Another New Project…

I want to apologize for my silence here, though I know I really shouldn’t. It’s been so quiet because I’ve started a new project, and have been trying to be gentler on myself.

What is this new project? A non fiction book!

Essentially, this new book is about mental illness and spirituality, and so much of the energy I would normally put into this blog and my youtube channel has instead gone into the book.

Luckily, however, I have a good friend who has agreed to coach me on the book, so this book should actually get done! So far, I have the beginnings of a contents page, approximately 5,000 words, and several prayers written out.

Why yes, it’s a book that involves prayers. It’s going to be a spiritual book, my friends, and I can’t wait to share more about it soon. But for now, I am going to rest.

Take care, everyone ❤

Officially in Two Shops!

Hey lovelies! I am so happy to finally announce that, after much effort and outreach, TwoLoveBirds is officially in two shops local to me! One is a book store called ‘les Appalaches’, located in Sherbrooke, Quebec, and the other is a cute little gift shop located in Lennoxville, Quebec called ‘les 3 fees’ (literally, the three fairies). Both are very charming and cute places, and if ever you are in the are you must visit them! Also, if you’re wanting to buy one of my books, you can order it from them!

I wish I could continue this post by saying that I am celebrating, feasting, and being quite jolly about this new step forward. But the fact is, I’m terrified. I’m upset and miserable.

The moment I knew that my books were accepted, I plunged into a depression. Self-destructive anxiety came over me, and I just worried about how I don’t have enough advertisements, how my books may very well not sell, and so on and so forth.

The truth is I want this project to keep growing. I don’t want to be set back and told that, in fact, my books won’t sell on a local level. I don’t want to be told that they are too niche and too unrelatable and so on and so forth. I’m afraid, and so I quiver and melt down.

I have been supported lately by lovely people, and I am safe and not in harm’s way, so please do not worry. I will persevere, and I will progress. Hopefully the twolovebirds will, too!

Wishing you all the best. ❤

Happy Esbat!

Yesterday was the full moon, lovelies, and I had a great time. I was feeling well enough to make two types of fudge for the fairies (one gluten and dairy free, and the other with evaporated milk in it!). I did some personal workings with my close friends, and we sat back and talked while the magic did its thing.

But what is an Esbat? For me, it’s very much like a sabbat, except it’s about the moon.

I know, I know, it’s technically not ‘right’. Sabbats are traditionally celebrations, time to ‘turn the wheel’, while Esbats are times for personal workings. But for me, the two intertwine.

You see, I’m not much of a moon person. Sacrilege, I know. Most witches are massive moon people. But I am a sun and daylight person. As such, I find myself wanting to do workings in line with the sun, during Sabbats. For me, I find that these seasonal turnings are a great way to keep my life moving forward.

And yet, the end of this full moon feels like it’s marking the beginning of spring. Here, it is warm now. The sun is shining fully, the snow is melting. After all, the full moon is usually the coldest part of the lunar cycle. So now, with the full moon ended and spring approaching, it is lovely out. I am gearing up, starting my plans, for spring and the garden. I will be setting up my sprouts soon, but not yet!

So in this sense, it feels like the Esbat has taken on the role of the Sabbat, heralding the closeness of spring.

And you? How do you define a Sabbat versus an Esbat? How do you celebrate both, and how do you view them in your traditions?

I don’t have any particular wisdom for you beyond that, but I do wish you all a lovely seasonal beginning. I hope you enjoyed your full moon, did plenty of lovely workings, and are ready for the season to come!

A New Phase…

As I have written elsewhere, I think on Facebook, a very difficult situation is drawing to a close for me. As it comes to a happy end, paperwork and all, I have felt a ridiculously huge amount of stress lift off my shoulders. I felt a sudden ten percent jump (approximately) in functioning! So so much stress was suddenly gone, and now I feel a new shift in myself. I feel like I came to a turning point, was suddenly placed back in the driver’s wheel of my life, and some decisions were made. Namely, I’m going to be delving back into my spiritual practice and trying to recenter. I want to return to my roots as a pagan and Buddhist, and to feel myself grow.

So! I got myself a new sketchbook to make into a BOS, I made some concrete weight loss and spiritual practice goals (including taking a buddhist meditation class from a local Tibetan nun!) And I am trying to be gentler and more mindful of myself in my day to day experience. Oh, and yoga. I have been doing yoga twice a day now for a week, following short “yoga with Adrienne ” videos. I have to say I’m really enjoying her videos, and feel very pleased with myself for doing them!

And yet I find myself looking to my fresh new book of shadows and wondering… what shall I put in there? What would you counsel, friends and new readers? I am thinking of revisiting the elder futhark, but beyond that and buddhist meditations, I feel a little lost as to what to do with my shiny new notebook. Any advice or words of wisdom would be greatly appreciated!

As always, I wish you all the best! Have you recently had any spiritual turn around? Let me know what you did, or what you’d advise to do!

Fire! Its Alive!

When I first started writing Farfadel novels, I did not have access to a fireplace. Fire was a fun thing to dabble with via candles on occasion.

But now? Its been two years of living with a wood burning stove, and this winter I’m actively trying to keep it alive and burning to heat our tiny home. And, well, I’ve noticed a large change in how I approach fire.

Maybe its my overactive imagination, but I’ve started enacting rules from my Farfadel novels around my own fire! For example, I do not speak to the fire, unless I am certain what I say cannot be taken out of context to cause damage or silliness. I am cautious, really, not to speak disrespectful things around the fire. You wouldn’t want the Fire Lady to appear, in spirit of course, but I wouldn’t want to piss off the element of fire!

It sounds silly, right? But I’ve really come to see the fire as a living entity within my home. I cajole it quietly some days, trying to get it to burn higher. It burns my hands when I try and feed it without my thick gloves on. I wake up grudgingly to feed it at nighttime, and relay the care thereof with my wife.

Now, I can’t say this has affected my writing that much. But it has brought my writing about fire to be more… alive? For me, at least. It has brought what I thought of as a silly, fun thing, into a real life application!

I dont have great shards of wisdom to share about this. On one hand, I do feel like this brings my novels eerily into a realm of reality im not sure I want them to be. In another, it reminds me cozily of the truth and reality that permeates all things. So… I have no great conclusion. But I wish you well, wherever you are, and hope you are warm and safe 😊 ❤

Cptsd, Books, and Created Spirits

Today, I discovered something. Namely, that I do not particularly like living in other people’s worlds.

What do I mean? I mean reading. But not the usual kind of reading. I mean, there comes a point when the reading is too engrossing, that you start feeling the story live around you. I hope im not the only one to experience this, because it is unsettling. Even more unsettling is the fact I have no control over where the story or setting will go. So I try and read faster to rip off the bandage and get it over with. But that usually just engrossed me more, and I sink deeper into this world.

It almost feels like a mist around me, today. The feeling, the aura of this novel I’m reading. In an esoteric sense, I suppose one could say the created soul, the Grigori of the book has been summoned. But it bothers me.

It really, truly, bothers me because the only stories where I want to live and feel myself in and around me are ones I can control, at least to some degree. Where I can halt the pain. Where I can truly enjoy myself without too much fear. There is uncertainty in every writing or true artistic endeavor, I suppose. But I like to imagine that I, the author, am in control of the art.

But in the past few days I have sprained my wrist rather badly, and so have been reading others novels instead of immersing in my own. In fact, I’ve done more reading in the past 24 hours than I have in a month. It has been fun, but rather unsettling. I feel like if I push the envelope, I will be bridging two worlds, that one I live in and the one I am reading about.

Thinking of it in terms of a created spirit, a Grigori, makes sense to me now, but it is still unsettling. I sort of feel like the silver tongue in Inkheart, who could create things by reading them aloud (or so I recall of the story). Truly, I am sure, there are many spiritual ramifications to this, from the neopagan perspective as well as an authors perspective. But I dont want to go there too much.

I like reality, but I also enjoy my own fantasy worlds. Today, while being all cozy, I realized that I truly enjoy immersing in my fantasy worlds and half living in them. I say half living, because they are all I think and breathe for half a day, or a quarter. They fill my mind and obsess me. They bring this aura to me, this presence of joy. It makes me feel accompanied, loved, and surrounded by magic. But it saddens me to realize, as I did today, that the only tasks I am truly successful at are ones that involve sinking into these fantasy worlds. Tasks related to reality and observing it, like cleaning, I am terrible at.

Maybe I am looking too much into things, but maybe I am not. Cptsd makes me often want to escape, to run away, to forget. It has made me sensitive, I suppose, but also makes me… unreal at the same time. I feel, because of my memory loss, a disconnect from the past. Like it didn’t actually happen to me. At the same time I feel a void where my memories should be. In a sense, I feel forever young because I am not aging because I have so few memories and ties to reality.

Anyways, I am writing this purely because I wanted to share. If you are out there an have lived something similar, this bridging of worlds between books and reality, please let me know. I’d like not to be the only one. If you read this and find it curious, I’ll admit that it is! But please don’t just think “oh thats weird” and move on. Entertain me a little, and think on what ifs and ramifications with me. Discuss with me, I’d greatly enjoy it.

In any case, I wish you all the best. Have a lovely day 💗

Discussion on Mental Health and Paganism – Where are the Disabled Folks?

I saw an article the other day, in a free pagan magazine. Yay! It was about mental health and paganism. Wow! I was so excited!

Yay, yay, yay, I thought as I first saw the page-long article. Something interesting to read! Finally, some in-depth something on the topic!

Uh, yeah no. After a few sentences, then a quick skim-through, I was instantly depressed. Because apparently, just because we say ‘merry meet’, we’re a welcoming bunch. And the fact that we do fire gazing? Wow, that, like, taps us into ourselves and allows us to be grounded and shit. And the way we say ‘so mote it be’? Well, that allows us to accept things as they are. So, basically, (according to this author) we pagans are well equipped to deal with mental health issues because of these three things.

I was floored. What. The. Fuck.

This article, in my personal opinion, was like saying you get your vegetables from a pumpkin spice latte (Hint: there’s no pumpkin in most pumpkin spice lattes). I mean, really? Really? Not only was this a super-shallow discussion on the topic which failed to acknowledge SO MUCH of the discrimination that happens in neopagan circles, it felt like it was written by someone who had NO knowledge on the topic.

Now, maybe that person does have lots of insights and experience, but that their one article was just poorly written. Because really, it felt like a lazy slap in the face. It was just like a cotton-candied fluff of an article saying ‘don’t worry, it’s all fine, we’re the best, and here are my poorly-researched reasons as to why’.

Ughhh. Here, let me recap for you: most pagans don’t believe in medications, which are essential for most mentally ill people. Most pagans not only demonize psychiatric medication, but they also straight-out prohibit people taking certain medications from entering into their circles. Oh, and many pagans think mental illness ‘doesn’t exist’, so it’s all fake and we don’t really need clinical help. We should just, go trip out with a shaman or something and tada, we’re all cured. (this is a simplistic recap, by the way, but it would be a HUGE rant if I got into details about it).

I guess my point for this article is to vent, and to really say -> please don’t brush off this topic. It’s a real, vital, topic. It’s not something to be taken lightly. It’s meaningful and deep, and has repercussions for people’s mental health. To claim a hostile environment is, in fact, safe, juts because you haven’t experienced the discrimination as a non-mentally ill person is… flabbergasting? To put it nicely.

Also, why is it that there are so few wide-spread articles on paganism and mental illness from seriously disabled mentally ill peoples? Why is it that the articles I find are from people who had mild depressive bouts, not people who are schizophrenic to the point of a disability, crippled by anxiety to the point of a disability, or people with uncontrollable OCD? Why don’t we get people talking about their experiences as Wiccan or pagan in a psych ward?

It feels to me that our discussion, which should be written by very disabled and chronically ill people, is instead being discussed by abled and at best temporarily incapacitated people. Even the course I’m taking on self-healing at Woolston is not led by an ill person, but instead by an abled (to my knowledge) practitioner, and I find it shows in their approach. I really wonder how the discussion would look if we instead had all the disabled and chronically ill through mental illness folks sitting at this table. If you do have resources that are written my disabled folks, especially blogs and such, I’d love to read them. But for now, I’ll just grump and brood in my corner.

Writing a Book?

Yeah, I know, wow. The author wants to write ANOTHER book. But, hear me out here, this one would be about *drumroll* -> me.

Me, my story, my vulnerabilities, my lived experiences. My spiritual experiences. Now, my knee jerk reaction is that this seems incredibly selfish. After all, what I’ve gone through is not necessarily that interesting for anyone else than me. And besides, I have shit for memory. My memory is like a blended fruitcake that was then strained. Only chunks remain, and they ain’t sweet anymore.

But – would this be useful for me? Would this story help me heal? Would it force me to come to terms with things? I don’t know. I hope so. I feel – I don’t know. Having been told by my psychiatrist to get in tune with my emotions struck a chord in me. I’ve upped my medication, yes, but I want to up my inner game as well. I want to gain some inner strength.

So my question to you all is, have you done this before? Have any of you written out your experiences as a therapy, and shared it for others to read? How did that help you? Was it difficult? Did it really help, or was it just mush?

And finally, I’d like to ask you, my faithful readers, how you would like me to go about this? Would you like snippets posted here and on other sites? Or should I just focus on writing it all, then decide what to do with it? How would you go about writing a book about your life, especially if your brain is something like a mix of swiss cheese and apple pudding as far as memory retainment goes? What would you like to know about me? Ideas on what to focus on?

Magic and Mental Exhaustion/Depression

I saw my psychiatrist recently. When she asked me how I was feeling, at that instant, I couldn’t tell her. Even when I was tearing up, I couldn’t get in touch with my emotions. Well, she said, time to get in touch again.

And so I’ve signed up for an emotional healing course at Woolston. Long story short, we were doing a fire grounding exercise and it made me feel sick. But the important thing was that when I did the next exercise, I realized that I didn’t have the inner energy to shield myself.

Now, a little idea clicked within me then. Maybe a bit dumb, but it bears laying out for those of us with magical lifestyles. And that is that: when you’re mentally/emotionally exhausted, you won’t have the energy to draw on for energy/magical practices.

Be it writing into a candle, or reaching down into the earth, I found that it was inaccessible. I did not merely feel tired, but I had no energy to reach within to tap into. The pool inside was empty, to the point of making me feel sick when I tried to expel/use some.

Alright, so? What’s the use of that?

The use of this is, if you are depressed and chronically ill/fatigued, do magic that doesn’t require you to have any inside of you. Wield the magic of the runes, of the woods you live next to, or what have you. But if you feel dead beat tired and emotionally spent, you might just have no energy, and your spell work may hurt you more.

So be wise, and be a vampire! I’m joking, of course. But really, try and find passive ways of doing magic and grounding. Ask the gods for aid, use elemental magic, and do grounding techniques that don’t require you to output energy first.

Currently I am trying to do grounding and body check ins (as is instructed in the class) and I shall see if any more insights come from that.

I hope this helps someone.

A Dark Horizon…

I am writing this in what feels a stolen piece of time, a writing ‘on the sly’, like I am hiding from someone.

The truth is, I am hiding from my mental illness. I woke up today, and could not function. I had hit near-rock bottom. I could not shower, wash the dishes, or perform my usual tasks. Knitting plain stitch felt difficult. After dragging myself around the house for a few hours, I went back to bed. I napped.

Mercifully, I felt better. I cooked, showered, prepared the dishes to be washed tomorrow morning, and wrote (because that’s another part of my essential tasks, haha). Now, I feel like I don’t want to go to sleep. I don’t want this burst of feel-good to end. I’m afraid that my illness is creeping back, seizing my life in its grip, and taking over again. I’m afraid of having to go into the hospital, if I keep backwards sliding. I’m worried about the pressure of keeping it all up is placing on my already sick wife.

I know I’ve been through a lot lately. I’m grieving, my social worker says. It’s hard, and understandable. But the anxiety, the brain fog is returning. The strange non-pain in my head that means I can’t think has come back. The strange compulsions (eat the candy bar or you’ll DIE!) are making a comeback as well.

I never wanted this to happen. I’m worried I’m already at too high of a dosage of abilify to amp it up to combat my symptoms. I don’t know what my psychiatrist will say when I see her this coming week. I’m worried there’s nothing to do but rest.

I don’t like feeling like this. I don’t want to be here again.

But you know what? In all this, maybe as a compulsion, maybe as a window of hope, I actually have an idea on how to begin writing a non-fiction book I’ve been wanting to do for years now. Maybe, just maybe, something good will come from this.

Anyways, thoughts and prayers are appreciated. It’s rough right now.