Let’s review:

Q. Are you being cursed or hexed?

It's been a long time since I've gotten swept up in ritual planning. A really long time. Usually by the time my turn comes around to Priestess for my Dianic Coven, I'm like, 'Iron Pentacle, it is!'. When I was on vacation, I finally got to read The Red Goddess which Gordon told me to read like a year and a half ago but. . . listen.  You know me by now, right?  I'm very easily distrac--

Anyway.  As usual, Gordon was annoyingly right as he generally is (but I'm still holding onto reality television with my claws for the moment) and it's not like any other magic book I've read (which is a huge plus because I like maybe ten books total).  It's just full of beauty and glamour.  It's not a direct "how to" in terms of tips 'n tricks that some of you still stubbornly cling to, but it is a "how to" insofar as if you can't use it to open your heart, soul and junk to beauty and being present in physical experience, then . . .you're not there yet and that's okay too.  I really liked that Peter expresses that there needs to be a place for the mythic past that never was.

I Never Miss a Beat. I'm Lightening on My Feet.

Until today, I was rapidly coming to a place where NannyDeb would have wanted to punch CurrentDeb in the face until a few teeth went missing.  I survived my first tax season!  I have a shit ton of paid time off now!  I got my first large wholesale order for my craft business that puts a significant amount towards going to the UK to harass Gordon and other local wild life.  I upgraded my wardrobe!  I got my first Just Campagne bag!  I had tea in the Russian Tea Room!  I spent time in my favorite spa!  I got to use Sarah's Fairy Ointment and trance out in my teepee, journal about it, do some deliciously filthy things and then have a nice organic dinner!  My relationships are awesome, my finances are solid!  I will be featured in the 2016 edition of Llewellyn's Herbal Almanac! I'm thinner than I've been in the last ten years!

Everything is awesome.

Inherently, I don't like meditation because I feel like it's one long exercise of someone else telling me what to do.  If you've been reading me for any length of time, you know how well I respond to being told what to do except in very specific consensual contexts.  The second you tell me to close my eyes and make that mandatory and not optional, you've lost me.

Needless to say, this has been problematic in my budding yoga practice.  It is one of many problems with my budding yoga practice.  Almost everyone in my classes looks like a sexy yoga toned sex kitten who effortlessly flows from one movement to another.  I spend a lot of time in class wondering why non-waifs don't do yoga.  I also spend a lot of time in class wondering if I will ever be able to do half the movements being done as my boobs impede my entire life.  Every time I say this, it's like a revelation so I'll say it again.  If you are above a DD cup, everything is not awesome.  Everything is not awesome at all.  First, try spending less than $80 a bra if you are not in the Lane Bryant spectrum.  I get three bras at a time and I have to replace them every six months.  Yeah.  For reals.   Second, buying a bathing suit is like the fourth ring of hell.  Third, sexy nightgowns?  You are the hilar.  They don't exist for us.  My boobs never fit in the designated boob area.  Fourth, athletics are super difficult to do because you have two quart sized baggies of peanut butter hanging from your chest.  Fifth, good posture is a pipe dream.

One of the charming comments I've gotten elsewhere is that my definition of glamour magic is wrong.  Super cool know more than me about a magic that is very rarely written about and that you can tell me how to do the magic that’s already working for me in my life.

Still.  I figured it would be best to clear things up.  Merriam-Webster gives two definitions:

There’s something sexy as hell about an anchorite.  A gorgeousness in a bodhisattva.  An allure to an Hasidic Judaism.  Swirling exciting about a Sufi.

When you think about austerity, you probably think about someone else telling you what do to.  You think about shoulding all over yourself.  Be more sexy, your marriage needs it!  Are you eating clean?  Are you giving your child every opportunity possible?  Is your work/home life balance full of awesome?  How clean is your house?  Did you remember to bring brownies to that thing on Saturday?  Home made from scratch of course.  Are you exercising?  Are you making enough money?  Are you meditating?  You should.  You should, should, should —

Before we get into Austerity and Glamour, you all know that an austerity is only an austerity if it’s voluntary, right?  At least, spiritually speaking.   If you are currently living off of food stamps, that’s not really a spiritually goal-oriented austerity so much as a life circumstance.  Being on food stamps and choosing to give up caffeine to add extra oomph to magically accomplishing your goals would count.

The voluntary aspect is really critical to spiritual austerity, it’s what gives your tapas their heat.  Austerity, if done correctly, is sort of like going to the gym.  You know how supportive everyone is for your first month?  You know how no one gives a shit about it by month two?  You’re going to the gym at that point for your own reasons.  You’re not getting all of those delicious praise cakes anymore, you may have plateaued on your weight loss for the moment, you may still not be able to run on a treadmill.  But you’re going, despite all of that.  Because you want That Thing bad enough to voluntarily suffer for it.