feel less negative.

Ableism, Mundane and Magical

Sometimes I feel like every man I've been interested in either doesn't feel the same way, and the few with whom there's mutual attraction have no idea how to start or continue a conversation. Needless to say, this is frustrating as fuck.

Look, I know I'm not the easiest person to be involved with. I'm opinionated and moody. I have health problems on top of that. Believe me, I did not plan on being disabled at 23, but I also did not expect that I'd be single at 26. (That happens when you're raised thinking that being married is the ultimate goal of your life.) I know my imperfections intimately because I'm a perfectionist and I obsess over them. But I'm a good person. I'm loyal to a fault, loving, and intelligent. I make a mean focaccia, too. 

It's hard not to get down on myself when someone who seemed like a nice guy just stopped talking to me when I said I was disabled. I understand immediately cutting off a conversation, but only for situations where someone's being creepy or offensive. If I had said something like, "I have a crippling addiction to heroin" or "I only get off to crushing testicles underfoot," I would understand him disappearing into the cyber-ether. But being honest about disability and the unemployment it entails? If he had said, "That's a dealbreaker" I would be disappointed, but it's so much worse to think that he doesn't even think I deserve a response, all because of chronic illnesses I can't control.

So yes, I'm hurt. I'm used to having people treat me like my illnesses are a character flaw or hypochondria. It sucks when it's strangers. It's worse when it's family. And sometimes--and this may be the worst--ableist logic even permeates witchcraft. 

Yes, magic takes energy. But to imply that a sick witch can't cast a spell without fucking up is ridiculous. I am sick every day of my life. I live in a constant fog of pain, but if I bind a spell properly, it works. To say that I am incapable of magic is just another form of discrimination. 

If you are chronically ill, it's okay to feel upset when you read some bullshit about not practicing when you're sick. Get mad and use that power, if you must. Sometimes you can't control what happens to your body, but your mind and spirit and all the energies at work in this world are yours to command. Your illness is sacred. It teaches you compassion. Never let someone else's prejudice impede your practice.

Feel your feelings, my friends, but do not give in to the lie that you are anything less than a powerful, beautiful spirit capable of creating magic.

Painting Your Hermit Crab Shell When Your Claws Hurt

On both of the last two sabbats, I have felt too bad to do any sort of proper ritual. With chronic illness(es), it's a given that you're going to miss out on things. But religious observances? The fun ones, especially? It blows.

I have crippling impostor syndrome about everything. I guess that's to be expected; I spent a decade being gaslighted on a daily basis and didn't really learn to recognize it until years later, so I'm used to doubting everything about myself and my experience. Being diagnosed with my various ailments has only made it worse. It's pretty obvious based on my blood tests and my own physical symptoms that I'm really sick, but for some reason the first thing people say when they find out is that I'd be less sick if I was more positive about it. I have one disease that will shorten my lifespan and almost certainly be the cause of my death, barring accidents, and another that is usually not fatal but could just as easily kill me tomorrow. That's not being negative. It's being aware that I need to spend however much time I have as wisely as possible.

It's my body. It's my life. So why, why do healthy dickheads' comments about how I need to cope with my health make me feel like I'm the crazy one? It awakens that slumbering beast of self-doubt, which I have never been able to kill entirely. And when I convince myself that I am just crazy and try to function like a normal person my age, I end up hurting myself really badly.

My goddesses don't like it when that happens. I've been getting a lot of directives to take as much care of myself as possible, and that includes resting when I'm tired and avoiding activities that cause me to feel worse. At least one, and I'm 90% sure I know who though She hasn't explicitly introduced Herself, really pushes pampering. I think that by encouraging me to treat myself to little things like DIY masks and a spritz of good perfume on not-so-special occasions, She is training me to view my body as sacred, and bless Her, I was so far behind that She had to start with the basics.

The self-doubt feeds a really vicious cycle of perfectionism, which too often ends in total paralysis. Going easy on myself is another of my directives. When I get frustrated over my imperfect body or an incomplete to-do list, I feel a serene presence beside me. I hear a soft voice in my head, not my own, whispering that it's okay. I am not my body or my to-do list. I am not chronic illness. I am an embodied spirit and a bright mind. I may live in a shell that grows more cumbersome and cramped over time, but this shell is a part of the natural world, and I should respect it as much as I would a tree or a river. And because my hermit crab soul will grow too big and have to move to another shell someday, I should love this one while it houses me.

I have decided, at least temporarily, that I will observe the sabbats not as a single day, but as a period of time: the section of wheel rather than the spoke itself. Until Mabon, I'll be celebrating Lammas every day, even if it's just taking a moment in my heart to thank the Earth for the first harvest. Maybe this will be a way to more fully experience the Wheel of the Year, to actively participate in each moment of the natural world rather than stopping eight days a year to fixate on it. (Not that that's what everyone else does. Most folks have fuller schedules than I do, though.)

Well, the shell needs a shower. Friends, don't let the ignorance of others cause you to hurt yourselves. Listen to yourself and your deities of choice.

Muggle Dating is Hard!

It's easy to see why Secrecy is included in the Witch's Pyramid. Practitioners of magic have not always been very popular among their peers. Hell, persecution is still a problem around the world. Thus most witches keep mum about their, shall we say, extracurricular activities in muggle company.

This is becoming a problem for me.

I have been trying to find a magic-friendly fellow to date. Okay, not necessarily to date--I'm a hopeless romantic, so finding someone to stay with the rest of my life, or at least a significant part of it, is pretty high on my priorities list. And because I am both insistent on open communication and horrible at lying, I cannot start seeing someone who isn't at least magic-friendly. I can come right out and say I'm Pagan, at this point. But a witch?  Goddess have mercy on me if I say that to the wrong person!

In my corner of the world, magic is pretty actively discouraged by a significant portion of the community. How's a witch to find a nice, Pagan guy in a place where they're all so deep in the broom closet one can't find them? Spells haven't been able to draw them out yet, but based on the inbox of the Internet dating service I'm using and the blatant staring on the streets, Aphrodite has been listening to at least part of my petition. (Thanks, Aphrodite!) And no, I haven't been harming others. No mind control in my magic! But apparently I need to be a little more specific.

I suppose I just have to keep my head down, keep reworking my spells, and go about my business as usual. It's not like I don't have plenty of other shit to deal with in the meantime. But hopefully I'm getting closer to my goal of meeting a great partner, and until then, I'll just have to find clever ways to gauge a potential match's opinions on magic without giving myself away.