Welcome to the Mother

I'm really feeling my age this autumn. And it's a good thing, it really is. There has been sadness, rage and tremendous relief. The Samhain season, and all its implications, has been in full force around these hills as of late. My best buddy, of the furry kind, died after more than 14 years of companionship and love. Our parakeet, who lived a long life of ten years, died a few days later. Another part-time indoor kitty disappeared and, presumably, went off to die alone. These deaths weren't exactly unexpected but sad all the same. And there have many other things, situations, trials, attitudes and habits dying as well.

If you've followed my blog for very long you're probably aware of the junkie problem we've been suffering for several years now. Well, that is now over and we are free. I won't bore you with the gory family details but I will say that now that the melodramatic screaming is over and most of the moving is done I, and the rest of family, feel a whole helluva lot better. There are still some serious issues to be dealt with and worried over and eventually - hopefully - worked out. But the energy level and the over all vibe of my home is vastly improved.

It's as if an enormous weight has been removed from my shoulders. It's as if the foot that was driving me, and my family, into the ground is gone and gone forever. And now that we are free of the destructive toxicity of overwhelming greed, endless lies, disloyalty, selfishness and thoughtlessness we are learning to live again. The world looks and feels different to me now that I can stand up straight and see with clear eyes. I know it's really me that's done the changing. It's as if my senses, my creativity and my magical sensibilities are waking up after several years of a depression so deep I didn't think I could ever dig my way out of it.

My old tendency to self-pity is mostly gone now. It's a time and energy wasting activity that accomplishes nothing worthwhile. The sweet, sensitive girl is long, long gone. In place of the Maiden is a much harder bitch goddess. The trials of the last few years, as painful and frustrating as they were, have toughened me up quite a lot. I don't even take much medication anymore. It's as if I really have gone through the fire and come out stronger for it. Horrible cliche that, but it's true.

I've been noticing a few white hairs lately and am slowly moving into the Alpha female position in my family. It's strange and yet completely expected and, in a weird way, fascinating. I've become firmly ensconced in the ranks of adulthood and am enjoying my membership in the club. I don't have actual children of my own. But I am the caregiver of my family. I'm the one who runs the household and makes sure everyone eats and has clean clothes, clean beds, etc. I said farewell to the Maiden some time ago, I know. Now I think I'm ready for the next step. Welcome to the Mother.

Lack of Cycles

I've never had anything in my life that could be called a cycle. I don't seem to have any kind of internal clock that regulates either sleep, menstrual periods, mood, energy or anything that's supposed to follow a regular time frame. Humans have all kinds of clocks that just don't seem to function properly for me. Most of it's wrapped up in my head: chemicals that aren't produced in the appropriate amount or messages that don't get sent through the proper connections.

For instance, we are supposed to have an internal clock that regulates sleep and, usually, makes us want to sleep at night and be up and about during the day. I've never had this. I've always preferred being awake at night but never known, from day to day, if I would be. One day I'll be awake for 20 hours straight and sleep all day and the next I'll sleep 8 hours during the night and be up 18 hours during the day and the next I'll sleep 12 hours through the afternoon and night and wake up at 3 in the morning and be up 'til the next afternoon. And I've always been like this. Even during the times of my life when I had a regular job or regular classes I didn't have a normal sleeping schedule. I could work or study at the same hours day after day and my hours of sleep could still vary by as many as 4 to 6 hours or more.

I've never had a regular menstrual cycle either. (If you're a squeamish man who likes to pretend women don't bleed I'd recommend skipping this paragraph.) I got my first period a month after I turned 10 and the most regular I've ever been was when I was around the age of 15; I would bleed every 40-60 days. For those first ten years I would have such horrible menstrual cramps that I'd miss school and spend a day in bed moaning and crying and puking, but I could never predict when this would happen and never plan my life around it. My periods only got weirder as I got older; I've had a period last 9 months and I've gone over a year and a half with no period at all. And I'm only 32 so it's not menopause; it's just hormone weirdness.

I've never had anything approaching a predictable energy level or mood either. One day I'm bouncing off the walls and dancing to the music and the next I can barely drag myself up to take care of the basic necessities of the day. I can be writing away and grinning like an idiot for several days in a row and then damn near suicidal for the next few weeks. Bipolar really is a bitch, no other way to say it, and I don't even have the more serious form of it. I can't imagine what it's like for those whose bipolar forces them into hospitalization.

Anyway, I didn't come here to talk about all that, I came to talk about the moon. What all this has been leading up to is a theory I've recently thunked up. I think a large part of my attraction to the moon is its predictable cycle: new and dark, waxing, full, waning, new and dark, rinse and repeat. No matter what crazy shit my mind and body are up to I can always count on the moon to be doing its thing in the same steady patten it's been following for millions of years.

Even if my sleeping "schedule" has kept me from seeing her for a while I can always count on the moon to be in the phase I'm expecting. No matter how hyper and tense and nervous or depressed and sluggish I feel I can always look up and know what the moon is doing. The moon is beautiful, luminous, inspirational and dependable. She has, and always will be, a great comfort to me. Luna is the ultimate goddess.

Busy with This and That

I've been suffering from bloggers block as well as a general tiredness of the mind, body and soul lately. It's true, at least in my case, that physical work drains energy not just from the body but from the brain. I've been busy with lots of housework, canning vegetables and trying to keep my family together while at the same time wishing I could break free from it. I spend most of my internet time surfing music sites and playing around: I don't have the energy or brain power for much else, certainly not for deep thought. Hopefully this will change soon. For now though, perhaps I just need a little break.

More Internet Memories

If it wasn't for the internet I don't know if I'd be a pagan witch. To be clear, my first encounter with neopaganism was a Scott Cunningham book (yes, that one) that my cousin handed me after she discarded it. She knew I was always reading about mythology and religions and whatnot and thought I would enjoy it. And boy did I?! But if it hadn't been for the internet I don't know if I would have stuck with it. Back in the early days of my pagan path walking I was fortunate enough to have internet access and it opened up the wider world of what it could mean to be pagan. In the early years of this millennium I used to say that the internet was a boon to two areas of interest: pornography and neopaganism. I don't know if that's really true, I suspect it isn't, but it seemed that way to me. I guess that says a lot about me, doesn't it? I was a country girl bored with what I knew and thirsting for something that I could not yet name. And when I discovered witchcraft, mythology taken seriously as including life lessons, ritual and all the rest I finally had a name for it.

However, many people had a name for their beliefs long before I came along and long before the internet was even a dream in a nerds mind. And some of them really hated us newbies. Granted, there was a lot of fad fever going on, there was a lot of white lighting and dumb kids calling themselves priestesses and putting "lady" in front of their name a week after their learned the definition of Wicca. There was a lot of bullshitting going on to be sure. But there was a lot of honest, sincere searching and learning taking place too. Those of us who were new and naturally ignorant and inexperienced were not often greatly encouraged by the older, more learned. In fact, just because we were new we were sometimes automatically lumped in with the "fluffy bunnies" and disregarded simply because of our youth or lack of knowledge. This of course happens to everyone at some point but it was particularly prevalent in the suddenly exploding online pagan community.

Fluffy bunnies were a strange breed and I may have been included in their ranks at one point by some. In my opinion they tended to be very new and yet felt instantly entitled to the utmost respect. They knew very little of mythology or folklore or ritual or herbs or any of it and yet considered themselves high priests and priestesses even though they had never even attended a group ritual, much less organized or led one. They tended to wear huge pentacles on their person just hoping someone would start some shit with them so they could claim persecution. They reminded me of the peasant Dennis in Monty Python's Holy Grail: "Come see the violence inherent in the system! You saw him repressing me, didn't you?" It was comical and silly but it was also somewhat damaging. So many of the bunnies repeatedly regurgitated the "9 million witches killed during the Burning Times! Never again!" mantra that it lost its meaning and created a victim complex, making it nearly impossible for other pagans or anyone in the mainstream to take them seriously. And the bunnies never even bothered to research such an outrageous figure, never realizing or caring that such a number would have wiped out most of Europe. So, I guess they earned some of their enmity. But some of us felt a sting we didn't earn.

From my perspective it seemed like some of the older pagans truly hated the newbies. Looking back, I'm not ever sure if all of the anti-fluffy bunnies were Wiccan or other species of pagan. All I knew in the beginning was Wicca and I thought that's what everyone was: I guess that made me a fluffy bunny. There was so much information out there and 99% of it was Wicca 101. There were so many cheesy pagan websites it was dizzying sifting through them all. And the greater majority of them were saying the same things: correspondences and generic, uninspired spells and rehashed information. The way I remember it most of the pagan sites I came across from about 2001-2003 were utter drivel. They all included the same things: a calender of the eight sabbats, a usually vitriolic disclaimer that Wicca wasn't devil worship, a brief explanation of the common Wiccan rituals tools and that was pretty much it. There was very little personal reflection or interpretation and even less research and scholarship. You know what there was a lot of? Graphics! Shining, spinning, sparkling, color changing, blinking pentacles, triple goddess and horned god symbols on every page of nearly every site.
It was cute for about thirty seconds and then quickly became nauseating.

And here's a little sordid secret: I had one of those crappy websites too! It had some basic information but it mostly consisted of essays I had written for an online Wiccan college (I'm a second degree in a online school, yay!) that was, I believe, called Crystal Waterfall of all things. And while I was a better writer than some I realize now that what I really needed was a blog. My opinion-full essays didn't really belong on a sparkly deep blue website: they belonged in a personal journal. And while I'm not Wiccan anymore by any means I still look back with some fondness on those heady times of techno-paganism and watching the Witchvox membership grow by leaps and bounds.

These Dreams

A few years back I had a dream blog. I started it for a variety of reasons, but mostly because writing my dreams down by hand took much longer than it took to type them. I only posted in my dream blog for a few months before I moved on to other things and ditched it. But I've been thinking of starting a new dream blog for a while and I've been getting signals from the universe for a few weeks that a closer examination of my dreams would be a good idea. A startling dream here and there, dream related articles that pop out of seeming nothingness and other signs of synchronicity have been making themselves known to me.

I've done some digging and found that I am not the only weirdo who wants to keep an online dream journal. There are tons of dream journals out there ranging from the very visual yet amazingly language based to those with only the bare facts. In fact, I've found a great site called, you guessed it, Dream Journal and I'm really liking it so far. I know it makes me a traitor to the almighty Blogger but this is a unique site that keeps track of specific facts like whether the dream occurred indoors or in the past, if you were lucid, the setting and feelings, etc., and allows the user to see trends and themes over time. It also offers some interpretive help as well as opening up your dream to the interpretations of other dream bloggers. There's a forum and all kinds of other groovy, helpful things on the site; I highly recommend it. There are a few ads but they're tasteful and not obnoxious so I don't really mind considering the benefits. It's a helluva lot better and much more useful than a handwritten dream journal in my opinion; at least it is to me. So, without further ado I'd like to introduce My Dream Journal.

Farewell to the Maiden

My life has changed a lot since I first started down my pagan path. It was ten years ago on Imbolc that I dedicated myself to the triple goddess and the horned god and I'm only just now realizing how far I've progressed. Or, rather, I'm only just now accepting the latest changes that were set in motion when my current incarnation began. The phases of the moon really do apply to the life of a woman; I'm living proof of that. Up until a couple of years ago I really was a maiden: youthful, full of hope with few cares and worries. Oh I still had plenty of work to do, lots of responsibilities and required medication to keep me relatively sane. But a lot of things were different then. I didn't have addicts doing everything they could to ruin my family financially and psychologically. I didn't have a slowly deteriorating parent to worry over and do for. I didn't have but a fraction of the workload I have now. In short: the weight on my shoulders was much lighter than that which weighs upon me now.

I look back on those days of getting my work done and then settling back with my pipe and exhaling all my worries away as some kind of deceptive heaven. It was heaven in that once I took care of business I could relax and forget my worries. It was deceptive because it made me feel, even if for only a small time, that my worries and problems couldn't touch me and if I just kept smoking I'd be okay. And, of course, that wasn't and isn't true. Smoking what I still consider the sacred herb helped me get over some serious pain but it eventually became a crutch. And now that I don't have it I feel like I deserve its benefits much more than I did then. Not because I wasn't suffering hurt that it couldn't help me with but because the stress I'm under now is so much greater than what I experienced back then.

The Maiden is gone. She spent most of her time worrying only about herself, what she wanted, what she needed or what she thought she needed. She had high in the sky hopes of getting back to school and she still thought she was an intellectual. And while she cared for her loved ones she only sometimes put their needs ahead of her own. Most of the time she was more worried about what people thought of her as opposed to whether or not others came up to her own standards. She was neurotic, insecure and self-conscious to a fault much of the time. And while I miss her hopefulness and her energy-and her weed-I don't miss her gullibility or her naivete. I don't miss her dependence on other people or her blinding adherence to their ways.

The Maiden is gone; farewell.

The Internet: Then and Now

Or, How My Longest Lasting Addiction Has Changed Over the Years

Way, way, way back in the fall of 1995 I moved into a dorm that just happened to have a tiny computer lab on its ground floor. Now, when I say "tiny" I mean damn near minuscule. If my memory serves me, and there's no guarantee it does, I believe there were three or four computers crammed into a glorified closet. One thing I do clearly remember is that there was a two hour time limit for computer usage that was tallied on a sign up sheet. I must have signed that thing a thousand times before the internet got the better of me.

Before I moved away from my little hick town, in which I now live in again, I knew about the internet. I knew it existed at any rate. But I didn't really know what it could mean to me personally or what dangerous fun it could be. But that all changed soon after I discovered a little thing called ISCA. I don't remember what it stood for exactly but I know it was a service out of an Iowa university and it allowed users to talk in real time with anyone else who happened to be connected to ISCA. It was a chat room before they were called chat rooms.

It was such a rinky dinky thing compared to what we have now. There were no smilies, no wallpapers, no graphics, no pretty at all. There weren't even fonts; it was in MS-DOS style for shits sake! It was cuneiform compared to the high falutin' chat rooms around these days. But it was great; it was amazing! I remember for weeks tallying up how far away my chat buddies lived. Here's one from Florida! This guy is from England! Holy shit, this one is from Australia! It was mind blowing, it was awe inspiring and it was fun as hell. But it was also addicting.

Those last few weeks when it got really bad I lived my life in two hour periods. I'd be online for two hours then go eat, shower and perhaps sleep a little for two hours then right back to the internet for two hours. And I did this round the clock for days and days and days. I was hooked. I walked, talked, thought and breathed the internet as I knew it. I was addicted. Obviously, I didn't go to class, wasn't doing schoolwork and barely managed to keep my part time job at Burger King. It got so bad that I had no choice but to withdraw from classes before I had a GPA full of Fs.

That experience taught me a valuable lesson. Or, at least, it forever burned away my immense desire to chat online. I can count on one hand the times I've entered a chat room since then and I don't miss it a bit. In fact, I don't know how I ever enjoyed it. When I look back I think it must have been the fascination and wonder and glory of it all that really hooked me, as opposed to talking with strangers about usually mindless teenage crap. I'm such an anti-social hermit with no tolerance for small talk, i.e. bullshit, that I can't imagine having anything in common with that girl of eighteen.

And, just as I typed the above I realized that was nearly half a lifetime ago. My life can be divided between pre-internet and addiction to internet. After I went back to school later that school year I learned that the internet was much more than chatting. There was this wonderful thing called Netscape and it was wonderful! It was better than ISCA! I could find anything about anything! There was news from all over the world; there were trivia games; there was porn! I remember I was working in the English Department as an office assistant and on my mail slot someone had put a sticker that included my name in the form of a web address. I was a junkie discovering a new, updated and much more highly nuanced form of my preferred drug.

Coming soon: How the Internet Ballooned the Pagan Community, including discussions of techno-pagans, millions of cheesy pagan graphics, fluffy bunnies talking out their asses, the anti-fluffy bunnies talking out their asses and other fun and fascinating bits.

Green Growth

Since bringing my plants out a couple months back I've learned a valuable lesson: I should have been placing my small San Pedro cactus out in the full sun from the very start. Since it was brought out this spring, and placed out in the yard away from the trees, I swear it's grown at least an inch and a half! And the new growth is thicker and colored a deeper, richer green than the rest. I'm so pleased with it. It's the only perennial I've managed to get started and keep going! I have much, much more experience with annuals and am so happy to know that it is possible for me to nurture a perennial. Now if only I could figure out how the hell to get herbs to not only sprout from seed but stay alive for longer than a few weeks I'd be feeling like a supergreenwitch!

The petunias and other things I planted some weeks back are doing well for the most part, especially considering most were planted much later than I would have liked since our spring took so damn long to get sprung. The eucalyptus plants are doing quite well as are the sage plants. The two basils aren't looking as good as I'd like but I'm experimenting with placement hoping they'll improve. Just this morning the first bloom of the year popped out on the red hibiscus and it's a stunning sight and a joy to behold.

This year our vegetable garden is only a shadow of its former self since we didn't have the funds to repair our tiller, much less buy a new one. So, we've only got fifteen or so tomato plants that we'll start harvesting in the next week or so. When they're ripe we'll have tons of wonderful red juiciness to enjoy. And the dozen or so pepper plants are growing nicely as well but not producing yet. We've harvested and enjoyed quite a bit of lettuce by now and look to have some more pretty soon. We've been lucky enough to get some good corn at the local farmer's markets as well as have some gifted to us.

The fence that we used to have around the compost pile, and that the tornado ripped out, now serves as a great trellis for the cucumber plants. They're nearly chest high and just beginning to set on; we picked the first just today. We've also enjoyed a few sackfuls of homegrown cucumbers gifted to us from friends which has been awesome. They're so good peeled, sliced and soaked in apple cider vinegar with a little salt and pepper. It's super yummy and the vinegar helps the human body better absorb minerals from food. In fact, now that I think of it, cucumbers, as well as tomatoes, are the flavor of summertime. I'd probably include watermelon too. I love homegrown vegetables fresh from the garden! Sure, they can be bought in grocery stores year round these days but nothing beats homegrown veggies. Hothouse vegetables, aside from usually being chemically treated, picked too early and spending days in transit, just don't taste as good. Even if homegrown veggies aren't quite as tender, because of exposure to the hot summer sun, their flavor is unbeatable. Yay for summer food!

How are the green growing things doing around your neck of the woods?

Green Air and White Nights

I think it's a line from the first book of The Lord of the Rings in which Tom Bombadil mentions the healing and rejuvenating power of "the green smell" and the wonder and joy to be found in nature. The feeling around here these days is a perfect example of that. We had a blessedly comfortable Fourth of July with the air full of smoke and the scent of green growth. We had the nearly full moon on the left of our viewing area and a gathering storm on our right. The brightness of the moon, the lightning of the thunderhead and fireworks everywhere in between coupled with the surprising not-scorching heat made for a very pleasant and visually stimulating holiday. It's indicative of the recent weather and lush greenness of life in these hills lately. While my health has been less-than-perfect, to say the least, lately every time I step outside I feel myself immediately wrapped in a cocoon of green healing energy. The very air seems green and full of potential and while that doesn't solve any of my problems it gives me hope.

It never ceases to amaze me, this phenomena of trees and flowers and the wide open sky instantly lifting my spirits and inspiring me. I can be deep in an unpleasant, unhappy funk and one brief sighting of a crane flying past a brilliant sunset can put the silliest grin on my face. My spirits can be down in the dumps and just a few minutes of owl or whip-poor-will song has me smiling like an idiot. When I get so frantic and jittery that I can't sit still all it takes is a half-hour walk around our immense back yard with the dogs to calm me down and help me find my center. And if I ever find myself wondering why I don't feel as good as I should I just have to remember that, for some reason or another, I haven't communed with the moon for a while.

I hate the time of the new moon. I hate it when I can't speak with Luna. Don't get me wrong, I totally understand the phases of the moon and why we have to have three moonless nights a month. I'm not hating on the nature of the solar system. And I also recognize, with gusto, the significance and power of the moon in all her phases. I recognize and revere Hecate, and her magic, just as much as any other self-respecting witch. But I miss the moon so much when I can't see her. I hate cloudy nights and I hate new moon time for the same reason: I can't see her and I can't feel her anywhere near as keenly as I do when I can see her. Intellectually, I know that even though I cannot see her with my puny human eyes that she is still there. I know she is there during the day but the sun is too bright and won't allow me to see her. I know she is there when nighttime clouds obscure her. And I know she is there during her new phase. I know this. But it doesn't make it any easier.

I don't think I can explain rationally with facts and figures; it's entirely subjective. When it comes to the natural world I truly am a Missourian: I want you to show me! Or at least, when it comes to bird song, let me hear it for myself. I must smell it, feel it, experience it for myself or its meaningless. Okay, it's not meaningless. But without personal firsthand sensory experience I receive no direct and immediate benefit from it. When I can't see the moon, or be outside and smell the green smell, just knowing it's out there doesn't really mean much. It's like reading a nature magazine. It can be fascinating, it can be very educational and it can spurn me into action. It can broaden my horizons and lead me to new pursuits and new interests, but it doesn't heal my soul or my spirit. It doesn't lift me out of a foul mood and it doesn't inspire me. I guess what I'm saying is that learning about nature teaches my brain and that's all well and good. But being outside and experiencing nature through my own senses teaches my soul. And, for that, I will be eternally in awe.

Thoughts on this Fourth

So the Fourth of July, the American Independence Day, has come again. We have a new president for this one. In fact, for the first time in history, the United States of America will celebrate the fact that we don't speak with English accents with a black man serving as our chief. Oh, how the times have changed. Our country is still in a helluva a lot of trouble. It took eight years of idiocy, greed, shortsightedness and neo-conservative tunnel vision to get us into this mess. So it will naturally take more than half a year to get us out of it. I would like to think, as I'm sure we all would, that things will get better. I imagine they will. Real steps have recently been taken to get us the hell out of Iraq, which can be nothing but good in my opinion. The economy is still in the toilet but I know it won't stay there. Recessions have come and gone many times before and this one will eventually run its course. And while politics are always politics as usual, i.e. more bullshit than substance, I do have some hope for our future. Say what you will about Obama but at least he seems to have a genuinely intellectual brain as opposed to one nearly reduced to mush by cocaine, booze and a lifetime of indoctrination by Christian Conservatives.

I once said the Fourth of July is The Great American Fire Festival and I still hold to that. It is our celebration of freedom won by fire, by bullets and cannons. It is a celebration of fiery bravery, audacity and pure grit. It is a celebration of a momentous win achieved during the hottest, fieriest time of the year in this country. The Fourth may fall two weeks after the Summer Solstice but the heat, fire and strength of the sun is still plenty strong enough to heat up the air, the mind and the soul. Now, as then, its strength and power can help us overcome apparently insurmountable odds. It's only fitting that we mark the day with barbecues filled with sizzling and sumptuous foods. It makes perfect sense that as our forefathers fired guns and set off cannons we today create our own deafening explosions accompanied by brilliant flashes of sparkling, shining colors.

But let's not forget those who have no such cause for celebration. While we're grilling food over the fire or blowing up expensive pyrotechnics and generally enjoying good times with friends and family let's take time to remember those who are still fighting for freedom from tyranny, oppression and cruelty. Let's say a prayer for those wounded and dying, but still brave, student protesters in Iran. Let's ask our respective gods, spirits, guides, etc., to lend some of their support to those fighting for freedom all over the world. Let's give something of ourselves to help those folks who are fighting for independence right now. If we can't send money to support a cause, let's spread the message of their struggles. If we feel we can't reach anyone with our words let's work magic to help them continue the fight. If we can't help them in time let's pray that their passing was quick and painless. If their oppressors killed them slowly and brutally let's pray that their souls can move on from their most recent horrible deaths and perhaps enjoy better times in a future life. While we celebrate our freedom let's not forget those who don't have it.

I wish you a safe, happy, informed and aware holiday.

Image from the Flickrstream of Camera Slayer, licensed by Creative Commons.

Atrocities in Iran

The hideous image above is an untouched photo of a student protester in Iran. This brave young man is in a coma as a result of being beaten by the demons of the current Iranian government. If anyone ever wanted proof that Islamic folks can be just as good, passionate and decent as anyone else this is it. These people are facing what many call the worst atrocities since the Nazis because they feel their country has been illegally hijacked by hardliners.

In case you've been under a rock lately and haven't been following the news the recent election results in Iran were, to say the very, very least, questionable. They were reported and announced in an unprecedentedly strange way and, even after many questions were peacefully asked by powerful as well as regular folks no answers were given. Hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets in numbers not seen since the 1979 revolution. The largely peaceful protests, mostly by university students, became violent when the governmental forces began killing people out of hand.

To stay abreast of the happenings in Iran visit the Free Iran Facebook page.

P.S. Be sure to check out the comments; Mrs. B. points the way to a Twitter page about this very thing.

Here, Have Some Beck

I know I haven't been posting, or commenting, all that much lately but you're just gonna have to cut me some slack. It's hot as hell and I've got some (hopefully minor) health concerns to deal with right now. So, here, have some Beck. He mentions pagans in this song but, as with most Beck tunes, I have no idea what the fuck he's talking about. Feel free to cuss and discuss. This is a live version of Jack Ass. The original, from Odelay, is much more mellow and trippy but this is great too. Enjoy.



I been drifting along
In the same stale shoes
Loose ends tying a noose
In the back of my mind
If you thought that you were making your way
To where the puzzles and pagans lay
I'll put it together:
It's a strange invitation
When I wake up
Someone will sweep up my lazy bones
And we will rise in the cool of the evening
I remember the way that you smiled
When the gravity shackles were wild
And something is vacant
When I think it's all beginning

I been drifting along
In the same stale shoes
Loose ends tying the noose
In the back of my mind
If you thought that you were making your way
To where the puzzles and pagans lay
I'll put it together:
It's a strange invitation