Judaism and Circumcision: The Mitzvah of the Brit Milah and a Pagan's take on the whole thing

**First, let me start off by saying that, while I’m not an “intactivist” by any means, my views in this post will not align with all of yours. That’s part of the nature of sharing your opinion. :) Despite these differences, though, please be aware that I do respect yours and your reasons for them. That being said, I’m not necessarily going to hold back for the sakes of those who disagree, so if you’re pro-circumcision for any reason and don’t want to argue with me about it, this is your heads up!**

[caption id="attachment_1271" align="aligncenter" width="500" caption="Brit Milah, or the Covenant of Abraham/Circumcision. via wiki"][/caption]

A friend of mine, Dana, recently posted an article to her FB page entitled, “50 Reasons to Leave It Alone.” I admit that I didn’t click on most of the embedded links, but one of the points did strike me as interesting, as I had honestly never known this:

43.) If you are Jewish, you should know that there is considerable debate about the religious necessity of circumcision.

In my experience, circumcision — or the brit milah, literally “covenant of circumcision”, or the Yiddish bris — was required according to certain Biblical passages, namely Genesis 17:10-14 and Leviticus 12:3:

10 This is My covenant, which ye shall keep, between Me and you and thy seed after thee: every male among you shall be circumcised. 11 And ye shall be circumcised in the flesh of your foreskin; and it shall be a token of a covenant betwixt Me and you. 12 And he that is eight days old shall be circumcised among you, every male throughout your generations, he that is born in the house, or bought with money of any foreigner, that is not of thy seed. 13 He that is born in thy house, and he that is bought with thy money, must needs be circumcised; and My covenant shall be in your flesh for an everlasting covenant. 14 And the uncircumcised male who is not circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin, that soul shall be cut off from his people; he hath broken My covenant.

Genesis 17:10-14

3 And in the eighth day the flesh of his foreskin shall be circumcised.

Leviticus 12:3

Is it just me, or does even just the word “Leviticus” make you think of circumcision? Like I’m saying “cut” in another language. It gives me the heebie-jeebies.

Honestly, the whole thing has always given me the creeps. Like I was explaining to Dana, the thought really freaks me out, and I told Matt a bit ago that I could not be in the room while it was happening. If that’s the case, why would I let my son go through it at all? If I can’t be there to support and hold and cuddle and console him, why put him through it in the first place?

I understand that it’s a mitzvah and that the procedure is done differently by a mohel — a Jewish person trained in the art of the brit milah — than by a urologist at a hospital, but I still can’t help the involuntary feeling I get when I think about someone, anyone, harming our eventual child. Yes, it’s a religious rite of passage, and yes, it’s rather common among the Jewish population. It still seems wrong, though.

Part of it may be that I am, of course, not Jewish. I don’t understand some of the mitzvot, and in some way, as I never and will likely never (consciously) practice them, I never will.

But I do find some solace knowing that there are actually Jewish individuals, couples, and families who feel the same way I do, that circumcision doesn’t really serve any real medical or, even Judaically, spiritual purpose. Like many other commandments aside from circumcision, those deemed too brutal to actually do and were at least therefore modified to accommodate a modern Jewish life, why can’t the brit milah be modified to accommodate those who wish not to do this to their child? After all, it’s been done before!

And ultimately, it kind of stings that anything would be done to or for a child in the name of religion. I left the religion of my parents because I felt it wasn’t right for me, and I sometimes regret having gone through their ceremonies and rituals when I ended up abandoning it. I wasn’t committed, and I don’t expect my child to be committed, either.

To me, all the painful stuff aside, the act of the brit milah is one done for the parents, not for the child. There are increasing numbers of Jews who are not having the procedure done (almost all of whom are associated with a more humanistic Judaism), and are leaving the choice up to the boy when he grows older. In fact, several Jewish men have gone through this.

Add the element that our children will be raised in an interfaith household, and that circumcision is a decision that is made for a child who does not yet understand religion (much less a specific one!)… yeah, one can see why I’m not comfortable with the idea. I’d much rather leave it all intact and, should our possible son grow up and believe a brit milah is right for him, support him the entire way through.

Just as I would pretty much anything else he decides. :)

Feeling better.

Damn, y'all. This coffee is good.

This entire weekend was spent hanging out with my MIL (which actually wasn't as bad as I thought it'd be, but she also wasn't at the house all day Saturday, lol) and organizing our office. DH and I did some major work on that office while my MIL was out, putting together furniture and arranging everything just so. The basement is starting to look a little more complete. :)

We also managed to have some alone time both after we built the furniture and the next morning. So yay. ;)

It's been a good healing weekend. I enjoyed every bit of the things I may not have been able to enjoy had the pregnancy stuck: Had some wine AND beer, drank coffee like it was going out of style, didn't worry about what I ate or how I exercised, pushed my body to its limits. And didn't have to explode from anx

iety from hiding something from MIL.

I think I'm coming to terms with the chemical. Statistics and facts aside, I do realize this kind of thing is normal, and that it bodes well for a positive in the future... both in regards to my physiology and in terms of BFPs! I also would have never known had I not tested at 11DPO, and honestly, I shouldn't have tested because my temps did dip that morning (first time they ever have, at least steadily, before AF!). But I did, and I can't beat myself up about that. I can only acknowledge what I did, what subsequently happened, and prepare better for the future.

I've been looking up ideas for a little potted plant since Julia suggested some for their properties. Some ideas, as these flowers and herbs are known for fertility:

• Cuckoo-flower (also: lover)


• Daffodil (also: love, luck)


• Geranium (also: health, love, protection)


• Patchouli (also: money, lust)


• Poppy (also: love, sleep, money, luck, invisibility)


• Sunflower (also: wishes, health, wisdom)

I'm thinking about incorporating one or a few of these into a fertility spell, actually. It's been a LONG time since I've cast anything, saving spells for very specific purposes or when I need an extra boost. The last time I cast anything was for a new job -- this was a few months before my current job, actually! -- and before that? Years, literally. I don't even know how long. So I'm a bit rusty, but hey, when the idea's good... :)

Probably going to use cuckoo-flower, daffodil, and/or sunflower. Gotta figure out a few more things, too, before actually doing the ritual. I'm thinking of doing it at the full moon or just before -- 6 April. Hm.

So we'll see. Researching a bit on spells and rituals has given me a little bit of a confidence boost, which is nice, and I like the idea of commemorating this lost pregnancy while encouraging a new one to flourish.

Thanks for all your kind words, support, and love. <3

Not making progress.

**PSA: If someone has something not-so-nice to say, kindly shut the fuck up.**

I am such an asshole. Seriously.

I finally got around to turning off email responses in TCOYF, but not after a deluge of new BFPs. Seriously, luck of the goddamn Irish this month. Women who have been trying one month, women who have only made a handful of posts, women who update every damn day then say "OMG it worked! My BFP keeps getting stronger!"

Each time, I'm mentally shouting, "Fuck you! Seriously!"

And as a result, I've been a complete asshole all week. It's now been a week since my own T(iny)L(ittle)P, and I swear, I feel like I'm never going to get over it.

Part of the problem, I'm sure, is that I never gave myself the time nor ability to really grieve. I mean, a part of me keeps thinking that it's so stupid for me to want to grieve a two-week-old cluster of cells that just didn't take, but another part is pushing that that's really stupid thought back because, obviously, I do need to acknowledge it somehow. Obviously. I can't keep feeling this shitty and mentally cursing everyone forever.

It's like how I reacted after... okay, for those who don't know, I was raped at 18. It took me years to get over it because, well, I never admit to myself that it was rape, and I never allowed myself to process and eventually get over it. To grieve my "virginity" (in quotes because I find that word highly subjective anyway, but if we're talking about the word as accepted by society, yes... my virginity) and my sexual rights and wants and needs. I pushed it to the back of my mind, forgot it ever happened, and slowly ground away at my self-esteem and sense of self worth until there was very little left.

I don't want that to happen this time around, but... I also don't know how to let it go. How to accept it, move on, and even turn it into a positive. All this positive thinking and mantras and all that crap haven't been working, despite forcing all that to show on the outside instead of revealing the immense pain I feel on the inside.

I was talking to D this morning, and I brought up maybe planting a flower. You know, to grow and nurture a life in place of one lost. I'm not sure if that would even help, but I've got to try something.

Otherwise, I'm just going to keep feeling like this... and that's not conducive to anything.

Especially not next cycle.

To make matters worse, DH and I haven't made love since our last BD attempt. And that's my fault...

Faith and Freedom: In the Clink (Pagan Blog Project 2012)

It’s so early this morning for a rant!

My inbox held an article from HuffPost Religion about religion in prison, wherein a Pew Forum released a 50-state survey of prison chaplains. Many of the results were not surprising: Muslim and Protestant Christian faith systems experienced a growth in religion switching, religious counseling and other religion-based programming are an important part of inmate rehabilitation, and so forth.

But what struck me was the part about Pagan inmates. The Wild Hunt already wrote an excellent bit about Pagan prison chaplains, and they paused over the same part in the article that I did:

At the same time, a sizable minority of chaplains say that religious extremism is either very common (12 percent) or somewhat common (29 percent) among inmates. Religious extremism is reported by the chaplains as especially common among Muslim inmates (including followers of the Nation of Islam and the Moorish Science Temple of America) and, to a substantial but lesser degree, among followers of pagan or earth-based religions such as Odinism and other small religious groups that many Americans may never have heard of. An overwhelming majority of chaplains, however, report that religious extremism seldom poses a threat to the security of the facility in which they work, with only 4 percent of chaplains saying religious extremism among inmates “almost always” poses a threat to prison security and an additional 19 percent saying it “sometimes” poses a threat.

Emphasis mine. Obviously.

Pagan chaplaincy has always been something I’ve been particularly passionate about. I think it covers both the “I really want to help people” and “giving people the freedom to practice as they choose” points that I try to cover when it comes to Pagan faiths. And I’m of the belief that a prison, just like any other federal- or state-run institution or establishment, should allow people of all faiths, including those that “many Americans may never have heard of”, to practice their faiths. Freedom of (and from) religion and all that Constitutional blah blah.

When a survey like this comes back, though, and states that religious extremism is especially common among Pagan or earth-based inmates, and when those surveyed are overwhelmingly Evangelical Christian… it makes you if those Pagans are actually extremists or if the chaplains’ views of Pagan (and Muslim) spirituality are clouded by their own, rather contemptuous viewpoints. And my skin prickles a bit.



I’ve noticed that, as a growing number of people, from those “on the outside” to those in prisons, discover and accept a Pagan faith (34% of prison chaplains report a growth in Pagan faiths), so does the argument that these faiths are “extreme”. These people tend to adhere to religious faiths that are in and of themselves pretty extreme, which strikes me as both odd and ironic. Although Pagans only account for 1.7% of the overall prison population, about 40,000 throughout the system, their level of extremism according to those chaplains who were polled was extremely high, surpassing even Protestant Christians (including those who tend to be Evangelical)!



I’m not saying that there aren’t extremists in Pagan faiths; in my years, I’ve come across a few myself. But in the context of this study, wherein the majority of reporting chaplains are some sort of Christian (and this is representative of the chaplain population as a whole – they’re overwhelmingly Christian) and 44% of those Christian chaplains are Evangelical, are they really able to be unbiased as to what is and isn’t “extreme”?

One of the definitions for “religious extremism”, which a quarter of chaplains mentioned, is incredibly telling: Extreme views are characterized by the “requests for special food, clothing or rituals”, especially if they are seen as “bogus or extreme, such as meat for a Voodoo ritual or a religious diet consisting of goat’s milk, vegetables and oatmeal with sugar”. Oh, that’s nice. So if the request isn’t something that you anticipate in your own religious faith, it’s seen as extreme. (Bonus: It’s also bogus!) And with a population as small as the Pagan one is, and as large the Christian representation remains, of course most, if not all, Pagan requests are going to seem bogus or extreme.

Fortunately, the instances in people believing there to be an extremist problem is slim, and the top-ranking extremist issue is intolerance toward specific races or social groups… as in, using religion as a cover or reason for your asshole tendencies. Inflexibility comes next, which makes sense for a lot of converts to any faith – if you’re new at it, you’re probably going to be rigid in your beliefs and practices. Specific requests are mentioned to a pretty irritating 28%, but those requests, as noted in the survey, are often accommodated.

“Accommodation”, by the way, is not elaborated upon, but I would hope this would mean you could get your raw meat for your Voodoo ritual, your religious dietary needs met, or your Sabbat celebration honored in some form (excepting a boline or athame, I’d imagine! It is prison, after all). Why is part of me remaining doubtful, though.

But this view – that Pagans can be and overwhelmingly are religious extremists, especially compared to a much more widely represented Evangelical Christian population (seriously?) – only makes it harder for the few Pagan chaplains that exist in the prison system. As I said before, the Pagan population is growing not only outside prisons, but inside it as well, and there continues to be an overwhelming number of conservative and Christian chaplains despite the need for representation by other faiths.

In other words, the supply of Pagan chaplains is not keeping up with their need. I understand this might partially be a “well, how many Pagan chaplains are there to go around?” issue, but as demonstrated in military chaplaincy, the chances of Pagan chaplains being hired in general is incredibly low compared to other faiths. Because it's, you know, extreme. And bogus.

In fact, despite the growing number of Pagan inmates, Pagan chaplains are still marginalized to “other religion”, which includes but is not limited to Pagans, at only 2%:



And if others keep up with this mindset that what is “different” is labeled “extreme”, we’ll be hard pressed to make any progress, either in chaplaincy or in our everyday lives. Which is especially frustrating because it’s a perception by other people, not even created by ourselves in the Pagan population.

Not usually, at least. ;)

Support in troubled times.

I really wanted to thank you all (and those of you from TCOYF who might be reading! :)) for your support, your kind words, your wisdom, and your strength. When I finally went back to my computer yesterday and checked through all your messages, I was overwhelmed by your responses to a day-long positive test that included all the above and more. You all have no idea how much that meant to me. <3

DH and I spent the Saturday after AF arrived cleaning house (my MIL is coming into town on Friday). Where some parts of the house are sparkling clean, others are still torn apart by the tornado that is our spring cleaning. It was both frustrating and therapeutic to go through everything, bit by bit and drawer by drawer, and clean out all that mess that we were holding on to for the sake of simply holding on.

I also made it my time to go through the past three cycles and clean out all the bad feelings: Every obsession, every wasted minute, every bit of grief felt from this chemical pregnancy... I let it all go and threw them in the recycle bin with everything else. It was such a relief to do that.

We replaced one of our little units in the kitchen that was holding some cookbooks with an actual bookshelf, which I've wanted to do since we moved in. I built it on my own, using that time to also rebuild within, to make anew my mental processes and really lay down a good foundation for what is eventually to come. As I stacked the cookbooks on my newly finished bookshelf, I couldn't help but feel some pride in knowing that something so small could really make a huge difference.

Like I mentioned before, we're not trying this month... and I'm okay with that. In fact, I'm more than okay. I think I need a little retreat from all this, and I know DH feels the same. We have a lot coming up this month to keep us occupied (like cherry blossoms!), plus some additional projects we want to start working on together.

I think this is going to be a good cycle. It might not be a fruitful one as far as children are concerned, but our relationship will benefit from the rest and from the knowledge that it happened once... and soon enough, it will happen again.

This time, whenever it happens... it'll stick. :)

Happy St. Patrick's Day! - Debunking the Blarney

[caption id="attachment_1260" align="aligncenter" width="600" caption="Thank you to mclementsdesign on Flickr for the original image."][/caption]

Beannachtaí na Féile Pádraig!

I'm part Irish -- half of my heritage is Polish, half is a combination of French, German, Irish, and Swedish. I was also raised Catholic, which is strongly linked to that Irish side. So when St. Patrick's Day comes around, I can't help but feel pretty prideful, even if it is that small percentage. ;)

St. Patrick's Day, though, is rife with myths about snakes, wearing green, and St. Patrick being... well, Irish! I'm here to help debunk the blarney and let you know what St. Patrick's Day is really about.

Snaaaaake! Ohhhh, it's a snaaaaake...

Legend has it that St. Patrick banished snakes from Ireland by chasing them into the sea after they accosted him during a 40-day fast he was taking on top of a hill. To nitpick: as a post-glacial island, Ireland never had snakes and, as they can't fly, Ireland will never have snakes. (The same applies to New Zealand, Iceland, Greenland, and Antarctica.) So there were no snakes for St. Patrick to banish!

So why the myth? St. Patrick's core mission in Ireland was to be the island's biggest Catholic evangelist -- while Christians did live in Ireland at the time, the landscape was overwhelmingly Druid, and the Druids served as spiritual advisors to the tribal Celtic "kings" who essentially ruled the island. Despite the Romans claim over the island, they were rather lackadaisical about it, so the kings took over, fighting and raiding cattle from neighboring tribes for entertainment and exercise (all that plundering and pillaging has to be great cardio work!).

Essentially, they were never really a great influence. And as Irish schoolchildren were taught, these Druids had huge snake tattoos on their arms, a symbol for transformation, regeneration, and rebirth.

See where this is going?

As a missionary to the unconverted parts of Ireland, St. Patrick went to work supplanting the Druids, metaphorically "driving the snakes into the sea" until, by the seventh century, the Druids had pretty much disappeared from the Emerald Isle. The dominant religion had changed, from the Druid-addled landscape to the Catholic one it is today (and shares with Protestants -- more on that later). When it is pointed out that the snake-tattooed people, the Druids, are who were really driven out, the metaphor becomes clear, and as the history of the Druids faded away -- very easy, as the religion was oral-based and there was no written history on them -- the snakes remained, leaving the myth we have today.

I pinch!

There's a popular folk song about the colors of Ireland:

Oh it is the biggest mix-up that you have ever seen
My father he was orange and my mother she was green

Oh my father was an Ulsterman, proud Protestant was he
My mother was a Catholic girl, from County Cork was she
They were married in two churches, lived happily enough
Until the day that I was born and things got rather tough

You'd never think a family with a Protestant and a Catholic would ever be considered interfaith, would you? ;)

In fact, the Irish population is both Protestant and Catholic... though not without its share of strife. Starting with English imperialism, the creation of the Anglican Protestant church created fundamental religious conflict with the Irish population, which was overwhelmingly Catholic and not at all interested in conversion. It wasn't until the reign of Elizabeth I that Ireland was finally "conquered" and Protestantism became common, but that didn't stop any Catholic uprisings.

When James I seized Catholic lands in and around Ulster, the northern province of Ireland, to give to loyal Protestants in England and Scotland, Catholics in the area were evicted and many starved, leaving a few to crawl back and beg for menial jobs on their own former farms. Revolts continued around the province and across the rest of Ireland, and the brutality was incredible.

Catholicism was outlawed under the 1700's Penal Laws, and priests were banished. Catholics who continued their faith in secret were hunted and killed outright. Despite regaining legal status in the 1800s, Catholics still had to pay tithes to the Anglican church, starting a "tithe war" and continuing the cruelty between the two faiths.

In this century, the southern provinces of Ireland were liberated from English rule and Ireland became a 90% Catholic country, where divorce was outlawed (and still is today) and other Catholic-centric issues became law. The Irish Republican Army began a terrorist campaign in the 1950s in and around Ulster, forcing reunification with the south. That ended up splendidly, as you can imagine, and in retaliation, the Protestants formed their own paramilitary organizations. The British arrived to enforce peace, but their heavy-handedness only lent to more violence, often with the individual military forces terrorizing the British.

Only in recent decades has the violence started to wane and a true possibility for peace been a possibility.

Anyway, so that whole spiel was to state the actual reason for why we wear green on St. Patrick's Day. The color green is, according to recent popular tradition, left to the Catholics, while orange (which is becoming increasingly common, depending on your religious leanings) is attributed to the Protestants. If you look at the Ireland's flag, you'll notice that there's a stripe each of green and orange to represent each religion, with a stripe of white to represent the want for peace between the two.



Why the green? Originally, the color attributed to St. Patrick was blue, but green grew more popular as shamrocks were worn in celebration of St. Patrick's Day as early as the 17th century. St. Patrick is said to have used the shamrock to explain the Holy Trinity to the Pagan Irish, so it's clear to see why the blue switched to green so readily.

And why the orange? In 1690, William of Orange (William III), the king of England, Scotland, and Ireland, defeating King James II (he was Catholic, you know, and he wrote a Bible translation, too!) in the Battle of the Boyne near Dublin, ensuring Protestant military dominance. See before about how that all went. While the "Orange" in his name actually referred to a province in southern France, the color reference stuck, and orange now appears on the Irish flag... and now on the backs of Irish and other Protestants on St. Patrick's Day.

St. Patrick is Irish, too! ... not really.

As for St. Patrick, he'd be rather surprised by all the hullabaloo. He wasn't even Irish! He was British! And he was in Ireland in the 5th century, long before there was any division between Catholics and Protestants! Honestly, he'd probably be pinched about a million times for some reason unbeknownst to him. (Wouldn't that be hilarious, though? I mean, seriously.)

But who knows... maybe he'd find some kinship with those in Orange, as they'd be getting their share of pinches. Who ever thought that would bring the faiths together.

So anyway.

A very happy and blessed St. Patrick's Day to everyone. If you still follow these traditions or retell the same stories, at least you know from whence they came. :) And of course, from one Irish chick to all you, the Irish or the Irish-at-heart:

May the road rise up to meet you,
may the wind be always at your back,
may the sun shine warm upon your face,
and the rain fall soft upon your fields.

And until we meet again,
may God (or gods or goddess or Spirit or Gaia or everyone or maybe even just me!)
hold you in the palm of [whoever's!] hand.

Oh yeah, and my least favorite parts.

• This whole sense of smell thing is pissing me off. Coffee smells awful, there's the stench of pepper all over my hands from using a napkin that was in one of those plastic baggies with the utensils and the salt and pepper, and I can't look at a vegetable without feeling sick. (Case in point: My meals the past 24-36 hours.)


• I haven't had a cup of coffee since Saturday morning... and it's not from lack of want. I WANT COFFEE, DAMMIT. But I've made cups the past few days and they've just sat there.

BLAAAAAAAAH. Let this cycle be over quickly!!

For the heck of it.

I've been posting to TCOYF all morning, and one of my questions was whether the two-day dip with the sudden rise I had this morning was normal. I'd never had that before... you know, in my three months of charting, ha. Quite a few people mentioned that my ovulation date might be CD18 instead of the CD15 that FF has had, so for the heck of it, I messed around with the reporting methods.

The first is using "Advanced" (which takes everything, even CM, into account), "OPK/Monitor," and "Research," all of which show the same chart:

The coverline is at 97.38 for this one.

Then there was simply the "Fertility Awareness" option, which is described as: "ovulation is detected after 3 temperatures above the previous 6". Changing to that option left me with this chart:

Ovulation shifts from CD15 to CD18, and coverline scoots up to 97.69.

Comparing the two, the second actually makes a little more sense in terms of temperature, and the first makes sense when counting secondary signs (CP and CM). My OPK was on CD14, and 12-36 hours after a positive OPK, one can anticipate ovulation... so chart #1 wins out again.

I'm actually not sure which one is most correct, but a very strong part of me wants it to be the second. Sure, it means a longer cycle overall, but it'd also mean we timed things just about perfectly, that I took a HPT on 8DPO (therefore, really? was I expecting a positive?), and the dip would make a lot more sense.

Ugh. I don't know. But it's interesting, isn't it?

The Universe must be against me.

Seriously. I've felt like this all day:

I didn't even tell y'all why... I mean, considering the progression of the day, the universe must be against me. I didn't think of it until I got home and was explaining to DH how I felt and everything that happened, and as I did... I mean, even he was like, "Yeah, someone really doesn't like you."

• Woke up with a temp drop. This is pretty much how it all started. I ended up hitting snooze until almost 7:20.

• I get emails from TCOYF's 2WW as I'm currently a part of it, and this morning, someone else with a BFP. Before I even brushed my teeth.

• Drove to work, feeling all right, then read that post again and went ballistic. That's when y'all got this post.

• Well, not quite. I was in the middle of writing it when awesome attorney boss called me into his office to discuss a few things, then he broke the news. I was (and am!) excited for him and his family, but man, walking back to my desk... it felt forever.

• Then I made the rest of that post.

• And I went ballistic again, this time on DH (and for which I apologized). I wrote a couple scathing emails after his reaction regarding doctor's visits, and he promised me a hug when I got home. Which I got. :)

• I had calmed down a bit, but my stomach started to feel so shitty, I actually had to go to the restroom and dry-heave a bit. It was feeling bad before lunch, but lunch must have made it worse. Around 2:30, I asked awesome attorney boss if I could leave a bit early because my stomach was bothering me that badly, and of course he said okay, saying that I looked a little pale. (Eurgh.) So I left at 3:00.

• I didn't even make it five minutes before the crying started. I had shed a couple tears at work, but this was full-on crying. Tears streamed down my cheeks; I couldn't wipe them away fast enough. My eyesight was blurred, and I had to blink several times to see the road. This went on for about fifteen minutes before I got my composure back. Just in time...

• ... to pull into my neighborhood. Did I ever mention that we live near an elementary school? Like, not even 0.2 miles from one. (One of the best in our county, actually, and where our eventual kids will be zoned for.) And they were being let out from school. There were kids, tens and tens of them, with their moms, crossing the road with their little backpacks and their sweet faces and...

• I cried again. Only a couple minutes, but man, did I cry.

• Things were pretty chill after that; I lay down on the couch and watched a bit of Judge Judy, then DH came home and gave me that hug. :) We relaxed for a bit and watched some TV, then I got a craving for guacamole. So we went to the grocery store (it's a Shitty Kitty whoops! Food Lion now, no longer a Bloom) and got some avocados and other stuff, then we went to the checkout, where literally every magazine had someone pregnant on the cover.

At that point, after all this (and telling him all that went on), that's when DH said, "Yeah, someone really doesn't like you." He keeps saying that maybe it's the universe's way of pointing out all these things as a premonition... that I actually am pregnant this month. I tell him that he has to stop talking like that.

Sigh. Two or three more days. Then I can put all this to rest... at least for this month.

Oh yeah, have I mentioned we're not trying the next cycle?

Eustress and Daily Magick (Pagan Blog Prompt 2012)

Main Entry:	eustress
Part of Speech:	n
Definition:	stress that is deemed healthful or giving one the feeling of fulfillment
Etymology:	from Greek eu 'well, good' + stress, modeled on distress

 

Throughout my life (as I'm sure many of you can relate), I've had tremendous stress. Between work, school and the homework that came with it, other home responsibilities, extracurricular activities, and the occasional interest that I enjoy but can't seem to find the time for, many (if not most) of them happening concurrently with one another, sometimes it felt like too much to bear!


Add to that an overwhelming feeling that, between all these, I've never left near enough time for my spiritual practice, and I'd end up piling guilt on top of this gigantic shit-pile. Not only am I stretched too thin between too many responsibilities, but now the one thing that might be able to help the most is beyond the tips of my fingers, just short of my grasp.

I've made the excuse before that I'm more of a fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants kind of witch, which is absolutely true, but isn't reflective of the whole story. In reality, I approached my spirituality that way because that's all I could muster. If I even found ten minutes to hold circle, or whip out my Tarot cards, or write in a journal for reflection, or even cast some sort of spell (even a quickie!), it'd be haphazard, all over the place. Certainly not at all planned.

For years, I've wanted to be that witch who had everything figured out. I saw friends of mine doing amazing things in the witchy and Pagan and Wiccan and heathen world, and I wanted so much to be a part of that! I wanted my name to fall on their lips with respect, knowing that I'd achieved something great in the community.

But no... all I'm left with is this blog and some tattered bits of spirituality aimlessly tossed together at the last minute. At least some of it is contained in one place, right?

So I got to thinking. Since there are so many restraints on my time (or what I believe are more restraints!), is there anything I can do on a daily basis that might lend to my spiritual and magickal life? Something that might give me some peace while also helping me grow as a person, as a witch?

Bit by bit, I started to turn my stress -- those things that I was doing on a daily basis that really needed to get done, but that maybe raised my blood pressure a bit -- into eustress, or a healthful and fulfilling stress: "eu-" being a Greek word defined as "good" or "well", and "stress being"... well, I'm sure you know!


It took a bit of a mental readjustment, and that was not at ALL easy. I mean, seriously: When presented with a struggle, how do you react? (For Christians, the acronym "WWJD?" comes to mind, ha... so maybe for witches, "WWWitchesD?" Sure, it sounds like a pro-wrestling mantra, but work with me here.) I used to take them with some nail biting, some pulling of my hair, and some stomping of my feet. Often times mentally, as I'm sure that'd be seen as attorney-like whoops! childish, especially in a legal setting.

Each of those struggles meant one of two things: Either fight it and get a major migraine, or work with it and find the benefit in it.

Sometimes, this seems damn near impossible. After all, you have all these external influences -- people (ha!), environment, constraints due to time or other factors -- and internal influences -- capability, adeptness, willingness -- to work with. Some of these things are out of your control, which makes it even more difficult.

But without those struggles, what else would you have? A meaningless life without some sort of goal to strive toward. Your life would be empty! Can you imagine waking up in the morning with absolutely no reason to do so?!

It took a while, but I began to see everything as a learning opportunity, a way to grow and change. Each struggle presented its own challenge; if the smaller ones seemed manageable and I approached them with confidence, the larger ones didn't seem as daunting anymore. And I tried my damnedest to keep a smile on my face, even if it was completely fake.

As a result, these stressors weren't seen as threats anymore. Rather, they became molehills, things I could leap over. Those things that were more like mountains? I found a way to climb them. Whether it meant finding new tools, seeking new methods, or even asking for help (and that's a learning experience in itself!), I found there was always a way to scale them.

Spiritually, I began to feel blessed for each stress that came my way, as I knew they helped me grow in some way. Those new tools were my altar supplies, those methods were my spells, those questions were my reaching out to the community. That was an even harder conclusion to come to, but once I finally achieved it, it became such a normal part of life that I was actually taken aback when I received this comment:

For something that has become so much a part of my life, I had no idea that it was also affecting those around me, too... and in such a positive way. I get that a lot nowadays: That I'm sunny, pleasant to be around, intelligent yet respectful (this one always makes me laugh!), and as above... blessed.

I can't help but feel that way. Sure, there are some days when I still want to kick the crap out of something because this stress is too much and too hard dammit!!, but like all things, it's a process. A learning experience.

And through eustress (and finding that balance as, hey, too much of any stress can be a bad thing! Even too much good stress!), I find I learn something new every day.

So I guess my name falls on others' lips after all... in a way I never expected. :)

Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA)

I know some of y'all here aren't in the US, but considering how often we talk about this Act, you probably know at least a little about it already. :) But just in case... and trust me, there's a reason why I explain all this.

The Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993, otherwise known as FMLA, entitles eligible employees of covered employers to take unpaid, job-protected leave for specified family and medical reasons with continuation of group health insurance under the same terms and conditions as if the employee had not taken leave. That's to say: If you qualify, you won't get paid, but at least you keep your health insurance!

FMLA entitles you to:

• Twelve workweeks of leave in a 12-month period for:
  
  
  
  • the birth of a child and to care for the newborn child within one year of birth;
  
  
  • the placement with the employee of a child for adoption or foster care and to care for the newly placed child within one year of placement;
  
  
  • to care for the employee’s spouse, child, or parent who has a serious health condition;
  
  
  • a serious health condition that makes the employee unable to perform the essential functions of his or her job;
  
  
  • any qualifying exigency arising out of the fact that the employee’s spouse, son, daughter, or parent is a covered military member on “covered active duty;”

• Twenty-six workweeks of leave during a single 12-month period to care for a covered servicemember with a serious injury or illness if the eligible employee is the servicemember’s spouse, son, daughter, parent, or next of kin (military caregiver leave)

The part in bold is what would matter when I give birth. This actually applies to DH as well, which is nice because, if I remember correctly, he only gets two weeks' paid leave from his job in the event of childbirth.

Each employer can arrange FMLA however they want, within reason. In my employer's case, their policy states that they will grant up to 12 weeks of leave (for this circumstance, at least) in each 12-month period to eligible employees (you have to be working here the equivalent of full-time for at least a year), and that leave may be paid, unpaid, or a combination thereof. Starting the first day of leave, the employee must take all time-off accruals (e.g., vacation, personal time, and sick time) as of the first day of leave as part of the FMLA requirement.

So yes, in some way, FMLA provided by work is partially paid as a result of using paid time-off, running concurrently with FMLA, which is pretty cool. I'm planning to take the entire three months when we do eventually have a baby, though I'm completely open to working a bit from home when necessary.

ANYWAY. That reason I was talking about earlier! Awesome attorney-boss and I occasionally talk about kids, with the focus usually on his 2 1/2-year-old son (who I met and is adorable!). We were talking yesterday about looking forward to having kids and whatever, and he said, "Definitely! But I can't have you out for three months, that's just not gonna work."

Obviously, he was kidding, and I jokingly said, "Oh yeah, we're gonna have to talk about that one." And since he's a lawyer, he's well aware of the implications of not complying with federal law. ;)

Still, though, I've already been feeling a bit guilty about having that much time to stay at home and play with/care for the new baby, and that amplified it just a bit. Not like awesome attorney-boss would have known. I've already considered, though, doing some work from home after the first, say, six weeks of leave and as necessary, but this is obviously a topic we'll have to talk about when the time is right!

It also made me feel... I don't know, pretty special in a way. Like the things I do here are important and do matter. I know, logically, that's the case... but I'm the kind of person who downplays everything she does, even if it's a great help to the people around her. I'm not even sure why. So when he said that, and knowing full well that he does appreciate what I do and that I am a big help, I couldn't help but be like... "Aw. I matter around here!"

That comment itself was pretty funny, though. ;)

Meatless Monday: Food Pyramids throughout the decades (and how they screwed with the idea of "healthy eating")

Food has come a long way, baby. You'd think it was easy enough to determine what a balanced diet is, but in the mid-20th century, when processed foods, fast foods, and general convenience foods were rapidly pushing out the good ol' home-cooked meal of yesteryears, there arose a need to establish some sort of nutritional guideline.

Introducing: The four basic food groups!

These groups themselves have evolved over the years, from charts to pyramids to plates and everything in between. Let's take a trip down memory lane and see just how the four basics -- meat, dairy, grains, and fruits/veggies -- have been treated since the mid-1900s.

[caption id="attachment_1230" align="aligncenter" width="400" caption="1943: The National Wartime Nutrition Guide (later the National Nutrition Guide)"][/caption]

Coined the "Basic Seven", created with the first-ever Recommended Daily Allowances from the National Academy of Sciences, this first USDA food structure aimed to make sure people got their daily recommended nutrients, with the addition of "serving sizes". Note, however, that they don't define a "serving"... and that one of the food groups was butter!

[caption id="attachment_1231" align="aligncenter" width="400" caption="1956: Essentials of an Adequate Diet - Facts for Nutrition Programs"][/caption]

Then came the Basic Four in 1956; the Seven were cut down, revealing a chart with the four basic food groups that children would learn for decades to come. Not to say the 1956 version didn't include other groups... it did. But the Basic Four were the most important by far at that time.

This chart (and this era, being post-Depression) still focused on people getting enough, but soon, the tables would turn.

A TV documentary in 1967 named Hunger in America, hosted by CBS, reported the extent of hunger and malnutrition among low-income groups in the US, and people demanded an expansion of federal food assistance programs as a result. Senator George McGovern, selected in 1968 to chair the "Select Committee on Nutrition and Human Needs", succeeded in wiping out malnutrition (by 1969, at least), and started focusing on other areas of health and nutrition.

One was addressing the same issue the American Heart Association was tackling at the time, that fat and cholesterol consumption should be lowered for better health. While the link between the two had never been scientifically studied, the "Dietary Goals for the United States," published in January 1977, recommended that all Americans reduce their fat, saturated fat, and cholesterol consumption while increasing their carbohydrate consumption by 55-60% of daily calories.

Understandably, the cattle, egg, and dairy industries went crazy! Congress was essentially telling people that animal products were bad for you! Despite the pressure from these industries to revise the report, which occurred later that year, the damage was already done... and you can tell by the next graphic.

[caption id="attachment_1233" align="aligncenter" width="400" caption="1979: Food"][/caption]

To mirror the way in which food should be approached -- simply! -- the USDA streamlined their chart while also addressing the link between too much of certain foods and the onset of chronic diseases. This chart adds "fats, oils, and sweets" to the four basic food groups, cautioning moderation. We all know how well that worked.

You'll also note that milk and meat consumption remained at the same levels after this, despite the meat and dairy industries pushing for more inclusion.

[caption id="attachment_1234" align="aligncenter" width="400" caption="1992: Introduction of The Food Pyramid"][/caption]

The chart remained relatively untouched until 1992, when the USDA introduced a "pyramid" with bricks that represented proportions of foods in a supposedly balanced diet. But this chart was far from perfect: Critics pointed out that the good fats needed to develop and protect the brain shared a "brick" with bad fats that clog arteries, for instance, and bacon was put on par with poultry. (No, really!) And the pyramid allowed for so much bread that it would take years to attempt to reverse this trend.

And what's with those little dots for fat and sugar, anyway?

Oddly, this pyramid was actually the original work of Sweden, a country with a heart disease death rate even higher than that of the United States. So... good move there, US!

Since then, multiple studies have been conducted that show the efficacy and healthfulness of a low-carb, whole foods diet, but the 1992 pyramid -- nor its successor, below, in 2005 -- reflected those scientific results.

[caption id="attachment_1235" align="aligncenter" width="443" caption="2005: MyPyramid... now cooler than 1992!"][/caption]

In fact, the pyramid didn't change much at all, except that it included a customizable website, which seemed to offset the little dude climbing the stairs to encourage exercise: Let's put all this information online! Duh.

This pyramid didn't receive a lot of good press at all, being dubbed "vague" and "confusing" from its onset. Apparently, no one caught on that some foods had smaller "wedges" to convey they should be eaten in smaller amounts. But really, who could tell that?

Oh, and back to the little dude: Apparently, if we exercise, we can climb right over the pyramid and eat whatever the eff we want! Or head straight for the old pyramid's "fats, oils, and sweets".

[caption id="attachment_1236" align="aligncenter" width="400" caption="2011: My Plate (and the moon)"][/caption]

Since we were apparently too dumb to figure it out ourselves, the FLOTUS (Michelle Obama) brought us right back to the four basic food groups -- grains, protein, and this time separate areas for fruits and vegetables -- with a little moon-shaped dairy in a corresponding glass. Infinitely easier, but really, when's the last time you saw a dinner plate half-full* with fruits and veggies?

Regardless, though, it was a great improvement on past pyramids. This one actually included grains (though it doesn't show what kinds of grains...) as being equal to vegetables, and managed to at least imply that the simpler the food, the better it is.

*Always on the positive side, I see!

[caption id="attachment_1238" align="aligncenter" width="400" caption="2012: The Harvard Healthy Eating Plate"][/caption]

And finally, my favorite: Early this year, Harvard declared that dairy is NOT a healthy part of a balanced diet, and responded to all previous food charts and pyramids and plates with one of their own: One that subs milk for, get this... water! (Or coffee or tea, each with little sugar!) And has no other dairy to be seen! Instead, the Harvard experts suggested that "collards, bok choy, fortified soy milk, and baked beans are safer choices than dairy for obtaining calcium, as are high quality supplements". You go, Harvard!

It also includes a number of other changes: A disclaimer for grains, encouraging people to eat whole grains and cereals rather than their bleached white counterparts; an area for lean meats and beans that limits red meat and excludes other fat-laden meats; the encouragement for good fats rather than butter and trans fats; the need for fruits and veggies to be of various colors (and not counting potatoes and French fries as veggies!); and a little "stay active" button to encourage you to get off your butt.

I'll have a bit more about this plate in a later post, but all I can start with is... hopefully this will be adopted and used for better health overall. If anything, it's a grand improvement!