Another long patch of no writing, sorry…
Good news: I’m back to work after being laid off for three weeks.
Bad news: it’s because of the Delta variant of the COVID-19 virus that I’m back.
My job (one of them) is to help administer COVID-19 saliva PCR tests at the airport. (I wrote about this in a previous post). About the time I got laid off, we were getting only about 200 people a day to come in to test, and the state decided to cut workers, hours, and to consolidate testing centers to only the airport and one other place.
And then we all got called back.
The last day I was in, we had a total of 1100 people in one day testing. It was a relentless river of people. Thank gods for amazing coworkers.
So that’s where I’ve been. And because everything I do becomes an anthropology project and a meditation on magic and culture, I have a few thoughts that, again, don’t quite connect up yet. But that’s the purpose of this blog — to get things down, and then I can go back and work things later…
So, we obviously have outstanding protection doing this job. We are masked, gloved, sanitizing constantly, and work behind plexiglass shields (though we of the vaccinated frequently run out from behind them to help elders with their cellphones or to aid a large family with logistics). I also have a magical protocol for protection…
At least one, sometimes two, evil eye or protective amulets around my person as a necklace or earrings. The blue evil eye, or a hamsa, or a cimaruta, eye of Horus, and even a Medusa head if it comes to that. It’s not so much that folks are mean or hurling negativity (though we have had a temper tantrum or two, and a couple of “Karens” that threw their cell phones at us); the vast majority of people coming in are lovely, just a little stressed out, maybe worried or upset… plenty of them sick, getting tested in the hope that it isn’t COVID that’s making them feel so lousy. (Lots of kids under 12. Folks, this is nothing to screw around with, put on your damn mask and get the vaccine already.)… The amulets are slathered with Fiery Wall of Protection oil.
My shoes contain blessed salt and pepper, and my feet anointed with Fear Not to Walk Over Evil oil. That’s to keep me safe while I’m standing for as long as 12 hours and running around sanitizing the testing stations.
On my head, Tranquility oil. 1100 people barreling at you all day can be quite an experience.
On my throat, a combo of Clarity and Do As I Say oil. Honestly, no one knows how to use their cell phones (the test process is via a website), no one listens to directions, and we are repeating ourselves constantly because people are more agitated about being felt foolish than they are about actually accomplishing a task. (Everyone… chill, we got you.) This is where being a middle-aged professor type with an authoritative voice comes in handy. We are cordial and direct, but we’re helping people get a task performed.
And that’s as far as I can get magically for myself. It’s not lost on me that the bulk of my job is explaining to people the correct science of vaccines viruses and PCR testing who themselves are holding onto magical thinking of the worst kind… (see the purity and danger post earlier)…
And again, here’s where the overlap of magic and science hits. I’m using magic to protect myself from misguided magical thinking about a medical crisis, and clarifying the science for people. The masks and sanitizing protocol and our vaccines are what protect us from getting goddawful sick and dying. But the prayers and magical technologies are protecting me from people’s emotional throwing and the energy change that occurs in a room full of hundreds of sick and stressed people.
A specialist in Jewish magic, whose perspective I find valuable, states that in Jewish demonic lore, demons float around us constantly; in that culture demons are teeny tiny, like little gnats, and leave eety beety birdy feet prints behind in ash or dust if you lay it out to catch them. (See previous post about the Temple of Miriam). We don’t see them, he says, and that’s good, because if we could, we would lose our minds. And yes, these purity protocols for demons were precursors to medical protocols for cleanliness and sanitizing when microbiology revealed a hidden dangerous world to us…
But COVID-19 Delta is not a demon. It’s a virus that could have been destroyed or prevented from even mutating if science was followed, instead of wishful thinking, or preferred belief to some notion of the invulnerability of children (they aren’t!), or wanting to think a vaccine makes you bulletproof from infection, or that religious or cultural notions will protect you from a brutal viral infection. Viruses are killed by vaccines, the antibodies they create, and also by those spray bottles of industrial sanitizer we use on the plexiglass.
The demonic hordes — all the eety beety birdy feeted troubles — come flying in around the heads and backs of up to 1100 people a day carrying their own fear, grief, and a bundle of social media-pushed lies, and especially their anger that just a few weeks ago, we seemed free of a pandemic, only to be thrown back into another wave again. These little invisibles feed on one’s anxiety and outrage, and clearly inhabit the heads of person after person, hour after hour, when the confusion consumes them while following basic instructions.
And those extremely rare but definite “Karen” moments — when you remind a client to keep their mask on and they indignantly throw their phone at you and storm out — demons eat that shit up. Eety beety birdy feet dancing for joy…
(Seriously, folks, stop doing that. It only makes you look like a childish ass.)
So the amulets, oils, prayers, and herbs are a pretty effective shield; after a 12 hour shift, my mood is still mostly good. It hasn’t escaped my notice that my feet are sore and frozen and even pulsate and twitch when I try to sleep. I know what’s trying to crawl up through my feet… and I need stronger protection in that way…
It’s also pretty challenging to carve out those contemplative moments where I can engage with the spirits in my own practice. One’s shields are so high doing this work that it takes a long time and a shot of whiskey to loosen up enough to let that third eye open up. But then you’re so freaking exhausted that five minutes after you lit that candle, you’re picking your head up from the table because you fell asleep.
I’m starting to become more convinced that the reason more people aren’t engaged in magic or spirituality or the occult is simply that most people are just too tired…
I’ll be away for a week-long Pagan fest soon and get recharged again… and with this will come a new way to prioritize a magical life while living through a period of needed hard work.
The ancestors are telling me to go to bed…
Rose in the Retort 