The Inmates are running the asylum

To give you a bit of background first.  I have a degree in general biology, and one year of internship in a Medical Technology program.  I have passed the test and I am a Certified Medical Technologist with the American Society of Clinical Pathologists.  I have the right to add after my name MT(ASCP).

In the Lab where I work, there are a number of lab assistants - no certification and some MLT (Medical Lab Technicians) and some are in a strange category called Non Registered Technicians.  By Federal law via CLIA - the Clinical Laboratory Improvement Act - Only MTs like me are allowed to perform high complexity tests, like reading and interpreting bacterial cultures.

This is all preface to the latest fiasco.  We now have two supervisors running the lab, one for days and one for evenings.  They are both MLTs and have no clue about how to read plates or how that part of the lab is run.  But in spite of that, they are running it.

Madness.

This has come about because most Medical Technologists like me know what happens in the supervisor's office and wouldn't work in there.  I might do it for enough money, but I have had it confirmed that my pay is higher than what they are getting as supervisors.  And the thing is that the supervisors are so busy pushing around corporate papers they never come out into the lab to see and learn what is going on.  And when something goes wrong they don't have a clue what to do about it.  It is as if they are supervising some fantasy of a lab that they have in their heads and are not connected to the real world.

Sigh.  The insanity continues.

How Luck Works

How Luck Works

Well, really, this is about how the world, the Universe works.  First of all, the truth is that there is no luck.  Shit happens and sometimes it is good shit.  You cannot reach into some hidden power of the Universe and pull a rabbit out of a hat.  There is magic about luck, but you put it there, it is all in your head.  You do luck all by yourself, but it feels like some outside force at work.

“Knock and it shall be opened” – but you have to actually knock.  That’s the trick.  This is the nature of manifestation.  In “Creative Visualization” Shakti Gawain gives some good ideas on how to manifest.  Some of the basic steps are to set a specific goal and steps to the goal and a time to reach the goal.  Then, the most important step, commit to reaching the goal. 

“Until one is committed there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness.  Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation) there is one elemental truth, the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, the Providence moves too.  All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred.  A whole stream of events issues from the decision raising in one's favour all manner of unforseen incidents  and meetings and material assistance which no man could have dreamt would come this way.”

--Goethe

When you have a specific goal and have committed yourself to it, then your mind finds ways to the goal.  You have to really commit yourself, focus on the goal until is permeates your whole being, then every little decision made in life becomes biased toward that goal.  Every little choice you make every day is in the direction of your goal.  You start to notice different things that relate to your goal.  You get ideas. 

You have to keep it in your mind and it helps if you have reminders posted around your house and do mental exercises.  You sort of hypnotize yourself into moving in a certain direction in your life.  This is why prayer can be so powerful.

This manifestation stuff has been around for a long time.  People see it work and use it subconsciously all the time.  This is the stuff that Andrew Carnegie wrote about, and Napoleon Hill, and in a little more New Agey vein, Shakti Gawain.  Also look up Maxwell Maltz and Mike Dooley.  No matter how magical and witchy it appears, it works – if you work it.  This is how you get lucky.  This is how the Universe works.

Which all leads me to think that the world is a mind game.

 *************

And so it goes.

Krystal Rose

Strange Witch

To get started, I will be recycling a few Blogs from the past.  

One of my talents is an ability to ask embarrassing questions.  And this has been my history with various religions in my life.  I started out as a Baptist, until my mother got pissed that in order to join the Church you had to be voted in by the congregation.  She thought that the issue of joining should be between you and God.  Then I tried the Christian Church ( Disciples of Christ).  Then the new age Unity church, which was gay friendly, but still Christian oriented.  Then flirted briefly with the Catholics.  Then I went into full seeker mode.  I started looking hard at Religions.  Studying, reading, trying. 

I slowly began to realize that as I looked around, that everything had something of value to me spiritually.  I was picking up pieces from the Bible, Vedas, Upanishads, even books and movies and quotes.  Every path had something, however small.  And that is when it all came together for me.  I realized that I am not a Christian, nor a Jew, Hindu, Muslim, or Wiccan.  I am a seeker.  I am on a great journey and I will ever be so in this life.  And the little discoveries that I make and the surprises that I find are what makes it a joy for me.  Witchcraft seems to be a system in my head that makes sense of all this and gathers it all together into something coherent that I can talk to others about.  I seem to fit the definition of Eclectic Witch.  But if I say that three times real fast it evolves into "Electric Witch".  And I have so dubbed myself.

There is a quote, the source of which I have lost, but I think it was Starhawk, "We ask ourselves questions, not to generate dogma, but to propel us on journeys."  That's what I am about.  I believe that all paths lead to the Divine.  The Universe is my temple.  I love Nature and find peace there, no matter how inimical it seems to be.  Nature just is, and I love to try and figure it out. 

One thing about Christian Fundamentalists that drives me crazy is their take on evolution.  I see that all life on Earth has co-evolved.  Our environment is All life and the Earth and we are supremely adapted to it all.  How can we be more connected to all there is?  I heard a scientist say once, "When you try to study something by pulling it out in isolation, you find out that it is connected to the Universe.  You can't do one thing."   Expanding sphere of consequences, the Butterfly effect, Karma in Nature. 

What do I have Faith in?  I can reach out to the Divine and feel it.  I know because I have done so.  And part of my journey of seeking is to try to discern the Nature of that Divinity, but it is not necessary for me to define it to believe it.  May be it is in my head.  But no matter, in any case it is part of Nature, and it is good, so I go with it.

But there I am, a strange Witch indeed.