Podcast Appearances and Synchronicities Uptick!

Big Brick news - I recently recorded a chat with Rick at Some Other Sphere podcast about our favorite bricks. It was the first public speaking experience I've had since college, and so say I was nervous was an understatement. Rick's patience and graciousness helped me get through my crippling anxiety and provided a great first podcast experience. Our chat can be heard HERE.

Additionally, there will be a second appearance by yours truly on another podcast called Nox Mente. This one will stream live on you tube March 18th, 6pm Pacific Time. Nox Mente can be found HERE. 

The bricks are in charge, I'm just along for the ride at this point as things are ramping up. And the ride is still ongoing. 

Back when we took our tour at the Providence Academy, our docent gave me the name of a biography about Mother Joseph that I should read, "The Bell and the River," written by another of the Sisters of Providence. Immediately after the tour, I walked across the street to the Vancouver downtown library to check the book out but discovered it was in the Reference only section and couldn't leave the building. So I tracked one down on ebay, and immediately was slammed into another wave of heavy synchronicities. 

As quickly as page 18, I literally gasped at the description of young Esther/MJ in the carriage shop with her father learning his tools. I had an identical, and I mean identical, experience in my father's garage working on cars with him. He would quiz me as I sat there with my eyes closed and chose by feel. I had the strangest sense of deja vu reading the above paragraph again and again. 

Of course the paternal side of my family with our history as Nascar pit crew, mechanics, construction superintendents reminds me of MJ and her family's lineage. I come from a long line of fixers. What I wasn't expecting was to be slammed into an indisputable link to the lost, disconnected maternal line of my ancestry.

My mother and I don't speak for a number of reasons, our bond completely severed shortly after my grandmother Donna passed, who was the usual peacemaker between the two of us. 

My maternal grandparents on their wedding day and great grandparents, Ceil on the right.

Peacemaker Donna (Prince) Halvorson on the left with her new husband Bob, great Grandmother Cecelia (Sadlier) Prince on the left with her husband Harold. I realized when I worked in a town called Woodland, Washington (about 20 minutes north of Vancouver) that my Great Grandmother's distant cousins, the Sadliers, were out in the area. I sold them insurance for their construction business once upon a time. Most of the Sadliers came over via Montreal, Canada via New York City. Some fared better than others.

My great great grandfather Joseph Sadlier ended up going to the Midwest via Illinois and then Minnesota, where the rest of the maternal line was from. By all accounts he was a poor, illiterate but hard working Irish farm immigrant. My great grandmother Cecelia grew up on a farm in Illinois and only had a sixth grade education but was one of the smartest humans I've ever encountered. She knew and understood people in a fascinating, nearly intuitive way that couldn't be taught from a book.

If you go back far enough, Joseph Sadlier is definitely related to the original Sadliers that came over from Ireland. A relative named Katherine becomes important later, as she's the literal link to my line and another line of Sadliers linked to the Mother Joseph story. 

Great granny Ceil was also nearly a Catholic nun. Much like our friend Mother Joseph, my granny Ceil joined a convent as a young woman after feeling called towards a life of service to the poor and infirm. My great grandfather Harold Prince was brought to Hibbing, Minnesota to work in the open pit mine there. (This is the same mine that brings my father to town for work many years later where he meets my mother.) Similar to the beginnings of the city of Vancouver, the Catholic Church in Hibbing, Minnesota built a huge parish to attract families to the area so the miners would stay in the area and raise families. 

Upon meeting Ceil at a fancy dinner held to welcome the new miners to town, Harold falls in love at first sight with the tiny spitfire and converts to Catholicism. My grandfather does the same to marry Harold and Ceil's daughter Donna later. Harold annoyed the other nuns at the convent, serenading my great grandmother outside the window every night until she agreed to not take her final vows as a nun. It's quite the romantic story.

Great granny herself was pretty cool. She introduced me to a lifelong love of horror movies, despite her strong and unwavering Catholic faith throughout her life. I had zero problems with great granny. She was very close to my mother growing up, so I didn't keep her very close growing up as my mother and I were consistently conflicted, but she was always kind to me.

So why all this yammering about the Sadlier family, who I don't even really know? Well... a relative of mine named Katherine Sadlier is related directly to a famous author named Mary Ann Sadlier, who is pretty easy to trace. 

Dennis and James? Well... let's just say they literally saved Mother Joseph and her other sisters from a likely doom when they arrived in New York City on their way out here to the Oregon Territory, according to the Bell and the River: 

Yes, my ancestors, heavily involved with the Catholic Church, did MJ and company a solid way back in 1852. Too weird!

The rest of the book (I'm only half done) really helps endear MJ further to me, as she literally begged not to be put in charge several times and worked through some very familiar demons surrounding feelings of inadequacy. Even recording podcasts about bricks are forcing me to do very real, deep work on myself. I'm doing it for the bricks. 

I feel once again, this can be nothing less than literal magick in action, or Brick Mojo, as I've been calling this ride...which as my brilliant comrade and fellow Liminal.Earth  Ambassador AP Strange pointed out to me the other day...

MOther JOseph

MOJO.

Cabinet Photo Circa 1900, purchased from Historical Images. Original photo taken by Portland photographer Hofsteater.

I can think of few things that harness more magick than a journey that leads to self-growth through facing uncomfortable misconceptions about yourself and your perceived lack of capabilities and worthiness... ending back up in the middle of messy family history. Almost sounds like surrendering to Providence to this witch.