FST is 19 years old!

[Mystress]

  August 1st!
Happy Lughnasadh.

FST opened for registrations 19 years ago. Amazing to me. Where has the time gone? Well I look in a mirror and lol ok there it is, the older face. 

  I went to see Cher live in concert in June. Wow, if that is what 73 looks like, I have a lot of catching up to do!  She even put on the "Turn back time" video outfit, the one where shes on the destroyer. The cost though,... I would not want all her surgeries!

  After, while waiting for the crowd at the train station to thin out, I decided to play with my phone like most people do and take some selfies, which I suck at and most of them were awful. One though had notable shaktizap sparks to the eyes so here ya go! Crone power.

[img src ="http://fire-serpent.com/tantra/personal/mystzapeyess.png"]



 



 

[Sigmund]

Mazel tov!   And Happy Birthday, FST. 

Thank you for your efforts, dear Mystress. 

It's a blesssing to see you.  Thank you for sending along your picture.

     <3

[WhimsicalZephyr]

Yowza! That gave quite the shakti-zap.

Happy birthday to FST and thank you to Mystress for creating and maintaining such a wonderful mystery school.

WZ

[Sava]

Wow great picture, my computer loaded only your crown first and I felt the zaps instantly, Im glad you had a good time seeing Cher, I bet it was wonderful. Happy Birthday FST 

[Mystress]

  Thank you all for your nice responses!

  I did not sleep well the past few nights and yesterday I lay down for a nap mid-afternoon and woke at midnight feeling confused, thinking it was morning. Rare for me to sleep 9 hours! It usually means I was processing something chewy. Now I am awake all night and digesting out loud, so to speak.

  I was thinking, how it is past the 20 year anniversary of when I started building FST, and that as always made me think of the updates and yes there is a little cloud of guilt for them still not being completed 15 years after starting but the clarity is to stop blaming myself and own it... ADHD.

  Lughnsadh (or Lammas) is the corn harvest, traditionally celebrated with sports and games to celebrate the funeral rites of the God Lugh's momma.

   I posted this this to my FB, as a  comment on this post I shared:
https://www.facebook.com/TheADHDGift/photos/a.295383650628079/1027287757437661/?type=3&theater
(Thus, attributed, but also archived locally. Fair use.)



This is my life! Unfinished projects, check. My tantra school had its 19th anniversary two days ago, hundreds of graduate find it awesome yet I have never promoted it because I do not consider it finished! So many unfinished projects, going back decades, taking up space in my home and mind, especially the half finished books. Reviews and edits are so incredibly difficult to maintain focus. Lost time, check... worse because of ascended shaman quantum confusion making time even more elastic and slippery. Trying to be on time for things is a bane of my life and it gets worse if I try harder. Got me fired from a few jobs before I gave up on conventional employment for unconventional self employment, in the 90s.

I am also, so grateful to have patient, supportive and understanding friends. I do not know what I would do without them. Counting blessings.

   A friend responded offering this book: The Personalities of Creative Writers https://www.researchgate.net/publication/288097407_The_personalities_of_creative_writers?fbclid=IwAR3mJV-3H5SnADnxqQWO-LYlVWgHXrTv2ckFJhpFaKUx1SLnIrpY31GIc4w

  Genius and insanity, two sides of the same coin eh?

  I really wanted to upload the new edition of FST when it is complete.

  By the cold light of the moon I find my harvest, new clarity.

  Facing up to the fact that disability lives here and insisting on completion puts the publication date at the twelfth of fucking never!!!

  Ouch. Thank you Goddess.

  Chuck Jones, Bugs Bunny's mom said "An artists work is never completed, only abandoned."

  A comforting hug, from the wascally wabbit. Side effect of preschool prayers to the Christian God, for "no bad dreams." I was well motivated by shaman training night terrors, result is that the scary and hard insights always shows up kinda cartooney. 

  What the quote writes about finishing things, but mostly the part about being completely unable to edit or focus on old work, is why it has become impossible for me. I wrote most of this two decades ago, I have been over it all so many times I can't even see it anymore, I read from memory and memory is deceptive. Memory told me there was a lesson called the Power of Gratitude and it does not exist... except in so many tearoom posts and chats where it comes up, over and over like layers of band aids covering the hole. 

  So the cloud of guilt transforms to a lighting bolt, or maybe a hailstorm at how stupid and wrong it is to continue to keep all the wonderful new stuff that has been completed and the fresh new design, away from the eyes of the students it is written for.

  The web design itself, is finished, I think?  The pages have been ready to go live for months except the update added new sections to every lesson and some of the new bits are not written yet. The new sections are there but they are empty which makes FST look like its more full of holes when its actually much larger now.       

  This is a bit technical... I had plans to fully update to modern code, HTML5 & CSS3... spent about a year trying to learn it and mostly failing. Then I got an idea to go look at the server stats, what sort of computers are looking and discovered a significant number of users are on browsers too old to be able to read HTML5 and CSS3.  My proposed update would actually make the pages a total mess for some users, might be why I was unable to learn it! (Or a sign to rent geeks to code and focus on writing>) 

  One thing I did adopt of modern design is separating content from presentation, but using an old school method, server side includes. It is also used to reduce storage space on the server through less repetition.
 
  Server side includes means, the content parts of the page are stored in separate text files from the html page itself. The basic page has design and formatting, but no content, only links that tell the server to insert the content bits into the page before it sending it to you. Makes a tiny server hit of the pages taking a few seconds longer to appear,  but the benefits are worth it. It does not slow the energy down!

The benefit is web helpers can help update the content without breaking the code, as happened so often before, that I mostly gave up trying.  It also means the screen reader/print friendly version is very easy to make, it is just the server links,  and will always get the same updates. Plus, in the future code changes, it becomes simple for *someone* to make a new page design without touching the content files.

  Some of those little files contain html bits like the navigation bar that appears between every section, on every page, linking to the other page sections.  I thought of just commenting out the missing sections so they are invisible, but that would break all the nav links. 

  Wow, 5am already. That thing about time getting away... so true.

  Nearly 20 years of tearoom archives. Thousands of posts of people asking questions. Questions as navigation, pointing to where FST is not clearly understood or the info provided is incomplete. Odds are, the missing content is already written and just needs to be located and copied over.

Since I have already read every thread, three times or more.. a lot of the archives have gone into the grey no-focus zone, for me.  I learned that, searching for tearoom links to add to the new "Experiences" sections of the update. May as well admit, disability stalled me on that task, and its not getting better. It needs fresh eyes.   

Last May: 
  I always wanted a push mower, used to play with Granny's as a kid. Finally got one at auction. Mowed most of the lawn, having to go over repeately because it was really too long for a push mower... and endorphins of the doing and happy that my blood is better, to be able to...  made me overlook the side effects of the mower handle being at womb level, and what has happened before with too much exercise. . Next day got an untimely period with flood and clots the size of chicken liver, scene worthy of a horror movie. Doc commanded rest, and that was a last straw for me.  I three in the towel and took a vacation. My new "desk" is a recliner opposite a big screen TV and I have Netflix, Crave and Amazon Prime.
  Bored now, refreshed, ready to quit sulking and get back to doing what I still can do.

  So, I am going to check through all the update lesson pages and see if there is anything really stopping them from going live, besides my embarrassment at the empty sections.

  If I cannot find anything, or if what I do find is a quick fix then....

"Houston, we are GO for launch... "

  With a wing and a prayer that motivated students will help me find the tearoom snippets to fill the holes.


 

[Gopi]

Thank you for sharing Mystress. And thank you for all the hard work over the years.
I have some trouble with keep track of time but do not face the same level of disabling ADHD that you do.
I think all creative people have a 'To do' lists that will never be 'Done'.
I know it is silly but I feel guilty about buying new arts supplies for yet another art project that I want to do.
Looking at unfinished drafts of writing projects, abandoned drawings, unfolded clothes, and unread pile of books makes me question my abilities - over the years I have gotten better at responding to the 'impostor' with factual evidence of accomplishments.
I remind myself that I do not need to know how everything unfolds.

There is a common old saying among Siva worshipers in Tamilnadu - à®...வனன்றி à®"ர் à®...ணுவும் à®...சையாது
Roughly translated this means 'Atoms do not move without His grace'
On days when I feel insecure and worried, I remind myself of the FST lesson to find perfection in everything and request guides to show me where the learning is so that I can serve Goddess better.
Some days I feel guilty about 'wasting' time and worry about being unfair to those whom I work with.
Sometimes I obsess over having not done enough and end up feeling disappointed in myself.
I am learning to do and take pleasure in doing small things everyday and not be bogged down by my own expectations and disappointments.
Learning to say 'Enough for today' is still a lesson in progress for me.

My heart felt wishes and gratitude for launching the new version of FST.
Namaste!
Gopi

[Mystress]

  Work is proceeding. I am ok with going live in advance of some of the new sections being completed, but there are a few new lessons as well.  I am not going to make someone wait a week behind a pacing wall only to access a blank page so, finishing those first.

  The new lessons will be a small disruption to the order for current new students depending on where you are in the course you may get bounced back a lesson or two, but I will post a new lesson list when it goes live so you can backtrack and find the new lessons.

  The new design is not that much different from the old one but it has a sort of freshness, a joy to it I cannot explain but it feels really good.

  I did a screen capture for a sneak preview... how does it feel to you?

[Sigmund]

It does feel fresh and lively, Mystress, and spacious.

[Mystress]

  So much of the work, especially the writing is done by feel, discernment.  Studying the screenshot made me decide to remove the blue line of links and adjust the spacing. Actually edited and uploaded all 61 documents five times before I was satisfied with the result.  Server side includes,... locally I work with fragments of each lesson, it has to be uploaded to the server to have all the bits put together before I can see what the whole page looks like. 

  I would actually like to take this opportunity to thank you, Sigmund for your not inconsiderable contribution to the updates project. Your notes are really helping me.

  Sigmund has been involved helping out with the update project for about a decade, now? One thing he did was a massive file comparison that my ADD brain never could have managed.

Over the years,.. I had done some edits to the course while making the old FST CD, but they were never transferred to the live version. I had also done two other partial updates, plus one version had been converted to doc files for the spellchecker.  At one point, some updates had gone live but which? So the live version made one more...

  Version control chaos,  I had about 5 versions of every lesson.  He patiently went through all of them, doing file comparisons, making notes on  what was in each and copying over what seemed to be the most up to date version, along with notes like "this version contains this paragraph the others do not."  He even incorporated notes I had written about my plans for new additions and changes, and a few suggestions other helpers had made.

   Having this beautifully organized and detailed project file to work from has made things so much easier for me.  This massive project has been neatly broken down into bite size chunks, a list of things to do I am working my way through.

  One part of the update that is kind of, delighting me, and the last thing to be added is a little pointing finger icon (pointers) at the very bottom of the lesson just above the Next link. It is a sort of catchall, extras sort of space where I can add what I want whether it fits with the lesson or not. I can make comments about the different sections of the course, add additional info from a previous lesson, share ideas to prepare for the next lesson or just share useful bits that don't really have a home anywhere else. Excited about it!

[Sigmund]

I'm excited that things are moving along so well, Mystress. 

Thank you for kindly and generously acknowledging my participation in helping you develop FST.

It's an honor and a blessing for me to do this work, especially knowing it lessened your load.

I prostrate myself before you, before FST and before Goddess with love and gratitude that I can serve you all.

[Ernst]

Happy Birthday Fire Serpent Tantra!

Thank you so much Mystress and all who support this unique precious holy temple.
This temple, this school, of Goddess is such a beautiful key to the secret doors of ascension.
It is in deed, unique and only Mystress Angelique Serpent was able to make it manifest.

In deep Gratitude
Ernst

[Sava]

It does feel fresh, I was thinking the spacing could be changed on the blue links, then, I scrolled down and saw you made that change anyway. I can’t wait to see the new course. Thank you.
Sava

[Priestesssss]

Namaste.  Beautiful picture.  Thank  you Mystress.