Hello friends,

So the plan starting in January was that I would be blogging on a weekly basis. Plans didn’t really change, I just procrastinated and made excuses and told myself “tomorrow” or “Next Week”….

This post is the lead up covering some of my spiritual and metaphysical life in early 2020….

So in the last week of 2019 or perhaps the first week in 2020, I was resurfacing from my “Year from Hell in 2019″… (side note: I have sent 2019 a formal letter of apology for calling it that given the current situation here in 2020…)

I was striving to ground and to center and to breathe into my chakras; have been doing that for a while… trying to remember who I was…. or perhaps who I can be… when I am not letting a job eat nearly every ounce of my brain and time.

This particular evening I had been experimenting with my recently acquired Spotify account (Free cause I am cheap and don’t particularly mind ads). I have loaded and am experimenting with Spotify and Instagram. I briefly explored Snapchat and Tik Tok but was not enamored with either enough to leave on the phone. So I was looking through stuff I could stream on Spotify and came across a couple of Podcasts I knew from a few years ago… including Down at the Crossroads. The new intro for DATC is a bit of ritual…

The Crossroads Rite

by Christopher Orapello and Tara Love-Maguire

From the east, I go to West

About to North.

And then to South

Crossing roads as I go about.

Laying the ground for a witches work.

Down at the crossroads is where I vow.

To meet with she and he and they and thou.

Upon this night, and in this hour.

I call upon thee to beseech thy power.

The words stirred something inside me… I found myself gathering a bunch of my old notebooks and a number of the magickal and pagan books from my shelves and looking through them… the itch to witch had been stirred once more! After a while of looking through things and listening to the podcasts and remembering and rediscovering a number of notes and journalings from my past; I decided to go out onto the back patio and enjoy a cigar and a bottle of cider.

For some reason, I made in my mind the resolution that this was an offering to the Witchfather. At the back of my skull, where I have felt a sense of connection to Him in the past, I felt…almost plugged in…as if properly connected for the first time… and in that moment a strong sense of presence.

Over the next few weeks there was a strong sense of connection to Him, and small stirrings of my creative energy and urges to write and my best grounded and centered self. At the same time the first few months of the year are a busy season in Central Florida and being in the budget segment of the Hotel/Motel industry here means the first few months of the year are hectic! Thus the above mentioned procrastination.

Now I’d be lying if I said it was all based on the business of work. Some of it was the low ebb of my self-worth and self-esteem and self-confidence that had been afflicting me since late 2018… (more details on that later) The house was a mess and in disrepair, still is mostly but some progress has been made so “Yay us!” I guess? (us as in myself and the Fabulous Jonathan, my bear and partner)

ANYWHOW…

The first few weeks of 2020 were not bad overall… busy and with the continuing phenomena of moments of realization or guidance… small moments where I would catch myself having a thought or realization that came from the Witchfather rather than from my own self. Small things like thinking about the frustrations of my day as I took a cigarette break and having what I sense as His influence or thoughts in my head “Well smoking cigarettes serves neither of us well….”

Lots, of little moments like that… So the mad rush of days continues into February and in late February both my partner and I came down with what we though was a horrible flu or bronchitis or something.. Miserable flu like symptoms and lots of coughing (with a mess of phlegm… gross detail but important later…) With Tree Pollen season in Central Florida being in late February through late March I am used to physical suffering this time of year and allergy season seemed to start earlier this year with a bunch of hot and cold spells in December and January priming the pollen pumps on the trees.

One night I had taken every medication I could to fight the miserable physical symptoms I was feeling… and unable to sleep I tried doing a cleansing life force exercise.

I’ve written about this before, it’s an idea I got from the writings of T Thorn Coyle and apparently originated in the Anderson Faery Tradition of Witchcraft. This exercise is one where you pour a glass of water into a cup or chalice or what-have-you.. and then you visualize pouring your energy feelings and thoughts into the water, you bless and cleanse and consecrate the water and the energy… and then you drink it up taking the cleansed energy back into yourself. I like the idea of this better than simply cleansing or washing away the negative energies one can accumulate with water and salt in a bath or what not…

So as I was trying to do this I started thinking about all the times I had not spoken up or done something about in a negative or difficult or painful situation over the last few years. It saw like mental dominoes as I started to contemplate every time I had let me best truest self be smothered due to fear or a sense of helplessness or the bs of the moment. (note to self: hopped up on cold and flu medication is probably not the best time to be doing this sort of magickal work!) I started to just sob and feel like there was no way I could deal with all of this…

My right hand moved from the chalice I was cradling in my hands and moved to the back of my head where I have always felt my connection to Him and the thought came to me…

“You do not have to deal with ALL of this now….do what you can and keep trying to heal…”

So I blessed and cleansed the energy and water and drank it down…

And the mad rush of days, and the general feeling physically icky, continued for the next few weeks. Covid was starting to hit the news cycle regularly…

Disney had announced they were closing their Parks world wide and their cruise lines for the next six or nine weeks… which in itself was more than a little scary given the money involved and the fact that since opening in 1971 Walt Disney World had at that point closed for about 9 days in its 40 plus years of operation… 8 times for Hurricanes impacting the Orlando/Kissimmee area and once for September 11th 2001… So Disney’s announcement that they were shutting operations for months…

I had shortness of breath. Persistent. Nothing I did seemed to help. So feeling desperate I got my insurance information together and went to the ER….

(And I am realizing that this is more of a multi-post experience… more on my adventures thru 2020 later…)