by its cover they say (though trust me sometimes you can). I believe you can judge a book by its page trim. My book geek rule #1: If a book has a ruffled page edge it is a fantastic book! The words do not matter. Once they’ve been put on on pages that are uneven in width the book rocks. Period.

At my company we had a rewards program that allowed you to purchase more crap that you don’t need. <—-This is past tense only because whatever the parameters are for gaining rewards I am now outside of them. I barely ever looked at the items available for point purchase because I have been trying to de-clutter not re-clutter. The points have hung around, sadly neglected, being used only to buy a random cute t-shirt we were briefly allowed to wear to work. Oh, and I bought the same t-shirt for a new co-worker who had no points. For some reason I was on the site where the points are (looking up some marketing somesuch) and I thought WTH! Use the points.

I feel like I won prizes! I ordered some balancing exercise thing that I never would have paid for even though it is useful, a USB cord extender, and 2 books. One of the books is the first complete translation of _The Tibetan Book of the Dead_. It came with ruffled edges. *bookgeekfaint*

I take back my snarky comments about the rewards program.

Ruffled edge properly known as deckled trim:

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Posts here and on other blog sites plus disgruntled Facebook posts make it clear some of us have had it with winter! Snowfall has been I’m fairly sure near normal, but it has come so spread out it seems as if all it ever does is snow. Daffodil leaves shot up through the snow weeks ago and have grown taller, but blooming is still a dream. The robins came back and now they are pissed. I don’t blame them!

Thank goodness the earth and her tilt are reliable. I yearn for green and warmer air, windows open and birdsong floating in. Flowers! Leaves! Even rain won’t be horrid (a little) if it is warm. We’re swaying and dancing and singing the earth to lean her upper half toward the sun. Spring! We’re calling You!

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The About page tells a bit about us, but knowing us will in time make clear Why the above graphics are Us.

 There are some struggles that I never seem to overcome. I fall into the trap of trying to puzzle out the reasoning for why someone acts a certain way even though I know 1) It’s none of my business and 2) It’s none of my business. I can only know my own motivations and never really know another’s so too much energy directed to the why instead of dealing with the action that the why has created is a waste and often quite frustrating. I tire of the frustration and yet my analytical mind goes there.

It is not always a bad thing to think on "why", but getting stuck there is. I have been been getting stuck again. I saw a short sentence posted that I hope to perma-implant into my brain to stop myself from getting stuck. The sentence is: Trying to understand the behaviour of some people is like trying to smell the color 9.

Indeed.

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 Because of the fallout from the Oscars and MacFarlane and the Onion and this happening to me on one of my threads on Facebook (by a woman. who I don’t know.) I decided it should show up again. So here it is, the post on gaslighting.

A Message To Women From A Man: You Are Not “Crazy”

You’re so sensitive. You’re so emotional. You’re defensive. You’re overreacting. Calm down. Relax. Stop freaking out! You’re crazy! I was just joking, don’t you have a sense of humor? You’re so dramatic. Just get over it already!

Sound familiar?

If you’re a woman, it probably does.

Do you ever hear any of these comments from your spouse, partner, boss, friends, colleagues, or relatives after you have expressed frustration, sadness, or anger about something they have done or said?

When someone says these things to you, it’s not an example of inconsiderate behavior. When your spouse shows up half an hour late to dinner without calling—that’s inconsiderate behavior. A remark intended to shut you down like, “Calm down, you’re overreacting,” after you just addressed someone else’s bad behavior, is emotional manipulation—pure and simple.

And this is the sort of emotional manipulation that feeds an epidemic in our country, an epidemic that defines women as crazy, irrational, overly sensitive, unhinged. This epidemic helps fuel the idea that women need only the slightest provocation to unleash their (crazy) emotions. It’s patently false and unfair.

I think it’s time to separate inconsiderate behavior from emotional manipulation and we need to use a word not found in our normal vocabulary.

I want to introduce a helpful term to identify these reactions: gaslighting.

Con’t on his site

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It’s interesting how various faiths sort it out and how people are drawn to one or another. I’m not good at hierarchal groups. Part of that is at times I still have trouble squashing the auto-rebel that lives in me. Part is that the organizations I have been in that are hierarchal tend to do a lesser-than type of othering to people lower in rank and I am not comfortable with what I’ve seen grow in those types of relationships. I don’t want to be part of othering and though I am aware that many paths can work a healthy model of hierarchy it seems to be more rare than not.

I think that was a large part of why the UU church appealed to me. At least the local one where lay leaders were common and sought after. That is a big part of why Reclaiming/Feri appealed to me, too. In both of those there are elders and long timers who get respect and listened to with more weight because they’ve been doing it and doing it well for "x" years. Leaders though are changeable. Lead one day, not the next. For my Reclaiming/Feri you do not need to be initiated to call yourself Reclaiming. You do not need it to teach or mentor or lead ritual. Co-leading and co-teaching are valued greatly, sharing responsibility, pulling to each person’s strength and next time sitting down and allowing others to lead, fully lead w/o looking over their shoulder – all those concepts appeal deeply to me.

I used to wonder, "Wow, how did I get here from where I started?" Now looking back I can see how natural it was. Raised Methodist full of appointed permanent leaders and followers, to solitary Pagan path work, to UU and group Pagan work, to Reclaiming/Feri. It ends up my path actually took a fairly logical route for how I am built internally. I hadn’t noticed until now just how much sense it made in its progression.

(With the Pope stuff and the RC church being constantly in the news right now, people observing Lent or Lent-like things, the intensive coming up and the 2 Feri labs not far behind me I have been in a contemplative mood.)

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 Nettles to Nirvana: A Personal Practice Bootcamp – April 12-14, 2013

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