RavensTreasures Introduction...please join me in reveling in this crazy life!

My given Shamanic name is RavenTears. Most muggles call me Keeley Leigh Muncrief. Call me what you will, my title is of no importance in the grand scheme of things. I am not truly crazy (not certifiably so, anyway, according to my therapist...), but with my son, my son's Autism, our myriad of pets, my work as a Shamanic Practitioner, keeping our home (somewhat) habitable, maintaining an organic home garden, and running an apothecary, things can get pretty hectic around here. I tend to feel crazy most of the time.

Professionally before my back surgery I taught Agriculture Science/Horticulture and Forensic Science for ten years to 9-12 grade students. I will write about my years teaching another time. Before that I was a florist, greenhouse grower, and ran a landscape business at one point.

I am currently trying to get my back healed after a lumbar fusion that 'failed' and re-broke last December. Things seem topsy-turvy lately but I keep my head above water so I can't complain. If I were to complain nobody would listen anyway, I would just be another rambling whiner online. That is not me! Not to say I do not ramble at times, but I digress. Life has taken many turns I never would have expected over the years, but I will never regret or wish away any of them. Instead, I choose to celebrate surpassing each milestone (and the bumps in the road along the way) as they only make me stronger and fuel my resolve to help out the world wherever I can.

Let me back up and explain everything in the run-on-sentence-from-Hades in the first paragraph. I have many passions and many talents I have been blessed with. The passions have become my life's work. My plan was never to follow the life-path I am on, but the Fates have deemed this my path and I will strive to always walk it proudly. Besides, what choice do I have, really...

The most important blessing in my life is bar-none, my son, hereinafter: my Bug. My son is one of the most intelligent souls I have ever known. Bug lives with "High-Functioning Autism." I never know how to say it really, he isn't Autism, he has Autism. Autism is merely one facet of his wonderful life, albeit an all-encompassing and not easy one to deal with at times. Many people argue about those semantics ad nauseum, I maintain that Autism isn't all that my son is, just a part of his life...our lives…and the lives of those around us. He is now eleven and a half. I dare not leave out the half, lest be chided by said almost-twelve-year-old. Life has been interesting from the day he was born. I wouldn't trade the years of sleepless nights, headaches, meltdowns, and struggles for anything in the world. If I didn't have my Bug in my life and have to deal with the aforementioned struggles, I wouldn't have so much laughter in my life, so many random two-second hugs (because three seconds is "too much"), and so much unadulterated love in my life. There are many often life-long struggles when a family member is on the Autism Spectrum. Despite the mostly-hectic lifestyle that results from living life with Autism in the home, it is a life of fulfillment and joy much more so than defeat and strife. Autism isn’t the only facet we struggle to deal with, as ADHD, SPD, and Anxiety also are comorbid with my Bug’s Autism, but that is fuel for an entirely separate post. I’m supposed to be introducing myself before I scare y’all off with my Autism rants, right? That being said, I am building an Autism Support program (kinda like a duola for those dealing with the many facets of Autism) that I will release here shortly in hopes to support others who are in need as I once was, and often still am. What better support for a family that deals with Autism than someone who has been trained both professionally and privately to deal with Autism and the curves it can throw into life's path? There is such a great need for support for families with a member or members on the Autism Spectrum and I hope to help fill that need here very soon. I will be offering support, coping tools and strategies, and a safe place to vent for families dealing with Autism. More on that later or I will never finish my introduction…

I am owned by many animals, Bug excluded. I never do claim that I am the “owner” of my pets as to them I am convinced I’m just a servant who does their bidding. In our home we have an Umbrella Cockatoo, German Shepherd, a total of twelve fish, a small herd of African Giant Millipedes, a colony of Discoid Roaches, a colony of meal worm beetles, a colony of Dermestid Beetles, spade toads who inhabit our yard and garden, and a skink that my Bug talks to in the garden every day. I don’t argue with him that the skink isn’t a true pet, for as long as it’s not another mouth I have to feed I let him call it his outside pet. I pick my battles carefully and that one just isn’t worth it in the end. I rescued, rehabilitated, and fostered reptiles for years, and I used to adopt many of them before Bug came along and I had to move to a smaller home and pay to feed a human Bug instead of my herps. One day I will get back into herps, but I have too much going on at the moment to do much more than move them safely away from places other people don’t want them.

I will save you my droning on about the rest…until other posts, at least! Muahahaha. If you thought you had read the last post from me with this you were egregiously mistaken. I cordially invite you into my crazy, insane, fun, unpredictable world. Come in and stay a while. Take your boots off and sit a spell. Most importantly, however, I hope you enjoy the ride.