Today was a beautiful blue sky day. I strolled out of work at noon and into the sunshine, took a quick bus ride, grabbed lunch and found myself at a park on the edge of the Willamette. Not sure how I'd be feeling later, I took the opportunity to share my lunch with Pechak and Velos and invoke them at the edge of a river, which is clearly the most appropriate sacred place for them.
On your day and in this sacred place, I come before you as the worker for my household, is the current version of the line I'm using in the daily prayers, though occasionally with modification. (The Dark Lady's was "in this sacred darkness" for example.) The idea of the worker for the household is the most recent evolution of an idea I've been tracing for a while. In Robin's family, for example, there is a member of his mother's house responsible for a variety of magical and religious obligations. When he was a child, it was his grandmother Deirdre, and then his aunt. His sister was trained to take it over and did so for a while, but when the obligations of her marriage took her into a different sphere, she worked out a way for Robin to take over those responsibilities. After Robin married, his husband took them over because it suited him better.
It's obviously not a permanent position; a house or household can change workers for a variety of reasons. It doesn't imply that one is the only magic-user in the household, or that one is in charge in any way, though it doesn't rule those out. The article I linked to earlier this month helped to clarify this in my head, and actually working within it helped me get a sense of what feels right and what does not.
Mostly it's a shorthand: I am acting as a representative of all of these people, treat me as them and them as me for purposes of whatever work I'm doing.
I was back at the dentist for a session that put last week to shame in terms of challenging my ability to deal with anxiety-inducing things. This session required significant actual work on a tooth, with the bonus of large needles in my jaw. It was not fun, but I was very grateful I'd hashed through my issues with the Dark Lady because it was her mantra I kept falling back on when I needed something to focus on other than the tools in my mouth.
And now I'm going to bed, because my jaw hurts.