Grape vine for lodge and coven (my secret Mormon daughter)

Bast Temple's new little grape vine.

Recently, May 10th--the 58th birthday of a beloved Wiccan teacher of mine, Cassandra Ravenspell--who passed a few years ago, me and Khari brought a grape vine at the Denver Bontanic Garden Annual Plant Sale. One of my mentor's tricks was shopping the sale, a tactic that my ghost mentor reminded me of earlier in the year while gardening.

My wife, Khari, was out of town. Small town Republican Christian town Nebraska. 

Me stuck in Denver. Her father dying. Parkerson's. I can feel him going. He has guilt.

Her stepdad did not give her the same level of attention as some of his other children, and he might have some regrets that are manifesting in the astral plane. And Khari, being Material Girl, is manifesting it in "Khari World 24/4 365." Which means that my New Year's Fire Snake Prophet Return From Hell Plan was abandoned on Day Seven of this year, I kid you not, for Material Girl to take over and seize my life "again"--game on.

This year, it's "Reconstruction." Starting with the Garden. So the garden that I wanted . . . 

 . . . I get it only after I died, and came back from Hell. 

And I am guessing that I am only here on "limited battery" to get my affairs in order, so not to inconvenience Material Girl. That I only sent back because her "Better Lover" was about to suffer a fatal heart attack, and she needed me here. Nice goddess, I serve, right?

But my father, yes, my dead father, who stepped forward a couple years to watch over my wife as one of guardian spirits, decided to help us to alchemically transmute the incoming energies into his type of garden, the type that I saw from Stout St. Five Points, Denver 1972; Zuni 1975; Sagebrush Small Town Colorado 1978, has helped compass her.

Or at least, allow me to see, and helpfully suggest and discuss options, to Crazy Alaska Girl. Hey, at least she did not sell the house, and move us to Alaska. I had money on that.

How did I lose that bet that bet to my Mormon wife?

Well, Khari is Third in the Building. Yeah. It's a small school. Preschool. But she loves it.

Her blinders to everything outside of herself, her education, profession, and side-hustle, in the end, paid off. She has a two Masters; one in Higher Education of young minds.

Next year, she will in a safer job category, on the way to being a teacher coach. Upwards. 

The price is that she missed a lot that went on in Demon World, so I bled a lot unseen.

So Khari is mostly clueless about everything in my life before I met her; and/or that has happened outside of her presence. She is basically like my mother, and my most critical sisters, only told what I think she needs to know. I treat her like I am in the CIA. Secrets.

As my father used to say, "Your mother doesn't need to know about that."

And you will me amazed at how much a Material Girl, wrapped up in her own business, will miss the argument that you are having with argument you are having with an archangel in the kitchen because she has to pee, or is upset at the President. Yeah, blind.

My busted up nose Mormon girl, an employee caught me, and I tried to pass it off as "I am writing a play--I am a literary student, going college, history and religion." 

"Bullshit," Gwen Smith shot back at me. "You are a prophet. You are a seer. A blessed one."

What could I do? Mormon Girl was an exile. As was I from my own grandmother's (ma's side) beliefs--rewrote and whitewashed after my aunt's murder. A prophet of Goddess.

I knew that I was falling for Gwenny ("Don't call me that!") when I no longer noticed her nose. I tolerated her lies about her past and family; I did not care that she had nothing. 

Honestly, I tried to cut her out of my life when I moved to my current 2727 N. Cook Street., Denver, CO 80205 address, but Khari invited her to the new house. Thanks.

Because my Art Business, a real witch, would later cut Gwen out of my life. In order to get me out of the restaurant business, and into college (university). Helpful to Khari.

Oh, it's romantic what happened to Gwen. 

Provided that you ignore the inconvenience of the Prophet in the room.

Gwen came from a culture that was okay was plural marriages. I, being the nephew of a slain Garderian witch "had more than one husband"--turns out that grandma did too--inserted "a year and a day Holiday handfasting" into his "All Acts of Love and Pleasure" ministry crud as early as age nineteen, and the Persian Sorcereress, a married woman. 

Khari also claimed to be polyamourous--but only if it benefited herself, it turned out. 

I will not say much, other than say that magick, witchcraft, was involved. That damn art business partner of mine was the center of activation. Took me years of waiting, but one damn dark art event that bitch gloated to her friends about how she got rid of this obstacle for her plans for me. I so wanted to hit her in public, but I am a Secret Keeper. 

You see, what Bragging Pants did not know, still does not realize is that Coin Flip (as I call my Secret Mormon Daughter) was either conceived in the last sex that me and my Gwenny had (our we "dissolve our if we have kids they are legal in our eyes handfasting" last sex), or the first sex Gwen Smith had with that Mormon boy that she was trapped with during the March 17-19 2003 blizzard. As I say, it's a Coin Flip--my daughter, she is.

What I do know is that when I was presented with her, my body went haywire. 

I put magickal shields around that little baby girl. I swore to by Honored Dead, and to my Lord and Lady, that if that Little Woman ever needed my help that I would be there for her--whether I was her biological father, or not. But I could see my mother's kin in her.

And I so wanted to take that woman in my arms, and disgrace her in front of new husband. But I did not. I would not disgrace them. My secret wife and daughter. 

I only think of my Secret Mormon Daughter once or twice a year, I swear. Okay, there is Ostara and Yule. Because of when she was made, and born--a pagan holiday baby.

My daughter--I have played with various names--hates me. Because in my imagination, I have raised her. Last year, as I am dying. Hell, dead--she's there. At least, an illusion of her. Because as a Prophet, determined to perform a Norse Sacrifice, the Council of Goddesses needed me to accept food and drink "help" from someone in the "underworld" symbolically (in my fever-dream) before I would ever accept aid in the Real World.

So yeah, an illusion of my daughter is one of the women, none of them Khari, who saved me--because I refused to accept anything from the person that I am supposed to trust.

Why don't I trust her? Well, Khari blew off my warning that I was trapped in a year and a day Trial by Astral Ordeal idea early on, so I suffered in silence. Until I was so sick until I was my grandmother. Unable to get out of bed, outside of taking pills. Or determined to commit suicide by Norse Sacrifice because my Migraines are killing me. The pain is filtering through as a combination an Egyptian trial, Hell and superhero battles. 

Basically, I turning into some odd type of Saint. Yeah, because that's what the Catholic Church used to say about Good People suffering from this. I am a witch, so who knows?

But anyways. back to the grape vine we brought. So Khari got a gift card from one of her students. And me (and the ghost teacher) had tricked into promising us plants for garden work. We looked at everything, and pitched, "If we can one thing, this is what we want."

Because I have seen a grape vine before. At the Zuni Denver Garden. Yeah. I wanted that.

So I have made the first step towards restoring what me and my father lost. I wish that i could reach out, and tell my Mormon kin, "Hey, in three, or four winters, would you like grape something?" Being Mormons, it's hard to shop for them--no sugar, no coffee--sad. 

But seriously, between surviving a year of black magick war that should have killed me, the death of Khari's beloved Bear, and the removal of my Demonic Shotgun Rider, I have no idea where I am going--outside of Short Battery (36 months?)--but planting a grape vine, damn it, that's something you do when you are planning long term. 

The type of thing that you do when you plan on having grandchildren. 

Hence, I have been upset, thinking about my Secret Wife and Daughter. 

I still love you. 

Don't tell Khari. I doubt that she would really understand. It doesn't benefit her to do so.