Kara Dreamer (obsolete) ⚧ @kara_dreamer@witches.town

I have to worry a lot more about being mindful of my surroundings, now, than I have ever been in the past. I'm working a job that could literally get me killed if I'm careless with my footing, and I've had a few slips and bangs already. I've come home aching from bruised knees and torqued wrists.

I've accused myself of being a big lumbering horse, in the past, back when Monoceros / Monophylos the Unicorn was my main fursona. Being ill-matched to, and ill at ease with, his human surroundings was practically baked into him. Then I went for the dragonsona, which was scarcely any more graceful.

Yeah, I could learn from spiders.

Back when I first started my turbulent relationship with Loki, I felt like it made sense in my chaotic life to have even the occasional support of a deity who knew something about chaos. I felt like one of Loki's intents was to get me more used to life not going to plan, to getting slapped about by the unexpected. And I daresay that I've had some _massive_ bombshells dropped on me over the past year that somehow I've managed steer through the worst of.

But maybe now I need a different sort of help from a gentler sort of trickster. Someone less...melodramatic, and more attuned to everyday life and everyday worries. Enter the spider.

Some of what happened to me yesterday, the curious feeling of trickster activity that nevertheless felt rather different from what I'm used to from Loki, seemed rather in line with the lessons that quasi-Anansi had for me last night. "Step patiently, step patiently, build and traverse webs with care, and you'll be better off than you are now, your mind more on your goal than on your surroundings—and your footing." And I remember how the culminating "trick" of that scrambled trip around Renton was my putting my foot in an unexpected hole and tumbling painfully to the ground, scraping myself rather badly on the way.

So, I've thought and reflected about this some more today, and I think I know the right way to think about it. I can still getting something out of my experience without running to the somewhat dodgy extreme of saying, "OK, I'm working magic with Anansi now," which I think is a somewhat questionable thing for an off-white (my mom's from Chile but I was basically socialized white) and comfortably privileged person to say. But I _can_ say, "I'm working with a deity who seems strongly associated with spiders and who reminds me of Anansi, what little I know about them." There must be other spider gods too, right?

about "Kamen Rider Amazons" (which I really need to get onto the 2nd season of), not sure what my girlfriend and I are waiting for exactly: @KaylinEvergreen is _really_ liking it much more than any other tokusatsu I've shown her, and she's got a semi-serious interpretation that it's really an extended trans metaphor. This reading adds a weird force to certain elements in the show, like the way that Haruka awkwardly bonds with fellow Amazon Mamoru, and how the Amazons in hiding struggle to form their own support networks to survive and function, while hiding in conventional society as best they can.

blech, I have some time I could be streaming Mother 3 in but I'm feeling too lazy and a bit deflated now that Kaylin's gone. we had a good time, eating sushi and then watching a whole bunch of stuff--some episodes of "Kanpai Senshi After V', some episodes of "Kamen Rider Amazons" first season (Kaylin's really liking this one), and then we watched the 1979 Dracula with Frank Langella, which turned out to be a real treat. This is Dracula at his most suave and sexual, and Langella sells it beautifully.

all I know for certain is that I've had a couple of fairly powerful experiences of the numinous in connection with Anansi, with the Undertale "Spider Dance" and The Cure's "Lullaby" as evocative music. The experiences have lacked the closeness of my interactions with Loki; more strongly do I feel (if you'll pardon the expression) like a spider under a magnifying glass being scrutinized by a power I don't understand. With Loki, and with the Undertale pantheon, I feel like I'm on more even, conversational terms.

But I do think that now that if any trickster has been messing with me lately, it's not Coyote, even though the fellow's been on my mind lately thanks to Gunnerkrigg Court. Instead, I think it was Anansi. And I wonder about that...honestly it feels presumptuous and appropriative of me to pretend to any sort of spiritual contact with a deity from a culture I know almost nothing about, but then I suppose I could say the same thing about a lot of my supposed dealings with deities. I mean, what can I _really_ claim to know about Loki or Hecate or anyone else?

last night's psychonavigation was...interesting, but I didn't bring a lot back. that's one disadvantage to trying to get internal insights with, say, lots of THC: you're in such an altered state when the visions come that when you're sober again, the visions seem remote and devoid of meaning. It's not amnesia, exactly, because you can remember more or less what happened, but not why it seemed to make so much sense at the time.

so! uh...I'm...really high.

what's up

not Coyote

Anansi

I feel like an off-white interloper in spiritual territory that belongs to someone else

yeah, Coyote has definitely been nipping at me