Strange Tides...

I have felt this shift in the Universe for a couple of weeks now. Since the 21st to be honest, but I am not sure if that is because of an actual shift in the cosmos or if it is just in my mind. Either way, I feel it.

I have a hard time sitting still these days. I seem to always be doing something, and if I am not, I feel restless and discontent. I am in an organize phase, and a cleaning phase. Nothing is clean enough, nothing is organized enough. This is not a bad thing, but it is different for me. I am always cleaning or doing something, but never with this sense of urgency. It feels like if I am not cleaning then it will mean the end of the world.

Very strange.

I am also finding myself out of patience. I am no longer willing to constantly explain myself, to try to make people understand me. I am tired of trying to stuff myself into someone else's box, tired of trying to find some shred of common ground to get people to accept me, or to see I am not so different from them, so they do not feel uncomfortable.

The truth is, I am a lot different than most people I know. I am more comfortable on the darker side of things. Not evil, not bad, just darker. I like dark humor, I like dark colors, I like dark clothes. There is nothing wrong with that, or with me, it is just who I am. All my life I have been trying to get people to accept and understand me, and I am just no longer willing to do that. I am a great person. Sure I have made mistakes, and I am far from perfect, but who hasn't?

I am at the age to where you either accept me or you don't. I am me, I have always been me, and I grow and change just like everyone else. Who I am at my core, however, has never changed. My father used to tell me that "With age comes wisdom" and he is very correct.  The older I get the more I learn about myself, and as of late, I am learning how other people actually see me. People that I thought were very close to me do not talk to me as much, especially since it was made known that we were in need. People in need tend to make other people very uncomfortable, even if that need is never mentioned between them. Like they are just waiting to be asked for help. I would never go directly to anyone and ask for help, especially from people I am close to, because chances are I know how much they might be struggling too. When I wrote that blog post, throwing it all out there, it took everything I had to do it. It goes against everything I believe in.  But I did it in a way that made it easy for anyone who wanted to and was able to help could do so. I did not schlep door to door of my friends and family and ask for anything. I could never do that. I am also finding out how people I thought were close to me really feel about me. Someone very close to me hurt me terribly not long ago, and I am still reeling from it, from the shock. I have no desire to go into details, with anyone about it, nor will I, but it has hurt me to my core, which is not easy to do.

I am tired of defending my life choices to people. I live in BFE because I wanted to be closer to my parents and my kids, and because of the schools. I am with Jack because I love him and feel he is my soul mate. I am not with other people because I was not meant to be, or for whatever reason was the case at the time. It no longer matters why, because I am with the person I love more than anything aside from my children. I am not working because when I left work, I was simply paying for the babysitter and the gas to go to work. There was no profit. Now, I am unable to work in the jobs that are most likely to hire me, even if the economy did not suck here, and the jobs I can do will not hire me because even though I have  the knowledge, I do not have the college degree to go with them. My older kids do not live with me because I made stupid decisions when I was younger, and I could not afford to take care of them. They are better off where they are, I fully admit this. I have the desire and the love and the knowledge to care for them, but I do not have the resources to do so. Plus, to be honest, my mom NEEDS them, she needs someone with her. I am not Christian, Wiccan, or any other religion because I do not agree or believe in those religions.

Those are the things that seem to matter to people. Where do you live, where do you work, where are your kids, what religion are you, and who are you with, and why. So there it is. Never mind that there is so much more to me than those things. Never mind what kind of brain, what kind of heart, what kind of soul I have. Most people have no desire to know those things about me, unless they match up with what they themselves believe in. There are a few that do, but very few. When I meet someone new I automatically start trying to explain myself, so throw my life story right out there, so they can go ahead and judge me or not judge me and we can either maybe develop a relationship or they can go on their merry way. I have no problem explaining myself to new people, but it is tiresome and old to keep repeating myself and trying to justify my right to believe the way I want to believe over and over again to the people who have been in my life for some time. It will no longer happen. I am done. Either you have accepted me by now, or you don't. No longer will I explain myself or justify my beliefs to people. This is just the way I am.

This is going to be an interesting year. I am learning new things and working my way through several things internally. My surroundings are changing as well, as I clean and organize...and my personal life is is also changing, as new people come in to my life and as people seem to be leaving it. There are people who have become so very special to me and I am grateful for them.

Everything is changing, and while some of the lessons will be hard and might hurt, I can honestly say I am excited to see where the tide takes me....

Now that I finally have this post out of the way, as it has been brewing for several days now...there will be many more to come soon!

Do any of you find yourself having to repeat the same things over and over to the people in your life?

Oh Jake. How you have grown....crazy.

Pic by Jonathan Ernst/Reuters

Good morning everyone! I came across this article this morning. Angus T. Jones, who has played the character of Jake Harper on the show Two and a Half Men since we was 10....9 years now...has declared the show that pays him 8 MILLION dollars a year to be "filth." He found religion...although from the articles I have found it sounds more like brainwashed to me...but then after watching the video attached to THIS article, he DOES seem to be sincere, and if he has found his spiritual place, then more power to him, I am thrilled for him.

(For the record, I am a HUGE fan of the show during the Charlie Sheen years. Ashton Kutcher is okay...but he is not Charlie. However, Jake was always my favorite character other than Charlie, especially the older he got. )

The problem I have is this: Angus found his version of God. That is fantastic. However, when you go on camera and publicly denounce the work that makes you one of the highest paid teen actors, raking in 8 Million bucks a year; calling it "filth" and telling people not to watch it, due to it being a "tool of Satan" ( Really? Come on now. ) and then saying you will STAY on the show for the next season because "God obviously has a plan for him", and that involves raking in another $350,000 per EPISODE....I have issues with that.

The issue is this: If you feel that way in your heart of hearts, if you feel that what you are doing is filth and corrupts minds and apparently is ( according to him ) a way for Satan to win...then you need to leave whatever it is that you are doing. Contract be damned, ( Charlie had a contract too, we see how fast Chuck Lorre worked to get rid of Charlie ) if you feel THAT strongly about something, if you really feel that it is against your very SOUL, then there is no contract in the world that would keep me doing whatever it was I was doing. No amount of money, no anything. If I felt my very soul was in danger, if I felt I were corrupting others with my work, then I would LEAVE.

So to me, that says Angus SAID he is concerned about what happens to him after he croaks, but not enough to actually leave the "filth" that rakes in several million a year.

That leaves me less than convinced about his sincerity.

I am interested in seeing how Chuck Lorre will handle this development, since when Charlie starting blasting the show, they wrote him off in a most violent manner. ( They threw him in front of a subway train, blasting him to bits. ) Will Jake meet an equally grisly demise? They have him in the Army on the show right now. Killed in combat maybe?  With two of the original key characters out of and soon to be out of the show, how much longer can Two and a Half Men really last?

Thoughts?

Foodie Friday: Jesus Seeds

What? Did you say Jesus Seeds, Bella?

I did folks.

Today's post is about food, but it is not a recipe. It is about something that irritated the hell out of me and I wanted to post about it.

First, a confession: I love Candy Corn. I know, it is not even a food, it is sugar and food coloring, coconut oil and some waxy stuff. They are terrible for you, they make my teeth hurt, and all kinds of stuff. I.Don't.Care. They only come around once a year, I buy a little teeny bag and it takes me 3 months to eat it, because I can only eat like 5 at a time. I love them. Sue me.

Jack and Alex and I were shopping for groceries the other day, and Jack came up to me with a HUGE bag of candy corn. I told him I did not need it, as I had bought my yearly teeny tiny bag at the dollar store earlier. He said "No, I do not want you to buy it, I want you to LOOK at it!" So I glanced a little closer and saw that it was a giant pack of candy corn in little individual packages, to give out to trick or treaters. So I thought. Upon closer inspection, I saw the name of the candy on the bag. This is what I saw:

(No this is not my pic. I got it off of google, and every time I tried to click on the blog it came from, it told me "Page Not Found" so if anyone DOES know where it came from, let me know and I will link to it. )

Yes, that bag DOES say Jesus Harvest Seeds.

Jesus Seeds.

Complete with a scripture on every little package!!

My response: What the fuck?

I was immediately irritated. Yes, I am considered Pagan, because I am not a Christian, but come on folks. Everyone SHOULD know by now that Halloween has never been about Satan or Devil Worship or ANY of that shit. It used to be about Celtic people dressing up in ancient times on Samhain to ward off ghosts and evil spirits. To ward OFF evil spirits, not WORSHIP them or BECOME one.

From History.com:

Straddling the line between fall and winter, plenty and paucity, life and death, Halloween is a time of celebration and superstition. It is thought to have originated with the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain, when people would light bonfires and wear costumes to ward off roaming ghosts. In the eighth century, Pope Gregory III designated November 1 as a time to honor all saints and martyrs; the holiday, All Saints’ Day, incorporated some of the traditions of Samhain. The evening before was known as All Hallows’ Eve and later Halloween. Over time, Halloween evolved into a secular, community-based event characterized by child-friendly activities such as trick-or-treating. In a number of countries around the world, as the days grow shorter and the nights get colder, people continue to usher in the winter season with gatherings, costumes and sweet treats.


So yeah. That was then. NOW for most of the population it means letting your kids use their imagination and dress up like their favorite character and go out and get a bunch of candy and have fun being out after dark. In no way has it ever been about being evil or worshiping the devil, at least as far as I know. Some freaky folks may do that on a personal level, but that is all them. So instead of letting my kid go out and have fun playing dress-up and scoring some sweets, now I have to have someone shoving their religion down my kids throat because they are trying to combat evil. My kid pretending to be a princess or Woody from Toy Story is evil? Does that mean when the preacher's 5 year old is in her room playing dress up on an average Tuesday that SHE is evil and worshiping the devil? Of course not. She is a little kid using her imagination to do something fun. Just like kids do on Halloween. What day it is should not matter. What folks did hundreds and hundreds of years ago should not matter either, ESPECIALLY when there was nothing evil about it in the first place!

It is not the name of it, it is not just because the fact Christians did it or that I hate Christians, because I don't, I love everyone until they give me a reason not to, it is because they are trying to turn something that is not evil into something to be afraid of, to be a sin, to control people. I do not care who did it, or what they call it, the reason behind it is just flat out wrong.

It irks me. What you teach your congregation in the privacy of your own church is your business, but when you start plastering scriptures on candy and other stuff, where my kid can be influenced, I have an issue with that. I would not go and plaster spells on candy and give it to YOUR kids, and I do not appreciate you doing it to mine. My kids will make their own decisions about what religion they want to be, if they choose to be ANY religion, when they are old enough to understand it for themselves and make an educated decision. I do not influence my kids to be Pantheist, as I am, nor does Jack influence the kids to be Pagan/Agnostic. Hell, my MOTHER, who IS a Christian, does not influence the kids to be Christian.

Folks will not agree with me, and that is okay, but this is how *I* feel about it. I do not want any religion, including my own ( even though it is not a religion ) to influence my kids before they are ready to logically examine them all and make their own choice based on what calls to them. It is CANDY for Pete's sake.

*End of mini rant*

I would also like to note that in the middle of writing this, when I went to get Alex off the bus, in the mailbox was a package. In that package was a personalized brand new shiny black bible with Jack's name on it, given to him by his father ( who is in prison ) and on the inside cover, it was dedicated to all three of us. Jack, myself, and Alex. Jack raised his eyebrows and walked off, but I spent a few minutes flipping through it. I LOVE it. I clutched it to my chest and breathed it in. I held it in a sense of reverence. It is gorgeous and in large print. I am no stranger to the bible, and I can quote scripture better than most Christians can, and I adore this book. Just because I do not subscribe to the religion itself does not mean I can not appreciate the words and the thoughts behind it, especially in the New Testament. I will read it from time to time, I still do that, and I will save it for Alex when she gets older. She may or may not decide to be Christian, but it is a beautiful book, and I do not attach all the stigma and dogma to it that most do. It just became an instant heirloom, and even if she is not Christian later, I will implore her to keep it and give it to her kids, should she choose to have them. My problem has never been about the book, or even about the words, it is about the people who twist it and use it as a weapon to inspire fear and discrimination and judgement.

I think Jesus was a wonderful scholar, healer, and all around bang up guy. But he was still at least part human, depending on what you believe, and he had emotions and thoughts, fears and doubts. I am not in any way bashing Christians. If it were Muslims with passages from the Quran or Jewish passages from the Torah, a Pagan with spells, or whatever holy book from whatever religion, I would be just as upset. People need to be free and allowed to make their own choices, and I feel that this taking over of candy and putting scriptures all over it and trying to turn it into something it is not, or turn it away from something it is not, is crossing a line. It is candy. Not a religious tool.