NY, NY: Row Ye Bastards!

The actual prompt is Shoulder to the Wheel. I can't help but think of Eddie Izzard talking about the Druids co-opting people to move the giant stones of Stonehenge so many miles, and then making them move them around like living room furniture. Why? Fixing the last entrenched habits always feels just impossibly impossible.



I looked up my starter post with all the goals on it. I've been avoiding it a little, thinking I'd be horribly far behind. And I'm not! TA-DAAAA! How thrilling is that? I'm trying not to feel smug about it. The disorganization at home that I've barely grazed is tempering my pride and keeping it at manageable levels. There are weekend plans to cross some big stuff off the home organization list, like charitable donations, clearing clutter, and hopefully finding better places for the nitty gritty stuff that valiantly resisted my first round of serious organization. I really, really have to get this under control because 2012 is a nonstop running kind of year, which means discipline is required to get things done that I don't particularly like to do.

I'm working on my office stuff being more organized, which has suddenly become very important since we're shifting around the client load a bit, i.e. I have a lot more work and responsibility on my plate suddenly. That extra work? Totally the result of a long series of magical workings, naturally coming to fruition when I finally gave up hope, complete with details and timing that are a "be careful what you wish for and maybe you should put an expiration date on things" warning. It has the potential to be excellent, but a lot more hours and responsibility on top of a full life are going to be a challenge.
I can do it... I just have to be less complacent than I allowed myself to become in some arenas.

I'm doing great with my magic goals to take advantage of the place my life is in right now and do more things more often. That is due in very large part to Jason's fabulous Strategic Sorcery course.*  I love it. There are even visible fruits of all those daily works and being more action oriented. I'm working out my own recipes for elemental oils (a friend's request), one for a combo of clear thinking and understanding coupled with decisive acting on that understanding - so great for work or communicating through some difficult issues, and there's some candle making and Hoodoo oils.

I love that the water one on top has that murky swamp quality. It makes me think of the True Blood opening sequence.

And look! A semi-magical garden of seedlings! Gardening is one of those things I don't have much luck with but really want to do well. Those tall guys are the green beans, who grow a few inches a day. The goal is to grow a variety of plants to fruition so that one day I can order seeds from the splendid Harold and successfully grow plants intended solely for magic. A worthwhile goal since many of those seeds grow plants that are very hard to buy without growing them yourself or living in a place where they grow wild. That place is not Texas.

Beyond magic, the course responsible for my mental organization being much better (which is a byproduct of a more disciplined daily practice). A better mental environment means clearer, better thinking with more reason and less bull, which translates into a more realistic and far less caustic way of seeing myself. Mundanely, I've been taking better care of myself, dressing better, and I even got a new haircut today that can be either professional or wild and punky. The haircut was a shoulder to the stone gesture because it's an investment I'd been putting off, even though it carries an impact on several goals I'm working on. Getting out of my own way is a good thing.

My stylist seriously has some kind of supernatural gift for beautification and hair skills (not that this picture shows it, but I have a decade of experience to know that she's got something going on).

*For those of you playing along at home, you might recall that I've been a little bit timid with some of the Ceremonial Magic aspects of the course. Jason was reassuring, and sure enough, mispronouncing something doesn't open some Buffy-style portal into an evil dimension of wrathful spirits.