Me: To live deliciously, I guess?
Jow: What if you are given a dress, butter and travel?
Me: I fail to see the problem here.
Jow: . . .
Me: Look, if I'm going to my goddesses and spirits who have been established as bigger and more powerful than me, I'ma have to do them the solid of trusting that they aren't going to Amelia Bedelia out on my ass.
Let's get started with today's lesson.
Life in America Hasn't Changed Much
When I read books about Puritan America when I was much younger, everyone wanted to give you the impression of how different Puritan life was from modern American life, even when glossing over the whole Witchcraft Crisis where everyone lost their damn minds for a hot minute in American history. Puritans never drank! They never had fun! They wore severe clothing! They always were good at all times! And . . .not so much. There were tons of bars, they played games once their work was done, the Boston Puritan women wore scarlet petticoats and the Puritans often fell asleep during sermon along with getting into long lawsuits with each other and had frequent pre-martial sex.
Of course, when I started my life as a witch in ye olde 1990s, everyone was super excited about the Burning Times. Who doesn't love a good persecution story? On its highly sensationalized surface, it was a Wiccan Feminist Lifetime Movie that was hard to look away from. Women being killed for presumed witchcraft! Innocent victims! No one is acting in a sisterly manner to each other! Men were being super mean! Witchcraft was super misunderstood! And while it was highly unlikely the women who were murdered were murdered for actual witchcraft, they were often widows or landowners and sometimes had difficult personal histories such as homelessness and children out of wedlock. During that time, children out of wedlock happened far more likely than you would think and was either received semi-neutrally if you were super sorry about it and people liked you or as an excuse to seize all your goods because you were a ho and people didn't like you for whatever reason.
While obviously it's horrific that all these innocent women (and men!) were slaughtered and we can't (and shouldn't) overlook that aspect, what I am personally becoming fascinated with is how the Crisis was a time for women to seize power. Teenaged girls (literally) roared like lions for months in their houses and their parents had no escape from it during the winter. Wives suddenly became too afflicted to do house work and took afternoon naps instead. Women of color and servant girls figured out how to run this show, even when they had to do prison bids here and there. It was a really exciting free for all for a hot minute while women were power grabbing and settling scores, both things that had been previously denied to them. In the beginning of all this, there wasn't even much of a consequence to being accused, people were just getting locked up for a little bit here or there making it a really powerful time for oppresssed parties until it got (dead) serious.
What Does Living Deliciously Even Mean?
I know, we all got super excited when The VVitch came out. Black Philip! Living deliciously! Witches as badasses! American history told in a reasonably plausible sort of way but for all the flying! Like, believe me, I too am waiting for Black Philip to come and take me away from my boring, back breaking life as much as the next gal but until then, what are you doing about it? How are you actually trying to live deliciously? Because the odds of you being swept away all supernatural bodice ripper style are slim, if we want to look at a Particular Cautionary Tale. Any of your goddesses and spirits may (or may not) help depending on how into you they are. We will get to the magical aspect of course, but let's start with your actual every day life, killer. Are you eating crap that makes you slow and slothful regularly? Cut it out. Are you moving around enough so your brain meat actually works? Get it going. Are you overly indulging in your vices so that you aren't really living deliciously so much as in a wine induced stupor in front of the intertubes/television? Knock it off. Are you creating beauty, magic and glamour in ways that are meaningful to you on a regular basis? Your fairy godmother ain't gonna do it for you. You need to figure out what your butter, dress and travel are. If it is literally butter, a dress and travel that's fine. Like I said, at the end of the day, American life hasn't changed that much. If it's not, you need to figure it out. What do you need to feel fulfilled? How are you going to get there? You need to get faster, stronger, harder.
This is really hard. I get it. If it was easy, we'd all be living the lives we'd want to be living. My Fetch is whining and mewling piteously about the decided lack of sloth going on right now. I'm dragging my ass to the gym. I'm not impulse buying. I'm not drinking much. I'm not smoking much. I'm restricting my calorie intake. I'm watching maybe an hour and a half of television in a night. I'm spinning wool. I'm rejiggering my schedule to be better. I'm reading. I'm doing yoga. I'm contributing to my flex spending. I'm contributing more to my 401K. I'm saving money. I'm writing. I'm paying down what's left of my credit card debt. None of this is fun or enjoyable in the slightest way. None of it. The general current egregor in America right this minute is to eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow we die under Trump's regime. Living like some kind of vague modern Puritan isn't what anyone wants to do right before New Year's. We want to throw caution to the wind and whatever happens, happens. But that's exactly what your oppressors want you to do. They want you to live like the grasshopper and not the ant and make poor short term decisions to feel a little better in the moment instead of good long term decisions that will actually whisk you into the life you want to be living.
Look! Elle Woods sure wanted to go to the parties her sorority was having. It was her senior year in college. But she wanted to get into law school more. You have to prioritize what's actually important long term and figure out what is actually worth it short term. For me, not worth it short term: the Victoria Secret sale, eating cake during the day at work, watching four episodes in a row of Real Housewives. Worth it in the short term: a few bites of a mouse shaped French pastry during the day, a bra sale at Nordstrom's, watching one episode of reality television.
We need to decide as witches to choose art over junk. Creating it, consuming it.
Work Your Way Out
I'm going to present to you a challenging concept that I've been meditating on for the last few weeks. Your impulse will be to reject it but give it a chance. You need to surrender to a role in order to subvert it. Like baking. Baking is very different than cooking. Baking is far more science than art, unlike cooking. There are strict measurements for each ingredient that must be adhered to for your baked goods to turn out properly. Only once you have mastered these measurements and received your desired results can you start messing with it.
* Surrending to a role (old guard D/s). . .in order to subvert it (baking for work vs baking for Work)
Working the dark arts when you don't like to be told what to do
What does it mean to live deliciously anyway?
Glamour as part of your subversion
Subversion in the 90s and early aughts Rory Gilmore pearls and full 50's regalia etc
Choosing art over television
The experiment.