And what a time it's been. I have finished my master's in counseling, my graduate certificate in autism education, my required courses for certification in behavior analysis, and 2600 hours of (annoying) supervision. I am now moved to and living in West Virginia, where I am a provisionally licensed counselor under supervision, a Board Certified assistant Behavior Analyst, and an intern with West Virginia's early intervention program, Birth To Three. I work in every state in the county, providing services to families impacted by autism, trauma, or often, both. I'm in coal fields one day, high mountains another, and up hollows, down creeks and over rivers.
I love it.
I'm also about to be married to a wonderful, bisexual man, and professional partner. My soon to be husband actually taught some of the autism therapists who would work with my kids! Synchronicity! And I have a new step-daughter, five dogs, my daughter's snake and lizard, and a huge, dilapidated fixer-upper Victorian with a wrap around porch, yellow at that. Yes, and a partridge in a pear tree. After mucho neglect in the puja department, I am spending June, finally, getting my Bridget garden moved to the state of mountains.
Today I put in tiny little St. Brid's Combs into my front garden. Also known as betony or Bishop's Wort, (perhaps honoring the fact that Bridget served as Bishop in the Celtic Church), it is a sign that my puja life is here in my new home. I've got some mugwort potted up to move down the mountains here to the central Alleghenies, and I've added lots of lilies - white for both Bridget and Mary. Angelica, ragwort and Queen of the Meadow, those lovely and wonderful six foot tall plants, may have to wait until next year, but I'm also adding lots of St. John's wort, just for the lovely little flowers of it. I have two circles of three with the betony, one in front and one in back, and plan to move three more. Three three's for a lovely triple goddess set of nine.
Now with homeschooling the kids (I fought long and hard through a bitter custody battle to keep my kids out of schools), working all over the state, and still working on my license and certifications (my BCBA exam is in August! Prayers to Lugh!), my puja time got lost. I also now find myself living and working with a wonderful atheist man who questions all religion as bunkum, and finds himself marrying omnireligious me. It has led to hurt feelings on both sides, and I have struggled to figure out how to honor my work in behaviorism and my own religious commitments. And add my 16 year old a-theist son, and puja has been hard to do.
But I am working on it.
So today is plant the Bridget puja garden day, with sunshine, mixed with great thunder clouds. Here in the mountains weather continues its crazy course, and I have many reports to write and things to do. But I am putting puja into this new world.
Hello West Virginia. Puja to Bridget has arrived.
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