Frances Nanabees: Modern Witch

 Meet the Card: Initial Impressions: An intense looking half man half beast sits perched on a box. He's horned and has wings. He clutches a torch and above his brow a pentagram. Below him two naked people seemingly also horned: Lady Grapes and Captain Flametail, are chained to the box. WHAT'S IN THE BOX? Is he setting Captain Flametail on fire? Is Mr. Goatbat waving us over or telling us to stand back and that there's nothing to see here?  I personally feel like I walked in on something I shouldn't have.   I'm curious. You walk up to a door you've never seen before, haul it open and you and your eyeballs are met with this scene. Do you quickly slam the door and go, "oh shit, my bad - you clearly have a book club I wasn't invited to", or are you intrigued and like - "umm...what's in the box, giggity?" Keywords and Phrases: Bondage to the material world Temptation Obsessions Attachments Addictions Restrictions Shadow self Sexuality Arch...

 Goodbye and farewell to 2021. The literal death of the past calendar and the birth of a new. It has as much or as little weight as you want to give it. Death simply is. Change. It comes for us all. No one escapes death. One transition into another. One thing has to end in order for another to begin, and so 2021 rolls out, and here comes 2022.  I have a pretty neutral feeling about death. I am fairly sure that being raised in a doomsday cult that teaches that when you die you just go to sleep is the main factor in my detachment to death. I love sleep! So I guess it's not like I am seeking it out tomorrow, but a forever nap does sound nice some days. But I also just think this death neutrality might also be attributed to my super practical Midwestern heritage. Allow me to illustrate. Exhibit A: My grandma Vivien was old as long as I could remember. Your classic Midwest grandmother. She was floral polyester and doughy warm arms and white on top like a late season dandelion. Her ...

Today is my great-grandmother Florence's birthday. She's not alive to celebrate, she died well before I was born so I know very little about her. My last post was about healing from my mommy issues and that a large part of that was realizing my mom had mommy issues...as did her mother. So in this healing process, it felt important to know more about who she was. No one has any pictures of her hanging up, and didn't when I was a kid, but pictures of her do exist in the dusty old albums of our family so I went on a hunt to find some. I like this one. She looks like a great-grandma, and those glasses are fantastic. My family loves telling stories of cherished family memories, a majority of them feature people falling down come to think of it, but man do we have some good ones! Ones about family pet heroics. Crazy old relatives, funny stories from my parents childhoods that I've heard so often they feel like retellings of old favorite movies. The imagery so vivid at this po...

I feel like I need to start this post with a disclaimer. Probably a few of them now that I really think on it... 1) Therapy is amazing.  You should seek out a professional if you feel like you need to. 2) I am not a professional. I am making this up as I go. Don't be a dumbass like me. Seek out professionals if you need to. 3) I am going to talk about some really personal stuff. Probably stuff you may not have ever heard me talk about before, or not this deeply. If you don't want to read about thoughts of suicide, childhood trauma, religious trauma, or child death - this is probably not the post for you. Also swears. About three months ago, I woke up from a pandemic fog and realized, holy shit it's 2021. I am going to be fucking 42. Now, I am actually pretty cool with my 40's. I am only a couple years into this decade of life, and I am such a huge huge fan. My shits to give have really become so much lighter. When I made this realization, that 42 was screaming up on me ...