Yes, I know I predicted it would be in the autumn but this is the nicest way to be wrong.
Local hero and national treasure Fokawolf has started off his campaign for the Tory party with a bang:
I'm afraid you'll have to go to YouTube to hear the sound track to this post:
Pictured: St Paul's in the Jewellery Quarter.
The crumbling corpse which I carry around with me took another turn for the worse about six months ago, and so in an attempt to stop myself progressing from pre-diabetes to actual diabetes I'm making some more changes to my life.
I'd already made some, and think I have hit on the best way to manage my inflammatory arthritis (as well as taking medication obvs). Despite the professionals telling me at different times to rest and to exercise, none of them seem to have hit on the reality that the key to managing it is to increase your exercise *and also* to rest more. So I'm walking like nobody's business but also going to bed when I feel like it.
Perhaps the thing most horrifying about it is the realisation that I honestly don't think you have enough time to manage this illness and work a full time job. I was much worse when I was working and unfortunately having an active job is not the answer because you have no guarantee when it will put you in bed for a day.
It will help with the arthritis but I'm also working on losing some weight to try to avoid diabetes. I've been making diet changes for some months but after trying a couple of apps that really weren't going to work for me, have hit on the NHS weight loss app which is very simple and I'm getting on better with.
Strangely something I'm finding helpful is the experience of having stopped smoking in the past. It feels very familiar to be moving to a place of actually making changes. There's also a strange irony in that having worked with people with anorexia for years I knew all about how to lose weight (both dangerously and sensibly) but actually doing it was something else.
And as we know witchcraft is all about making change happen!
'But they're mistaken or have been lied to' goes the narrative at this point.
I'm afraid at this point I honestly don't care. At this point if you claim to think the earth is flat, Trump won, Brexit was a sensible decision, abortion is murder, covid doesn't exist, etc, you are choosing to believe this nonsense. The reality is as an adult it behoves you to orientate yourself to reality, and I don't owe these people a discussion, evidence, or even an audience. They're fools and will not be persuaded because they don't want to be (that is, if they're even actual people, on social media).
Is this judgemental? Of course. Am I being horrible? You bet. Do I care? Do I fuck.
When you don't care about these fools, it changes your perspective. It gives you the opportunity to concentrate and be very selective who you talk with. This means that I don't waste the remaining years of my life around people that I can't stand, and I think we can all agree that this is a desirable thing.
In my misspent youth hanging around the monastic world I got to know the idea of being focused on thing, being alone, and so on. In a Christian monastic world this tends to mean being focused on God and the other people in the community form the lessons that God teaches you by the love of neighbour. I suppose in true witchy fashion I've turned this on its head to focus on what I want to focus on, and not be distracted by fools. The Hound's rule for monasteries would tend to end up with a very different end product than St Benedict's!
I honestly can't really see a downside to this approach. I can see an objection that you would never get your opinions challenged if you only hang out with people of your own opinion. However if you're just making a point of avoiding unreality and argument with the unpersuadable I think you actually get challenged more. I think this is the result of seeking out intelligent people.
This also highlights that in a witchy/Pagan milieu, rather than the single eye being focused on God, it will necessarily be focused on the world and open to all the possibilities therein. Just not fools.
Subtle, I know.