Thursday, December 16, 2021

The best Christmas gift is to help someone in need

Arnoldo Lopez Contreras was labor trafficked in San Francisco, then seriously injured on a job, and has been struggling to get back on his feet ever since. Because of the prohibitively high rents in the Bay Area, Arnoldo has been living in his truck for several years.

On August 2, 2021, Arnoldo's truck was stolen in Oakland. Thieves took his transportation and his home. They got all his personal belongings, $4000 worth of tools, and his newly won Green Card. They took the small foothold he has been carving out for years, as he's been working to gain stability and send money to his family.

Arnoldo is working hard to regain what was lost, but it is challenging to start back at square one. He's been working as a handyman and painter, but he needs to replace his tools in order to work. He needs a reliable truck. He needs a place to sleep.

Please help another person have Christmas. He can hardly believe that complete strangers would be kind enough to donate when he has been through so much. Let's show him that despite what he has been through, humans can still be kind.

Anything you can spare, no matter how little, will make a difference. You can find more info and donate here: https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-a-labor-trafficking-survivor-stay-sheltered

Friday, December 10, 2021

Listen carefully to your gut

 
Your body never lies to you. You should listen to it, especially if you want to follow a path related to magick or if you are an empath or psychic of any kind.
 
If you're feeling stressed, or angry, your body is trying to give you a message. Whenever I feel angry, it's because someone is violating a boundary and entering my personal space uninvited. My mind may not be up to speed with what's happening. I may need to discuss with a friend to put my finger on the exact reason I feel mad and how that person is disrespecting me. It's not always obvious, but I know something is wrong. I know it because I'm irate. What my mind can't immediately locate under layers and layers of social conditioning, pretence, and polite coercion, my body understands just fine. The animal in me bares its teeth and wants to bite. I should listen to the message for my sake. Careful here: listening to the message does not mean acting on it. Feelings exist to give you feedback. They aren't there to tell you what to do. Impulsively acting on them is not going to take you to a better place.

What if I'm wrong, you'll say. What if the person or situation is OK and I'm the one who has the problem?
 
Even that is a valid reason to back off. They may be safe, they may even be suitable. But if you are not feeling comfortable, then you're not ready. Not being ready is as valid a reason as they come. And if you're right about feeling uneasy, believe me, you don't want to find out why the hard way.

A few nights ago I was out, doing my walking routine. I usually pass by an old building with a large garden. The garden fence is mostly non-existent. If I step into that garden, I find myself walking alongside the street. The street and the streetlights are no longer visible, because there are large bushes that act as a natural fence. I need to take thirty to forty steps in that garden before I find myself on the street again, exiting through a hole in the fence. 
 
It's usually quiet in there, and sometimes I take the detour because I want to feel the change in atmosphere. This building is very close to Ymittos mount, and even though it's next to other houses and in theory I am still in the city, the atmosphere is different than walking on the street. I don't take the detour every night; only when the mood strikes.
 
So here I was, strolling without a care in the world, listening to All About Eve. I love that band, especially their sad songs, and I was in a good mood when I reached that place. I walked five steps in and realised I was terrified, though there was nothing there. I took one look at the way the light wind was making the tree-tops shake, another look at the darkness, and something inside me screamed, "get out, get out now, return to the light." 
 
For a split second my mind attempted to barge in and convince me that everything was fine. You know: there is no reason to feel that way, there is no-one here, you should not act like a baby, blah de blah. Thankfully I'm way past the point I need to prove myself to anyone, myself included. I elbowed my mind in the nose, metaphorically speaking, turned on my heels, and I was outta there. I admit I breathed a huge sigh of relief as soon as I stepped back into the safety of the streetlight, and I kept looking behind my back until I had put some distance between me and that place.

Now you're probably expecting some dramatic explanation, some proper justification for my behaviour. I am sorry if this is going to be anticlimactic. I don't have an explanation. I can say that the particular night was in the time-frame between the two eclipses. During eclipses various gates open, as eclipses are powerful astrological phenomena that release a lot of energy. Maybe something had stepped out of one such gate. What I do know for certain is that I am too old, and have had too many nasty etheric encounters in my life to shit in my pants just because the wind was blowing. I was spooked that night, I was downright terrified. I like darkness a lot, but that night, the wrong kind of darkness awaited in there. It was the hungry darkness that lurks in bad places during the small hours; the darkness that causes car accidents to happen, that makes normal people decide to bash their wife's head in because she said the wrong thing. That sort of darkness. And honestly, exorcism rituals are a lot of work. It's just plain stupid to have to go through one because you carried something home with you. 
 
To sum this up, don't ignore your own body screaming something at you. Feeling like an idiot for being spooked without a reason is a hundred times better than going through damage control because something bad happened. And some bad things cannot be undone, so please be vigilant. These are strange times.

Hope the new year will be better. Take good care everyone.

(As per usual, if you'd like to support this scaredy old cat, please buy her a coffee.)