Hey, everyone! Siege here. I have successfully managed to crawl out of my executive dysfunction hole to show you all something cool. I’ve gone back to our good friend the Internet Archive so try and find some of Allēna’s old work from former blogs. I found this really cool post from her sadly now-defunct site Order In Discord. It’s called Learning.

For a bit of context, she kept this blog when she was discovering kitchen witchcraft, but it turned into a sort of exploration of her inner world to the extent she could at the time. She was living in Alaska as she wrote there during her first marriage to Fang. I thought this was a really cool piece because of what she learned about herself in it. She used the pseudonym Eric when writing on that site, as well. So, without further ado, here is the post.

Learning, originally posted on Order In Discord

Hi, all!

Music has been a huge part of my life until recently when I kinda hit a wall. For a long time (like, 20 years), I had an image in my head of becoming a superstar musician and singer and becoming rich and famous, but that image was slowly draining me and I’d forgotten how to ENJOY making music or even seeing or playing my instruments. 

My husband and I were in the car today and we started talking about being ourselves. We were in Guitar Center a bit before the car ride. I picked up this guitar that looked like a candy cane. I also obtained a brass slide and began to practice playing slide with the guitar laying on my lap. With a little bit of echo there, I coaxed some sounds out of the candy cane that reminded me of a theremin. 

Now, I have no idea how to play slide guitar, all I know is from some videos I’ve seen and things I’ve heard. What sets this apart from other times I’ve played instruments is that I wasn’t coming at it trying to prove I was good, I was coming at it to try and learn what all I could do with a brass slide and an electric guitar. I wasn’t an expert, I was learning all over again. 

He brought up exactly what I had been doing – making music for the fun of it, not just doing it to get famous. To explore something new, not to make a living. That will be the only way I get somewhere. I will only get somewhere if I do what I love for me, not to please anyone else. 

I’ve been struggling with what to post all day. I took a photo of the insanely good lunch we had today, but along with that post would come some self imposed shame because I am not yet good at eating healthy or eating in moderation and I completely blew the health benefits of lunch at dinner. I could write about how when it rains, it pours because it’s raining outside, but that’s been done before. 

I know this isn’t about cooking or herbs or tea making or anything kitchen-related, but I want it to extend to that. I want to be my authentic self here, not just somebody who positions themselves as some kind of expert in order to get likes and comments. If you are an expert in your field, blog the crap out of that, but I am not. I want to use this blog to document what I learn, not necessarily to try and teach. Part of my magic is music, and I can do great things with that, but there is still much I must learn. I want to incorporate all I do into this learning process, because that’s what it is. 

So today I learned:

• Sashimi is very filling
• Beans are more addicting than they should be
• That I can make a guitar sound like a theremin with the proper slide and some echo
• That I need to do the things I love for myself. 

That’s all! Stay cool!

Eris

My Thoughts

This post is from October 5, 2019, so there’s a lot we know more about now. For example, our craft has extended far beyond kitchen magic, but we still know how to make some bomb ass tea. However, a lot still rings true here. We continually have to rest so that we don’t push the body and mind so hard that we completely burn out, and that’s a major struggle. We also still tend to try and prove that we’re good/worthy enough to be seen instead of being taken simply as we are.

This system has absolutely no chill, and we still struggle to understand why anyone would love us if we don’t earn it, even though we know that people do and that we don’t have to earn fuckall. Sure, we still need to do our best to be decent people and to treat those we care about well, but that’s just basic respect, you know? I think we’re pretty good at that most of the time. However, we’re learning, growing, and doing better about all of this every day.

Even if we need to take breaks, rest, and breathe, we’re still going to do our best, make cool shit, and treat our people well. Nobody is gonna remember that we were skittish or nervous or that we didn’t believe we were worthy. They’re gonna remember how we impacted them. And their opinion of how we show up is not up to us to control.

I hope you enjoyed this post, and as always, stay tuned for more magic!

Siege, Super-Admin