I didn’t really finish my last post, so here is the continuation…

I was thinking the last few days, and actually longer than that, how strange it seems that in a time of such upheaval and uncertainty, we are actually doing very well. I mean, like extremely well. Financially, we have been in a cycle of abundance that started over a year ago with refinancing the house and the big raise I got, and it has just continued. We just got $2900 for the “coronavirus relief” or whatever, and honestly, I feel a bit guilty. We were already doing great financially, and Debbie and I are both working, haven’t lost any income. The only real “loss,” if you could call it that, is the rescheduling of the trip to London, and the headache of that, as well as changes to the Nashville trip in a few weeks, and the trip to New York in June. We haven’t yet planned the trip for the honeymoon in October – it’s sounding like that might change anyway. But outside of that, things are great. In fact, even the kids are all doing ok. Galen, and Tessi (and Alex) are all still working. Emilee, well, she hasn’t been doing well mentally, but what else is new there. Jonathan seems to be hanging in, and Scott is still working, so Megan and the grands are ok. Truly blessed, all of us.

And it just seems like a lot of other things have been going “right” too. Today, for example, I am using a standing desk I ordered for home for the first time, and it is awesome! It was only $150, and is built much better than I expected for that price. It’s perfect for what I needed and better than expected. Along those same lines, we were looking to get a patio set (been wanting one since shortly after getting this house), and we happened to find one at Fry’s that was on a KILLER sale – normally $699, selling for $250. We grabbed that puppy, and now have a much nicer set than we had anticipated. And it goes on like that, with great masks we got (both locally, cloth, and online, filter), stuff I have ordered for the altar – just all good really. And of course it’s not necessarily about the materialism of it all – it’s about the great fits, the great deals, the great timing. Again, lots of blessings.

You know, I always said or thought that in the “end days” or whatever, while some people were suffering or struggling, those of us who had tried to keep the commandments and love one another and love our God, we would do ok – in fact, we would flourish. I always felt like we would finally have “our time,” when things would go right for us, fortune would be in our favor, and the scales would balance back out a bit. It really does seem like some of that is going on now. And I certainly don’t mean to say or imply that those who are really struggling or suffering now have been bad people and somehow deserve it – not at all. And I also don’t want to imply that “I deserve this,” because honestly, as I said before, I feel a bit guilty – like how can we be doing so well when so many are struggling and/or suffering? I don’t know, and I certainly think about and pray for all those who are going through tough times.

All I can do is be EXTREMELY grateful, and hope that I can be lifted to a place where I can help more people – or, more appropriately – God can help people through me. Because if this is all showing me anything, it’s that there is a God, and that God is doing so many things for that I could not even imagine doing for myself – that I wouldn’t even think possible for myself. So I say “thank you God,” for everything. Hopefully someday I can give back at a greater level, of that which has been bestowed upon me.

Wow, I just re-read my last post. That was pretty cool! I can say that I have definitely continued on the path of spiritual development. I guess I should catch things up a bit first.

Starting March 13th, we – most of SRP actually – started working from home full time. The coronavirus pandemic, which I have lovingly decided to call the “corone-bone” to take any destructive power away from it, has been continuing to spread, resulting in stay at home orders for most of the country. Here in AZ, all bars, sit down restaurants, barbershops, malls, schools – have all been closed. Grocery stores, doctors, bank, and some other “essential” businesses have remained open, and a lot of restaurants are getting by doing take our or deliver orders. This has all been pretty stressful for some people understandably, but I have actually been doing much better than I would have expected. I’ve been in a pretty good mood, and I think I attribute that to the fact that it looks like, FINALLY, this system is going to crumble, or at least be changed drastically. I have prayed for YEARS for some kind of global event that could bring on change like that, but didn’t imagine it could be a pandemic. And I’m not going to go into all the things that are being affected, but suffice it to say the economy is being battered.

For me personally, this is a time of re-invigorating my spiritual practices. I have been meditating, or at least taking the time to try to, much more often now. I have extra time in the morning after Debbie gets up, since I don’t have to drive to work, and I typically use that 30-40 minutes to do a little meditation and prayer. It has honestly been pretty challenging – I average one really good session out of every 5 or 6, but I am hoping with practice, that average will go up. Still, even the ones that aren’t great are beneficial.

I’ve greatly increased the number of items on my altar too – lots of cool new stones, got a lapis obelisk, and even picked up a cool little wooden wand a few weeks back. Admittedly, I sometimes find myself telling – well, myself – that I am being “silly” getting all this stuff. But then I try to stop and remind myself that it is not silly – that there is something deep inside of me that believes, has always believed, in magick, miracles and metaphysics. I paused when saying “always” because there have been some dark night of the soul when I didn’t believe in anything – or so I thought. But something inside must have held on to the belief, because it always came back – was never completely gone for good. Maybe, like Fox Mulder, I WANT to believe lol. In any case, I have been giving in more to my compulsions regarding that stuff, like I did back during the original coin-incidence, and honestly, it’s been pretty refreshing.

On the mundane level, the pandemic has definitely created some challenges. We had our big trip to England planned for our birthdays in May, and have had to reschedule all of that for late August. We are hoping things are back to something closer to normal by then. So far, we have successfully moved everything except the flights. That is turning out to be quite a pain. But I’m sure we’ll get it figured out eventually. Of course Debbie was pretty upset about it. But I think she is starting to come to terms with everything. Once we can actually get the flights done, I think she will be ok. And then there is is the trip to Nashville. We moved that to the second week of May, and will be wearing our new masks on that. I don’t think it’s necessarily the best idea to go, but Debbie is dead set on seeing her family again, and I have protection – both physical and spiritual – so I’m ok with it.