Paying Bills during the Apocalypse

Dystopia, Sanity, Wholeness,
Peace, and my Goddess

Back home, in California, some of my friends evacuated, fleeing primeval flames that roar across millions of acres. It’s like the moment of creation as scientists describe it, except my heart rails against humans and forests being included in the picture now—this is not science’s creation story, this is wrong.

The breadth of the blaze evokes the hell that brutalized my childhood: cartoon flames on tv accompanied by televised screams, supposedly from souls tortured forever by the devil.

It’s like the movies. Except Apocalypse is no longer a metaphor or threat. Our lands worldwide are so devastated that they can no longer hold illness in check and, instead, foster malaria and otherwise destroy health and happiness. The bad guys are in the service of a dictator, profit from the plague, thwart cures, and cheer cruelty on. Mother Earth is ill, with a temperature that is wildly ever-shifting. Desert-like heat is followed moments later by snow. Father Sky is red—not blue photographed through a scarlet lens.

But yesterday I counseled a client suffering from trauma that pre-dates Covid, Trump, and the rest of it. I helped my beloved client heal.

Then I created a recipe for chicken with rice, seasoned with jalapeños. I ignored dishes that need washing. I fed the cat. I remembered I need to make an appointment with the vet. I did The New York Times crossword puzzle.

Right now, I’m okay financially. But how long will I have employment? Will the money run out? Will I be without food? In a month, when I look outside my window, what is the world I will see? What will come pounding on my door? Today, I will pay bills. The pump on my well broke months back. I’ve been paying for the new pump on a payment plan. I wondered momentarily whether I should continue to pay these big sums of money for the pump, since I do not know how long money will continue to come in. I believe in being responsible and decided to continue to pay, the same way I have been able to for decades.

This morning, as I’ve done almost every morning for forty years, I asked my Goddess to guide and protect me through the day, and to help me be of service. And then, as I’ve also done near every morning, I sat with Her as we planned my day.

The contrast between our dystopia and the continuance of my daily routine leaves me torn in two yet numb. I am cleaved senseless between two worlds. I wondered if that is a form of insanity. No, it is an appropriate human response.

Last night I dreamt I was back in London with my dear Fred, who is like a brother to me. In the dream, he was ill, and I said I’d stay to take care of him.

In waking life, I’m disabled so need care myself. But dreamtime me was able-bodied.

Oh, there I was, back with Fred and in his beautiful home. With me was a childhood friend—in waking life, we’re estranged—who has had a hard life, and now I was able to house her in one of London’s posh neighborhoods.

In waking life, Fred is in a nursing home in Austria.

Before sleep last night, I’d psychically sent him a message. “Would you do prosperity magic for me?” I live a charmed life, which helps my money spells work great, but Fred has the best money mojo I know, and he’s done prosperity spells for me in the past.

Upon waking, I pulled the feeling of the dream into my belly, doing so as an enchantment to maintain—and help me embody—the prosperity energy the dream created.

Last week, I dreamt I still lived in California, before it was a child’s vision of hell. In the dream, my friends Kathleen and Qin still lived there too. I was visiting them for Thanksgiving dinner. Usually my dreams are anxious or bizarre—good bizarre or bad bizarre. But this dream was ordinary. It was just nice. And boring, as Thanksgiving sometimes is. Then they courteously saw me to the door, and I said goodbye, annoyed at the prospect of the long exhausting train ride to San Francisco, because I knew a car ride to the city would’ve been quick.

Two dreams now, that were neither peculiar nor distressing, just simple, happy, precious time with dear friends.

The visits also symbolized a deep peace I have found, a greater calm than I’ve ever had. Odd as it may sound, I am happier than I’ve ever been. I’ve had to work so hard to fend off misery that the mega-efforts resulted in happiness. Some details about that:

Terrible depression, desperation, and hopelessness were threatening me constantly because there is so much horror in the world, and serious things hanging over my head in my specific life—no need to list them here, but they’re bad. So I’ve been spending as much time in ritual as possible to continually renew and center myself, and let the Goddess keep empowering, calming, and guiding me. This is keeping me overall sane, productive, and happy.

Mind you, I bounce from happiness to misery a few days later, and then back to happy again. It’s sane to feel awful when situations are awful. But I’d remain stuck in emotional devastation, permanently immobilized, if I wasn’t spending so much time in ceremony. Doing a lot of ritual is keeping me on an even keel and happy, overall. Life is good and bountiful.

And the abundance of rites keeps me clearheaded and capable when it comes to warding off the possible problems hanging over me. And if they do come down on me, I’ll be at my best to face them down.

I also focus as much as possible on serving others. That automatically opens me in a way that gives the Goddess a chance to bless me with peace, wholeness, abundance, and safety.

I believe Her love for me exists in every atom. Every atom is magic. Magic is the living presence of the Goddess’ love.

If I serve others, am honest about my moral shortcomings, and maintain some other spiritual and magical disciplines, that ever-present magic can bless me and carry me toward my dearest goals.

That does not mean that life, with all its terrors, stops.

Speaking only for myself, I must accept life as it is, if I am to have peace and power. With all the spiritual work I’ve been doing lately, I reached a new level of acceptance that’s so beautiful and that I’ve wanted for decades. And then, the past few days, I have been sulking instead of accepting, feeling everything is futile. Such is the spiritual path: the ridiculous shift from transcendence to pouting, to despondency to on-top-of-the-world.

Today, I do not feel good. I do not feel happy. But last night I was near immobilized, and today I can write.

Only a few nights ago, I prepared a late dinner with fried green tomatoes from my garden. I meditated on serving community in ways that honor the child-me who wanted to be sprinkled with starlight. Brewed up a concoction of marshmallow root and Lungs of the Forest to strengthen my lungs should I get Covid. (Isn’t Lungs of the Forest a beautiful name for an herb?) Right this minute, I drink in the energy of that evening, put it into my belly and chest and all my cells, and sit here happy, at least for the moment.

I commit to keep on living my life full tilt, whether with battle cry, tears, laughter, serenity, misery, silliness, or joyous song. So mote it be!