Dancing Down the Moon

Small Ways to Tell Your Life is Interesting

Here's something else a bit random just for your entertainment.  Feel free to post something similar on your own blog, if you have one, or just consider what would go on your lists and laugh at your own weirdness.

5 Items in my Bag

1 – Macbook
2 – iPod
3 – Copy of The Inner Art of Vegetarianism
4 – A bag of Runes
5 – a random amber-scented candle

Titles of 5 Files in My Documents Folder

1 – porn.docx
2 – archangel.docx
3 – sequel.scriv
4 – squeepig.jpg
5 – vinceclortho.png

5 Things on my Coffee Table

1 – Mortar & Pestle
2 – Remote Controls (x3)
3 – DVD slipcase for Supernatural, Season 4
4 – Empty Netflix envelope
5 – Squirt bottle labeled “Bad Kitty!”
 
5 Things in my Fridge/Freezer

1 – A Celebration Roast
2 – Soup leftover from my birthday party (I’m afraid to look inside)
3 – Westsoy’s Chocolate Peppermint soymilk
4 – Peach preserves
5 – A gallon bag of frozen veg trimmings I keep forgetting to give S1ren for her compost pile

5 Things on my Desk

1 – A brass compass
2 – Tiny stuffed hippo
3 – Box of monkey band-aids
4 – Plastic and glass eyedroppers
5 – Sleeping cat

5 Songs With the Highest Playcounts on my iTunes

1 - "Fireflies" by Owl City
2 - "Say Hey (I Love You)" by Michael Franti & Spearhead
3 - "Kamanche Groove" by Drumspyder
4 - "Greenman" by XTC
5 - "Funhouse" by Pink

Three Years and Still Kicking...

I realized today that I let my blogoversary pass by unremarked, and that will never do.

In September 2006 I migrated my old website here to TypePad and converted it to blog format, probably one of the smartest things I've ever done.  Blogging has encouraged me to write more often and on a broader range of topics than I ever did just writing website articles.  This year I completely redid the blog's design, which I'm still not happy with but hey, inspiration swings her giant hammer when she feels like it. 

As I've done before, I thought I'd mark the anniversary with a list of my ten favorite posts of 2009.  I've acquired quite a few new readers this year (and I'm sure lost more than a few).  This list also includes entries that were originally part of Stumbling Towards Ahimsa.

Wander back in time with me, and enjoy!

Winged Migration

Dyslexic Cows Make Great Meditators

The Spirit of Nia

Ahimsa in the Mirror, parts One and Two

Catching a Passing Thought

Third Degree Secrets of a Kitchen Goddess

What's in a Name?

Cartwheel

The Beauty of 52nd Chances

Back in St. Olaf...

I've developed something of a passion for memoirs lately, especially those written by women who went on grand adventures (often by accident) or pilgrimages that turned out differently than they had planned.  The genre has exploded since Eat, Pray, Love took over the Bestseller List, so that now even Half Price has an ever-expanding memoirs section as well as a "Travel Memoir and True Adventure" area I'd never ventured into before. 

My favorites are those that sound like they were written by people I'd actually sit down and have a cuppa with in real life, rather than "literary" sounding stories.  The best memoirs combine the honesty of a journal with the gravitational pull of a great novel. 

I've always hoped to one day have an adventure worthy of retelling this way--I talk about my day to day nonsense all the time on the Internet, and have told a few true stories that might not be out of place in a memoir, but still, up until recently I haven't really thought that anything that interesting would ever happen to me. 

Now I'm beginning to think it just might.  I'm thinking of travel and adventure as things that do happen to "people like me" (meaning broke-ass fat girls too shy to order their own pizza), if I gird my loins and make them happen.  What these memoirs show me is that anyone can live an extraordinary life if they remain open to the possibility that something new and wonderful could be around the next corner.

Here are my favorites, in no particular order; they include single-author memoirs as well as collections of true tales:

Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert

The Amazing Adventures of DietGirl by Shauna Reid

Expecting Adam by Martha Beck

Book of Shadows by Phyllis Curott

Holy Cow: an Indian Adventure by Sarah MacDonald

I'm the One that I Want by Margaret Cho

Such a Pretty Fat: One Narcissist's Quest to Discover if Her Life Makes Her Ass Look Big, or Why Pie is Not the Answer by Jen Lancaster

Fun Home: a Family Tragiocomic by Alison Bechdel

No Touch Monkey! and Other Travel Lessons Learned too Late by Ayun Halliday

The May Queen: Women on Life, Love, Work, & Pulling it All Together in Your 30s, edited by Andrea N. Richesin

Sand in My Bra and Other Misadventures: Funny Women Write from the Road, edited by Jennifer L. Leo

Got one to recommend? Do so in comments!

Seed Post #3: Lascivious

Boy, you guys sure did suggest a lot of sexy words this go round.  Am I fixated, or are you?

Recently I was working on a mix for an Ecstatic Dance for Women session, and while it started out fairly standard as far as my mixes go (several Middle Eastern-inspired tracks and at least one fun song) I noticed it was starting to evolve into something decidedly...steamy. 

Maybe it was the heat.  Maybe it's the cyclical Lambada of estrogen and testosterone in my system.  Maybe a certain Viking is going to get very, very lucky next time I see him.  Maybe the Electric Boyfriend and I need a torrid rendezvous.  Or three.

Once I had the mix done I started looking through my iTunes library and compiling a list of all the songs I have that I consider sexy, either because they turn me on, because they're specifically about sex, or because they're good to shag to.  It's entirely possible some of them are only sexy to me, of course, but still, I thought I'd share.

It's a bit of a long list, so I narrowed it down to fifteen songs.

I'll be in my bunk.

Sylvan's Shagalicious Mix

1. Tori Amos - Raspberry Swirl
2. Concrete Blonde - Bloodletting
3. Dido - Here With Me
4. Fiona Apple - Slow Like Honey
5. Garbage - #1 Crush (the ultimate Scorpio love song, IMO)
6. Lizz Wright - Coming Home
7. Maroon 5 - Shiver (just thinking about this song gives me the low-down tickle)
8. Melissa Etheridge - I'm the Only One
9. Melissa Ferrick - Drive
10. Pink - Fingers
11. Poe - Not a Virgin
12. Sarah McLachlan - Witness
13. Lenny Kravitz - Fly Away
14. Darren Hayes - Insatiable
15. Sophie B. Hawkins - 32 Lines

While I was at it, I started making other lists, because making lists is fun to do.  The rest of the lists stop at 10 tracks, just to spare you the torture.

Sylvan's Favorite Sad Songs (aka Music to Slit Your Wrists By)

1. Evanescence - My Immortal
2. James Blunt - Goodbye My Lover
3. Michelle Branch - Goodbye to You
4. Roxette - It Must Have Been Love
5. Sarah McLachlan - Full of Grace
6. Six Mile Bridge - Dawning's Whisper
7. Concrete Blonde - Tomorrow, Wendy
8. Savage Garden - I Don't Know You Anymore
9. Tori Amos - Me and a Gun
10. Brandi Carlile - Hallelujah (yes, that song, but her cover is heartbreaking)

Sylvan's Favorite Uplifting Songs

1. Natasha Bedingfield - Unwritten
2. Alanis Morissette - Incomplete
3. Sting - After the Rain Has Fallen
4. Sinead O'Connor - The Healing Room
5. Sarah McLachlan - Ordinary Miracle
6. Natalie Merchant - Wonder
7. Indigo Girls - Hammer and a Nail
8. Shawn Colvin - Whole New You
9. Dixie Chicks - Goodbye Earl
10. Seal - Love's Divine

Sylvan's Favorite Slightly Embarrassing Songs

1. Sir Mix-a-Lot - Baby Got Back
2. Britney Spears - Circus
3. Justin Timberlake - Sexyback (yes, that's right, and I'm not ashamed)
4. DiVinyls - I Touch Myself
5. Pretty Much Anything by Weird Al, but especially "Amish Paradise"
6. Enrique Iglesias - Bailamos
7. Digital Underground - The Humpty Dance
8. Pretty Much Any Song from Fraggle Rock
9. Shakira - She Wolf
10. Men at Work - Land Down Under

10 Songs that Get Sylvan Dancing Around the House No Matter What Kind of Crap Mood She Was In

1. The Proclaimers - 500 Miles
2. Pink - U + Ur Hand
3. Katrina & the Waves - Walkin' on Sunshine
4. Ani DiFranco - Little Plastic Castle
5. The B52s - Love Shack
6. Barenaked Ladies - One Week
7. Sawt el Atlas - Ne Me Jugez Pas
8. Annie Lennox - Love is Blind
9. Gipsy Kings - Volare
10. Michael Franti & Spearhead - Say Hey (I Love You)

10 Songs Sylvan Will Sing to Without Even Realizing She's Singing

1. Jason Mraz - I'm Yours
2. Indigo Girls - Closer to Fine
3. Patty Griffin - Rain
4. Dar Williams - The Christians and the Pagans
5. Maroon 5 - Back at Your Door
6. Celtic Woman - The Voice
7. XTC - Green Man
8. Vienna Teng - City Hall
9. Liz Phair - HWC (you'll just have to look that one up...but don't play it at work)
10. Alanis Morissette - On the Tequila

10 Songs Syl Thinks are Just Plain Gorgeous

1. Delerium w/Sarah McLachlan - Silence
2. Sting - Desert Rose
3. Govinda - Nomads
4. Loreena McKennitt - Kecharitomene
5. Seal - Kiss from a Rose
6. Sia - Breathe Me
7. Jason Mraz - A Beautiful Mess
8. Madonna - Isaac
9. Deva Premal - Gayatri Mantra (RajRishi Alternative Mix)
10. Lizz Wright - Song for Mia

What songs would you add to these lists?

Second Blogoversary

This is the part where I say "sorry I haven't posted, I'll be better about it for now on, forgive me my writer's block, et cetera."  Really though, there are only so many times you can say that before it rings completely hollow, so no excuses; I haven't been here, I haven't been writing, and that's all I can really say.

This month, however, has been the second anniversary of the Dancing Down the Moon blog, and just like last year I've compiled a list of my favorite posts of 2008.  This year has been The Grand Suck, and my writing has been sporadic, but there are still a number of bits I particularly enjoyed.

I'd also like to thank the kind and wonderful folk who have donated to DDtM in the past month--especially Renee and Heather, whose generosity is sooooo appreciated (and enabled me to pay for my web hosting).  Thank you a thousand times, and I'm sorry I suck at returning emails, but you're definitely loved and thought of.

So, enjoy this brief trip down memory lane, while I try to catch up on my Inbox and get some new material going.  Runic Wednesdays will resume next week (and hopefully be more frequent (and punctual) now that I'm doing a bit better).

Witch, Please

Then Things I Love, Body Sacred Edition

Return to Innocence

The Rest is Sill Unwritten

Parsley, Sage, Rosemary, and Thyme...and Dragon's Blood

I Have Chosen to Stay and Fight

Hope is the Thing With Branches

Witch, Please.

Here are the things I don't care about:

I don't care what the name of your religion is.
I don't care what the names of your gods are. 
I don't care how old your religion is.
I don't care if your great-great-whatever grandmother passed down your famtrad Book of Shadows under the watchful eye of the Inquisition.
I don't care if an entire civilization worshipped your Goddess for ten thousand years.
I don't care if you made Her up based on manga or Tolkien or a dream you had.
I don't care where you place your altar.
I don't care which direction you call Earth.
I don't care how psychic you are.
I don't care if you're smarter than me.
I don't care why you eat meat, or don't.
I don't care how many shields you think you need.
I don't care how your childhood trauma made you a powerful magickian.
I don't care if you spell "magic" with a k.
I don't care if you were an Atlantean Magus in your last life.
I don't care if you're brand-spanking new.
I don't care how much you hate Christians.
I don't care how many degrees you have.
I don't care if people call you "Lady" or "Lord."
I don't care if you're King of all Londinium and wear a shiny hat.
I don't care if you can read minds or light candles with your breath.
I don't care how the world owes you a living.
I don't care if you've been studying the Craft for thirty years or thirty minutes.
I don't care what your totem animal is, especially if it's a wolf, raven, or unicorn.
I don't care if you can trace your lineage back to Gardner.
I don't care if you think I'm a moron, fraud, or basket case.
I don't care how many books you've read.
I don't care how much or how little money you have.

What do I care about?

I care that your religion has made you a kinder, more compassionate person.
I care that you can hold down a job.
I care that you're growing past whatever happened to you as a child or last year.
I care that your gods help you become stronger without coddling you.
I care that you are willing and able to adapt and change as your life does.
I care that you care about the Earth.
I care that you care about someone and something outside yourself.
I care that you practice your religion with devotion and reverence.
I care that you respect others' paths.
I care that you never stop learning.
I care that you can conduct adult relationships with respect and understanding.
I care that you get how hilarious life is.
I care that you know when to ask for help.
I care that you realize that someone will always be smarter, more powerful, and more together than you.
I care that you realize it doesn't matter, because tomorrow you'll be smarter, more powerful, and more together than you were yesterday.
I care that you have reasons for everything you do, even if those reasons are purely intuitive.
I care that you can admit when you're wrong.
I care that you know you're both a tiny speck in a vast universe and a rare, precious jewel in the darkened sky.
I care that you're making a difference.
I care that you know when to speak and when to shut the hell up.
I care that you are seeking a relationship with Deity and with Nature.
I care that you are healthy.
I care that you're contributing to your family and community.
I care that your capacity for love and joy increase with every passing year.
I care that you believe in yourself.
I care that you're doing the best you can.

The Year in Review, part 2

...and here is the second half of the list of my favorite post of the year.

Thank you to everyone who has stuck around since last September--I tell myself I would write even if no one read my work, but like most writers I'm a bit of an egomaniac, and believe me, your comments and warm fuzzies have kept me at this even when I've dreaded the thought of typing another long, drawn-out sentence.  I hope that long-time readers, as well as relative newcomers, will put up their feet and stay a while.

My Favorite Posts This Year, #6-10

A Vegan Pagan's Prayer

Prozac and Polar Bears

The Three Catalysts

As Within, So Without

Give it Up for the Goddess

...and we're back

First off I apologize for my absence.  It's been an un-fun time here at Sylvan lately, but I am hoping things are getting back on track.  Regular posting should resume this week.

To get back into the swing of things I thought I'd post something completely pointless and utterly mundane.  It contains zero spiritual insights, but will at least give you an idea of the sorts of things that have been getting me through the last month or so, and if you're at all interested in me personally (being, as I am, so fascinating *laugh*) you may enjoy it.   

Feel free to take this and post your own answers on your blog; like a great many things modern Pagans do, it's partially made up and partially stolen from others like it.

Ten Things I Love - Pagan Edition

Inspired partially by Hecate - here's a list of ten things I love about practicing my religion, from the big to the not-so.  I didn't include "I love Deity," because that's kind of a given...besides, "love" in the context of a list like this seems like much too small a word for how I actually feel.

That being said:

1 ~ I love that we have things like the Chocolate Ritual, the Fraggle Rock Ritual, and the Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Casserole.  Self-parody is pretty much nonexistent in mainstream religion.

2 ~ I love the sweat-socks/marijuana/desert smell of burning white sage.

3 ~ Along the same lines, I love how most Witches' homes all have that underlying "50 Kinds of Incense" smell that permeates everything from our clothes to our curtains.

4 ~ I love the sensation of being gently but firmly pushed to the back of my own mind that occurs at the onset of Drawing Down the Moon.

5 ~ I love the fact that even though I don't speak their language, trees talk to me and I understand perfectly.

6 ~ I love that we don't have blasphemy.  Otherwise I'd be in sooooo much trouble.

7 ~ I love that when my friends and I talk, I can say things like, "Her energy was all crispy and had all these green tentacles like a hentai sex monster, and it felt like she was poking me in the third chakra," and they know exactly what I mean.

8 ~ I love that having a vagina doesn't render me inferior or less "in God's image" than someone with a penis, and that I can teach, lead, and affect the evolution of my religion regardless of biology, sexuality, or race.

9 ~ I love my athame. (The picture doesn't do it justice.)

10 ~ I love when I'm doing a Rune casting for someone who previously didn't really believe in silly things like divination, and they give me the wide-eyed "holy fuck!" look that means not only am I right, I'm scary. 

Ten Small Things I Love for No Big Reason

1 ~ I love when my turn signal syncs up with the beat of the song on my car stereo, just for a second.

2 ~ I love the way my insides tingle when I hold blue kyanite.

3 ~ I love orzo pasta.

4 ~ I love natural redheads.  For hours at a time, if I can.

5 ~ I love how every time I get a really weird song stuck in my head, I turn on the radio and it's playing.

6 ~ I love when Cosmo gets the Kitty Zooms and runs at breakneck speed from one end of my apartment to the other, then screeches to a halt and looks at me as if to say, "Quoi?" before returning to his butt-licking regimen as if nothing interesting had just happened.

7 ~ I love how on some people's skin, tattoos are raised just slightly as if they were drawn in Braille; but on others, they're smooth, just part of the skin itself.  (Mine are the Braille variety, just FYI.)

8 ~ I love my shoulders, especially the picture they create when teamed with the Epic Adventure that is my cleavage. 

9 ~ I love that I kick so much ass at Trivial Pursuit.

10 ~ I love the tiny white pencils they give you at IKEA.

Now, it's your turn--go forth to your own blog and make a list of Ten Small Things You Love for No Big Reason.