Things have been quiet here on the blog for a few weeks, aside from the weekly horoscopes which I’ve been publishing. There’s a reason for that.

A couple of months ago, my father was diagnosed with bladder cancer. And as of last week, it looks as though the surgery to deal with that cancer was wildly successful.

In between these two events there were many others.

There was a fair bit of magical work, obviously, mostly in the form of prayer and asking my ancestors to do their thing. There was also all of the expected medical stuff, including a plethora of laboratory tests, multiple sorts of scans, and an untold number of wires and tubes sent deep into my father’s nether regions. All of which confirmed that while he did have cancer, it was the “best” sort of cancer—self-contained in a single, easily removable tumor, with very little chance that it could have spread anywhere else.

Three months from now, my father will have an additional series of tests, another camera shoved up into his areas, and they’ll see if the cancer has grown back. According to both the urologist and the pathologist, it’s unlikely they’ll find anything. We’re not quite at the champagne-popping stage yet, but a high-five was definitely in order.

This is all very happy news, but you can imagine why the crickets have been chirping around here lately. Between this and some unrelated family drama, my mental state hasn’t been terribly awesome.

Meditation and magic helps, but the whole process of fearing for family is still a draining one. It’s high-order emotional labor, and there are very few ways to “come down” after so much time in the trenches. Obviously my father had a much tougher trip on the roller coaster than I did, but just being along for the ride came with it’s own share of challenging feelings.

I haven’t completely come to terms with everything that’s gone on, nor am I entirely sure what the next few months are going to look like. Thanks to a lot of divination, I have a decent view of the paths ahead, but mostly what I’m seeing is that there’s an enormous amount of work to do.

And after the year we’ve all had? I honestly just want to mellow the hell out. So if the crickets remain until after the new year, now you know why.

I hope you have a wonderful, pleasant, and chill end to 2020.