Weird but positive developments.
-The medicine-woman's response to my email was a single (extremely happy) sentence, so it's nice to confirm that this is actually happening and not a bad thing.
-My play's draft is coming along nicely. I actually have quite a bit more than ten pages/minutes right now, but Macha is insisting on helping me and now I've got two songs to tweak and put into the script. I asked Macha why and she said, "You helped find my twins, even if it was an accident. That means good things."
-I found a really nice dress for my photoshoot. (It's less frivolous than it sounds, I swear.) You know how Tribal-Celtic Me tends to wear a pale green dress? I've been meaning to make a tunic/dress like it, but... well, now I don't have to.
As the rule of cosplaying goes: The more basic the color, the harder it is to find. Finding "light green" fabric or clothes is right up there with finding something red (most reds are too brown/orange), yellow (frequently ends up on the tacky orange/fake-gold side), or purple (too blue, too red, or too dark). I've been looking for a nice shirt/tunic/skirt in light green for a straight year, but everything is either "mint" (which is sort of bluish/turquoise), "neon" (self-explanatory), or "LET'S PUT A BUNCH OF BEADS AND SHIT ON THIS AWESOME DRESS."
So on Sunday I was at church, and I was just really sleepy because the church is always hot and dark. Spirit-Me just went, "Ha, you're not in any mood to attend Mass today, are you?" and something just... SWITCHED. I got less tired and spacey. Then I remembered that my medicine-woman said whenever her normal self can't deal with something, she can always ask her spirit to take over until she can. And sometimes her spirit-self just does it without needing to be asked.
Luckily, the most I was dealing with was sleepiness and lack of focus, but Spirit-Me told me that I am not limited to minor inconveniences. And basically, Normal-me just curled up in my meditation room with Moritz until Mass was over.
My family went to the mall afterward and after I was hunting around for SOMETHING in light-green, I only find a lacy hi-low skirt. Which is actually adorable, but not what I'm looking for. (I did buy it, though.)
So I just look at the hair accessories for a few minutes, but when I'm heading back to where my sister is looking, Albatross says, "LEFT." Hence, I look left and spot this floaty light-green dress near the end of a rack, which is awesome enough, but then I picked it off the rack and saw Celtic-esque embroidery in dark green along the chest. Lots of spirals, really clean lines (helped by the split-stitching), and then there are the almost-triskeles on the bottom.
Which went shooting past "nice dress in the color I want" into "shit, this is freaky," so I bought it (as made evident by the dress pictures being in my room). Scale-wise, it's about an inch or two above my ankles.
And while I'm thinking, "Yay, I can be all medieval-ish for my photoshoot!", Macha goes, "The hell did we tell you about trying to FIND things?"
The dress even goes awesome with the silver girdle-like belt I got a couple of months ago (but can only wear if I really, REALLY dress up since only one of my dresses goes well with it), and while I'm definitely quite happy about it, I'm also a little bit freaked out.
-----
Gavin visited again last night, and I asked him if anyone had brought him into my space. He went, "You mean the transvestite, right?"
And after I facepalmed, I said "Yes, the transvestite redhead who makes little if any sense. He's actually a fox. Well, THE Fox. As far as I know."
"I figured. I mean, he's nice, but he's also... off."
"He's crazy like a fox, isn't he?"
So we ended up talking about Spring Awakening and my ridiculously strong connection with Ilse; and at some point the Bruin came in because I was feeling like shit, so after I got Gavin to calm down in spite of a giant bear in the room, I told him "Please don't panic, he's actually really sweet!"
"Holy fuck, WHAT?"
"Well, not SWEET, but he's Moritz's totem and that means he's connected to you, too. And then he's some sort of spiritual husband for me, so I really don't think he'd attack you."
So I stayed next to Gavin for moral support while he let the Bruin come up to him. Eventually, the Bruin got close enough to nudge him, and he called Gavin "Son." He also licked Gavin a few times. It was gross due to the slobber, but also adorable.
-----
Happenings in the Otherworld, Part 1:
-Just before the Fourth of July, Ferdiad helped me pick out four possibly-ogham stones from the River Shannon, and I grew a pine tree from one of them. The other three are a willow, a hawthorn, and a rowan. Not sure what this means, but I planted the pine tree first and it's doing pretty well by my spirit-hedgerows.
-I think the reason I've been less torturous about analyzing things is because the Fox (partially) deafened me around the end of June. I was getting overwhelmed by things and so I went into a cave with Moritz and Hanschen again, and we ended up with Arthur. The Bruin also followed us into the cave.
So I'm trying to get to sleep and also trying to figure things out with Arthur, when suddenly the Fox comes in and goes, "Looks like SOMEONE needs earplugs! XD" And so he kneels me down and puts a chopstick in my left ear. Naturally, Hanschen goes, "FOX, THAT IS NOT AN EARPLUG. TAKE IT OUT NOW."
And Fox just got really confused and worried about Hanschen's reaction, so Arthur starts slowly maneuvering over to try and get the chopstick out of my ear himself. Unfortunately, Fox gets startled when he looks up and Arthur is suddenly right next to him, and he twitches and ruptures Spirit-Me's eardrum.
It actually wasn't too painful, but SWEET GOD THE RINGING. Hanschen told me that the spiritual deafness would only last a few days (which it did), but it didn't help the fact that I was temporarily deaf and Fox was now extremely upset because he genuinely thought the chopstick was just an earplug. He thought he'd accidentally clawed my ear or something.
And then the Tiger of all things comes in and says to me, "Well, aren't you getting to know lots of royalty?"
"What do you mean?"
"The king of Britain, the king of the forest, and the king of beasts."
"...Huh." I tried to shake out the ringing from habit, and after I stopped, I asked the Tiger, "Why ARE you here, by the way?"
"I'm a king, aren't I? I can go wherever I want." So he flicked his tail around and went on with, "The Fox never meant to stop up your ears. It's just that the poor thing loses track of all those thoughts swirling around in his head. Someone wants this, but needs something like that; things are happening then or now or later, or all at the same time. Everything is always happening, but Fox is especially sensitive to it."
And I said, "So... why would he rupture my eardrum? Fox is a dancer, and most performers would want the OPPOSITE of hearing loss."
The Tiger looked at me and said, "You are always bothered because you can't understand things. It is because you always hear things from every direction, and so you rarely get enough time to sort it out. That is why Fox deafened you, at least for a while. The right ear hears, while the left understands."
Then I remembered that Fox bit Hanschen's right ear and left his tooth there when he'd first met me, so I asked the Tiger what it meant. He said, "Well, Hanschen keeps hearing the bad things; that is bad for a fox, especially a young one. With the Fox's tooth, at least some of them will get thrown off and go through the hole in his ear."
Not quite sure what that means, but body and ear piercing has a really old spiritual role, so maybe the Fox's tooth is a protective thing for Hanschen.
And... yeah, things have become a lot easier. There's less stuff to filter out since I'm not getting bombarded with spirit-noise.
Other spiritual updates will be in my next post. I'm hoping I can finish it before my photoshoot and after I'm done with my Grimm play's draft.
-My play's draft is coming along nicely. I actually have quite a bit more than ten pages/minutes right now, but Macha is insisting on helping me and now I've got two songs to tweak and put into the script. I asked Macha why and she said, "You helped find my twins, even if it was an accident. That means good things."
-I found a really nice dress for my photoshoot. (It's less frivolous than it sounds, I swear.) You know how Tribal-Celtic Me tends to wear a pale green dress? I've been meaning to make a tunic/dress like it, but... well, now I don't have to.
As the rule of cosplaying goes: The more basic the color, the harder it is to find. Finding "light green" fabric or clothes is right up there with finding something red (most reds are too brown/orange), yellow (frequently ends up on the tacky orange/fake-gold side), or purple (too blue, too red, or too dark). I've been looking for a nice shirt/tunic/skirt in light green for a straight year, but everything is either "mint" (which is sort of bluish/turquoise), "neon" (self-explanatory), or "LET'S PUT A BUNCH OF BEADS AND SHIT ON THIS AWESOME DRESS."
So on Sunday I was at church, and I was just really sleepy because the church is always hot and dark. Spirit-Me just went, "Ha, you're not in any mood to attend Mass today, are you?" and something just... SWITCHED. I got less tired and spacey. Then I remembered that my medicine-woman said whenever her normal self can't deal with something, she can always ask her spirit to take over until she can. And sometimes her spirit-self just does it without needing to be asked.
Luckily, the most I was dealing with was sleepiness and lack of focus, but Spirit-Me told me that I am not limited to minor inconveniences. And basically, Normal-me just curled up in my meditation room with Moritz until Mass was over.
My family went to the mall afterward and after I was hunting around for SOMETHING in light-green, I only find a lacy hi-low skirt. Which is actually adorable, but not what I'm looking for. (I did buy it, though.)
So I just look at the hair accessories for a few minutes, but when I'm heading back to where my sister is looking, Albatross says, "LEFT." Hence, I look left and spot this floaty light-green dress near the end of a rack, which is awesome enough, but then I picked it off the rack and saw Celtic-esque embroidery in dark green along the chest. Lots of spirals, really clean lines (helped by the split-stitching), and then there are the almost-triskeles on the bottom.
Which went shooting past "nice dress in the color I want" into "shit, this is freaky," so I bought it (as made evident by the dress pictures being in my room). Scale-wise, it's about an inch or two above my ankles.
And while I'm thinking, "Yay, I can be all medieval-ish for my photoshoot!", Macha goes, "The hell did we tell you about trying to FIND things?"
The dress even goes awesome with the silver girdle-like belt I got a couple of months ago (but can only wear if I really, REALLY dress up since only one of my dresses goes well with it), and while I'm definitely quite happy about it, I'm also a little bit freaked out.
-----
Gavin visited again last night, and I asked him if anyone had brought him into my space. He went, "You mean the transvestite, right?"
And after I facepalmed, I said "Yes, the transvestite redhead who makes little if any sense. He's actually a fox. Well, THE Fox. As far as I know."
"I figured. I mean, he's nice, but he's also... off."
"He's crazy like a fox, isn't he?"
So we ended up talking about Spring Awakening and my ridiculously strong connection with Ilse; and at some point the Bruin came in because I was feeling like shit, so after I got Gavin to calm down in spite of a giant bear in the room, I told him "Please don't panic, he's actually really sweet!"
"Holy fuck, WHAT?"
"Well, not SWEET, but he's Moritz's totem and that means he's connected to you, too. And then he's some sort of spiritual husband for me, so I really don't think he'd attack you."
So I stayed next to Gavin for moral support while he let the Bruin come up to him. Eventually, the Bruin got close enough to nudge him, and he called Gavin "Son." He also licked Gavin a few times. It was gross due to the slobber, but also adorable.
-----
Happenings in the Otherworld, Part 1:
-Just before the Fourth of July, Ferdiad helped me pick out four possibly-ogham stones from the River Shannon, and I grew a pine tree from one of them. The other three are a willow, a hawthorn, and a rowan. Not sure what this means, but I planted the pine tree first and it's doing pretty well by my spirit-hedgerows.
-I think the reason I've been less torturous about analyzing things is because the Fox (partially) deafened me around the end of June. I was getting overwhelmed by things and so I went into a cave with Moritz and Hanschen again, and we ended up with Arthur. The Bruin also followed us into the cave.
So I'm trying to get to sleep and also trying to figure things out with Arthur, when suddenly the Fox comes in and goes, "Looks like SOMEONE needs earplugs! XD" And so he kneels me down and puts a chopstick in my left ear. Naturally, Hanschen goes, "FOX, THAT IS NOT AN EARPLUG. TAKE IT OUT NOW."
And Fox just got really confused and worried about Hanschen's reaction, so Arthur starts slowly maneuvering over to try and get the chopstick out of my ear himself. Unfortunately, Fox gets startled when he looks up and Arthur is suddenly right next to him, and he twitches and ruptures Spirit-Me's eardrum.
It actually wasn't too painful, but SWEET GOD THE RINGING. Hanschen told me that the spiritual deafness would only last a few days (which it did), but it didn't help the fact that I was temporarily deaf and Fox was now extremely upset because he genuinely thought the chopstick was just an earplug. He thought he'd accidentally clawed my ear or something.
And then the Tiger of all things comes in and says to me, "Well, aren't you getting to know lots of royalty?"
"What do you mean?"
"The king of Britain, the king of the forest, and the king of beasts."
"...Huh." I tried to shake out the ringing from habit, and after I stopped, I asked the Tiger, "Why ARE you here, by the way?"
"I'm a king, aren't I? I can go wherever I want." So he flicked his tail around and went on with, "The Fox never meant to stop up your ears. It's just that the poor thing loses track of all those thoughts swirling around in his head. Someone wants this, but needs something like that; things are happening then or now or later, or all at the same time. Everything is always happening, but Fox is especially sensitive to it."
And I said, "So... why would he rupture my eardrum? Fox is a dancer, and most performers would want the OPPOSITE of hearing loss."
The Tiger looked at me and said, "You are always bothered because you can't understand things. It is because you always hear things from every direction, and so you rarely get enough time to sort it out. That is why Fox deafened you, at least for a while. The right ear hears, while the left understands."
Then I remembered that Fox bit Hanschen's right ear and left his tooth there when he'd first met me, so I asked the Tiger what it meant. He said, "Well, Hanschen keeps hearing the bad things; that is bad for a fox, especially a young one. With the Fox's tooth, at least some of them will get thrown off and go through the hole in his ear."
Not quite sure what that means, but body and ear piercing has a really old spiritual role, so maybe the Fox's tooth is a protective thing for Hanschen.
And... yeah, things have become a lot easier. There's less stuff to filter out since I'm not getting bombarded with spirit-noise.
Other spiritual updates will be in my next post. I'm hoping I can finish it before my photoshoot and after I'm done with my Grimm play's draft.