A deep feeling of wonder at nature is not common and not something many people want to enter into on purpose (though they might if they are high on romance or drugs or something). It takes a level of willingness to be vulnerable, because wonder is associated with children and those deemed 'mentally deficient.' Most people just don't believe that a rock is or should ever be an emotionally-relevant object in its own right, and out of those who do believe, they're usually not willing to explore that. Most of the photos you see of people at places like the grand canyon are not of people feeling awe. They aren't really even noticing. They're just like "I'm in a place that has high status! look at me!" or maybe "this makes a great backdrop for my hike" or even "this is aesthetically appealing." But actually being emotionally moved? it's rare, and for me it is incredibly important.

frustrated with myself because I've been writing, but not posting because I get to the 99% done point and stall out. Gotta edit, reread, edit, reread, wait and see if I think of something else, ugh. And then I don't write little random posts like this one because I have such a better one and I want to post THAT instead. Whyyyyyy do I get so fixated on perfection? Why do I break my own ethic of taking imperfect action?

Though, I did a number of things today where I didn't let perfect be the murderer of actually-getting-shit-done. Instead of thoroughly sweeping the back porch & stairs and getting every little flake of leaf off, I just did a quick and dirty job -- first time in ages that that porch & stairs has been swept. The pile was more massive than me, no hyperbole. I also set up a rig (not fancy, but sturdy) so that I can hang fabric along the side where there aren't enough trees to block the neighbors, so that I can sit out there in nature without having to think about my terrible neighbors or ever suffer their gaze. I'm sure not all of them are awful, but at least some of them are. Last year someone(s) deliberately smashed my two glass globe solar lights that were my shimmering joy (I took a photo because it smacked of hate crime (my car makes it super obvious that I'm queer) and I wanted evidence in case something worse happened) and recently someone sent me a nasty note for not having a tidy yard (it's since been tidied, because that has been my intention for months but I haven't had the spare energy).

Also I planted my newest garden baby, a sweet orange pepper that Topaz gave me. I also have a sweet green pepper (poblano I think), a Mexican Sour Gherkin cucumber and another that I don't remember the name of, Ititarod Red Dwarf tomato and some kind of small green tomato, a purple tomatillo, and cinnamon basil. Topaz has some seedlings for me that I'll hopefully be able to add soon.

I swept more things and watered and did lots of tidying and dishes, went to lunch with Lily and Tasha (whose cat is living in my basement room right now because Tasha can't keep them where they live and can't move yet), and spent time with Kylei. They were exhausted like always after a burn so they came over, took a nap (I made them up a bed) and then a shower, and then we had dinner (on plates at a table because Kylei wanted a ritual dinner; I enjoyed it more than I thought I would). We lay on my bed and stared at my fairy lights, which I tried on a new setting, slow glow (they have 8 patterns for flashing/fading). It was utterly hypnotizing and beautiful; definitely my new favorite. I can't believe I hadn't tried it before. When it went to red especially I felt like I was being bathed in healing. (I'll try to remember to get a video though I have no idea how I'd describe it!) We cuddled a little and Kylei told me about their burn experience. We hung out for a few hours and then Kylei went to bed but couldn't sleep, so I gave them melatonin and silent hair pets for a little while until they seemed almost asleep. I haven't heard them up and about since so I think it worked but now I'm afraid to go pee because I don't wanna wake them up *awkwardface*

I have two prospective jobs, one where I am 99.99% sure I have the job (waiting on paperwork) and another with an interview scheduled for tomorrow. I reeeeeeally want the one I'm interviewing for. It's an absolute dream.

Dreamed I was coming home, and my mailbox was new and incredibly fancy. Some people, maybe neighbors, came over and looked at that and came inside, and looked at the house, and were very impressed. The house had purple and green trim. Then there was a storm coming up and as it started to rain I was sitting on the porch and the ground was red clay but as the rain came down it turned into a very rich brown soil. There was a tree planted in it and one of the neighbors stepped on it and broke it from its root. I took both pieces and put the larger piece without the root by into the ground and took the little piece which suddenly no longer had roots and put it in a glass cup with something else that had roots, so it could learn to grow them. The weather was getting much more intense and I picked up all of the loose little containers of plants and put them on the floor underneath the table on the porch. One of the plants started growing roots into the porch and seemed to be very disturbed at being moved, so I poured water over it to help.

The scene switched and I was at a restaurant and it was a weird combination between the glass divider prison tables, and a sort of ruby tuesday place. Across from me was an old black woman and we started talking about how we made a difference in the world and they got up and put mayonnaise in the oil lamps and told me that they did this so that it would be used instead of exploitative oil from other places. I asked wouldn't they just dump it out and use even more oil and they said no that no one ever noticed the difference. I asked if they had to come back to look and they said yes. A little later they started talking about the Constitution and how they felt that our country could have been well off with fewer amendments, & I said well I think the most recent ones are some of the most important, and they disagreed. They told me that they were around in the day and knew better than I did. I said yes they likely did, and I wasn't trying to argue but I didn't understand and wanted them to explain.

Scene switched again and I was in jail. Weirdly Bridget was there and my paintings were on the walls, and Bridget looked at one I had done and said that it was amazing. it was a self portrait and I had done really perfect perfect paint on the front part, with colorful shading on the lower left curve of my belly. But this painting apparently had two sides and on the other side on the back, I hadn't put enough shading underneath my butt.

Then I was in the bathroom with a bunch of other people and I was in a stall that was covered in pee and trying to clean it up with toilet paper and I finally got it cleaned up. A new person came in it who was supposed to fix it and they started measuring my head! They were talking about various aspects of my head and measuring it in various ways. Then we were listening to this voice telling us about how to handle rape, they were this horrible person who was hiding at first, and then I asked who is saying this, and they put their head out from these blankets from where they were laying on a mattress on the floor. Then another inmate came out of the next room started talking about how they did absolutely everything they could to resist what they were told to do. They would eat everyday sitting on the floor with their legs drawn up and crossed, reaching under and through their legs to eat from the dish. Then the person who was telling people how to deal with rape took a fork and stabbed them in the hand and they slowly pulled it out of there and then started stabbing themselves more. It became very chaotic and they took us, all of the inmates, out to this place in the water where they performed executions and they called out this person's name and then threw them down a long long long long tunnel to an electrified section of water at the bottom. They got burned up to nothingness. There's something in this that I can't remember, about someone getting punished and another person having to watch them knowing that it wasn't their fault. They executed two more people for even less reason. Then they called my name and went to throw me down and at first I was terrified, and then I realized that this was just the impetus I needed to be able to start to fly. So I flew up out of the tunnel and pulled off the giant net over it, and flew away. I dropped the net on the front of a ludicrously large sailship and went flying more. I realized I needed to fly higher in order to avoid having to follow the deep and wild flow of ocean waves, so I started doing that. Then I came upon someone from my past, Finnegan, and I tried to catch up with them, but they dove away from me into the ocean. I grabbed on to the symbol of them (a mushroom) and was pulled underwater, deeper and deeper, and started to worry I wouldn't be able to come up for air, when I woke.

I think of my inner self as a garden; one that I own, but I share. I don't keep a fence around it, but instead there are two tall concentric hedges encircling it, with openings in each which do not overlap. I don't keep anyone out, but I also don't let people in without a bit of effort on their part. Once inside, you can find many little garden plots where people have come in and shared their plants with me. Some planted only annuals, and those died long ago, but some of their seeds have become new plants scattered around the whole garden. Some planted perennials, and a few planted trees. Some scattered a lot of seed but then didn't water anything and nothing grew. Some have neglected their plantings, and a few have ripped up what they planted, and one or two salted the ground where their plants once grew. Sometimes when people stop caretaking their plot, I wait too long for them to come back and plants die: I've learned to keep watch on those places that are becoming neglected, and take over care if it is not happening.

More numerous than the gardens are scattered, wild growths of a wide variety of plants, given by one-time visitors or dropped in as seed from the universe. Many of these are from people who simply scatter seed which I gather and bring in. Artists, musicians, and writers who have never visited nonetheless are the source of so many plants.

In the center is where I have done most of my own planting, and there are several very old trees there, including one that died early and fell over, crushing a number of saplings. That would be my first faith - following its root path and growing very fast is a younger tree, much-grafted, which is my current faith. When I find a plant in my garden that I especially love, I transplant it to the center (in this magical garden the plants don't mind that). The only ones I can't transplant are trees. Those who plant trees have a permanent place of their own in my garden, and can always come back and share with me again. Anyone who has planted a tree has my utmost gratitude even if they no longer visit my garden.

For a long time my garden changed little -- now it changes so rapidly that I imagine those who come back after absence might get a bit lost.

I am exceedingly picky about who can remain as a gardener. If you trample things on purpose, you are out, and I'll sic the spiders and snakes and carnivorous plants on you if you try to come back in. If you crush plants by accident, I will try to help you figure out a way to avoid that, but if it is not possible, I will ask you to leave until you have the skills to remain without causing damage. Often people leave for a time and come back later. No one has the right to move what I have planted, or to tell me what I should plant, uproot, or transplant. If they try to, they will be put out. No one has the right to be in my garden, ever, and I do not pull people in even if they feel I should (such as biofamily). It is forever and only a transitory sharing.

My bioparent M is coming to visit and I've been pretty stressed about it, mainly because I feel like there are things I 'should' have done even though they are not my responsibility (cleaning up after the previous tenants), because I don't have a job yet, and because time with zir is inherently stressful as ze disapproves of pretty much everything I value about myself. Also I love the way I've set up the place and I feel sure ze won't like it and I don't want to feel compelled to change things. And I'm pretty sure I'll get a lecture on my body, on my lack of making money, and a vague lecture on my 'lifestyle.' Most of these stresses will disappear once ze gets here -- it's always the dread that is the worst, I can deal with the actuality. I dreamed that the whole damn family showed up instead of just M, and I had a crafty party planned, and I invited them, and it was super awkward but not horrible. whaaaat.

I'm also stressed about getting a job. I REALLY want to work at the coffeeshop I just interviewed for but I haven't heard back yet *crumbles from nerves* and I'm about out of money. I ordered four boxes of food bars (drugstore.com was having a 20% off sale, I pounce on those) and I'm hoping that M will buy me some groceries :-/ I am not gonna starve but I'd like to have some fresh things. The stress of these things has not been good for me, I've started having a harder time coping this week and I was worried that it was depression coming back but I think it's just the stress.

I have a garden and nothing has died!!! My spinach is doing some bizarre ivy-wannabe climbing thing and I transplanted it to hopefully give it more light, really hope it survives because I love eating leaves straight off the stem. My kale is doing well (but I think the ridiculously-bold deer have been EATING IT. #RUDE!) and my tomatoes are getting tall! I love love love love love having a garden. I can't wait to have tomatoes and peppers <3 I've been watering almost every day and taking vitamin D and I feel like my body is enjoying the regular sun. I feel like the worst shitlord ever when I weed though :-( I'm going to make little skirts out of thick black fabric for my plants so they don't have to compete and I don't have to rip pretty little living beings out of their home and kill them.

I just realized that as I've become more spiritually aware and connected to nature, I've become much more in tune with the sun and the weather. This past winter was the worst for me, SAD-wise, because of that... but this spring is introducing what promises to be the most uplifting summer I've had. Sunlight is a need for me, and when I first go outside for the day and the sun touches my skin, I'm flooded with the urge to revel in zir caresses. I stop, stretch my arms out, palms up, close my eyes and tilt my face to the sun (much like in my icon), and feel blessed in a way that I used to only feel when dancing in worship at church. You know how sometimes you see something so beautiful you stop in your tracks? When the sun touches me I feel the same overwhelming awe, and it is almost instinct for me to open my arms to the sun. Even when I'm in a hurry I do it. I feel like I am awakening more to my plant nature -- I almost feel like a walking tree (or a plant sim *giggles*). Sunlight nourishes me.

( I need more light in my living space )

I just realized that as I've become more spiritually aware and connected to nature, I've become much more in tune with the sun and the weather. This past winter was the worst for me, SAD-wise, because of that... but this spring is introducing what promises to be the most uplifting summer I've had. Sunlight is a need for me, and when I first go outside for the day and the sun touches my skin, I'm flooded with the urge to revel in zir caresses. I stop, stretch my arms out, palms up, close my eyes and tilt my face to the sun (much like in my icon), and feel blessed in a way that I used to only feel when dancing in worship at church. You know how sometimes you see something so beautiful you stop in your tracks? When the sun touches me I feel the same overwhelming awe, and it is almost instinct for me to open my arms to the sun. Even when I'm in a hurry I do it. I feel like I am awakening more to my plant nature -- I almost feel like a walking tree (or a plant sim *giggles*). Sunlight nourishes me.

( I need more light in my living space )

Until I was 8 years old, my parents had a huge vegetable garden. Not one of those puny 6-foot-square ones, but one that was about 3/4ths the length of our doublewide trailer, and just as wide. We had corn, green beans, all kinds of peppers, okra, tomatoes, squash, zucchini, cucumbers, and more (I can't remember it all). I'm not really sure how my parents (mostly Pat -- M did the tilling and Pat did most everything else) managed to make it all grow in red clay (without using compost!!!), but they did. I loved walking among the rows, especially when the corn was tall enough to give shade (I lived about three hours south of where I do now -- 10 degrees hotter, most days). I found it absolutely magical that you could put seeds in the dirt and get food! And Pat made the most amazing pickles (both dill and bread-n-butter, mmm) and pepper sauce from them.

Later we moved away from deep country to the suburbs and my parents became more concerned with making the front yard look 'pretty' than with growing food. M would till, and I would be assigned tasks like picking rocks out of the tilled soil, hauling dirt, and digging holes, while Pat did all the designing and plant-choosing. I started hating 'working in the yard' as they called it; I was not allowed to design or participate in any fun tasks like planting, just the dull drudge work. And for my efforts I got to look at flowers (which have never been important to me anyway, and Pat chose ones that were orange and pink, two colors I dislike). So I associated gardening with useless, unrewarding drudgery.

Last year, on a whim, I ordered a black willow tree baby off of ebay. Seeing a skinny little stick worried me at first -- I thought it was dead. Watching it tentatively put out its first leaves was a revelation; it reminded me of how plant care could be. Here was magic. Seeing little changes every day was so THRILLING to me! I can imagine that if I had a garden I would get the most intense joy out of caring for plants and having them reward me with yummy peppers and tomatoes! Taking the little explosion-of-life-energy that is a seed and placing it in the ground is surely a holy act. ♥ And communing with each nascent plant... oh *shivers* how much of a blessing it must be!

( plans, worries )

Until I was 8 years old, my parents had a huge vegetable garden. Not one of those puny 6-foot-square ones, but one that was about 3/4ths the length of our doublewide trailer, and just as wide. We had corn, green beans, all kinds of peppers, okra, tomatoes, squash, zucchini, cucumbers, and more (I can't remember it all). I'm not really sure how my parents (mostly Pat -- M did the tilling and Pat did most everything else) managed to make it all grow in red clay (without using compost!!!), but they did. I loved walking among the rows, especially when the corn was tall enough to give shade (I lived about three hours south of where I do now -- 10 degrees hotter, most days). I found it absolutely magical that you could put seeds in the dirt and get food! And Pat made the most amazing pickles (both dill and bread-n-butter, mmm) and pepper sauce from them.

Later we moved away from deep country to the suburbs and my parents became more concerned with making the front yard look 'pretty' than with growing food. M would till, and I would be assigned tasks like picking rocks out of the tilled soil, hauling dirt, and digging holes, while Pat did all the designing and plant-choosing. I started hating 'working in the yard' as they called it; I was not allowed to design or participate in any fun tasks like planting, just the dull drudge work. And for my efforts I got to look at flowers (which have never been important to me anyway, and Pat chose ones that were orange and pink, two colors I dislike). So I associated gardening with useless, unrewarding drudgery.

Last year, on a whim, I ordered a black willow tree baby off of ebay. Seeing a skinny little stick worried me at first -- I thought it was dead. Watching it tentatively put out its first leaves was a revelation; it reminded me of how plant care could be. Here was magic. Seeing little changes every day was so THRILLING to me! I can imagine that if I had a garden I would get the most intense joy out of caring for plants and having them reward me with yummy peppers and tomatoes! Taking the little explosion-of-life-energy that is a seed and placing it in the ground is surely a holy act. ♥ And communing with each nascent plant... oh *shivers* how much of a blessing it must be!

( plans, worries )

Until I was 8 years old, my parents had a huge vegetable garden. Not one of those puny 6-foot-square ones, but one that was about 3/4ths the length of our doublewide trailer, and just as wide. We had corn, green beans, all kinds of peppers, okra, tomatoes, squash, zucchini, cucumbers, and more (I can't remember it all). I'm not really sure how my parents (mostly Pat -- M did the tilling and Pat did most everything else) managed to make it all grow in red clay (without using compost!!!), but they did. I loved walking among the rows, especially when the corn was tall enough to give shade (I lived about three hours south of where I do now -- 10 degrees hotter, most days). I found it absolutely magical that you could put seeds in the dirt and get food! And Pat made the most amazing pickles (both dill and bread-n-butter, mmm) and pepper sauce from them.

Later we moved away from deep country to the suburbs and my parents became more concerned with making the front yard look 'pretty' than with growing food. M would till, and I would be assigned tasks like picking rocks out of the tilled soil, hauling dirt, and digging holes, while Pat did all the designing and plant-choosing. I started hating 'working in the yard' as they called it; I was not allowed to design or participate in any fun tasks like planting, just the dull drudge work. And for my efforts I got to look at flowers (which have never been important to me anyway, and Pat chose ones that were orange and pink, two colors I dislike). So I associated gardening with useless, unrewarding drudgery.

Last year, on a whim, I ordered a black willow tree baby off of ebay. Seeing a skinny little stick worried me at first -- I thought it was dead. Watching it tentatively put out its first leaves was a revelation; it reminded me of how plant care could be. Here was magic. Seeing little changes every day was so THRILLING to me! I can imagine that if I had a garden I would get the most intense joy out of caring for plants and having them reward me with yummy peppers and tomatoes! Taking the little explosion-of-life-energy that is a seed and placing it in the ground is surely a holy act. ♥ And communing with each nascent plant... oh *shivers* how much of a blessing it must be!

( plans, worries )