I got a wild hair to redesign the site this week, as I was sick of looking at that same old Moon I'd been looking at for two years.  Most people read DDtM via feed, but I'm pleased to roll out the all-new, all-singing, all-dancing blog, now with 80% less blue.  I went for something simpler and cleaner, and I think I like it.

Aside from appearances, the major change I've made is that I decided to merge DDtM with Stumbling Towards Ahimsa and discontinue the latter.  I finally realized I have enough trouble keeping up with one blog, let alone two, and why should different aspects of my life be segregated?  If people don't want to read about food and veganism, well, they can skip those posts.  Those who don't will be treated to tasty recipes and the occasional half-drunk ramble about cooking.

I'm in the process of going through old entries and updating their tags, so please bear with me if things shift and settle for a bit.  I'll be adjusting colors and tweaking the layout here and there too.  Also you'll notice new navigation links along the top of the page; I updated the information on the About the Author page, created new pages about my writing, and made a "Stuff I Like" page of links, book recommendations, and random lists of things I felt like listing.  You'll find that my two Amazon Affiliate stores have also been merged, which I think is more informative and convenient than just a list of favorite books.

The upshot of all this is that posting frequency should pick up in the near future, and the subject matter of this blog is certain to broaden.  It's never going to be a slice-of-life journal (I have one of those elsewhere), but I don't want to confine my writing just to spirituality, or just to food, or just to anything.  All aspects of my life inform one another, and all those aspects are steadily changing as the months of 2009 wander past, and hopefully more than ever before Dancing Down the Moon will reflect who I am, where I'm going, and what that means.

Enjoy!

1 ~ My Nia anklet, which I acquired from this maker on Etsy; it has a tiny bare foot charm, a butterfly, stars, and green and brown beads. 

2 ~ My new yoga mat and its matching water bottle.  I'm thinking of eventually getting another mat and using this one as a runner in my kitchen.  *laugh*

3 ~ The logo I designed for my bake sale goodies, Ahimsa Treats—I’m considering getting it as a small tattoo some time in the future.  Long story.

4 ~ The new live Broadway DVD of Rent, which is way better than the movie and almost better than seeing it live, which I also did (for the second time) on May 14th with my BFF.  The new DVD was filmed on the final night of the show’s Broadway run, and it's fabulous.

5 ~ This recent writing spree I've been on.  "What writing spree?" you may rightly ask, as I haven't been updating my blogs much at all, but I believe last 10 Things list I mentioned the novel I’m writing.  Well, I'm about halfway through it now, and I'm still in love with it.  Not only am I enjoying the writing itself, I feel...dare I say...passionate about the story, the characters, and the world they inhabit.  I've tried in vain for ten years to get a novel started, but I think it was just a matter of waiting for the right story at the right moment.  So much in life depends on good timing, doesn't it?

6 ~ I love that I've gotten over my trouselastiphobia (fear of stretchy pants).  As a young fat girl, I developed a pure and utter loathing for what I deemed "fat lady pants," those knit pants in all the colors of the rainbow (nowadays they come in Capri length) over which we were encouraged to wear a shirt with an anchor, a splash of roses, or a birdhouse on it.  No! I decreed.  It's jeans for me or nothing! And for years, I've worn jeans every day.  Luckily my job has practically no dress code, so this works.  But since I've been dancing more and doing Nia, I've come to understand the value of comfortable, flowy dance clothes.  I had S1ren make me a pair of dancy pants with big flared slit legs, and they've been one of my favorite garments for months.  I've even started wearing them around town when I want to feel more...like my dancer self.  I want my dancer self to be my everyday self.  This means I'm gonna need more pants.

7 ~  The music I’ve been listening to lately:  Bombay Dub Orchestra, Desert Dwellers, Chicane, Brandi Carlile, Lizz Wright, and the new Vienna Teng CD Inland Territory.

8 ~ Martha Beck.  I’m planning to do a full length review of her book Steering by Starlight soon, but for now suffice it to say that her work has changed my internal life drastically since I read Finding Your Own North Star.  As much as I hate to admit that one of Oprah’s Dial-an-Experts is made of pure awesome, well, it’s true. 

9 ~ I love that I have a long-term goal for the year.  I’m working on saving up money to attend the Nia White Belt Intensive here in Austin at the end of October; I’m pretty far from my $1600 goal, but I have faith that one way or another I’ll find a way to afford it.  I’m thinking of it as an initiation that I have to work toward.  For most of my “adult” life I’ve had trouble thinking of the future in any concrete way without panicking.  I lived purely for instant gratification because I didn’t think I was going to make it long enough to reach any sort of long-term goals.  Now I’m moving into my 43Things era and thinking of life as more than just getting through the next day. 

10 ~ My kitties.  Even though I routinely want to pitch Owen off the roof.  My fuzzbutts are much, much better roomies than people could be.  Well, except for the shedding.  And the litter box smell.  And Owen knocking books off the shelf into his water bowl.  But still—love the weemews.

It's funny.  Issues don't exist in a vacuum.  They all feed on each other and when you take the energy away from one, it affects all of them.

A lot of things have been going really well for me lately, but the one thing I've been faltering on is my weight.  I decided months ago it was time to shape up; but all my efforts have come to nothing, and in fact I'm fatter now than I've ever been.  Granted, the upshot of all my meditating and self-analysis has been that I'm not upset about this as I would have been a year ago, but still, it bothers me, because I don't like being out of control, and I don't like how I feel physically in my body when I'm at my heaviest.

 
It has come to my attention, however, that part of what's been sabotaging me is that I'm afraid to lose weight.  Does that fear outweigh (pardon the pun) the concern I have about dying young and never being able to do the things I want to do?  So far apparently it has.

I hate it when I embody a cliché regardless of type.  I've balked against being a Pagan cliché (you know, a poly bisexual (preferably promiscuous) fat white woman walking around in sarongs with dyed red hair and sunburned nipples), and against being a fat girl cliché (jolly, indulging in secret binge eating, denying her sexuality, protecting herself with fat, et cetera), but sometimes, well, you just gotta embrace the possibility that you may, in fact, be a walking stereotype.

Stop me if you've heard this one before.

A survivor of sexual abuse and assault puts on a hundred pounds of fat out of depression (the need for comfort separated from contact with others), self-hatred (the urge to annihilate her body) and fear (the urge to surround herself with a wall of fat that will drive men away).  

It's so fucking Oprah.  But in my case it's still true.

As long as I've been a big girl I've attracted three basic types of men:  older black guys, Mexican truck drivers, and married guys.  For the most part these men have not been interesting to me, so I'm safe.  (Obviously there have been exceptions.)  But as long as I'm fat, I can blame my spinsterhood on my size.  

Because the question lurks:  what if I were to lose all that weight, and was still invisible to men?  What if it's not the fat that's been the problem?  What am I supposed to do without that convenient scapegoat if I'm thin and cute and still no one wants me?  

Men aren't really the problem, of course.  To broaden the question, think of it this way.  A lot of overweight women spend their lives waiting to lose those precious 20 pounds before they start living.  They put off trips, clothes, careers, and life changes until they're thinner, and when it doesn't happen, they're excused from having to face the fear of the unknown.  Fat is the devil you know.  What if beneath it, you're nobody?  Stripped of your outrage at the world for treating you like a pariah, you have to make it on your real merits, not your reactions to others' reactions.  

It's ironic that the fatter you are the more invisible you are.  But the world is full of thin, pretty women who are completely unremarkable.  (Don't give me that "everyone's a unique beautiful snowflake" crap; I think we all have the potential to be wonderful, but we deny it and end up settling for average when we could be extraordinary.)  More importantly, the world is full of thin, pretty, miserable bitches.  Being thin doesn't make you happy--you have the same flaws and bullshit as you always did, but now you're thin.  And if attractive people don't find you attractive, or find you boring or are just not that into you or whatever the going nonsense is, you've lost your blame-blanket.  You don't have that excuse not to get on with your life anymore.

So I've been getting on with my life, and gaining weight, and I am fairly convinced that it's a last-ditch effort on the part of my inner lizard brain to keep me from growing, except in the most literal of ways.  My fears want me to stay fat and unhappy because if I don't, I'm faced with the awesome responsibility of charting my own course in the world.  And if I insist on doing so despite my fat, said inner lizard panics and tries to up the ante.  

I said, "Fuck my fat.  I'm doing yoga.  And I'm going to this dancing thing."  And the lizard Moosh said, "PANIC!!! PIZZA!!! COOKIES!!!"

This is not to belittle the panic I felt after that whole thing; but that issue isn't separate from my weight, it's all intimately connected with a disconnection from intimacy.  I've always been afraid of letting people close enough to touch me.  If I'm out somewhere with MW and he puts a hand on my waist from behind my first impulse is to deck him, although I don't actually want to.  It's very hard.  That's the nice thing about being fat--people out in regular society don't want to touch you.  (Unless of course you're pregnant, in which case people will just walk up and grab your stomach like it's public property.)

Granted I'm not about to go out and try to convince myself that I want people feeling all over me; I'm not as concerned with having hard boundaries as I am with soft squishy ones that could give me Diabetes and have me shopping at Austin Tent and Awning for pajamas.  I'm not looking to become more touchy-feely; I'm looking to become more myself, and right now, I'm standing in my own way, facing up to fears I've been allowing to fester and stew for almost a decade--no, more like my entire life.  

I haven't come to any firm conclusions about all of this, but it's been percolating in my mind over the weekend and I felt the need to share it.  I'm sure I'll have more to say in the days ahead.

ETA: Please do not take the above post as a blanket statement about all fat women.  I am aware that people are fat for all sorts of reasons.  I have observed that a significant percentage of women share similar issues to mine, but it's not an absolute.

I am pleased, and challenged, by the fact that after 31 years wandering around this lovely planet I can still surprise myself both in positive and negative ways.  At least that means I'm not bored, right?

I'd still kind of like to kick sand at Saturn, though. 

Never let yourself get too comfortable with life.  That's important.  The minute you start to become complacent, life will throw you something--maybe something new, maybe something you thought you'd handled years ago.  It may be that the gods were waiting to hand you something until you were strong enough to face it.  Perhaps some part of your past is still lurking under your skin waiting until you've been through X, Y, and Z to pave the way back to A.

The important thing is to take life as it comes--cliche, yes, but still true.  I've been working on cultivating emotional detachment; this isn't the same as not feeling anything.  I call it invoking your soul's Witness. 

The Witness is able to look at your emotions and say, "Well, okay, here's A again.  I guess it isn't gone.  But that's all right."  The Witness's slogan is "keep calm and carry on."  When an emotion--especially a negative one whose source you're not sure of--arises, if you can stop and breathe and call upon the Witness, she can help you decide how to act, instead of simply reacting.  The Witness knows and understands all your issues, even the ones your conscious mind has no idea how to name.  The Witness has been watching your entire life; she's the part of you that is connected to your larger purpose even when you can't see it because of the fog bank of all those poisonous thoughts and litanies of self-condemnation.  She is the part of you that is mindful.

Of course, as important as mindfulness is, it doesn't do you much good unless you can partner it with compassion and patience.  As it turns out there's no statute of limitations on recovery.  Old sorrows can arise when you least expect them, and it doesn't mean you're weak or that you need to "get over it."  In my experience there really is no "getting over it," there's learning to live with it, and growing beyond it.  But pain and trauma don't ever leave you.  And you know what?  That's okay.

My parents had a hackberry tree that overhung the telephone lines for years.  They had the limbs cut back repeatedly, but the tree was tenacious, and eventually when it had to be cut down they saw that one of the limbs had actually grown around the telephone wire, enveloping it completely and then growing on its way as if the wire was just a part of it.  I think that's how painful experiences are--we grow around them, and beyond them, but they never really leave us.  We take what came from that grief and learn from it, make it a part of us.  The choice we are left with is, will that experience make us stronger, or hinder us?  A tree isn't about to let something as silly as human artifice get in its way.  A tree will grow through concrete, around fence lines, up through the floor.  It takes time and patience, but given light, food, and air, a tree can grow through just about anything.

Healing is a process and I don't think it's ever over.  The effects of illness and disease can be felt years and years after remission--if for no other reason, than you had to adjust your way of thinking to say "I survived this," and it becomes a part of your identity.  But the amazing thing is that you can choose to rename and reframe it, to go from "victim" to "survivor" in your own way and your own time.  Don't ever let anyone tell you it's been long enough.  No one gets to decide that but you.

Perhaps the best way to think of the Witness aspect of your mind is as your inner tree.  It listens, it watches, it bends with the wind instead of resisting.  It can grow through and around and takes all the time it needs to do what it's here to do.

May we sway like the trees, bearing witness to our own continual unfolding.

As much as I love being a baking maven and batting my eyes coquettishly when someone asks me how my treats come out so delicious (okay, I don't do that, but I really wanted to use the word "coquettishly"), I feel it is my duty as a cruelty-free baker to share my knowledge and expertise beyond the simple exchange of recipes.  There's more to creating tasty tasty wonderment than just following a list of ingredients and steps.  Baking is a science, yes, but more importantly it's a craft.

And so, dear reader, I have decided to share the most vital secrets of my baking success in the hope that you, too, will fill your home with the tantalizing smells, lively textures, and scintillating flavors of vegan baking bliss.

In order to bake well in the Sylvan School of Culinary Awesomeness, you must observe the proper rituals.  Apparel and accouterments are of utmost importance.  Your baking garb should include:

1 - A bandana, which you will wear around your hair, preferably printed with skulls, which you wear ironically.  Ponytails are adequate, but a bandana will keep both hair and sweat off your face so you don't accidentally wipe your forehead with a handful of cookie dough.  In the absence of skulls a heart-print bandana may be substituted, but it, too, must be worn with suitable irony.

2 - A beat up top that shows off any tattoos you may have. 

3 - Pants.  Please do not bake naked.  A 400 degree metal oven rack to the thigh is no one's friend.  At the very least invest in a long apron, which is cute and can lead to naughty kitchen shenanigans if you're into that sort of thing.  (In case of shenanigans, do not leave anything boiling on the stove.)

4 - A clean dish towel, tucked into the waistband of your pants for wiping up spills and drying off wet things.  You can try wearing it slung over your shoulder like they do in cheffing school, but it's just going to fall off and annoy you.  For extra credit, stick an oven mitt in your pocket for easy access.  If you use it to wipe up something off the floor, leave it there, please, and get a clean one.

5 - Remove jewelry from hands and wrists.  Not only is cake batter hard to get out of the nooks and crannies of a pentacle, nobody wants to bite down on your Pagan bling in the middle of a cupcake.  This is also why it's best to bake without fake fingernails.

Ritual paraphernalia in addition to the standard cooking equipment:

1- A huge glass of ice water, as baking is thirsty work.  Be sure to refill it frequently, and take breaks often during a baking marathon.  The heat and activity can be draining, especially if you tend to taste and nibble all those sugary treats as you work. 

2- A squirt bottle of room-temperature water with which you will attempt to keep the cats off the counter. 

3 - Suitable ritual music.  Suggestions:  P!nk, Joan Jett, Brandi Carlile, the Gipsy Kings, or possibly a mix of gloriously awful 80s pop.  Above all, don't bake while listening to sad music.  Baking is magic, and like all magic, your thoughts and emotions influence the outcome. The atmosphere you bake in should reflect how you hope people will feel eating your treats:  try to foster happiness, love, and fellowship.  The idea is to encourage, not to force, but offering food to those you love is a form of love, so save the emo tunes for a rainy day.

4 - Your recipes.  For best results use a cookbook protector; one that props the book up so you can see it more easily is ideal.  If you work from a personal cookbook invest in page protectors, as there is no way in hell you're going to keep your recipe clean.  The best cookbooks are those spattered with batter and smudged with fudge.

5 - An oven thermometer.  Ovens are dirty liars.  They're as reliable as a bipolar squirrel.  Even an expensive oven may veer off temp as it cycles.  A thermometer is a five-dollar investment that will save you a lot of tears.

Additional Advice from the Trenches:

1 - The secret to stress-free baking is mise en place, also known as having your shit together before you start.  Set out all the ingredients you need and put them away one by one as you use them; that way if you forget to add the flour, you'll know before the cake comes out soup. 

2 - Pinch bowls are useful for pre-mixing spices, whisking up egg replacer, and keeping last-minute ingredients at hand until they're needed.

3 - If you're measuring something thick or viscous like peanut butter or molasses, spray your measuring cups with nonstick spray before you start.

4 - Sifters suck.  Screw sifters.  Either run your dry ingredients for a second or two in the food processor, or do what I do and use mixing bowls with lids.  Combine the dry stuff in a bowl, lid it, and shake the holy crap out of it until everything is aerated and evenly distributed.  Tap the lid a few times before removing it so it doesn't poof all over you.

5 - Clean as you go, especially if you're making more than one recipe.  If you live in an apartment where counter space is at a premium this is doubly important, because one second you've got a clean kitchen and the next every surface is covered in dirty dishes. 

6 - Write in your cookbooks.  I take a pencil and jot down a quick note when I try a new recipe, so next time I'll know if it turned out well, if I made any substitutions, or if there are any errors. You'd be surprised how many mistakes end up in the print version of a book.  Some cookbook authors have sections for errata on their websites or on their forums; if a recipe comes out wrong, try to find out if anyone online had the same experience.  It might not be you.

7 - Replace your baking powder if you don't use it within six months.  Baking powder is a combination of acids and a base (as in, cream of tartar and baking soda) with cornstarch added; the chemical reaction between the acid and base creates CO2, which is how it leavens baked goods. Once you open it, it loses its leavening power more quickly than baking soda alone.  I harp on this because I've had old baking powder kill more than one batch of yummies. 

8 - Speaking of science-y stuff, invest in a copy of Alton Brown's I'm Just Here for More Food.  It's a textbook on the chemical and physical reactions in baking and the basic techniques that define different baked goods; even if you're not a fan of Alton Brown, this book is incredibly informative and gives you a good understanding of how baking works.

9 - For the love of all that's holy, do not bake while drunk.  Just because Julia Child could do it doesn't mean we all can.

Questions, comments?  Go forth and bake!

I was out shopping with S1ren today, attending the holy grail of book sales, Half Price's 20% Off Everything weekend.  We wandered into the Pagan/Goddess/Magick section (called by an old friend of mine the "Woo Woo Section"), and I saw a copy of my first book on the shelves, cozy between Starhawk and Trish Telesco.

My mind catapulted back six years to the first time I ever saw The Circle Within at a book store.  I was, as today, shopping with S1ren, as well as her then-husband, and we walked into Borders at WestGate...and there, on the New Nonfiction display table just inside the door, was my little black book.

I had to sit down.  I'm not exaggerating.  All I could do was point and make incoherent noises of shock.

I was 25 years old. 

A lot has happened in those intervening six years.  A few months after that encounter in Borders, tragedy struck my family and my entire life seemed to fall apart at the seams, but at the same time wonderful things were happening--I got to travel alone for the first time in my life to the International New Age Trade Show in Denver, and I met wonderful inspiring people and Pagan authors, as well as at least one young man who would go on to become a Pagan author.  I did my first book signings and life was unbearably exciting.  Even with the looming horror of my brother's suicide, I felt like there was promise in the world, and all I really had to do was keep breathing.

I'm still a little amazed that I managed that.

Six years, fifty pounds, several more deaths, half a dozen antidepressants, another book, and a coven later, life is very different on the inside no matter how it might look.  When I page through The Circle Within I don't recognize the woman who wrote it.  She sounds like me, she's sarcastic and uses way too many commas like me, but it feels like another lifetime, another me.  She wrote a pretty great book, especially for someone so young and unsteady on her feet.

I've learned a lot.  My spirituality, which is still hobbling about on crutches, has become much more ecumenical, and I believe a lot of things that probably would have earned my scorn in my early twenties.  My path has become less polytheistic, less ritualized, and more intuitive; I've finally started to embody some of the principles I wrote about, while dropping others completely.  I've become less religious and more mystical.  I can't remember the last Pagan-specific book I read.  Lately I've been studying yogic philosophy and Buddhism, not with an eye toward becoming a Buddhist or a yogini, but to enrich the practice I'm building. 

I dance more now than I ever did with Jeff.  He hasn't appeared to me in over a year, and for a long time that upset me, but recently I realized that I didn't do anything wrong and I haven't lost His presence; I've started to learn what He was trying to hammer into my head all along.  The dancing path is something you are, not something you do.  God exists in all moments and all places, not just in my living room.  A purely situational connection with Deity is kind of like only practicing piano once a month and expecting to become a virtuoso.

I could go the rest of my life without casting another Circle and be perfectly content, but that doesn't mean the magic has left my life.  In truth, I'm finally finding the magic I thought I had lost years ago.  It was never lost, just obscured by my depression, fear, and expectations.  I no longer care what label to use for what I am.  Pagan is good enough for me as a category, and beyond that, there's really no box for me to check.  I'm creating something new from the dust-covered, careworn old, and it's alive, growing, and, well, awesome.

Oh, things aren't perfect by any stretch.  I'm still a bit of a basket case, and I've got a long way to go before I can call myself healthy with a straight face.  But in the last few months something has shifted (if nothing else, my Saturn return will be over this fall, thank you Mama), and I feel stronger, more awake. 

I'm writing, I'm creating, I'm baking, I'm dancing, and I'm going to be just fine.