They are as happy as if they had good sense.

Yule passed.  The log was burned, gifts were exchanged and the new year of the Roman calendar slid in like a barge on the Mississippi river.  This past year has just been a blur.  I know many of you feel the same it seems as if I could hardly hold on to the Momentum pushing me.  I am here...I used to be there.

Brian (my hubby and highpriest) have experienced such large changes that I am surprised at times to still see him standing next to me smiling, and nodding.  I don't tell too many people this but I really most of the time cannot figure out why that man asked me to marry him in the first place. Goddess knows I tried my best to scared him off, and if I did not buck like I had a burr under my saddle for the first three years my name is not Sonya.  It seemed as if deep inside I really did not think I deserved a life partner, that if someone really saw the pace I ran my life on and dealt with all of my issues he/she would run to the hills screaming.  There had to be a reason why my parents weren't very nice or affectionate to me; and no man had really stuck around that long.  I was blighted, I was cursed, I was really just awful my shadow self said..and I accepted it; because there was nothing solid and hard to tell me any different here in the physical to prove otherwise.  Though it should be stated I had faith and hope I was wrong.

Heavens knows why immediately after we got married we decided to co-found a Wiccan/Pagan church together when we should have been honeymooning it up but Brian and I did just that.  Then, not very long into that venture we got pregnant and brought a new son into our newly found love and life that we were trying to construct.  When I was pregnant he was the perfect husband not just there but always loving me and making me feel super sexy (how he did that I will never know but he managed it).  When I stress over the bills of the Church getting paid, or the next years syllabus, or a ritual, or a member of the church that is having a difficult time...he is there.  He hugs me, and listens and guides me to my higher self.  Pointing out what I do right; never ever whipping me with what I do wrong because he knows that I am the harshest critic of myself..and that my parents did a superb job feeding my inner self with all kinds of criticisms that looped in my head constantly.

He has not circled what I needed to work on one time...NO not once.  Through his tireless quiet demeanor and love and admiration of me I have grown to become a gardener who eliminates those weeds of harshness and criticism of myself.  Once I was able to do that, I was able to be less harsh and critical of others...funny how it works that way huh?

 When people in the community outside were critical and harsh to me because I was a transplanted southerner he just held me closer and walked with me tighter never letting me think about "quitting or giving up" because he believed in me as a person, and in me as a highpriestess and the clergy I could become.  This is why I still look at him in amazement thinking, well damn he really does love me and always will walk by me. 

Brian and I struggled with "pre-conceived" gender roles in parenting, marriage, jobs, and as clergy.  I am more projective and pushy, Brian is really more receptive and nurturing.  I am more of a giver and giving to the point of hurting (sacrifice is part of my makeup) but Brian is more of a receiver thinker when it comes to giving he has taught me to choose more wisely and I have taught him how to give without thinking!  It is not over our partnership, or our marriage but now that we both realize we really are here to stay and have worked through some of the biggest hurdles we think most people get tripped up on; we both feel happier than a cat who ate the canary....and I find it has changed me!  Being Happier makes your jaws sore :))))))))

I posted these pictures today on my blog to remind us that the Goddess many of us worship is DARK and LIGHT.  Right now it seems so popular to say I am a DARK Pagan and not into Wicca that is too "light" for me.  OR I am a being of light I cannot stand "death, dark, and dead things" but we forget that our Goddess holds a sycthe in her hand, and is the face of death and life.  That the moon is DARK and LIGHT that its cycles go toward full and then toward void.  My Goddess is ISIS and yet she is the Wife and Co-ruler with Osiris the God of the Underworld (you think that's dark enough)? If not maybe the God Anubis (the Dark Lord, the Bone father, The Guardian of the Gates of Death, Psychopomp) seems a bit more your speed? I dedicated myself to him last year for a year and a day with my third degrees and he has taught me so much my head has not stopped spinning.

These Gods and my Goddess would not let me fly like a bird until I acknowledged, realized, and purged out of myself the deepest darkest fears and lies I had been telling to myself for years.  They did it by sending me a person (and it should be noted many other friends) to love me.  Until I could accept that FULL love that came to me where I was and elevated me to where I am I could not become better, or happier, or smile in the mirror truly SMILE at myself.

I am not a Practioner of only DARK magic.  I am not a practioner of only WHITE magic.  I worship the Dark and Light, the Sun and the Moon, I dance with life and with death.  I AM BALANCED and when I am not...one of the many Gods and Goddesses I worship will let me know how to fix it and address it; but it will not be Brian he will always look at me with pride in his eyes and a smile on his face. 

 This Blog post is dedicated to the person who has taught me more about life, love, magick, manhood, parenting, marriage, friendship, compassion, laughter, acceptance and the list goes on and on.  He is my Dark Lord and my Sun God; and I am as happy as a person with good sense!


 

We were riding a boat down on the River....

 NOW if you want to tell a Tall Tale down in my parts.  The line..."We were on a pontoon boat down on the Tennessee River," let's everyone know a really Big Tall Tale with adventure is about to begin.  Everyone in the room laughs, and grins and leaning forward in anticipation....waiting as the accent becomes thicker (for dramatic inflection of course) and the gestures become wider.  You know the person telling it is sharing something common and collective we all can relate too.  We all know someone that has a pontoon boat, probably grew up with a pontoon boat somewhere in our family...and we all have the experience of realizing that while it states clearly for everyone to see NO DRINKING AND DRIVING A BOAT everywhere on the river; that most of the funniest stories come from relatives, or you, or friends, or some dumb redneck abusing this law.

A pontoon boat is a small shell that really floats most of the time, it has an engine you use to get it from A to B and to move it faster and is usually used to fish on.  However, down south I have seen it used to pull people on inter tubes and knee boards and to even pull families of children(including second or third cousins) behind it.  We Southerners are known for inventive things like this that you know is going to end up on the Televisions of America under the File America's Funniest Home Videos; or on YouTube with a million hits.

Last night we all sat around on New Years eve sharing these stories about people getting so drunk they parked way up on the banks, or lost cell phones, or how our Uncles or Fathers made sure to be home by 4pm because they had to "make martini time".  You can look at this judgmentally or you can see it as it is which is a commentary on how common it is in the South (I cannot speak for every other region) to drink and drive and how for some reason we associate fishing with that sport of drinking with a huge cooler and it does not matter if you catch a fish but if you have a real good time.  People seem divided on this issue; but now that I am older and mellower I can just look at it and laugh and shake my head surprised we all lived through this time in our lives when we were being pulled on inter tubes by uncles that were cussing, raising hell, and drinking like fishes while whirligigging us down the river.

I realized today how apt the analogy is for our lives to some extent.  We are all on boats down the river.  Some of us are riding on intertubes with other people driving it.  Some of us are driving pontoons, some canoes, some house boats, some sail boats, some yachts, some barges, or paddle boats...but we are all on that river.  I have had people tell me," you just try to hard to paddle" or "you steer the boat too much"  you should just "go where the river takes you"....they might be right.  However, I tend to think that if you don't paddle or steer you might get stuck or beeched somewhere and that I would like to drive my own damn boat (thank you very much) and not get pulled around on a knee board for the rest of my life.  You can call that controlling or very astute depends on whether you are a glass "half full/half empty" kind of person.

So here we are all on boats, driving down or up a river all headed toward somewhere we either have plotted on a map or :just sense" in our gut.  You can always stop at a clearing and set up camp for a spell but at some point you do have to get back on that boat and travel the river because it does flow on, and you cannot remain stagnant.

 

 This year, I am acknowledging that I am on a big boat with my Co-founders in life and that my job might just be to read the map and point out that we "might want to take a right at the fork".  This year I am going to let the "pirates" who want to take my boat over know very clearly that it is not an option that they can have unless they are going to fight me for it because I do not lie down or cry surrender when it comes to my life.  This year I will not have people "looting me" or "pilfering through my stuff" or "borrowing" parts of my gear and identity...because they all have their own boat and have been given their own map if only they choose to use it and read it.  BUT IF you want to follow our boat, if you want to travel the same seas with us (because rivers lead to bigger bodies of water), if you want to come experience this wonderful adventure called life with me and know I am not going to "stop to shore for martini time" then you are more than welcome.  I am pleased to have the company.

Something to think about....What kind of boat are you riding down the river of life on?  Do you even have a boat or are you letting someone pull you through?  Are you the captain or co-captain that shares with your family members your boat?  What map are you reading?  Did you even know you had one?  What rules are you going to maintain this year on your boat and for your life?

Have a wonderful NEW YEAR this year!  THANK YOU once again for the Gift of your time! Please share in the comments below some answers to these questions if you do not mind....