#QueensInExile

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[deborahcastellano]

[The Rules of Exile] Rule No. 6 Nolite te Bastardes Carborundorum

My hair is currently in what could very graciously be called a Fraggle Updo currently.  My bra is already off and I am wearing a long t shirt that says "Wild at Heart", grey sweat pants, two seasons ago Victoria Secret slippers.  There is a trickle of menses between my thighs, my snout is encrusted in dry skin from the week long illness I still haven't shaken off.  My hands smell of Gardenia because I spilled some essential oil on them while trying to fix a candle.

O my sister #QueensInExile.  We are in the heart of the dark.  Truly.  This is where dreams are burned into the backs of our eyes.  This is where we make our triumphant to court, crowned in glory and holly, cloven orange pomanders jauntily swinging at our waists, champagne is an endless fountain and marchpane cascading from the table with the possibilities of the new year bright in everyone's eyes.  This year, we whisper to ourselves and each other, this year will be different.

It's also when we are at our lowest, our saddest, our most melancholy and the dark threatens to swallow us whole in our grief and our misery.  We are hollow in our hungers, in our austerities, in our exile.  Our homes are filled with the ghosts of what was and what never will be.  The chests that we have brought with us into exile are tattered.  Our money is low.  Our spirits are lower.

Yank yourself up by the goddamn hair, sisters.  We will not be ground down.  Our spirits will not be broken.  We will survive.

Start making tea correctly.  You see how long it tells you to steep it?  Yeah.  Do that.  Make it by the teapot and keep your insides warm.  Where there is tea there is civility.  Where there is civility there is survival.  Put the juice of a whole lemon into the pot and then add the leaves and the water.  Trader Joe's has a whole bag of Meyer lemons for $2.00.  Get it done.  Are you rolling around in the doldrums of your despair?  Gross.  Stop it.  Get some of Amy's tea that's relevant to your situation and then put your intent into the leaves and then drink it.

Go on an adventure.  Play the "Let's Get Lost Game", play Cemeteries and Cows, go someplace you've never been to and eat something there.  It doesn't have to be far and it doesn't have to be expensive.  But it can knock some of the cobwebs loose.  Need a guide?  Get Natalie's book.

Listen to some new music.  Chris and Tara always have awesome music on their show.  Looking for some Witch House-esque music that will make you cool like the youngs (or, in my case, like my much older magical auntie and uncle) and not inspire killer headaches because you are now boring?  A Place Both Wonderful and Strange has a very cool six song spell cycle called "What I Speak I Create".  If you let your life become completely predictable in everything including music, that's how your heart dies.  So don't do that.  Branch out.

Make some stock.  Everyone is always extolling the virtues of homemade stock.  I was less interested for a very long time because it never came out right.  You need to be home and you need like six or seven hours if you want it to be worth anything.  If you work from home or if you are in (in)voluntary exile, you now have time.  So, the bones you use are important.  A whole chicken carcass.  Ham hocks.  Beef marrow bones.  You could do it without the bones, of course if you are vegetarian.  Use more vegetables then.  A whole onion cut in half, skin on.  A stalk of celery.  Two carrots.  A palmful of mushrooms.  A few whole cloves of garlic.  Some booze helps - a dark beer, a chardonnay, a shiraz, cognac.  A whole bay leaf.  You will need a lot of salt.  Go easy and add it.  Don't get crazy with the pepper or it gets weird.  Smoked paprika.  A good spice blend that you like.  Put it all in a big pot.  Fill said pot with water.  Put it on the lowest setting for three hours and then the second to lowest for three more hours.  Take all the solids out and toss.  Follow a recipe for your favorite soup or stew.  If you don't know what that is, Pinterest is always there to save you.  Here's my board that I use for much of my cooking.  This winter I have learned that it is actually incredibly oppressive to make a different meal every goddamn night with our schedules.  Making two different things and having some exciting bread is sufficient.  Good stock makes you more hearty which you will need in exile.

Make sipping chocolate.  Again, Trader Joe's has it.  It's what gets me through the dark while on antibiotics, unable to drink St. Germain like a goddamn savage.  You need: a quart mason jar (or your previous TJ's Sipping Chocolate tin because you do not have time to go to TJ five towns over): 2 teaspoons good smoked salt (Auntie Arwen's and Savory are my go to spice shops - good prices, small quantities and zomg fresh),  1 teaspoon good cinnamon, 1/4 teaspoon vanilla powder, 2 tablespoons good mini chocolate chips, 1/4 cup good fine sugar, 1/3 cup good unsweetened cocoa powder.  Put it all in the mason jar.  Put the lid on.  Shake it up.  3 tablespoons of the cocoa with 1/3 cup warm 2% milk.  130 calories if you need to feel justified about it.  Good chocolate fixes your brain chemicals.  You need your strength to fight.

Cultivate an attention span.  Oh lordess.  Mine is terrible.  I used to be able to read a book in like two days.  I'm checking my phone, texting, watching television while reading a book like a person who should be shamed.  Reading before bed?  A recipe for sleeps.  I am trying to recultivate an attention span.  You can work on puzzles or write or go for a walk or eat at the table and have a conversation or . . . meditate I guess?  That's not my bag, but if it's yours and it sucks right now, you should fix it.  It feels like liquid burning in your brain pan but that's how creation happens.  Start with like 30 minutes and promise yourself your garbage animal treat of choice for completing it until you can take the training wheels off.

Little rituals are critical this time of year.  You need to be sowing seeds in this womb of darkness.  Get a close relationship with your honey pot.  See what St. Martha is up to.  Ring up your ancestors.  Ask the Moirai what they've been up to.  Tell Parvati about your day at work.  Make offerings.  Do magic.  Start things, finish things.  Do fancy dances.  Yell at the moon.  Let yourself dream and then execute.  Most spells aren't one and don't, they require regular attention.  Can you do that?  It's easy on day three, less easy by day ten and much less easy by day 38.

Create wonder, pay things forward, buy your bestie a cup of Starbucks, donate to a charity you care about, make something beautiful with your own two little hands, be kind to your loved ones, breath life into your house plants, be extra attentive to your cat, make your lover a hot water bottle.  Open your heart.  Do it because it hurts.  And we are not afraid of pain, sisters.

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[pagansquare]

Dear #QueensInExile

This has been a really hard week, right? Like a dumpster fire that you can't get the smell out of your hair from. It's dispiriting and makes it hard to get out of bed. Really hard to get out of bed.

Read more...

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Athi-Patra Ruga's @athipatra Queens in Exile and the film Over The Rainbow is now showing @whatiftheworld_gallery until 27 January 2018. 📽 . . . #supportblackart #athipatraruga #queensinexile #film #art #blackart #videoart #southafrica #contemporaryart #artgallery #artshow #artexhibit #artsy #artgram #artlover #artcollector #africanart #veryblack #southafrican #southafricanart #southafricanartist #artfilm #contemporaryartist #artoninstagram

[deborahcastellano]

[Dear #QueensInExile] It's the perfect day/ Tomorrow's gonna come too soon

"I told Sporty Spice your legend," Jow said casually.

In my head, all I could think about is how I've spent the majority of the last month of my life - chained up in a windowless copy room, putting together tax organizers which is every bit as riveting and back breaking as it sounds.  I mean, I'm not being fair to my meditation cave/copy room experience, exactly.  Oh lordess, what is higher than those early days in a "cave" mostly by yourself?  What problem couldn't you solve?  What crazy idea couldn't you come up with? What crazy idea couldn't you talk everyone else into when you had three seconds before you passed out asleep, glowing from your austerity, ?

(I'll give you a tiny spoil: I'm doing a pop up Goblin Market in Brooklyn right after tax season because I'm a crazy person)

But it also wears you down.  The endless stuffy hours, worrying how this will possibly get done, the exhaustion of being on your feet almost all day, the kind of coworker melodrama that can only come from working in an old house with a family sized staff.  By the time the last organizer went out, I felt drained dry.  I felt like I had no more will to resist.  I felt like I would never read anything or write anything again.  I felt like I stared into the abyss and Gilead stared back at me and the weight of a million tiny indignities had rendered me without hope, without glamour, without the will to fight.  I just wanted to survive.  I just wanted everyone to shut up.  I just wanted to sleep.

This job has taught me a few things, I've realized in the copy room.  It's taught me to take a punch in the face and not cry.  It's taught me what really hard, really exacting work looks like.  It's taught me what it's like to not be the best at something and with (frankly) very little hope of ever being considered the best at this because my predecessor died and I will always be Dorothy, young, hopeless and stupid, teetering in her shoes that I have no business wearing.   It's taught me what real systematic oppression looks like and what it does to you.

This is what real exile does to you.  It takes your will.  It takes your magic.  It takes your curiosity.  It takes your pride.  It takes your ambition.  It takes your fight.  It takes everything you ever had to give and receive and smashes it down to survival.

"What legend?" I said absently, my eyes on the road.  Because at this point, I had honestly forgotten I've accomplished anything worth talking about besides finishing tax organizers, the great and lasting achievement that is.

"What . . .girl.  You opened letters that possibly had anthrax in them for NOW, you marched for women's rights and had your face plastered all over the news for your family to see, you are part of, nay!  A high priestess of a coven that is decades old, you started the first Steampunk convention when you were like not even thirty because you had a whim, you're a published author and you have literally presided over tea on a throne made of (consensually) bound people.  What legend!"

"Oh yeah," I said softly.

How could I have forgotten so much so fast?  It's so easy to get crushed, it's so hard to build up glamour.  But I have been, little by little.  Me and Jow playing hooky from work and drinking old fashioneds for a weekday brunch, ordering lobster encrusted everything.  Taking a long bath and splashing around like a mermaid while talking to J., a nearly forgotten high school pleasure.  Last weekend, I had a birthday party for myself and Jow.  Jow had finals during his birthday this year, so I wanted to wait for break so we could have a really epic party together and so he could see his friends before the next semester of RN Hell started for him. Sister Queens. It was everything. I put together my first grazing board overflowing with meats, cheeses, breads, persimmons, pomegranates, dates and anything your little heart could wish for. I was mixing purple glittery champagne cocktails. I served cups of homemade chicken stock. I served shots of joie. I smoked in my teepee with a pride of nymphs, lying on top of a sheepskin, covered in gorgeous girls who then ate turkish delight from my hand. Our bedroom overflowed with gifts. Our bar cart became a wine cellar. I wore a vintage slip with pearls and a Breakfast at Tiffany's style tiara with a corset underneath that had half the party squeezing my sides.

We need this, sisters.  We need to keep resisting especially now in the belly of the beast of winter when it's so miserable in exile.  We win by resisting.  

Every time you select connection over detachment, you are resisting.

Every time you create witchcraft instead of complaining, you are resisting.

Every time you maintain your boundaries instead of giving in, you are resisting.

Every time you make art instead of fucking around on the internet, you are resisting.

Every time you empower yourself to nourish your mind, your body and your heart instead of eating out of a metaphorical dumpster, you are resisting.

Every time you value small bits of beauty over apathy, you are resisting.

Every time you elect to be present over mindless consumption, you are resisting.

Every time you chose to love each other instead of rolling around in our oppressors' toxic memes, you are resisting.

Boost your store of glamour.  Keep yourself warm on these cold nights with the bonfires you build inside yourself.  Reach out your hands to each other to remind yourselves that no one falls down alone and no one rises up alone either.  More than anything, my sisters, my Queens, my blood . . .

Resist.  Resist until they take you down kicking and screaming In the name of our Lordess, forever and ever.  Amen.

The watchmen found me as they made their rounds in the city. They beat me, they bruised me; they took away my veil, those watchmen of the walls!  Daughters of Jerusalem, I charge you-- if you find my beloved, what will you tell him? Tell him, sick with love am I.

[deborahcastellano]

[The Rules of Exile] Rule No. 7 Trust Your Process

Oh my sisters.  What a week this has been.  The stories kept coming and coming and coming and everything just got grosser and sicker until none of us knew what to do anymore, really.  None of us knew the whole story, whether we were welcomed back to court from former exile or kept to the countryside, far away from scandal to make new lives for ourselves.  The local empire was burning and none of us could look away, even as more and more of us left court to keep ourselves safe, to stand together.  All any of us have been able to do is to stare into this horrible dumpster fire.

I've been asked to tell my story over and over again.  I've held space for my (gender neutral) sisters who have reached out to me privately to tell their stories.

This hasn't been a great moment of solidarity.  This hasn't been some rally where we can all make ourselves feel better because we went to a thing.  We've all been traveling down some really dark roads, mostly in solitude, sometimes with a panicked cry to each other but mostly just replaying old bad tapes over and over and they don't break, just rewind.  I've cried more in this last week than I think I've cried in a year.  For the first few days, no one knew what to do with me.  People present me bouquets of their problems not because I'm so soft and squishy and endlessly supportive but because I am usually far more practical and solution oriented.  If someone metaphorically hits me in the face, I leap up to fight.  

For the first few days, I didn't leap up.  I didn't fight.  Nothing could make anything better for me.  I was handling my adulting tasks (go to work, take meds, eat a food, drink a water) but anything beyond that was beyond me.  I kept saying I needed a little time but that didn't seem to make anyone around me stop looking at me like I might drop dead from the slightest provocation.  

For those of us in exile, sometimes we all struggle hard.  We suffer injustices and grief and sorrow that can be difficult for others to understand or difficult to understand how we're processing these difficulties.  The death of a loved one, a physical assault, the loss of a job, a divorce, the systematic oppression of your sister queens on a local level.  Whatever it is for you.  

What to Do When Your Local World Turns Sideways:

Trust your process.  A2 said that to me today.  I realized that was a large part of the problem I was having and those going through this whole disaster with me - we feel like we can't trust our process because oh holy shit, our process got us to this tire fire.  If not being able to trust one's process doesn't make one get semi-catatonic and sometimes somewhat hysterical, I don't know what will.  I knew I would be okay again.  Everyone else was scared because I don't usually fall on the floor but I know I sometimes fall on the floor and get back up.  It doesn't have to make sense to everyone else what makes you fall on the floor and what makes you punch someone back, it just has to make sense to you (and maybe your therapist).  When we stop trusting ourselves, that's how we lose the game.  Take time, assess what you can fix, assess what you fucked up, assess what you need to move forward but work towards trusting yourself again.  Don't let anyone tell you how long it's supposed to take or how short a time period it's supposed to take.  If you are able to fulfill your adult functions, heal at your own rate not at the convenience of others.  If you cannot fulfill your adult functions for more than a few days, find professional assistance to get yourself back on track.

Don't spiral ever downward, take action.  My freshman year in college, my women's studies first year seminar professor had had about enough of us.  The class was mandatory so the enthusiasm levels varied greatly.  Sometimes, she could corral us well enough to have some really sincere dianic circle levels of personal sharing.  Sometimes I'm sure she felt like an underpaid daycare worker.  One day, when her natives were particularly restless, she threw her hands up in the air and exasperatedly said, "What do you give a fuck about!"  That is a good focus point.  I give a fuck about survivors being believed.  RAINN does a lot of hard work to that end.  If you want to get delicious indie made perfume oil by Black Phoenix Alchemy Labs, they made a line that benefits RAINN.  I have gotten hella lazy about fundraising.  So I'm brainstorming ideas to give them money.  Idea No. 1 will happen in a week during my Bad Bitches Brunch.  There is now a "champagne tax" that I will be charging friends which will all go to RAINN.  I have more ideas.  Figure out what you give a fuck about and how you can work on that.  Focusing on that helps you not completely lose your shit.  

Chop wood, carry water.  Routine is really hard to maintain when you've lost your will to live due to your local world no longer making any sense.  It is really seductive to lie on your side drinking wine, eating cupcakes and watching reality television to escape from everything.  Endless scrolling through Facebook.  Playing video games all night.  Whatever your garbage animal behavior is.  You know what it is.  Dedicating yourself to something else feels like garbage.  Let's not play.  But it feels less like garbage than metaphorical dumpster diving.  I have done extensive research on both methods, so trust me.  Reorganize your crummiest area of your house because you can feel accomplished after.  Hone a perfect french manicure.  Learn French.  Go to the gym.  Read books.  Go to yoga.  Take walks.  Journal.  Think of it as a training montage.  

Magic, always.  Feel powerless?  Piss in the ocean.  It can't hurt.  I did a healing ritual for myself and my sisters.  Is it going to make everything all better?  (Nothing makes everything all better) It's an action.  It gets you through the next moment.  And maybe, just maybe, it will help someone even just a little.

None of this is easy.  We didn't become sister Queens by gliding through life unscathed.  We are no strangers to pain, to grief, to hardship, to despair.  We were always going to be the devil's daughters, we always walk a crooked line.  We are restless, sleepless, burning with anger, collapsing with sadness.  But we can hold each other up.  We can light tealight paths for each other to follow.  We can wake up and breathe and fight for another day.  Together.  

[deborahcastellano]

[Dear #QueensInExile] All your insides fall to pieces/ You just sit there wishing you could still make love

Dear Sister Queens,

To recap, this has essentially been my life for the last two months:

Craig (I've given the nameless insurance bro a name): So, how exciting for you!  We have given you a medication that's way more affordable for all of us and you're completely happy, right princess?  Good job, Craig, up high!

Me: No, Craig.  This is not a good job.  No up high.  I am having brain fog problems that I generally no longer had, I'm in more pain and I'm more tired.  Also my digestion is fucked and I'm having headaches.

Craig: Hmmm.  But you're able to go to your full time job?  And do basic housekeeping?  Because let's be real, those are your primary functions.  As a woman.  

Me: . . .yes.  But I can't do anything else.  I've had to cancel so many plans.  I'm going to bed even earlier and I run on a toddler clock to begin with.  I need so much more help to accomplish anything at home past very basic things.  I'm worried I could lose my job because I'm hiding how hard this is for me right now, but I'm not going to be able to hide it during Busy Season.  How am I supposed to be on my feet for ten hours in the copy room?  I almost forgot to lock the front door last night which would have been very bad for me at work.  I can't write anything and I can barely have the energy to read.

Craig: Listen, listen, princess!  You're not looking at this right!  Your old med was like a mochaloca Starbucks frap, right?  Where you could almost taste colors and made you super powerful.  And the new medication is like a decaf Irish Breakfast tea.  And maybe it doesn't give you super powers, but what you're not looking at is the fact that they are both beverages!  Yeah, we did that for you!

Me: I don't feel like you are listening to me, Craig--

Craig: Hey, hey, hey!  Don't get upset, princess.  Let's fix this.  Oh I know!  You wanna try that old medication again?  It's been ten years, maybe you're somehow a completely different person now!

Me: What!  No!  No, I do not want to do that, Craig.  I told you.  It's even shittier than this medication.  It made me gain fifty pounds, literally.  I had vertigo.  And it did jack shit for any of my actual symptoms.  It was just better than nothing at the time.  

Craig: Chill, chill, princess.  So, we need documents that you actually took that med.  Btdub.  Or we're gonna make you take it again.  Just as a little sumpthin sumpthin to keep in the back of your head.  

Me: But my doctor's office got computerized during that time and they're concerned they may not find the paper records --

Craig: You could always take it again.

Me: NO!

Craig: Well, then if there's no paper work then you can keep taking this.

Me: No.  No fucking way, Craig.

Craig: Well, you better hope they find it.  But even if they do, we're probably going to say no to the medication that actually works because we talked about it and we feel like your life isn't really worth that much money once you really get down to brass tacks.  Because you're close enough to functioning, really.  And isn't that all you need for this quality of life you keep talking about?  Because me and the other dudebros who do not have medical degrees but feel really comfy cozy making decisions for you and your body think it is.

Me: Now you listen to me, Craig.  I'm filing a formal complaint.  Also, I saw on CNN that you guys and your company literally almost killed a teenaged girl recently because you didn't feel like paying the money for her life saving medication.  Must have been a PR nightmare, huh Craig?  Did I mention I'm an author with one of the oldest publishers in the country with a very deeply rooted social media following?  So then it's probably time I start naming names about who you guys are so everyone knows yet another shitty thing you did.  And hey!  If I'm on a medication that you think is best for me, how would I really know how many times is too many times to call and have a nice long feels talk about how much I hate all of this?  Like, crazy exgirlfriend levels seem completely appropriate here.  Also, I'm going to appeal as many fucking times as I have to.  I'm going to appeal until I fucking drop dead, just to generate more paperwork for all of us to enjoy together.  Maybe I get fired due to my complete inability to handle my career on this medication and I start talking to my lawyer friends about lost wages.  How's that sound, princess?

Craig: So, we're decided to go ahead and give you back your medication.  But we're going to give you a final salvo at the pharmacy.  I want to make sure my penis is still really strong after this and that will really make me feel like that.

Me: I expected nothing less from you motherfuckers.  

______________________________________________________

So during this time, while this sounds completely badass with the abridged version, the reality was that I wanted to curl up like a tiny pill bug.  I didn't want to fight.  I got depressed because being told that your ability to produce creative work and have a rich life isn't worth the money is, as you may suspect, depressing.  And I had to fight with literally everyone involved in this sorted mess to prove that I wasn't just expecting more expensive medication for shits and giggles.  

When I found my power again, I took a breath and started considering my options.  I can't afford a literal full paycheck every three months to go to this.  I could either produce and sell 60 widgets every 90 days or I could really do a full life overhaul in paring down everything I love to do, exercising more somehow while in more pain and really working on my brain and turning nearly full attention to my career.  This would leave very little time for socializing and even less time for creative endeavors.  My creative output would be nearly nothing.

You put my back against the wall like this, and I find every time, I'm going to get full on Penelope crazy.  I'm going to sell 60 widgets ever 90 days, motherfuckas.  That seems way easier and way more enjoyable than a full life overhaul that leads to a shittier life.  I was also having identity problems.  I had just really settled into becoming who I am - a badass Amazon author who leaves a trail of glamour bombs behind her.   Who the fuck am I supposed to be with this bullshit?  I was fading back into being a sick girl.  On one hand, it was less stressful.  I could only do a few things, only certain things were expected to me and with my brain wrapped in cotton candy, I had no will for much of anything.  I was quiet, I was docile, I was well behaved.  

When I finally had my meds in hand, those close to me were so sweet.  You did it!  You advocated for what you needed and you won!  You determined the life you want to live and what you need to live it and you got it!  We're so proud of you!

But I was so shaken up from this.  So very shaken up.  Because it's really hard to advocate for yourself when you don't have much.  And that's not unintentional, Sister Queens.  Never think for a moment that the people in control do that unintentionally.  They do not.  They weaken you, they make it almost impossible to fight and then they make it as hard as possible to get what you need to survive.  This is another exile story.  This is another real life modern battle we fight in the modern royal courts.  

I'm telling you this story because it was hard as hell and it required some real shady shit that I had to do that I'm not even publicly discussing.  I'm telling you because there are times where I'm disempowered still.  Even with my book.  Even with a tiny bit of public recognition.  Even, even, even.  When you have been in exile, even if you are allowed back to court with all of your lands, titles and honors, don't think for a moment that you aren't aware that it can all be taken away again.  Don't think that everything that happened to you in exile magically goes away.  Don't think that every time something starts to go sideways again, there isn't vomit in your throat and fear in your belly as you swear to yourself that you won't be taken again while still being terrified that you may not be strong enough to fight this battle again, let alone win it.  

This is what makes us sisters.

xxx,

Deb

[deborahcastellano]

[The Rules of Exile] Rule No. 5: Always Be a Supplicant

One of the most difficult parts of exile is that it's not always voluntary.  When you are not presently exiled, it's easy to tell yourself that because everything is awesome in your life, everything is awesome in everyone else's life.  No one is forced to stay in marriages they don't want to be in, everyone's workplace is a joy, money is something that is easily obtained along with good, healthy food, no one is ever forced to bare their necks to someone who wields power over them in the interest of survival.  This is the 21st century, after all!  If you don't like something, why just leave!  If you were actually good at being a Queen, certainly there is always a job for you, family can help support you and there's never, ever a reason to grit your teeth and stick out something you don't want to do for either a greater cause or simply to survive.

Even I am not immune to this in my exile.  The moment you put me in a seminar and we are asked to talk about our workplace difficulties, that is everyone's immediate response. Except for the instructors who have seen enough hot messes to know that "you need to look for another position immediately!!1111!!!" is a stupid response to someone whose position is part of a dying field when they are currently making decent money and have good benefits.  It is such a 1986 bullshit privileged thing to say to a person about work or home life decisions that I immediately lose respect for the other person when it's said.  Like, zomgoats, Betsy!  Thank god you have distilled my incredibly nuanced problems at work and/or home down to such an easily managed proposition that I totally have not thought of!  I would have never ever thought of leaving if you didn't point out to me that that's an option!  You are such a god send.  Nay, savior.

But that doesn't mean you have to just sit there and take it.  Yes, you will sometimes need to appear as a supplicant to survive in exile.  That's a piece of advice Joanie gives Peggy on Mad Men w/r/t the switchboard operators as she armed Pegs with gifts as well for the switchboard operators.  It's also something Jow and I will hiss to each other on occasion a la would Victoria Beckham tone her face only once a day?  NO LADIES SHE WOULD NOT.  If you don't know admin structure, this is where being a supplicant gets really interesting.  A switchboard operator (or, now, a receptionist) typically makes significantly less than her secretary counterparts.  That doesn't matter.  If you are smart, you always kiss the receptionist's ass (nasty thing, one of the operators says with an airy laugh about Pegs' predecessor, she could never get a call through!).  Power doesn't always come from above.  Are you dependent on a medical prescription?  A pharm tech makes $12/hr.  You may make more than that and be part of a different social class.  Guess who controls your drugs?  Guess who makes the calls to your insurance when things go sideways?  Guess who calls the drug company on your behalf if you don't have insurance?  Guess who could decide they are out of stock of your meds if you are being a big enough bitch?  Daycare providers make on average $9.40/hr.  They also control how much adult time and attention your child gets during their day.  If you think being snippy to your daycare provider after a long crummy day at the office doesn't go on your permanent record and directly affect your child's daily life, you are sorely mistaken.  That is definitely a place to be a supplicant.  But it does go in the obvious direction too.  Your boss.  Your spouse.  Your case worker.  Your doctor.  Your lawyer.  The world is full of people who have control over your basic human needs and man, if that doesn't get you down sometimes, I don't know what will.

That said, it doesn't mean you shouldn't have a plan past ALL OF YOUR JOKES ARE SO FUNNY AND YOU ARE SO ATTRACTIVE AND SMART.  It doesn't mean that you shouldn't have an end date for yourself in dealing with these shenanigans.  Remember, impoverish exile was never the plan for our medieval sister Queens.  The plan was either to get back to court (where all the money, attention and power lived) or to live quietly and privately while generating an income (usually collecting rents- which was always the first thing rival monarchs would cut you off from) and not getting involved in plots or conspiracy.  Your plan in exile is also to do more than survive too.  You need to thrive.  You need to do more than just get through the day.  You know what practical things you are supposed to be doing.  Arrange your face.  Be Final Girl ready.  Find out what your options really are to escape or get back to court.  In modern life that means arranging your finances, secondary income streams, get your physical appearance in order, talk to professions as needed (therapists, lawyers, accountants, stylists), do what you need to do.  Figure out what you need to be happy.  Really happy, not bs Facebook/Insta happy.  Start making that happen.  Do what you are supposed to be doing.

But also, let's get your witchcraft game in order.  You need to start stacking the deck in your favor and stop worrying about fairness.  Worry about fairness when Forbes starts talking about you.  Until then, save it.  As always, follow your moral compass.

Get rid of your your frenemies.  If you have frenemies, you're wasting too much time and energy on them.  Your blood pressure is also higher when you are around them verses an out and out enemy.  It messes with your head and literally messes with your heart.  Cut ties.  Get a personal effect from them.  On a piece of brown paper bag, write their name and wrap the personal effect in the paper, wrapping away from you not towards you.  Get a lemon, cut it in half.  Rub the paper in the lemon on both sides while focusing your intention.  Leave it at a crossroads after dark and (literally) don't look back.  Dip each lemon half in salt.  Put each half outside your front door.  After 21 days, toss the lemons.

You need to sweeten up your spouse as long as you need to live together or your boss as long as you work together.  This is working your will over another person, so be clear on what you're doing.  Write your petition paper with what you want the other person to think about you.  Sprinkle the paper with cinnamon and lavender.  Fold it up tightly, towards you.  Put it in the bottom of a small jar.  If you have any personal effects from your spouse or boss, add it.  Pour honey over it.  Seal the jar.  Seal in your intention.  Burn a white candle on top for thirteen days and then weekly.

Make sure everyone at work or the PTA has nothing but nice things to say about you.  Do this by getting a coffee grinder and grinding your own Stop Gossip spice mix: 1 piece whole cinnamon, 3 cloves, 1 teaspoon allspice berries, 1 teaspoon brown sugar.  Grind to a find powder.  Add 1 heaping tablespoon to a quickbread.  As you stir the batter clockwise, put your intention into it. Bring to work/the PTA meeting the next day.

Where's your money magic?  Get a mirror glued to your stove to reflect the burners.  Get two lodestones and feed them gold filings.  Get a High John root and feed it High John oil.  Get a quarter from your spouse and a quarter from yourself and put them together in a shot glass and fill it with honey.  Put a mirror under it.  Get a six pack of Resurrection Plants and get it delivered in two days from Prime because this is the world we live in now.  Keep them watered.  

Trouble with someone wielding power over you and being a jerk about it?  Hit up your recent ancestors.  The ones who remember you as a tiny adorable baby.  The ones who always cheered for you.  The ones who always slipped you a twenty when you needed it.  Tell them about your problems.  Bring cake.  Catch them up on the family gossip.  Let them take care of it.  If how they will take care of it worries you, ask them not to do x or y.  Or leave it to them if you trust them like that.

Are you sloppy with warding your house and collecting garbage energy? Get some Florida water and seal the edges of the doors of your house (especially closets), mirrors, window sills.  Sprinkle some over your threshold.

So let's talk about potentially really being in exile.  Maybe none of your ancestors are good to talk to.  Maybe you are exiled from your home religion.  Maybe you don't come from a religion that talks to saints so it feels weird.  Maybe you never cultivated a relationship with the goddesses.  So now what?  Who do you cry to when you feel like crap about being in exile and you don't want to talk to any of your fleshier friends because they are tired of hearing it and you are tired of saying it.  

Offerings are a powerful exchange (and weapon) in exile and it would be a shame to miss the chance to be a supplicant to the spiritual world.  Which I know, some of you do not like.  But let me tell you, good luck finding a spirit, an ancestor, a goddess who does not think that they know better than you.  So, why not look to our actual Medieval queens?  The worst that can happen is nothing (or something!).  They would naturally think since you are likely not a full blooded royal that they are on a different level than you anyway, so why not go with it?  

I suggest for fixing your situation, Lady Margaret Beaufort.  She retained her power throughout her life, she was not a stranger to suffering for her cause and she was a savage political animal.    Be prepared, she's going to want to touch everything and be fairly disinterested in your ideas on how to improve your life.  Suggested offerings: austerity (namely fasting), red roses, donations to your favorite college (Cambridge if you really want to suck up), half spring water/half red wine, beeswax candles or red candles.  

A suggested novena:

O Lady Margaret Beaufort

You who became Margaret Regina

Without ever being queen at all

Lead me to victory against all odds

Aid me in forging my own fate

May I have riches, influence and excellent husband(s)

Forever and Ever, Amen.

It's hard out here in exile, Sister Queen.  But you're not alone.  Change is more possible than you would think.  Magic even more so.  Keep the faith, keep your head up and remember your ambition.

Deb's book is available for purchase.  Her shop is stocked with ritual oils for your practice and handspun yarn.  If you have already read her book, won't you please make her publisher happy and leave a review?

[deborahcastellano]

Dear #QueensInExile,

This has been a really hard week, right? Like a dumpster fire that you can't get the smell out of your hair from. It's dispiriting and makes it hard to get out of bed. Really hard to get out of bed.

But we have to. We all have to. That's what makes us Queens. We have to fight, we have to organize, we have to hex, we have to keep going. We have to keep going to our day jobs, keep parenting our children, keep paying our bills and it's exhausting.

Here is usually where I try to be funny and/or clever, but I'm still working up to that. Yesterday was a hard day for me because I didn't expect to spend it yelling at the internet that Nazis are bad and we need to not be complacent. I thought we, like, agreed to that as a world post-WWII. That was the post-war compact. Don't be a Nazi, don't be complacent.

On Friday, you'll hear me and Paige talk about using glamour as a weapon on The Fat Feminist Witch. It's super upbeat, you should listen. It might cheer you up a little.

On Thursday, due to popular demand, I consulted with Mallorie Vaudoise on how to use Italian witchcraft as action against Neo-Nazism and I will be blogging about that.

Today, let your action be joy. Joy in your loved ones, joy in fliration, joy in small pleasures, joy in creating, joy in your career, joy in food, joy in yoga or a walk, joy in a nap, joy in your spiritual practice, joy in organizing, joy. We need to take a moment so we can survive and continue to fight together as sister Queens in Exile. Taking a moment doesn't mean throwing down your weapons. It doesn't mean undoing all the work you've done or all the work you'll continue to do. It means taking a breath so we can recover a tiny bit and keep fighting. Even The Morrigan in her fiercest aspect knows she has to do laundry some time. And so do we. But let's not immediately jump to drudgery, let's instead take pleasure because they can't take that away from us.

Yet.

Love, Deb

[deborahcastellano]

[The Rules of Exile] Rule No. 3: Who wears that much lip gloss into battle?

If you recognize the title, you know it’s a quote from our era’s beloved princess/General of the Resistance, Carrie Fisher.  Up until this point, we have been cautious, sister #QueensInExile.  We left our respective courts in the middle of the night like ghosts, we’ve been Final Girl ready, we’ve taken what goods we can carry.  We’ve been hiding.  We’ve been casting our witchcraft in the dark of the night with our blood bound sisters. We’ve been planning.  We’ve been plotting.  We’ve been encrypting and decrypting.  We’ve put on our best dress, done our hair up pretty, put on our nicest lipstick.  We sit in our new tiny living rooms, our borrowed rooms with our hands neatly folded in our laps, perfectly made up.  Waiting.  Waiting.

Waiting.

Except.  If you have been doing what you’ve supposed to be doing (have you?  I ain’t playing.  Get.  It.  Done.  Sister.), it’s time to step through that motherfucking door.  

I have.

I hadn’t realized that I had until just now, to be honest.  I had been hovering in the doorway for so long, I don’t think I actually noticed when I actually stepped through.  If I were to name events that lead to me stepping through the door it would be:

The Great Gatsby Party at the McKittrick with Jow

Teaching and making floral wreaths with my coterie and new friends at Glimmerdark

My birthday

Reading tarot for strangers for the first time in a decade

The Maenad party

The Acela (and almost missing it), the Russian Tea Cake and the Firepit

Developing a new name to write under and getting to take “her” out for a trot to a club with my girls and being called by my new name by all the girls at the club because that’s how they know me from that corner of the internet.  Staying out til 3am that night and having the night be everything I could have wanted it to be and then just a little more.

Do you feel like you could rip around Narnia or the McKittrick’s Speakeasy with (0) effs to give?  Do you feel like you are occupying the space you stand in?  Have you Done a Thing – created a baby, a marriage, a small business, a band, an art, a book?  Do you feel steady after returning from the woods, wolf skin on your back?

Then it’s time to let slip the dogs of war, sister #QueensInExile.

Grind.  Do you think less than a month away from my book launch that I want to be blogging, interviewing, socialmedia ‘ing, working full time and planning a book launch party?  No, #QueensInExile.  I do not.  I want to be under my bed with a rosé IV, my phone, a few books and as many macarons as I could shove into my gaping maw like a civilized human being.  That is not an option.  Hey!  You know how I got A Thing that some of you probably want?  You know how even if you don’t want My Thing, you probably want A Thing of Your Own and still have feels about My Thing?  You know how much you want to hear about me whining that I got A Thing and how hard it is to do all the things required to make my thing successful?  Guess what sister #QueensInExile!  That’s right!  Everyone else in your life also has zero sympathies to give about your plight as well.  Shut up and take care of business.  If you can’t shut up, continue complaining and get it done.  No one said being a Queen would be easy.

Be the answer.  Where are you in your battlefield?  Do you need to kiss and make up with previous rivals to move forward?  Do it.   Yesterday.  Do you need to take a shot at a rival queen to let her know who is on top?  Get it, girl.  Save the love ‘n light for your full moon circle with bitches you actually love and care for.  Do you see an opportunity?  Take it.  You may not get it again.  Can you make an opportunity?  Make it.  Do you have markers you can call in and you are in a place to go all in?  Do it.  You are in exile, this is about survival not being precious.  Do it with as much grace and class as you can muster, but get it done.

Be austere.  You know why.

Make an entrance.  You own the space you occupy now?  That means you fancy.  Own a subtle drama when you speak.  Concentrate on how you hold yourself.  Dress like you give a shit about how you appear to yourself and others, whatever that means to you.  Make a goddamn entrance, sister #QueensInExile.  If you don’t, you know another rival #QueenInExile will.  Make the odds ever in your favor.

See you on the flip side of the forest, sisters.  I’ll be waiting.

[deborahcastellano]

[Rules of Exile] Rule No. 2: Your Resources Are Limited, Plan Accordingly

Everything around me is dying.

Relationships, cats, young police officers.

Everything.

If I really start thinking about it, I won't get up again.

Cells, me, Jow, my mother, my other mother, my best friend.

Some are more eminent than others.  Bellatrix Peepingston, our other cat, our Siamese if you don't please is going through kidney failure as we learned today.  She has maybe a year, maybe longer.  Maybe shorter.  The young cop who had his funeral today half a block away from where I work, his wife seven months pregnant with their third, neither of them quite 30 yet.  She gave his eulogy.  He died on his way to work.  Some guy threw his car over a divider and they both died instant.  I think about how in the Middle Ages there was protocol for the death of a young beloved prince - the chief mourner, who walked behind who, the Londoners standing outside their shops crying for a man they never even knew.  I saw that today, as we stood silently outside our big old rambling house where we work, the street lined with people, motorcycles, horses, grim faced female detectives--

The bomb squad.

When the hearse passed, I felt that overwhelming shock of grief that comes with a life snuffed out too soon.  We stood together and apart, our eyes wet with tears.

Exile is painful sometimes, sisters.  So painful.  The skills you are required to have that you were never called upon to use in your previous life.  If we were truly medieval queens in exile, it would be things like bargaining with fishmongers, learning encryption, making a budget, knowing when your brother is really going to try to kill you and/or your children and having a contingency plan for that. . .In real life, exile calls for knowing when to jump ship and when to ride the tide, who are reliably your friends and who pays lip service to you, who is trying to ruin you, what skills will be impressive to others in the work place, when to feign that you are a helpless princess and when to remind yourself that you are a queen capable of standing in the space you occupy and taking down those who would oppose you, how to make dinner with whatever is about to go off in your fridge, how to learn to entertain without spending a small fortune and making yourself crazy, all those skills we've been forced to learn in various capacities.

So okay, you've taken what you can carry as we've previously established as a metaphorical medieval queen.  Wait, let's sit here a moment.  What would you take?  Your children?  (That is not a given, sister queens.  Sometimes taking your children would endanger them more, sometimes they were already being held hostage elsewhere but reasonably safe, sometimes you just didn't want to be slowed down in your flight in the middle of the night.  We learn difficult things about ourselves in exile.  Things we never had to look at in our previous lives.)  Your furs?  Horses?  Gold plate to sell off?  Jewels?  Letters?  Seals?  A mirror?  Things you've stolen from your enemies?  Your ladies?  Your sisters?  It has to be fast, fast, fast.  You only have a few hours to plan how to escape and where to go and what your next move will be.  The rest will be decided on the road and in exile.  You must chose wisely.  Do you want to stay hidden or are you going to war?  What will you do if you are found?  What will you do if you are defeated?   The wind has changed against you this quickly, you've only been able to smell it outside your window for a day, maybe three.  It's not a lot of time to form a really cohesive plan.  Royals went on progress during the warm months all the time but that required many servants, many mules, many chests to pack all your goods into and baggage carts.  Progress moved slowly for a reason.  Your servants and your ladies in waiting will have been planning your next Progress for months.  Here's a hint for the newly exiled: um, you gonna get caught doing it that way.  So basically, you can only take the modern equivalent of like four large suitcases.  All your queenly worldly junk probably needs at least a hundred modern large suitcases.    So really think about what you would take and why because it probably tells you a lot about your actual current exile and what's important to you and where you need to be focused.

Your resources are limited because you're in exile for a reason.  You've been cut off from much of your financial resources, lots of powerful people are pissed off at you, many of your allies are pretending not to know you currently and it's super stressful in exile either trying to stay hidden or plan a war on a limited budget especially when you've probably only mostly read the medieval equivalent of Ye Olde Bridal Magazine and have likely never tried to wage a war before and don't really have a lot of weapons or gun powder. In the words of my nephew, Logan Robert Doggie, it's not good.

How to Manage a Tiny Empire with Even Tinier Resources

Keep your eye on the prize.  Often, one winds up in exile because you are not willing to go along to get along.  Examples: Catherine of Aragon would not be tucked into an abbey just because she was menopausal, Margaret Tudor was not going to stay married to her jerky husband when she had a hot new proto husband in the wings just because her stupid brother Henry wanted her to be,  Elizabeth Woodville wasn't super into being dispossessed of her throne periodically, platform issues essentially.  What are you defending that's yours that has sent you into exile?  Why is it that important to you?  Are you willing to make concessions?  Where is your moral compass here?  What are you willing to do to get out of exile?  What won't you do?

Your emotional resources are limited, plan accordingly.  Yes, you're in exile.  Yes, it's hella, hella stressful.  No, that doesn't mean you get to take a pass card on whatever issue a loved one is having because this is your exile, goddamnit and you have enough problems.  You also don't need to surrender yourself to every issue or whim a loved one is having.  Learn what is actually an emergency and what is not.  Figure out what you actually have to give and don't overextend past that part.  Practice firmly saying, no I can't do that.  Sometimes going to lunch or taking one of your olds to the doctor or playing High Ho Cherry O for the nine millionth time that day will be a sacrifice, but one you can afford to make many times.  Though sometimes, you will not have it in you.  Learn what you can afford and what you can't afford.  Carve time for yourself to do what you want, even if it's just an audiobook in the car or cooking what you want for dinner, tiny citizen revolt be damned, even if it's a teeny act of self care.   I go to the gym for 20 minutes to text on an elliptical.  It's better than not doing that.  I had been putting off getting various items I needed for my beauty regime for an assortment of crummy to myself reasons that basically boiled down to: I stopped feeling like I was worth the effort.  That's crap.  I had the money and the budget to replace the missing items and when I finally stopped dragging my feet about getting the items and then actually doing beauty regime, I felt like a human being for the first time in a while.  I took a little piece of myself back by doing that.  That's how exile is won, taking back all of those tiny pieces you gave away.  They're yours.  Demand them back and don't back down.

Your physical resources are limited, plan accordingly.  Money, physical wellness, space are probably not infinite.  Really figure out what you want and what you need.  Sometimes take out is critical.  Sometimes having domestic help is critical.  Sometimes learning to make your own fun with what you have is critical so you can pay all your bills.  Sometimes it's worth skipping an experience you are not that into to have really good food at home.  Sometimes it's worth eating okay food for a bit to go to that experience.  It's a lot of trade offs.  If you have physical wellness issues, know when it's worth it to (temporarily) cripple yourself for an experience and when you need to go to bed at 9p.  Learn to make these trades.  You can't have everything anymore so you need to be strategic both from a wellness perspective and also to keep your eye on the prize so you don't find yourself unable to make bold moves because you have bankrupted yourself of self care, money and wellness.  

Make an exile plan.  So, you escaped.  Well done, sister queen.  That's the hardest part, finding the strength, boldness and luck to slither away from a court that's turned against you.  You ran, you took your goods.  Now what will you do?  How will you continue to adjust to exile?  Are you planning to stay hidden or to go to war?  How will you win your prize?  Now is when you figure out how to find solid ground in exile.  

Get yourself supported.  Exiled queens usually would talk to their ambassadors to beg other countries for financial support, military support and to start figuring out the terms of post-exile life.  Your ambassadors are your family, friends and loved ones.  Support in this modern life comes from many places and in many ways.  If you can be brave enough to open your hands and ask for support, you will be really pleasantly surprised what will come back to you.  Things you never thought to ask for, tea, "purse dumping" sessions, encouragement, retreats, sanctuary.  Be appreciative and be sure to actually follow through with these offers.  This is how exile alliances are made, through the kind hands of others.

Stay Final Girl ready.  You are in exile.  You never know when you will need to run, seduce new allies, charm ambassadors, kiss and make up with your enemies over dinner or when someone will come to try to seize what few goods you have.  Be ready for anything, as we talked about - go to the gym, go to yoga, strength train, limit your garbage animal habits so you stay sharp, be ready to entertain at a moment's notice and have the perfect gown ready to wear to a gala you've managed to invite yourself to.  Be ready to say yes to opportunities that bring you closer to your prize.  

Cast your charms.  There's a beautiful scene in The White Queen in the book and the movie where Jacquetta casts charms out to a river and her daughter winds them in a little at a time every night.  I've been trying to figure out how to make that work without polluting local bodies of water.  Here's my thought: start collecting charms - on etsy, at thrift stores, at craft stores.  Have a bag to keep them in.  Think about your prize and your exile and select a number of charms.  At least 3, no more than 13.  When you need to know what your future holds, get some black sand and a large deep glass vase from a craft store.  Put the craft sand at the bottom of the bowl.  Measure at least a yard of thread (preferably, silk) and tie one end to each of your charms.  Bury them in the sand.  Add black sea glass or black dragon tears on top of the sand to the top of your vase.  Leave it there for at least a week while intentionally working to forget which charms are there.  When it's fuzzy in your mind, add spring water.  Chose your charm.  Cut the threads to the other charms, symbolically cutting off futures that won't happen (you can recycle them in your charm bag after the working is complete).  Get a v. small dowel or empty spool and wind approximately four inches a night onto the dowel for nine nights.  When you pull it out, use the water/stones to scry for what it means.  Wear the charm somewhere on you until your charm's meaning has come to pass.  Once the meaning has come to pass, bury it at a crossroads.  

[deborahcastellano]

[The Rules of Exile] Rule No. 1: Glamour Isn't Optional, It's Survival.

When I was a nanny, one of the mothers I worked for was easily one of the most beautiful women I had ever met in my life.  It didn't matter what was going on with S., she always had it together.  Her make up was on point, her wardrobe was beautiful and to make it completely unbearable she was also one of the kindest women I had ever known.  Perfectly perfect in every way, as N. would say.  S. had two very small children, she had a career and a social life.

I'm not suggesting that S. was most women.  Obviously, she had some help in her glam squad and her domestic posse, which isn't something most of us have access to.  I worked for other women too with small children and while less blessed than S. (though also as sweet to work for, I was v. blessed as a nanny), also really were on point.  They were career women and would click off to work in their heels, their hair done, their lipstick on and get it done.

I don't know how my mom did it.  She didn't have any help at all (past a hair stylist) and would likely have stabbed someone in the hand if it was ever enough suggested.  She was widowed when I was 18 and worked two jobs and her house was always flawless and she was always fashion forward, no matter what fresh hells my sister would present to her or what had happened at work that day.

Now that I work in the same office as my mother, it's even more of a mystery.  The most common compliment I was given this season was that I always appeared tranquil, I always appeared calm and I always sounded soothing.  To the point that I think I am starting to appear much like my mom's dead bestie (whose shoes I have stepped into, grim as any event in Oz) who was always cheerful and always calm so I assumed she really only answered the phone and didn't do trifling things like finishing corporate returns and trust returns, handling all aspects of the company's billing and generating client organizers among whatever else was thrown at her.

Up until this year, I think I looked more a deer in the headlight and glamour was something that was grimly put on a shelf for a quarter turn of the wheel of the year.  Glamour is a frivolity meant for those who have time, money, assistance, privilege, a lack of screaming children.

Except . . .we're #QueensInExile, right?  So, glamour isn't really optional, it's survival.  We each have our exile story - tales of spouses who turned on us and seized the throne, families that turned their back on us when we did not follow their instruction, kingdoms that turned us out in favor of the shiny and new, our bodies that were deemed sacred but we are not given autonomy over, battles lost, the prick of a thousand tiny betrayals from those we once trusted, those we once loved with not even the memory of the holy oil that once annointed our breasts.  We have only the fluids of life upon us - the blood of our menses, the vomit of our young, the tears of our dying, all which must be washed Ivory clean from our gowns, our yoga pants, our underthings.  Our anointing must be secret.  Our anointing must be solitary.  Our anointing must be silent.  We must appear as those Queens o' th' May.  The pure, the virginal, the untouched.

No matter what's on our hands.

You are on the run, sister Queen.  You don't know what tomorrow will be, you are trying to be Final Girl ready no matter what this year throws at you. We are a quarter of the year in and the sound of your ragged breath is sweet to the ears of the wolves at your door. You cannot afford to throw a weapon to the ground because it may be what saves you.  If you were privileged, if you were wealthy, if you were powerful, if you were beautiful (and you must be all of these things to be exempted), you wouldn't need glamour.  You wouldn't need Witchcraft.  You wouldn't need to plead to your goddesses, your ancestors and you spirits.  You wouldn't need to make pacts or offerings at the crossroads at midnight.  You wouldn't need to sell yourself by the inch.

But you do.  For you are in exile and nothing is certain.

What do you need to be seated in your power, in your glamour?  You can only take a few things, only what you can carry.  Is it a perfect red lipstick?  You put it on every damn day then, sister.  Is your hair your crowning glory?  Then act like it.  Is it a scent that is sacred to you and reminds you that once, you were not fortune's bitch?  Put it on the back of your neck so those you leave behind remember you by it.  Is it having your clothing lint rolled and pressed?  Sacrifice a small pleasure to get a steamer. Is it having your shoes polished, your nails buffed, your eyes lined in kohl?  Whatever it is, do it.  No matter how terrible your circumstances are, do it.  Because this is what will remind you of the times that came before, when you were powerful, when you were shining and terrible, this will call that memory back to you when you need it most, right here, face down in the mud.

Now the next part.  In the words of Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall, Arrange your face.  You are not the favored golden child.  You are not Serena Vanderwoodsen.  You are not Aria Montgomery.  You are not Cher Horowitz.  If I did not arrange my face for work, if I did not arrange my face for shows for our shop, if I did not arrange my face for meetings with my editor and publicist, if I did not arrange my face for difficult confrontations, I would not appear as I wanted to appear.  I would be giving away a piece of my power for these other Queens to keep.  Who do you think is more powerful: you who knows nothing but what other Queens have chosen to show you or the Queen who wears a necklace of jeweled trophies that she has gathered made of other people's secrets, weaknesses, desires, wishes and grudges?  Arrange.  Your.  Face.  Know where you are safe and can be free with your words, your expressions, your feelings and where you are in danger and cannot.

And the last part.  Your power.  Use it.  Use your cunning, your witchcraft, your spirit.  Do whatever it is you do.  Make hallowed fetishes, light glittering candles, draw blossom strewn baths, join hands with your sisters in the dark of the night, burn sacred herbs, be so tenacious that your goddesses, spirits and ancestors can't help but favor you.  In the words of one of my mentors, be perfectly charming.  Your will is strong, how strong is it really?  Put your back into it.  You're a Queen, not a whining, fainting princess.  Act like it.

All you have is everything to lose.

[deborahcastellano]

#QueensInExile

It’s the time, it’s the season of copy room revelations.  My first tax season was All About Mary M., my second tax season was book research mode and now, as I have just finished listening to Three Sisters, Three Queens (eeeeeh, not one of her best) and I’m listening to Wolf Hall (which I am enjoying immensely), I find my brain wandering back to medieval women.  And Mad Men, for the same reason.  Which is basically this: if women could survive the workplace in the mid 20th century and at court in the 1500s, I have a chance at survival in the workplace in the 21st century.   So when it gets bad (and sometimes it gets v. bad), I remind myself of their stories, even if they didn’t get happy endings – Elizabeth Woodville, Joan Holloway, Catherine de’Medici, Peggy Olson, Margaret Beauforte, Dawn Chambers, Catherine of Aragon. . .the list marches ever onward.

And sometimes, when the days are long and dark and dreary, I tell myself a story and it is this.

Once upon a time, queens were often in exile, often due to a rival queen. A rival queen could even be your sister-in-law who would send your husband’s blood stained jacket to her husband to show that she could take care of things at home while he was “busy” “abroad”.  She wanted to send his head, but was talked out of it and now there is no body for you to bury and no man to keep you safe.  Or some variation of this.  Power plays, battles, murder.  Sometimes you would have sanctuary in crypts, sometimes you would flee the country.  It’s never just once.  It is always messy.  There is never much time to plan.  You can only snatch what you could carry on the run – furs, jewels, letters of safe conduct, documents with incriminating details, mementos, money.  Sometimes, not even that.

What if you were a modern queen in exile now?  You’ve lost most of your means that you once had – your power, your titles, your land, your goods.  You have to start over.  You have to live as a “regular” person, especially if you are trying to escape notice.  What would your new life look like?  What does exile really mean in a modern context?  Does it mean being disempowered by the current government regime?  Does it mean what traps us and keeps us?  Does it mean the things we do to ourselves, to each other, the things we do to please the patriarchy?  Does it mean doing what we have to do to survive?  Would you be good at modern “feminine” things like doing your hair, your make up, having a tidy home now that you don’t have help?  How would you adapt?  Would you take up vices to cope?  What would it be like to be in the workplace after previously being the decision maker?  How would you cope with being disempowered while still having memories of a time where you commanded authority?  What are the things that you remember of your time in power?  What things were important enough to take with you?  Are you constantly plotting to regain your throne or have you accepted your life as it is now?

I think about being a queen in exile, chained to the copy room, forced to act like a goddamn subservient princess to survive.  I think about how lonely it is sometimes, I think about when once I could command, I think about all of the tasks I am forced to perform to keep from drowning.  I think about how my boss isn’t required to smile and he is not required to be a prince at all in anything.

And I wonder how it looks for others.

How does it look to you?

Leave your photo essay in the comments.  Leave as many as you like to share with everyone!  It can be funny, sad, serious, whatever you are interested in showing.

Tag your photo (especially if you put it on your own blog, Facebook, Tumblr, Instagram) with #QueensInExile so we can see each other everywhere.

Me today:

My bestie:

What does your exile look like?

[deborahcastellano]

[deborahcastellano]

[Rules of Exile] Rule No. 8 You Have a Right to Sanctuary

Exile has a way of grinding you down.  Sure, finding the hollow of our hunger will make us strong Queens, but that feels really abstract after nine hours on your feet in your copy room mediation cave where you've started to wonder key things like: will you ever read a book again?  Will you ever write again?  Can you still feel feelings?

Add to this, whatever austerity you were once willingly putting yourself through but now you have stopped fantasizing about sex things like a normal person and instead are immersing yourself in fully developed reveries about ground beef.

Maybe, sometimes, you are going to the gym.  But cycling only because it's the only time you have to text people you actually like and look at Insta and pretend you are a person.  Also, it's quiet there and no one talks to you except when you manage to not double book yourself for the millionth time and your friend Xtina goes with you.  Xtina is a trainer and pole instructor and gets up at 3:30a.  She's in exile too but still somehow has a will to live and reminds you not to be such a moody cow about yours as she barks at you through various tortures she's devised just for you which is flattering but also torture.

On your living room table currently: An empty water bottle you have not actually drank out of in a day, your wedding ring, your fit bit, a wine glass, a coffee cup, three milk stout bottles (left hand of course) from last night with your husband, a memoir you are supposed to be reading and reviewing and possibly interviewing the author for, sea salt (your best friend's contribution), cocoa nibs and cheese whisps you're not supposed to be eating, a shot glass, a highlighter, heart burn pills, a mason jar full of your valentine's day limited edition oil, your husband's million notebooks, a lighter and Fiona Horn's book that your editor whimsically threw in for you just in case.  Your husband has pants hung over a chair in the dining room because his exile isn't exactly easy either.

Your body has started attacking you because that's how it shows support for your troubles in exile, by temporarily disfiguring you.  You have a large patch of eczema on your clavicle that your husband and mother keep making worried pecking noises about and are never reassured that this happens, you have a med check with your doctor in a couple weeks any way and when exactly are you supposed to go to see her and then a derma when you have to bust your ass just to leave "early" (after an hour an a half of OT) to get your hair did so you don't have to look at three inch roots and collapse into an exile fueled depression about it.  You rub salves into it regularly and it itches, especially when they talk about it.  Your lips shed skin constantly, your scalp is as dry as the Sahara and you've started pulling your nose ring out in your sleep again.

But on Saturdays, when you work only five hours instead of ten, you start to regain some willpower, if only for a moment.  You take yourself on long walks through shops even though you don't have much money really because your housewares keep betraying you too just to add more insult to injury.  You are still waiting to be paid for your book, your tax return is already going to the Queen mother who helped you when your circuit breaker betrayed you in the fall and you have a shiny new water heater that you didn't want either.  But you have a little, and it's good to walk it all out and to see new things.  You can afford small things - a wash and salve for your face/clavicle, a new bb cream, gorgeous glitter from Nyx to put in your hair when your roots come back and this time you'll be in too deep to get them done but you can at least sparkle, colored lip balm to help with your lips.

But there is still time for revelations in the copy room and you realize that all of your beloved medieval Queens had a right to seek sanctuary where no one could bother them.  Even if it was the crypts in Westminster Abbey.

Perk to being a post-modern #QueenInExile: You don't have to chill with dead people's bones in cold, damp nearly lightless conditions unless you want to.

So, you may be saying to yourself that you don't have space for a sanctuary.  I disagree.  I share a 725 sq ft condo with Jow and I have space.  Now, if we're talking really small living, it may be a little harder but like everything else, it's about priority.

For me, it started with a dream about Mary M. who was young and tattooed/pierced up and had a pop up bookstore the size of my bedroom in my dream.  She had a gorgeous huge yard with a pool and flowers everywhere.  There were people outside in various states of undress - drumming, laughing and getting down.  She had an amused while tolerant air about her about the shenanigans outside and people would tumble through the door, talking and laughing and looking at books.  She wanted to carry my book and have me give workshops which made me shy but flattered.  I was telling J. about Our Lady's appearance and he said that sanctuary space is important.  I went into the copy room meditation cave and started thinking about that.

Shared space becomes difficult with enough time.  Not impossible, but difficult.  I don't know that I would describe myself as territorial per se because that seems a lot more alpha and a lot less community guppy than I usually tend to be, but I have spent a long time building this tiny condo into a hearth.  For me that's been expressed in some interesting ways.  Like if I really don't like you or trust you, I don't want you in my space.  This becomes interesting when you share said space with a husband but we've mostly figured it out I think.

The beginning of this revelation really started at an event I was going to where I had my own suite. I've never had my own hotel suite (or room for the matter), it's always been mine and someone else's. This was very much my space, where I invited others into it. That set a very powerful standard for me. I loved nesting into my space, arranging my macarons and St. Germain just so. My sheepskin draped over the leather coffee table. My clothes hung up, my sinks and bedside table put together just so.

I loved deciding where my altar would go and not needing to consult anyone else. It was a space for thoughtful glamour choices with music I liked best. I liked seeing how capable I was. Forgot my phone charger? No problem. I called the nearest 5 Below and asked them and then took myself right over there to pick it up, listening to radiomancy omens on the way. I picked up a quartz tiara on a whim, which wound up to be my most complimented item. I loved telling admirers that it was 5 Below, not as compliment apology but a triumphant caw that it's for all of us to access, if desired.

I set up my altar to Babalon on the desk, intentionally arranging my vanity next to it so I was constantly sitting next to it. Purple embossed velvet, a crimson opened pomegranate, a sfogliatelle shaped like a yoni, a tiny gold tea cup with the word tramp scrawled across it, shining rose quartz, a delicate peacock feather, a red wax sealed love potion, snowy deer antlers, a pink glass container with a perpetually lit (electric) candle, a perfume I had mixed for this, an amethyst glass container for the perfume with curled reeds to spread it in my room. Soft rabbit skin. A glittering compact, a shimmering perfume atomizer, a picture of Her. Dried flower petals strewn across the altar.  It was a heady experience that made me think about Pennsic.

Part of why I think last Pennsic (for me, two years ago) was so hard for me was that I didn't have a room of my own, so to speak which is actually more like a tent of my own.  It took me a while to figure that out because I was too busy being upset with everyone and I had just finished writing my book which apparently makes me postpartum crazy.  But this year, I haven't just finished writing a book and I now know I need a retreat so that I can do whatever I want whenever I want to.  Including, being left the fuck alone.  And I got so excited to be able to decorate a space with no one else in mind.  I've been slowly acquiring house/tent wares a la Jael once I had that revelation.

So, I could see the value of having space that was just mine.  It made me think of the party me and Jow had for our birthdays and the happy memories I have from it.  I started thinking, what if I made the teepee a permanent sanctuary fixture?  I talked to Jow about it, figuring he'd be frowny faced about it, but he was completely into it.  I also wanted some rules:

Nothing fun happens in the teepee without me.  Reading and magic can, but nothing else.  It's my teepee.

If you use my sanctuary, you are to reset it back to its "default" setting.  No weird energetic dead bugs, no husband flotsam.

Again, Jow was very into it.  My clavicle situation may have contributed to his willingness, but I'm not going to look into it.

I really spent some time intentionally setting space there.  I got a velvet blanket and a meditation cushion.  I made a small altar.  I got a tiny essential oil diffuser.  I strung fairy lights.  I put in the sheepskin I was gifted by Ro.  I set my intention.  I consecrated my space.

Think about being little, what was better than a blanket fort?  Why not have one now for your Work, for a chill space, for a space to read and create?  I cheated in making mine a bit as my structure was premade but in the words of Ferris, if you have the means, I highly recommend it.  Get yours here.  I use clothespins to completely close it when I'm feeling really anti social.  Don't have the means?  You would rather build your own?  I appreciate industriousness, Sister Queen.  Get some ideas here, here and here.

Because . . .we may as well dream while we're in exile, Sisters.