Taking the Facebook Plunge

I have avoided it long enough. So as of today, I am on Facebook.

I decided to just put up a Facebook page instead of opting for the personal profile. This was mostly because I hardly have time to keep up with Live Journal much less add another social media site to my growing list of commitments. I hope folks understand.

I asked for advice from several folks who have already taken the plunge and the results were mixed. Finally my dear niece warned me against having a personal profile and a page -- "Pick one", she said.

Now I have to figure out how to have my events, rants and other items appear auto-magically. We will see how this works out. One thing I have already noticed is that with a page I cannot look up anyone. So if you want me to find you, you will have to become a fan of moi.

Look out world, Katrina is now on Facebook. This has to a sign of something or other -- just not sure if it is really bad or just sorta ... y'know really inconsequential.

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January 2010 Update

First off, thanks to all who sent condolences. I want to especially thank those who shared their own funny stories about the Calico Goddess. They made me laugh. I had threatened to post one of the “articles” and if I get some time mid month, I may just do it.

I have been incredibly busy these last few months, preparing for Reflections 6th year, building my tradition, settling into the role of student again and preparing my infamous New Year’s Day Dinner. I am terribly behind on email and have just caught up again with bills and laundry. But all in all, my life feels rich and filled with work that makes my heart sing.

I had some exciting insights from my various experiments with goal setting, finding balance and getting healthier last year. I hope to share these ideas and even a new experiment in productivity that I am trying out this week! And I am already hard at work on my 2010 goals. I had better get cracking on my write-ups hunh?

And I love how Angela Raincatcher has already beat me to the punch with the posting of her annual goals. But it is still early, so I am also looking around to see who else is willing to take the plunge.

So Happy New Year to Everyone!

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L’Calico Est Mort

Squeaky the Calico Goddess, my co-priestess and familiar, died yesterday in my arms as I sang “Weaver, Weaver”. She was 17 and a half years old.

I remember her as the runt of her litter, very small, very sick and very unhappy. Her brother, Stinky, was healthy, happy and well adjusted which by contrast had him dying eight years earlier. By all accounts, she was not supposed to be my cat. But something about her plight reminded me of myself, so she came home with me that summer.

I had to nurse her like she was a foundling and all her instincts seemed miss-wired somehow. I held her in my arms and sang to her as often as I could. Slowly over the next few years, she turned from a wild-eyed waif back into a cat. As I slowly took on the mantle of priestess and witch, she began sleeping under altars and showing up for trances. She cast our circles as we planned, and grounded us when we were scattered. Dark Flame began speaking of the temple cats, and Squeaky was our feline priestess.

But she wasn’t only a magickal cat, she was also a mischievous one. Almost every person who slept here as part of the Anti-Globalization movement had stories about her. She snatched one of Starhawk’s socks, made love to it under the sofa and then peed on her bag. She use to gesticulate wildly on any leather items including boots, purses and apparel – whether you were wearing the item or not! I joked nervously at the time that she had apparently picked up on one of my fetishes. She liked her hot red harness so much she would roll around on the floor purring loudly whenever I put it on her. So she had a BDSM side, who doesn’t? ;-)

But the funniest stories included her apparent herding of guests who she felt had over stayed their welcome. She would march up to each of them stare them in the face, look toward the door and back to them. The message was clear, “There’s the door!”

On at least one occasion, she sat with her back to me and mimicked my talking as if to say, “Shut up already!” And on any given night, there she was demonstrating to me how to climb the stairs to go to bed, “You see, *this* is how it is done!” I use to explain that I knew I was in trouble when she started speaking slowly and enunciating. And she was definitely the only cat I knew who could cuss like a sailor, a British sailor in fact.

Squeaky earned the co-priestess title by sitting with people who were in distress. If one of my students began crying she would immediately go sit by them. In fact, I often watched her for clues as to when I needed to up the level of my tending. She would let them rub her head, or she would rub up against them. Once she even jumped onto the sofa and sat in a person’s lap just in time to bring them back from the edge.

She always sat with me when I cried. She was there for me when my brothers died. She was there with me for my descents into the underworld and watched over me through my many seemingly endless dark nights. The only time we parted ways was when I rescued the black kittens. I would like to think that at the end, she forgave me even for that.

I will miss her. Even now as I sit crying, I can feel her sitting between my feet. Last night I dreamt of bluebirds and awoke to hear two cats playing in the tub. I caught a glimpse of her briefly as I stepped into the bathroom. Devi looked surprised but delighted. He has been searching for her all morning, stopping to gaze at me with the biggest eyes. “She is gone,” I say through tears. And outside I hear the chirping of birds.

May the Bluebird of Happiness bless us all.

In love, may she return again …

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Gratitude – a work in progress

There are so many blessings within my life. I am grateful for them all. And on good days, I am grateful for the challenges as well.

Today I am grateful for my family, my friends, my students and my teachers. I am grateful for my familiars and my pets. I am grateful for my home, my neighbors and our community. I am grateful for the larger communities for which I am a member … whether recognized or not.

I am grateful for my corporate career that made it possible for me to retire, and the calling from the divine that revealed to me the work now in my hands. I am grateful for my twelve years of Catholic education and the discipline and focus it taught me. I am grateful for the nuns who dared to call me to activism and justice. I am grateful for the organizations and movements that provided an outlet for my imagination, hope and rage.

I am grateful to my ancestors who taught me how to survive. I am grateful to all the artists, musicians, scientists and writers who taught me how to thrive.

I am grateful to the trees that hid me within its branches, and to the clouds for lifting me into the unknown. I am grateful to my mother who taught me how to fight. I am grateful to my father who taught me how to tell a story. And I am grateful to my sister who taught me how to sing and dance.

But most of all I am grateful for all of you … Happy Thanksgiving

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