Tag: coffee

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Meditation Journal

Meditation: rest and sleep disruption

As I type this, I’m preparing to go live in thirty minutes while drinking my second cup of coffee for the day. The first cup was at about 2pm in anticipation of my Acoustic Matinee. I’m running on disrupted sleep. My quarantine sleep schedule has drifted so much that the last few days I’ve been waking up at 10 or 11pm, which makes a 3pm show schedule more oppressive than it should be. About twenty minutes after the show, the scaffold of coffee and weed suddenly collapsed, and I became a zombie, eventually conceding that I was useful for nothing but taking a nap. Now I’m waking myself up for the second time.

Sometime in my zombie stupor it occurred to me that if I were still touring, I’d probably be walking to a greyhound bus station in a strange city carrying luggage and a guitar while unable to form full cogent thoughts.

I didn’t rest enough in those days.

People used to get palpably distressed when I described my life. I understand that feeling a bit more now.

The last thing I was doing before I began this entry was mindlessly scrolling facebook while drinking coffee. Or in other words, “wasting time.”

Or in other words, resting.

Rest is important. Supremely important. It’s occurred to me before in meditation that there’s never really a moment in which I’m wasting time, regardless of what my deeply traumatized 12H Saturn (and the deeply traumatizing cishet patricarchial capitalist machine) tries to tell me. When I’m not actively doing the will of Adjua Luna, I’m actively working on myself, which is also the will of Adjua Luna. When I’m doing neither of those, I’m resting, which is working on myself, which is the will of Adjua Luna.

Nothing is ever wasted. Neither effort nor it’s lack.

Maybe I’ll return to this subject later, but I’m going live soon and I have to prepare.

Categories
Chronicles and Observation Journal

Chronicles: African Traditional Religion

First of all, I’m happy to report that Chani Nicholas seems to be going back to weekly horoscopes after a couple years of only the full and new moons. Yay!

That being said, I got her horoscope for the week the day before yesterday. The first sentence of the entry for my rising sign was “It’s time to let go of the daily roles and rituals that are untenable, undeniably outdated, or ready for a reboot” … which made me immediately look at the rum and coffee on my living room altar. Some months (or maybe a year, bc what even is time???) ago I started leaving coffee and rum on the altar for Papa Legba because I read it in a book about serving the loa. It was my way of maintaining a connection to the ATR spiritual realm.

Now I’m wondering if it’s necessary.

My relationship with ATRs (African Traditional Religions) is that I have no relationship with ATRs. But I know that the witchdoctor was at my grandmother’s funeral in Ghana. One of my cousins pointed him out and said “That’s the witchdoctor.” I never did find out what his relationship to the family was, considering my family, at least as much as I know of it, is very very Christian.

There were a few years when I considered making a pilgrimage to Ghana independent of my family, and purposefully seeking out somebody to teach me about the ancestral religions. I wouldn’t even know how to begin planning such a pilgrimage, or where to find an appropriate and trustworthy teacher.

My practice now is not an ATR. That’s fine, in part because I am not a Traditional African (if that’s even a thing). I’m starting to think it might be appropriate to offer those offerings to Adjua Luna rather than to the loa or the orishas.

At least, the coffee.

When my minister went out for groceries yesterday, he came back without rum, because we both forgot that liquor stores are closed on Sundays. (Actually, we both didn’t realize it was Sunday. Because what even is time anyway?) Which means I may soon run out of rum. Maybe that’s a sign that I should offer up the rum until I have no more, and then only offer the coffee.

Tangentially, the coffee I offer her is phenomenal. Like, I don’t even have an affiliate link; I just want you to know about this black owned coffee shop.

Categories
Chronicles and Observation Journal

Chronicles: Pecans and coffee

I’ve been awake for two or three hours now.

I’ve had broth and my pills, but not coffee or food. I’ve just been scrolling facebook. Not doomscrolling. I don’t do that. But inspo-scrolling. Primarily in groups where I seem to have become the grown up. It’s almost too easy to forget that I’m the high priestess when I haven’t done my daily duties. I haven’t smudged or laid out offerings. There’s a candle holder full of old wax waiting for me to melt into new candles. I literally haven’t eaten yet.

My minister has gone out to the grocery store. I was going to go with him, but he decided it would lower the plague risk if I didn’t. The numbers are always rising. There’s a new strain, I’m told. The house isn’t devoid of food, though. I could make a sandwich if inertia weren’t preventing that. I could have some pecans, which were purchased and blessed for just such an occasion. I could have some coffee. It’s literally just sitting on the table.

I don’t always know when I’m anxious, in the same way that I don’t always know when I’m hungry. But usually I can recognize when I’m displaying anxious or hungry behavior, and it would probably be helpful for me to pour myself a cup of coffee and eat a handful of pecans.