Author Archives: Quirky Witchy

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About Quirky Witchy

Hi! I'm Lena. I'm currently an administrative assistant and T-shirt designer. I was a Teacher of the Deaf/Hard of Hearing for 21 years. I have also been working on graphic designing for shirts, websites, and social media, starting in about 1994. My t-shirt business started the summer of 2021. I live in Colorado, USA with my lovely partner and our 2 cute doggies.
Mar6

Chrysalis Dormancy – Letting Myself Stop

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myself chrysalis

Original artwork

For a long time now, I have been going through an intense transformation.  Mostly during last summer, I realized I need to live without all the little petty fears that I have been allowing to stop me from doing what I want to do.  That was the start of it.  Since then, I’ve been reevaluating many things in my life and being myself more openly.  I’ve kept a lot of my quirkiness or strangeness inside, have come to view it as beautiful, and have started to express it on my outside, much like a chrysalis being turned inside out to show its beauty as a butterfly.  Butterfly imagery flooded my existence; I saw them everywhere, mostly man-made: stickers, posters, decorations, images shared on the web, monarch butterfly dresses, and so on.  The universe was telling me I was about to go through this change, perhaps gently encouraging me to take the steps in the change.  I didn’t know at the time what all the butterfly imagery meant, until I’m looking back at it now.

I’m a Teacher of the Deaf.  Not only that, I’ve taken on the roles of Special Education teacher, and have regular teacher duties as well.  This school year has been extremely stressful for me (and not only due to all the roles- it’s been much more than that).  I’ve been left wondering if it’s always been this stressful and I’m more sensitive to it now, or if it’s truly more stressful than ever before.  I think it’s a little of both.  I poured my guts out to my boyfriend about it recently and in the outpouring came 13 years of suffering, of not feeling up to snuff as a teacher.  I can make mistakes in other areas of my life without any emotional scarring: crafting, interpreting, dancing, are all things I’m not perfect at; but the mistakes don’t get me down, they’re steps to a learning process or part of a creative process.  In teaching, mistakes get me *DOWN.*  I have a major chip on my shoulder when it comes to teaching, and though I’m sure it comes with the territory, I think it’s unusually large.  It’s a toomah, as Arnold Schwarzenneger said in some movie or other.

Many incidents this school year have been ‘nails in the coffin’ of my teaching career, and it depresses me.  Though, I know this is thinking like I’m the victim.  It feels like outside forces are making me want to give up teaching and I’ve gone through grieving steps:  anger at these forces, grief that I will miss what I love about teaching, numbness.  I believe I’m in the numbness stage right now actually.  But truly, it’s always what we do in the face of these incidents and it’s not a victim thing at all.  It just feels that way.  I believe it’s part of my transformation.  The outcome, I hope, will be a person who lives as she wants to live, and does what she wants to do.

During the past 13 years of teaching, I’ve often felt like I wanted to go into a different profession, but I stuck through it.  This year is different;  many things I used to just take, my guts are refusing to take any more.  I could get into what those things are another time- they aren’t the focus of this post.  The focus of this post is my transformation.  It’s doing a number on me.

The past few months, sometimes, when I’m over-stressed, I feel comfort in not feeling or moving, and I imagine I might know how a catatonic schizophrenic might feel.  I can’t say I do though, thankfully.

It might not help that I’m also going through what’s referred to in doomsday tones: The Change.  I may be more sensitive, and it may be contributing to my present emotional affliction- that of having a hard time feeling.  I’m sure that doesn’t make sense that it’s both, but I think I’m responding to the emotions being over the top with trying not to feel anything, if that makes any sense.  Black Cohosh was working wonders on my hot flashes, and I’ve stopped taking it for a few months.  I started again this morning with just a dropper-ful.  That plus trying to be more zen in my life are what I’m going to try to combat this sense of numbness.

When I was about 7 or 8 years old, sometimes after playing in the snow, I’d wind down and just lie in it, feeling warm in my snowsuit, and letting the snowflakes fall dreamily down towards my eyes.  I’d see the snow falling all around me, and be mesmerized by their dancing movements.  I’d lie still and peacefully, and let myself not even be there.  It was comforting.  I think it’s because the world seems to stop; it seems to hang and not move forward.  The busy pace of life which is sometimes fun, sometimes needs to stop. And we need to stop and be zen.

However, it’s become chronic the past few months for me and I need to be human again.  I’ve realized that though my inside seems to have stopped- stopped feeling, or get lost while feeling stressed about the future, I haven’t really let myself stop.  I’ve kept on doing something, almost all the time up until I sleep.  I work, I come home and plan for work, or I watch Netflix or do Facebook, and then as I go to bed I read until I sleep.

I used to meditate, and about 3 years ago, I tried to meditate at least once a day even if it was for just 5 minutes at a time.  I haven’t meditated for a long time.  Maybe a year or more.  Today, as I came home, it was getting darker, and the lights were off in my home.  I was about to turn on the lights, but decided not to, for a moment.  I looked toward the balcony and the small layer of snow out there, and, thinking I’d meditate, finally, again, I went and sat close to the balcony doors.  I looked out the glass and wrapped myself in a soft blanket.  Cars drove by behind a stand of trees in the distance, and it was like I was looking up at the sky at falling snow again.  After several deep breaths, I was able to sit peacefully and not mind the ticking clocks (which tick louder when it’s quiet- it’s a twist of physics we all know).  My mind turned off, to a peaceful zen, for a moment.

I wasn’t able to meditate, however.  But, baby steps.  I’ll try to at least stop for a moment each day and be at peace.  That will be a start. And in the tumult of transformation, I’ll let myself be dormant a bit, so I don’t go freakin’ nuts.  So I can become a feeling human being again.

Mar3

Sitting in a Clay Fetish Bowl- a Dream

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I dreamed this dream while sleeping at my boyfriend’s house, two months ago.  After dreaming it, I sent this message to the two other women involved in the dream.  For the sake of their anonymity, their names have been replaced with Dancer and Horse Woman. This is what I typed to them:

fetish bowl dream

Original artwork

I received from someone (as if being smudged for ritual) a lump of gray clay, already formed into a 1/2 inch thick disk. I tried to work it and it was stiff and hard to work. Several feet away, Dancer prepared the place for ritual by working deftly with the clay, flattening it and making it into a large bowl. Although I never saw myself giving you (Dancer) the clay, my impression was that those involved each brought some clay that contributed to the bowl. Then, as dreams do, time skipped and the three of us sat *in* the bowl. The bowl was hard and secure, and the night sky sparkled above us. I get the impression of a fire but didn’t see one. Dancer, I get the impression that you were leading in the ritual and that Horse Woman and I were hanging out on your invitation.   Horse Woman turned to me and told me with an air of anticipation of something rare that she was going to get a “natural tattoo” from Dancer and I got the impression that this tattoo was ‘natural’ in the sense of ‘magic in nature.’  Time passed as it does and doesn’t when you’re in a magical space, and Horse Woman turned into a crow. My arm was stretched out along the bowl as if my arm had been around your shoulders before you changed, and you (Horse Woman as the crow) love-nipped my hand. At first I reacted as if bit and then I realized it was a love bite, as in “you’re my friend.” I got the impression that you, Horse Woman, as the crow, were still just hanging out in ritual space, and had decided to hang out as crow. Then I woke up, before the ritual was finished, but I have the feeling that I woke up at the time I was meant to.

As it happens, I’m spending some nights at my boyfriend’s house. He lives with two roomates and we are all either new age or pagan inclined. His roomates have a book which drew me to it the next morning after the dream. It’s called Animal Speak by Ted Andrews. As I always do when encountering a new pagany/new agey book, I browsed it to see if what he said jived with my experience, and it did, so I came to trust what he said in the book. It looks like he draws from many different cultures for the book, with a Native American focus. If you know the book, I would appreciate your impressions of it as well. As I looked in the sections on birds, he described ‘fetish bowls.’ He explained that inside the (clay) bowl is ‘unmanifest’ as in the things unseen and outside the bowl is ‘manifest.’ It’s a way to commune or call to your spirit animals; put fetishes that represent your spirit animal in the bowl along with other items that can charge the fetishes while not in use, and when you take it out of the bowl, you are making the unmanifest, manifest; you are calling to the spirit of the animal.

I started to read up on crows but didn’t get far. I already know some things about crows and will investigate further.

The meaning I got from the dream was that, at least for myself, I need to manifest myself as a magical being and live in spirit daily. I also feel blessed after the dream as if already having been part of a ritual with you  even though it may have only been my own experience and not shared. I feel like I already am living as a magical being (and my awareness has been brought to this fact after the dream) and like I have been charged up like a crystal has been charged by the moon’s energies (though I don’t feel charged specifically by the moon, but by spirit guides).

The spirit animals that accompany me are monkeys. If you are interested I could tell you more about that. They didn’t come forth in the dream as “manifest” but they are always with me. They just weren’t represented in the dream. Perhaps the crow is calling to me, or perhaps it represents or accompanies Horse Woman.

Anyway, I would appreciate it if you let me know how this dream strikes you, and your own takes on it, especially if you got any messages for yourselves. At the very least, Horse Woman, meet Dancer, and Dancer, meet Horse Woman.

May the powers that be all around us bless you.