Moon Magic, Sniffles and Money

Offerings of rum, wine, apples and roses.

New moon is a time of new beginnings, a time when light is just starting to peer forth from behind the dark moon's shroud. The lady of wisdom and the underworld, mother of witchcraft, the crone goddess makes way for the maiden to shine her new light on the nights of the world. But this is still the dark lady's time, at least for one more night.

I offer her up praise, adoration and appreciation. For my soul sister, my blood sister and the children I so love; I work my magics, planned and thought out from full moon to new moon; a banishment and binding and an invitation and opening up. When one thing must leave, another must fill its place. I offer fruits and liquors to the spirits, the fae and the dark lady herself. Worn out, I sit with the fae a while and ask them what I must know from this moon cycle to the next, they offer me a jovial reading, filled with laughter, magic, faith and inspiration.

******

This morning I woke up with my umpteenth cold of the season brewing nastily in my head. My sinuses are swollen, my throat feels tight and sore and I can occasionally hear the ocean in my left ear. The weather has been crazy here and I blame my repeated ailments on the constant change from hot to frigid as well as the fact that I work in a bank and handle gross money all day. I'm chugging water and lemon and honey spiked tea like it's my job but as is usually the case with my colds, I'm sure nothing I do will expedite its departure.

So here I am, all congested and wishing I could just curl up on the couch with a book and a magically refilling pot of tea instead of dealing with the public perusing blogs (which I have been a bit lax about lately) and happened across this one by Aine, in which she discusses her birthday and reflections on the changes she has undergone throughout the years. In it she briefly touches on her attachment to money, which stuck out to me; probably because as a bank teller I deal with people, their money and their various relationships to it on a 'more frequently than I'd like' basis.

The folks I deal with are typically in two camps; a) I want more money so I can keep up with the Joneses or b) I want more money to pay for my overdrafts and debts because I don't want to live within my means. These two classes of folks are a total mystery (and often times throughout my work day - infuriating) to me. My relationship with money from the time I was a child has been, 'Spend what you need to, save what you can. If you can't afford it, you don't need it'. I grew up in a household without a lot of money, I wouldn't call us poor but I wouldn't call us middle-class either. My parents both worked full-time and we rarely saw them together. We had a roof over our heads and food in our bellies and clothes one our backs (from the 1980's equivalent of Wal-mart, but still.. clothing.) We even got to go on the occasional family outing; to the zoo, to a museum, etc. We didn't have fancy clothes, shiny new cars, a McMansion or those much anticipated family vacations to places like the Grand Canyon but we didn't want for anything.

As an adult, my relationship to money is simple: I have enough to get by, but I'd like just a little more so I can stop worrying about if x,y or z will throw my bills off at the end of the month. Which is why I have a job. I'm lucky enough to know that I don't need to work. It's a blessing that I don't take lightly, but I also don't take our lingering student debt lightly either. I want it gone and sooner rather than later and so I go to work. I want us to be comfortable and not just to get by. Comfortable to me being; we can turn the heat up or down to be comfortable without worrying about the heating bill overly much, we can go on trips home or elsewhere every so often and get away for a few days, we can afford to pay extra for organic non GMO food and put things that are good for us in our bellies instead of just what we can afford, we can have reliable transportation and we can afford to make our home more self sufficient. (Which you may be surprised to learn, sometimes costs a bit to get started on.)

While this is my personal idea of comfort and while my attachment to money is one of simplicity, I would never begrudge someone their own ideals about it. If you're comfortable, responsible and happy - awesome! Unless of course your lifestyle is detrimental to the health of the planet - my inner environmentalist always trumps my inner non-judgementalist. That being said, if you're living outside of your means and you come up to me today and complain that you didn't spend your money (yet, when asked 'did you spend x amount here?' say 'yes') or that I shouldn't charge you fees for over drafting or paying your loans late (as if I personally sit at work hitting a big red button that says 'FEES!'.) then dear public, prepare for me to sniffle, roll my eyes and have no sympathy for your plight because while I normally can fake giving a fuck, my sinuses are swollen and I'm not allowed to keep tea at my desk and all of today's flying fucks will be given to those who don't make me feel more icky.

*Random post is a bit random. Sorry loves.*