Merry Litha or... Happy Midsummer! :)

I wanted to write this ON midsummer, but things got busy and... well, life happens!

Litha Blessings to you, brothers and sisters!

Putting Curses on People

Totally not worth it!

I'm a firm believer that if you put a curse on someone, that shit will come back at you--and HARD. Just don't do it!

First off, you never know if it's going to work in the way you intend. For a person to be cursed they have to believe they have a curse on them. That would mean that you'd have to tell them that you cursed them. This is problematic in polite society. If they don't believe in curses, your curse won't work. It's as simple as the Law of Attraction (however "simple" that really is).

Secondly, if you're Wiccan, you believe in the Wiccan Rede and the Rule of Three. Whatever you send out comes back to you three-fold. Cursing someone could spell disaster for you. Even if you don't believe in the rule of three, chances are you believe in some sort of "What Goes Around Comes Around"  philosophy. This is reason enough not to curse someone.

But what if you curse someone into a situation that they are eventually happy about? Like "I put a curse on her that her boyfriend would cheat on her and leave her." Well, what if that happens and she ends up meeting some hunky astronaut? Man, wouldn't you feel like an idiot? 

Operation Security and why it matters

I've been with my husband for a long time now. I just wanted to put this out there. I will in no way compromise Operation Security (OPSEC).  I was taught this very early on and have always kept it close to heart.

So why is OPSEC important?

Maintaining OPSEC means that our military friends and loved ones will be safe when they are conducting affairs both at home and abroad. Some people believe that things that go on stateside isn't important and therefore it doesn't matter if they are discussed. This couldn't be further from the truth. Operation Security means being mindful of what you post, where you post it, and the audience listening, reading, or watching.

You might think some of the things you post online are secure because they're in a restricted area where only people you allow in can see them. Nope. Hackers are taught to hack into people's blogs, Facebook pages, e-mails, and more.

If you're military or know someone in the military, just be mindful of what you say and where you say it!

Thank you. That is all. :)

My experience with Family Readiness Group (FRG)

I hope this post isn't too boring. I don't think it will be.

So, Family Readiness Group (FRG)... or as my husband likes to say "Families Ruined by Gossip." I'll tell you a little about my experience with FRG,  but first a little about how I see the world. :)

Okay, I'm an idealist. I see *potential.* I see possibilities. If there is the potential for something to be
awesome and great, I definitely see it. Trust me, I do. I'm a fantastic visionary.

With FRG the possibilities are definitely there. It has the potential to be a really great organization. With the right FRG leaders and the right volunteers, it could be awesome.

The (long ago) past:

When I met my husband I was a wet-behind-the-ears girl. I was in college, I was in love. And I was a girlfriend. A military girlfriend. My husband was deployed when I met him, so let me tell you what this means to military girlfriends. It means we don't get any information. It means we don't get any rights. It means we don't get any phone calls telling us when our deployed military loved one is coming home.

Even if he asks for his FRG to disseminate this information to his girlfriend, she won't get any. If he signs a waiver stating that she can receive information about his movements, she won't get any. 

Fast-forward a few years.

We've moved to another station (I'm still a fucking girlfriend). I was invited to the battalion (BN) Executive
Officer's (XO's) house by the BN XO's wife where she was having a FRG mixer. She was a wonderful lady, very nice and sweet. There were military spouses there. That's right. Spouses. This is the key word here. One of the spouses asked me "So, how long have you and your husband been married?" I said "Oh, we're
not married yet. But we've been through a deployment together and we've been together for 3 years." At that point no one wanted to talk to me. I didn't know what had just happened, but they all clammed up. Later, as things were winding down,  they made it very, very clear that they were not interested in speaking to me again. One of them said "We all host FRG events at our houses on base. When I host the next one at my house I'll have everyone bring pictures of their wedding day and we can talk about it together." Then she looked at me. "Well, you can bring a picture of your boyfriend and you or something." *giggle*

Bitch.

And it was then that I knew why I wasn't being accepted by these women. They were all in the "Military Wives" club and I was not a member to this oh-so-exclusive club.

So, I sized them up really easily after that. They were a bunch of petty, holier-than-thou women who had no self-worth. They had so little self-worth that they had to ride the coat-tails of their husbands for their self-annointed importance. "I'm a Military Wife. Toughest Job in the Military." or "My husband's a First Sergeant. What's your husband's rank?" 

Fast forward a few more years:

My *HUSBAND* (yep, that's right, after 5 years and TWO year-long deployments as his girlfriend he decided to marry me) got a command. I was asked if I wanted to be the FRG leader. I say yes. My, my how the tables have turned! Given my less-than-stellar experience with my husband's previous two FRGs, I take this one on. Like I said, I'm an idealist. Well, my husband's new command doesn't have an existing FRG structure. The exiting commander didn't take the time to nurture and grow it, and there's nothing there. So, we built it from scratch! We got a treasurer, and events coordinator, key callers to disseminate information to the spouses, a newsletter editor (that's right, we created a newsletter!), the works! I was soooo on top of my game. It was amazing. I was a great FRG leader. No need for modesty here. I think I was pretty good. I included everyone. Girlfriends and boyfriends, fiancees and fiances, wives and husbands.

And I thought to myself *THIS* is how a FRG should be run.

The FRG was my husband's legacy. After he left command, the FRG continued on, built on itself, became more involved. This was something to be proud of.

The lesson here is that the FRG is a mixed bag. You're gonna have your douchebags and your bitches. You're gonna have your awesomely organized FRGs. It really just depends.

I should mention that the FRG is an all-volunteer organization. The military does NOT pay ANYONE to do any of the work involved in making a FRG great. If you have a gripe about the FRG, don't just sit on your ass and complain. At that point you're only part of the problem.

GET INVOLVED. Or as Gandhi said "Be the change you wish to see in the world."

Let's pretend we won't die

Maybe I've been out of the "TV World" for too long. My husband and I haven't had cable TV for... 6 years? We have satisfied our need for television with Netflix, YouTube, and Amazon prime over the years. For a long time we didn't even have a TV. We just had a projector that we'd set up if we wanted to watch something and play it on the blank wall in our house. Now we have a huge TV and sound system. It's nice. But even with this big TV and nice sound system, some days I don't watch it at all.

Anyway, as I was saying, I've been out of the TV World for a long time--so long that I feel like I've awakened.

I see Lemmings..... *says in scared voice with frosty breath* They're everywhere.

Occasionally I'll catch a Youtube video with an ad on it in the beginning because of the video's popularity. When I see ads now, I really think about them. Not in a "I want that product/service" kind of way. I think about WHY they're there. I think about the world as it relates to the ad... and how the ad relates to the world. And I've come to a few conclusions

1. Advertisers don't want us to think about death or dying. 
2. Expounding on my first point, they always use young, healthy, "beautiful," and fit people to really drive this point home. Life is awesome if you're young and beautiful, right?!
3. Advertisers are training people to think they need to constantly improve themselves to conform to society. This really makes sense, of course. It wouldn't be effective if their product didn't make you want to buy it. But I think this goes deeper than that. It touches a subconscious nerve that people don't even realize is there. 
4. They're distracting from what's *really* going on in the world. There is so much to distract us today. 

I'm not saying I'm this enlightened being that knows everything. I'm sure there are blinders that have been pulled over my eyes in some areas of my life. But some commercials are so obviously distractions (at least to me) from death/dying/aging that it is disturbing. Do people really think they aren't going to die? 

It always amazed me that people paid for cable service in which they are bombarded every 5 minutes with commercials. What a racket is that!! If you're going to watch TV, watch it without the commercials. In a 30 minute program you get 9 or 10 minutes of commercials now, right? Plus commercials in-between shows, too. And the commercials last 3-5 minutes, too. Annoying! 

I would love to be 10 years younger for just one day, my more naive and innocent self, able to go on living life and have nothing to worry about. There's nothing like having a child to really solidify your place in the world--to really make your mortality real. Now it's real. Now it's THERE. 

I almost envy the ignorance of youth. I'm not old by any stretch. But I'm not 18 anymore, either. Wouldn't that be nice, though? 

Just think of all of these distractions in your life as the Buddha's father. Buddha's father wanted to shield the Shayamani Buddha from all of the painful realities of the world by over-indulging him in harems and all of the pleasures of the world. When the Buddha would go outside of the gates of his home his father would order all of the old, sick, dying, and disabled people off of the streets so the Buddha would not see them. But this was a false world that his father had created for him.

I won't tell you the whole story of the Buddha. If you haven't read it, you should definitely read it for yourself. And I highly, highly recommend the book Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse. Please, read it!!

So, maybe you should kill your TV, too. Maybe you'll understand what I'm talking about with all of this then. In the meantime, if you're happy with your ignorance, I suppose the only thing to do would be to find out how much happier you'd be if you were awake. TV is an addiction that must be squelched. Get rid of the cable company... this intrusive, time-wasting commercial-touting liar that you've allowed into your home.  

"How old are you?" and "When's your birthday?"

This is a very weird concept for some. I think strangely sometimes and I just have these sorts of thoughts.

1. "How old are you?" What they're really asking you is "How many times has the Earth done a complete orbit around the sun since you were born?" I would LOVE to ask someone the question
My point with this questions is that the number of times the Earth has made a complete orbit around the sun is an arbitrary number. When people say "Wow, you're only 18? I thought you were so much older. You're so mature." Irrelevant.  Or "You're 33 years old! You shouldn't be acting like this." Again, irrelevant.

2. "When's your birthday?" If you're a believer in astrology, this question might not be stupidly arbitrary to you. That's okay. What they're really asking is "On what point of the Gregorian calendar created 500 years ago were you born?" The calendar is completely made up, of course, but I suppose I understand the need to note this information (from a human standpoint).

When you think about it, we're just a speck. We're these teeny teeny tiny creatures on this itty bitty planet on the outskirts of this beautiful, expansive, mysterious galaxy that's mostly just empty space. And isn't it wonderful?

Why do we have to constantly try to define ourselves based on systems imposed on us by others (age, birthdate/zodiac sign)? Why can't we just feel at one with the way things are supposed to be--at one with the Universe? We are in fact born from it. And that's what I leave you with before I head off to bed.