On Doubt and Deity

So, let me start this with: I have a godphone.

For those of you who don’t know what that is, it’s generally an internal non-divination way to ‘speak’ with one’s deities. For me I hear them in my mind’s ear (Kind of like when you imagine something in your ‘minds eye’, how you can see it but you’re not physically seeing it? If you can understand what I’m trying to get at.   For me it’s like when I’m reading something I ‘hear’ myself reading it, only, in my head.  Well, for me, godphoning is like that except it’s not my voice.  Sometimes the ‘signal’ is fuzzy and I can’t tell who/what it is, or even if it is mine or not.  But other times it’s almost crystal and I know it isn’t mine.

Disclaimer! This is just how it seems to work for me,  I can’t claim knowledge about anyone else’s experiences and it’s not the only way this thing occurs.

Anyways! When I was doing my pagan microblogging thing over on tumblr I never really spoke of it except something of amusement in passing. I firmly believe in the “If you can’t handle having your authority questioned, you shouldn’t have any authority” type thing So I don’t talk about it. I don’t want the scrutiny and I don’t want to be told that I’m delusional or something because my experiences of dealing with X Deity or Y Deity are different than another, perhaps more experienced person’s. This is still something I worry about but I’m kind of sick of not sharing my experiences due to that kind of fear.

To be honest, as far as this stuff goes I have a hard enough time telling what of this stuff is ‘legit’ and what is just my own imagination.

When I first started, I was trying to find an animal spirit mentor.  I did the meditation several times over but kept seeing a fox, a popular animal and so my thought process was that obviously since this is a popular guide animal, this wasn’t a ‘real’ meditation and that the fox wasn’t my ‘real’ spirit mentor and I was just imagining something I wanted. And I have always, always had a very clear very strong imagination. So I continued,  after 3 or so times I didn’t see the fox anymore and most of the time I saw nothing.

And then it happened. I went into the meditative space and it caught my attention. I saw the one creature that I would never have imagined or picked on purpose.

Cockroach.

Because I know that I would never EVER consciously pick this creature, I accepted it more or less without question and he has helped me greatly through some situations. His aspects mesh surprisingly well with my own values and so on.

But now I think about it a lot what if I missed out on a different experience because of my distrust of myself, my doubt?

Later on I began to work with a few specific Deity. Almost from the beginning I heard and communicated with them rather quickly and clearly. I can’t say that I have exact proof that they are who they say they are. And I know that deities don’t have the same morality and many will lie and swindle humans, but I have faith that they are who they say. I have been working with them for about three years now and I have made no oaths and they have requested no oaths from me. Although one does say they claimed be at my birth but again I can’t verify such things.

I’ve only really opened up about my dealings with these deities to a handful of people, most of which either aren’t really versed in this pagany stuff to begin with and only two of which even deal in the same pantheon all and at the very least they don’t grill or bother me too much about it though they have helped me identify a few imposter issues I’d had. (I kept bumping into a loki that wasn’t well, Loki) But I’m kind of sick of hiding it just from my own insecurities, so I guess this is my rambling introductory post on the issue.  If my deities give me the okay I’ll tell you guys more on them and so on but at the very least you can probably look forward to hearing about those adventures even if I end up using nicknames which seems to be pretty popular haha.

As a small side note I’m on vacation this week, so if I can I might post some interesting things when I’m back home next week, and post pictures if I remember to take any haha.

Busy busy busy

I was initially planning for my next post to be about my next wallet attempt but it’s been a little over a week since then and I haven’t had the time or opportunity to reattempt.

Look forward to it though, I’m sure looking forward to making a new wallet haha!

In any case I’ve been busy mostly with work during the weeks which I anticipated. But I didn’t anticipate so much to be happening over the weekends for this month! Last weekend pops and I headed out to visit my grandmother from the 9th to the 11th. It was a short trip because well, pops was really only going for an event and his lady hasn’t been feeling well so she was staying home this time. We head out again the 28th iirc and we’ll stay for a whole week with some of my other family members coming up to visit.

So the morning of the 9th we woke up bright and early and got on the road by 9 am. Drove a good 500mi (well, pops drove. I played with the radio and we talked lots.) and arrived by 7pm. Chicago traffic was hell it took us 3 hours to get through the city whereas usually it only takes us an hour and a half… We arrived in time to still get in on some good ol’ Wisconsin Friday Night Fish Fry (I had catfish) and pops was complimented on all the weight he’s lost and I was complimented on finding work so quickly.

A few relatives stopped by gma’s house on the 10th to see us and see gma and have lunch and all that good stuff. I ended up falling asleep on the sofa whilst we were visiting but I woke up in time to see them go so no one held it against me haha. (They provided me the excuses of being tired from work, and from the drive, which were both true, but regardless.)

Then the morning of the 11th came and we were on the road by roughly the same time I suppose, I don’t remember exactly. But the time change wasn’t on our side for returning home so we just ate awful things, drive thru, etc, and got home in time to crash for Monday morning.

A fast and exhausting weekend to be sure!

After that, it’s simply been back to work and taking care of general life stuff so I haven’t had time to craft. Monday I drove around to find an item for another project Ive been working on, Tuesday was grocery shopping, and Wednesday I went to a friend’s book event! Yesterday was the uninteresting but oh so necessary cleaning day.  So perhaps today or saturday since sunday I’ve got plans too!

August is such a busy month!

Technical difficulties with analog crafts

So I had some scrap leather I purchased (though if I’d known just how ‘scrap’ it was I never would have paid money for it.) and I recently read this post by artofmanliness.com. So, having some energy and free time this evening I decided to try my hand at it! I printed out the blueprints full size and cut the D piece out of my nicest biggest scrap using a simple box cutter.  I had one of those nice fiskar self-healing cutting mats underneath it too. It started pretty well and my cuts were clean… but then I noticed something…

It was WAY TOO SMALL!

Now, this piece is supposed to be the outermost layer of the wallet and thus the biggest piece. When I realized that it was roughly the size of a dollar, I also realized i had made a horrible mistake.  Upon rechecking things out I found out that what I printed was pretty much completely off-scale and to top it off, after realizing this, adjusting, and checking it against my scraps again, I didn’t have any solid scraps big enough for that largest piece :T

So suffice to say I’m a bit disappointed, and I’ve added Leather to the list of things I’m going to buy when I get paid haha.

Although I’ll be checking my other pieces to see if I can’t make another type. Maybe a phone pocket slim wallet or something other than a billfold but we’ll see!

I am a badass

Alright, you don’t know me but suffice to say, I am a badass.  I’ll give you a little bit of background so you’re not completely lost before I put up my About page.  I’m Seth, 24 years old, and I recently moved halfway across the country to a suburb of Detroit, Michigan.

I’ve been here for about… three weeks, I guess, but this week I procured and started my first job.  That’s right, my first job ever. Now, you might be thinking “Isn’t 24 a little late to be just getting your first job?” and you might be right. But I did do my stint in college for a while, although it didn’t exactly agree with me for reasons that will be expounded upon at a later date I’m sure.

In any case, finding a job isn’t why I’m a badass, I’ll be honest, my pops actually got me in to this location.  He works as a programmer and I was brought in to test software for what we’re working on. Which I will tell y’all about when it’s done and I’ll point you to where you can get your hands on some if it’s the kinda thing you need but I digress.

No, I’m a badass because I’ve been on the job 9-5, for two days. I went in a couple half days earlier in the week, helped out a little just to see if the bossman would find me useful and decide to hire me.  Tuesday pops said he was kinda waffling so I didn’t go in wednesday, y’know, give them a day to miss me P: . Well, it worked. Pops comes home that evening and says “Hey, <Bossman> wants you in 9am tomorrow.”

Thursday morning I go in and we talk, make a plan that I’ll come in 3 days a week for software testing and whatever else they happen to need and if I could pick up some of the programming language and help with that, that’d be great. So I spend thursday connecting computer networks and learning some XML,  pops has the Java covered but can’t seem to pick up the XML dialect of Android for the layouts to look proper.

It takes me most of the day but, staff of doom, I got this. Anyways I go in on Friday and we discuss my direction with the company before I get some additional tasks for the day.  So I get my shit done, connect printers, code some XML, test the software, debug, write up some information,  etc. My co-workers, there’s only two of them (aside from my pops),  didn’t show up today. This isn’t new and, from what I’ve been hearing, happens quite a lot. So they’re starting to get on the Bossman’s shitlist and I’m looking pretty damn good right about now. Bossman turns to me and tells me that he wants me in every day next week, and that I’m getting promoted to General Administrative Manager (fancy title) and that he’s gonna count on me to keep things in order and that basically I’ll be boss to the two that didn’t show today. As well as additional responsibilities, helping customers, etc.

So while this could just be ploy to light a fire under the asses of his other workers, I’m still getting double the hours I was gonna get and well, let’s get to the point:

Promotion to management position, after 2 days’ work, on my first (ever) job. 

Hello, my name’s Seth and yessir, I am a badass.