I love holidays, and using them as an excuse to celebrate what is at the heart of each one. So every year for Thanksgiving I create a gratitude list of 101 things I am grateful for. I've tried to keep overlap to a minimum so that I'm finding new things each year to be grateful for, but how can I not mention things like Muppets and Rainbows?...
1. That the right people always show up at the right time 2. Archery -- The muffled rattle of arrows on your back and the single, fluid motion to retrieve one from the quiver. The smooth, graceful curves of a bow and how they affect the balance of how it rides in your hand. The tautness of the string and the subtle click as it snaps into the nock of an arrow, while the shaft softly clacks against the bow and slides into place. The draw of the string back until your thumb brushes your jaw, as you look down the length of the arrow but don't so much see the target as feel it. The slightly strained pause of resististing the tension of the bow and string for but a moment longer as you inhale... Then release as all exertion is emptied into this spinning, feathered bolt, singing down the range until it comes to rest with a solid "Thkk!" 3. My family who grows dearer every day 4. That all the things I believed as a child have turned out to be true 5. 'Whose Line Is It Anyway' belly laughs 6. that first, glorious sip of chai in the morning 7. Smokey, sacred-pipe prayers that tingle in my mouth and linger in my beard and hair 8. Ever present Hope 9. Snow Leopards 10. 'Snow White' moments 11. Garden Burgers with swiss and mushrooms at... 12. ...the Roanoke Inn 13. The honor of being allowed to take part in the healing journey of others 14. The ever thinning veil between the worlds (and still being on this side of it) 15. Physical human touch 16. Kitty head-bonks 17. Naps 18. Skinny dipping 19. Deloreans 20. Faery ancestry 21. The wild greenwood 22. Tears 23. Grasshopper pie 24. That there's always another chance 25. Emmie and Mr Timmons -- my furry children 26. Silence 27. SJ Tucker 28. Peppermint patties 29. Mystery 30. The Great Mother 31. Deep soul connections 32. Rainbows 33. Gregorian chant 34. Elvis 35. Synchronicities 36. Humor 37. Stories, tales, sagas, legends, myths 38. Hawaiian pizza 39. George Herriman 40. Society for Creative Anachronism 41. Walt Whitman 42. Forty Two 43. Used book stores 44. The ecstatic throes of creativity 45. Oneness 46. The Holiday Season 47. Muppets 48. Water falls 49. Coyote howls 50. Disney 51. Intuition 52. Buck skin jackets with fringe 53. Deeply spiritual, mystical artists that remind me of things that can not be put into words 54. The ever-rising consciousness of Humanity 55. Nocturnal walks in lightly falling snow 56. Breakfast 57. Unbridled whimsy 58. The perfection of everything, even (especially) when I can't see it 59. Drums and rattles 60. Dalai Lama 61. Walks, and meditations, in sacred forests 62. Words -- Their origin, history, evolution, meaning, and relationship with other words 63. Blank books pregnant with possibilities 64. Glee 65. Kindness from strangers, and kindness to strangers 66. Kisses 67. Intimacy 68. That there are people drawn to do the things that I'm not drawn to do 69. Sacred space and ritual work 70. My path and vocation 71. Tao Te Ching 72. Movies on the big screen 73. Horchattas 74. That Love is all there is 75. Live music and live theater 76. Martha Stewart 77. Swash buckling 78. Gene Kelly 79. Wild rice 80. Imagination 81. Inspiration 82. Laughter 83. Dance 84. Moments of such utter beauty, perfection, and delight, when the clouds of fog and chaos clear, that there are no words for it and the only proper response is a smile 85. Ellen Degeneres 86. Comics 87. Art 88. Heliotrope 89. Transformative workshops 90. My goof-ball troope of spirit helpers 91. Happy endings 92. Wombats 93. Raptors 94. Blissful massages 95. The ability and joy of reading 96. Hugs that you melt into 97. Entire days of movie marathons while working on art projects 98. Serendipity 99. My patchwork Pantheon 100. Bruce Campbell 101. Enjoying things now that I couldn't even imagine as a child
...And I'm grateful to you for reading! Thank you!
Thursday, November 28, 2013
Tuesday, November 26, 2013
Yes Virginia
The past couple months have been pretty crazy for me -- intense, head-spinning, world toppling, death-defyingly crazy. There were three events right on top of each other, which I will talk about separately, that really shook me up and left me feeling on the verge of the anxiety and panic attacks that I hadn't experienced for years. When the heaviness of depression teamed up with the hyper-vigilance of anxiety and I found myself living in an uneasy fog, I knew I had to get some answers. All I knew was that something had to change, but what it was, or what my next step needed to be, I didn't know.
So I turned to a good friend with whom I regularly exchange readings to shed some light on what was going on and what I needed to do. Despite the combination of Tarot cards and my friend's mad astrology skills, clarity was in short supply, and though I left with more hope than I arrived with, the unknown task before me seemed daunting at its best and insurmountable at its worst. I had doubts as to whether I would even survive this.
Still, the challenge was less undefined than before and we were able to determine that it sprouted from some deep soul trauma (all the cards coming up being Major Arcana) that resulted from some crisis of faith. It had something to do with physical reality and being present in my body -- Balancing both the physical and spiritual realms. I'm really good at avoiding being in my body, but as the oracles where telling us, I didn't totally trust the spirit side either. A crisis of faith -- a crisis of reality. It so resonated with my feelings of being caught in both worlds but not totally belonging to either one. The phrase that came up over and over again was 'Hearth and Home.' I don't know where my home is and thus do not feel safe anywhere -- hence the hyper-vigilance and the resulting exhausted depression.
I read a story somewhere about a guy who got on a bus and he was carrying this obviously very heavy backpack. He took a place standing in the aisle as the bus continued on its route, the pack still slung over his shoulder. Finally, a few stops later, a woman looks up at him and says, "You know, the bus is strong enough to carry both you and your backpack." And the man realized he didn't have to keep carrying the pack but could put it on the floor.
That's kind of the way I've been feeling -- like it's not been safe for me to put my full weight down anywhere. I don't dare until I have someplace that's home.
Okay. Baby step, baby step. My body is my home here, and I'd already begun to be more consciously present and grounded. I can do that. Step One, done. Step Two -- Stay optimistic. In just the past week or so I'd rediscovered what a difference it makes to have my third eye open. When I get caught in the hamster wheel of thoughts and its resulting tunnel vision, just opening my third eye chakra totally expands the context and perspective of whatever I'm going through. It's like a "Second star to the right and straight on til morning" type feeling.
So I had those things going for me, and just had to bide my time -- "get comfortable with being uncomfortable," as my reading had told me -- until the answers came of their own accord. Fortunately I didn't have to wait long.
I was going about my own business this morning at work, mulling over everything from the reading the night before, and thinking about the whole crisis-of-faith thing. "Maybe I was martyred in a past life? Maybe I had put my undying faith and loyalty into someone or something only to find out they or it was false?" Suddenly, without warning, a memory flashed through my mind. "Oh my gods! SANTA!!!"
I don't remember exactly how old I was but it was my pre-teens when I found out Santa wasn't real. It may sound silly but this rocked me to my very foundations. I had had an unwavering, unquestioning, 100% pure belief in Santa's existence, and that reality -- the one where magick was real in the world -- was pulled out from under me. In a split second I no longer lived in a world I recognized. I didn't know what I could trust. Not only did the magickal world get taken away, but it made the physical world less real, and less reliable. I was lost. I no longer had a home.
That all might sound a bit melodramatic, but think of it from the mind of a prepubescent, day-dreamer of a boy. And silly or not, the full impact of this realization sent this fully grown man reeling to the bathroom and had him sitting on the floor sobbing his eyes out. Tears of grieving a world torn away from me... My innocence ripped away from me. This was huge!
So I sat there on the floor, my breath still catching in small gasps, when something shifted. I felt as though some invisible barrier or wall had softly given way and allowed me to sink deeper into place than I ever remember, like tumblers in a combination lock aligning. There was a calmness and a rightness, and I felt like I'd just had a Soul Retrieval -- like some errant part of my soul had finally found it's way home.
I had closed my teary eyes, and suddenly the darkness behind my eyelids turned the color red. Then I heard the laughter -- "HO-HO-HO!" And there before me stood Father Christmas himself, like he'd just stepped out of a children's book.
I may have shed a few more tears at this point, from the joy and just the pure relief bubbling up from my heart. And I'm pretty sure I was grinning as I sighed, "You are real."
He threw his head back and shook with a belly laugh. "Hohohohoho! Of course I am!" Then he paused, and with a sly twinkle in one eye, and a wink with the other, he leaned closer to me. "Are you?"
So I turned to a good friend with whom I regularly exchange readings to shed some light on what was going on and what I needed to do. Despite the combination of Tarot cards and my friend's mad astrology skills, clarity was in short supply, and though I left with more hope than I arrived with, the unknown task before me seemed daunting at its best and insurmountable at its worst. I had doubts as to whether I would even survive this.
Still, the challenge was less undefined than before and we were able to determine that it sprouted from some deep soul trauma (all the cards coming up being Major Arcana) that resulted from some crisis of faith. It had something to do with physical reality and being present in my body -- Balancing both the physical and spiritual realms. I'm really good at avoiding being in my body, but as the oracles where telling us, I didn't totally trust the spirit side either. A crisis of faith -- a crisis of reality. It so resonated with my feelings of being caught in both worlds but not totally belonging to either one. The phrase that came up over and over again was 'Hearth and Home.' I don't know where my home is and thus do not feel safe anywhere -- hence the hyper-vigilance and the resulting exhausted depression.
I read a story somewhere about a guy who got on a bus and he was carrying this obviously very heavy backpack. He took a place standing in the aisle as the bus continued on its route, the pack still slung over his shoulder. Finally, a few stops later, a woman looks up at him and says, "You know, the bus is strong enough to carry both you and your backpack." And the man realized he didn't have to keep carrying the pack but could put it on the floor.
That's kind of the way I've been feeling -- like it's not been safe for me to put my full weight down anywhere. I don't dare until I have someplace that's home.
Okay. Baby step, baby step. My body is my home here, and I'd already begun to be more consciously present and grounded. I can do that. Step One, done. Step Two -- Stay optimistic. In just the past week or so I'd rediscovered what a difference it makes to have my third eye open. When I get caught in the hamster wheel of thoughts and its resulting tunnel vision, just opening my third eye chakra totally expands the context and perspective of whatever I'm going through. It's like a "Second star to the right and straight on til morning" type feeling.
So I had those things going for me, and just had to bide my time -- "get comfortable with being uncomfortable," as my reading had told me -- until the answers came of their own accord. Fortunately I didn't have to wait long.
I was going about my own business this morning at work, mulling over everything from the reading the night before, and thinking about the whole crisis-of-faith thing. "Maybe I was martyred in a past life? Maybe I had put my undying faith and loyalty into someone or something only to find out they or it was false?" Suddenly, without warning, a memory flashed through my mind. "Oh my gods! SANTA!!!"
I don't remember exactly how old I was but it was my pre-teens when I found out Santa wasn't real. It may sound silly but this rocked me to my very foundations. I had had an unwavering, unquestioning, 100% pure belief in Santa's existence, and that reality -- the one where magick was real in the world -- was pulled out from under me. In a split second I no longer lived in a world I recognized. I didn't know what I could trust. Not only did the magickal world get taken away, but it made the physical world less real, and less reliable. I was lost. I no longer had a home.
That all might sound a bit melodramatic, but think of it from the mind of a prepubescent, day-dreamer of a boy. And silly or not, the full impact of this realization sent this fully grown man reeling to the bathroom and had him sitting on the floor sobbing his eyes out. Tears of grieving a world torn away from me... My innocence ripped away from me. This was huge!
So I sat there on the floor, my breath still catching in small gasps, when something shifted. I felt as though some invisible barrier or wall had softly given way and allowed me to sink deeper into place than I ever remember, like tumblers in a combination lock aligning. There was a calmness and a rightness, and I felt like I'd just had a Soul Retrieval -- like some errant part of my soul had finally found it's way home.
I had closed my teary eyes, and suddenly the darkness behind my eyelids turned the color red. Then I heard the laughter -- "HO-HO-HO!" And there before me stood Father Christmas himself, like he'd just stepped out of a children's book.
I may have shed a few more tears at this point, from the joy and just the pure relief bubbling up from my heart. And I'm pretty sure I was grinning as I sighed, "You are real."
He threw his head back and shook with a belly laugh. "Hohohohoho! Of course I am!" Then he paused, and with a sly twinkle in one eye, and a wink with the other, he leaned closer to me. "Are you?"
Wednesday, September 25, 2013
Embracing Bear
It is so very interesting how things come around again and again and again. Almost exactly four years ago, around Mabon (Autumn Equinox), I began my first blog. It was private and just for a select few to share, and was a tool for me to process the changes taking place in my life at the point. Four months earlier than that I'd gone on a Vision Quest that was a huge turning point for me, and nothing has been the same since.
Now again I find myself at Mabon in the midst of the biggest changes of my life; Changes that make the transitions I went through four years ago look like a cake walk. Again I'm feeling drawn to "go up on the hill" in order to process and integrate the changes cascading through my life, to consult with my guides and ancestors and commune with the spirits of Nature, and to cry for a vision of my next steps toward my greatest possible future. In fact, this coming weekend I plan on scouting out a suitable spot for another Vision Quest. And again I feel a tug to look back on where I'd been and how far I've come, hence the reading of my original blog that I didn't realize had been started at this same time of year. As I read the words I wrote back then, I could have written them today, only now they have a depth and richness that I missed the first time around.
The timeliness of all this is amazing, as I share a journey I did on that Mabon that is as applicable to this Mabon we just celebrated:
I journeyed to the Lower World to meet my animal guide, Nathaniel, who is a reindeer. Nathaniel took me to a beach where the sun was perpetually setting. We sat on the smooth rounded rocks looking at the water as people walked and jogged unhurriedly by, the atmosphere very relaxed, punctuated by occasional laughter and snippets of cordial conversation. He told me it was time to breathe, to relax, and to let go. As everything around me glowed with the reflection of the orangey-red sun, he said to see the beauty of things in a new light. "Get comfortable with transistion. It's what keeps the extremes from crashing into each other. Balance -- That's your sign right? Libra?"
I complained that I couldn't enjoy it because I still felt tension from the past.
"Of course you still have tension from the past. You are in transition, carrying both past and future with you. But you are removed from the bustle of the past as we are removed from the city you can see on the horizon there."
With that we sat silently on the beach til it was time for me to return. I thanked him, kissed his big fuzzy nose, and came back to my body.
There are huge things a-foot in my life right now, and as the wheel turns to the dark half of the year I'm finding myself looking forward to the quiet, to the contemplation, to the stillness. And I long for that dark womb-space of the Cosmic Mother. I long to tumble and float through that night of infinite possibilities where, like the title of my initial blog, I'll be
Embracing Bear; Dreaming With Dark Mother.
Now again I find myself at Mabon in the midst of the biggest changes of my life; Changes that make the transitions I went through four years ago look like a cake walk. Again I'm feeling drawn to "go up on the hill" in order to process and integrate the changes cascading through my life, to consult with my guides and ancestors and commune with the spirits of Nature, and to cry for a vision of my next steps toward my greatest possible future. In fact, this coming weekend I plan on scouting out a suitable spot for another Vision Quest. And again I feel a tug to look back on where I'd been and how far I've come, hence the reading of my original blog that I didn't realize had been started at this same time of year. As I read the words I wrote back then, I could have written them today, only now they have a depth and richness that I missed the first time around.
The timeliness of all this is amazing, as I share a journey I did on that Mabon that is as applicable to this Mabon we just celebrated:
I journeyed to the Lower World to meet my animal guide, Nathaniel, who is a reindeer. Nathaniel took me to a beach where the sun was perpetually setting. We sat on the smooth rounded rocks looking at the water as people walked and jogged unhurriedly by, the atmosphere very relaxed, punctuated by occasional laughter and snippets of cordial conversation. He told me it was time to breathe, to relax, and to let go. As everything around me glowed with the reflection of the orangey-red sun, he said to see the beauty of things in a new light. "Get comfortable with transistion. It's what keeps the extremes from crashing into each other. Balance -- That's your sign right? Libra?"
I complained that I couldn't enjoy it because I still felt tension from the past.
"Of course you still have tension from the past. You are in transition, carrying both past and future with you. But you are removed from the bustle of the past as we are removed from the city you can see on the horizon there."
With that we sat silently on the beach til it was time for me to return. I thanked him, kissed his big fuzzy nose, and came back to my body.
There are huge things a-foot in my life right now, and as the wheel turns to the dark half of the year I'm finding myself looking forward to the quiet, to the contemplation, to the stillness. And I long for that dark womb-space of the Cosmic Mother. I long to tumble and float through that night of infinite possibilities where, like the title of my initial blog, I'll be
Embracing Bear; Dreaming With Dark Mother.
Image Copyright Susan Seddon Boulet
Tuesday, September 17, 2013
Flame On!
Recently, feeling it's really time to finally manifest some of things my heart is desiring, I've been exploring the dating scene, having created profiles on a couple different internet dating sites. It's been a mixed bag of experiences, and suffice it to say I haven't met "her" yet (that I know of), but that is a possible subject for a future post. I won't go into details, but it is my most recent lessons from my most recent excursion into this world that I wanted to write about here.
I found myself in an uncomfortable position where my heart was telling me something totally different from what this particular woman's heart was apparently telling her. As much as I would have loved to fall into the same fairy tale visions she was having, I had to listen to my heart which told me something wasn't right and I did not belong in this match.
So after a couple failed attempts to back away gracefully, I had to finally break away completely. Still, even in parting, and even with the full volume and clarity of my heart telling me I'd done the right thing, there was this tiny, little voice asking, "But what if she was right? What if we really are meant to be together? What if I just made the biggest mistake of my life?" What the heck?!
This had been the over-riding undercurrent (if there can be such a thing... ;) ) of the entire 2 weeks I'd known her. That she knew we were meant to be together but it was my free will choice to do so or not, the understanding being that if I chose other than her it would be a mistake and my life would never be as great as it otherwise could be. In other words, it was my free will to chose, only there was a right choice and a wrong choice. Even as I write that out, every particle of my being screams out in protest to that way of thinking, yet there I was thinking it.
Thankfully this incongruency finally got my attention and I was able to pull myself out of asking, "Why am I feeling/thinking like this?" enough to realize that I wasn't. This was still her stuff! Holy crap! Final little tendrils that had found an opening in my own self-doubts to hook into, and mask themselves as my own thoughts.
I had already been doing some cord cutting (see my post Cut a-CORD-ingly for a more in-depth explanation of that practice), releasing whatever energetic ties she had with me in order to withdraw my personal power from her and the situation, and to move forward -- whole and in one piece. This 'aha' moment, however, made me realize that there could still be tiny cords that were able to sneak under the radar and still be siphoning off small amounts of my energy and power, affecting how I thought and felt.
What came to me next was nothing short of revolutionary. I stopped where I was, closed my eyes, and in my head (as to not totally freak out my coworkers) I screamed, "Flame on!" In an instant I visualized my entire body and being engulfed in flames. It was the fires of my own inner light bursting forth, Phoenix-like from the ashes, and burning off everything that wasn't innately mine. All cords and ties that didn't originate with me were seered off, leaving me totally and completely in my own power.
The thing is that these fires were pure Love. There was no judgement, or anger, or blame. There was no room for those things. Just pure, ecstatic Love. Radiant. Self-sustaining. In fact there was no room for anyone else because this was a full, unfiltered expression of me at my essence.
This all occurred on a Friday, and for the entire weekend after performing this radical new cord-cutting method, I was totally in my own power with nary a nudge from the other party. "How cool is that? It really worked!" I thought, until that Monday when I received a couple emails averaging around 6 pages each. Okay. I know sometimes these things need to be repeated until they take. I had already, very clearly and precisely, ended things with her so I didn't want to engage in more conversation. There was nothing to converse about seeing as there was nothing between us, and doing so would only create more energetic cords tying us together.
Besides cutting energetic cords, I cut practical ones as well, blocking her from my phone, email, and Facebook, but was beginning to get a little concerned. I started feeling protective of myself and even a little frightened, running 'what if' scenarios in my head about what to do if she showed up on my doorstep. I tried repeating my "Phoenix Flame" method from Friday, but the flames didn't seem as strong, nor did I as lingering doubts continued to hover and drain my sense of power.
Then this morning, on my way to work I realized why I was feeling that way. The initial 'Phoenix Flame' had been solely centered on myself, regaining my power and center. She didn't even enter into that equation. But here I was focusing on her -- getting away from her, staying safe from her. It wasn't working now because I was giving her the power to control and affect me. She was the center of my focus and you can't cut ties with something you're focused on! Not that there aren't practical, real world concerns, but I had to refocus on my life, my path, and again take her out of the equation. As I had learned years ago, from an episode of Brother Cadfael, there is a huge world of difference between running from something and running toward something. I had to stop running from her and running toward myself.
So I reset my bearings toward my personal North Star (Second to the right and straight on til morning), following my guidance to the path of my fullest expression, where it doesn't matter what she, or anyone else does. This is about me -- Taking the lessons I've learned from this experience and moving forward to embrace my wholeness and power, by which this holographic world and all around me heal.
I found myself in an uncomfortable position where my heart was telling me something totally different from what this particular woman's heart was apparently telling her. As much as I would have loved to fall into the same fairy tale visions she was having, I had to listen to my heart which told me something wasn't right and I did not belong in this match.
So after a couple failed attempts to back away gracefully, I had to finally break away completely. Still, even in parting, and even with the full volume and clarity of my heart telling me I'd done the right thing, there was this tiny, little voice asking, "But what if she was right? What if we really are meant to be together? What if I just made the biggest mistake of my life?" What the heck?!
This had been the over-riding undercurrent (if there can be such a thing... ;) ) of the entire 2 weeks I'd known her. That she knew we were meant to be together but it was my free will choice to do so or not, the understanding being that if I chose other than her it would be a mistake and my life would never be as great as it otherwise could be. In other words, it was my free will to chose, only there was a right choice and a wrong choice. Even as I write that out, every particle of my being screams out in protest to that way of thinking, yet there I was thinking it.
Thankfully this incongruency finally got my attention and I was able to pull myself out of asking, "Why am I feeling/thinking like this?" enough to realize that I wasn't. This was still her stuff! Holy crap! Final little tendrils that had found an opening in my own self-doubts to hook into, and mask themselves as my own thoughts.
I had already been doing some cord cutting (see my post Cut a-CORD-ingly for a more in-depth explanation of that practice), releasing whatever energetic ties she had with me in order to withdraw my personal power from her and the situation, and to move forward -- whole and in one piece. This 'aha' moment, however, made me realize that there could still be tiny cords that were able to sneak under the radar and still be siphoning off small amounts of my energy and power, affecting how I thought and felt.
What came to me next was nothing short of revolutionary. I stopped where I was, closed my eyes, and in my head (as to not totally freak out my coworkers) I screamed, "Flame on!" In an instant I visualized my entire body and being engulfed in flames. It was the fires of my own inner light bursting forth, Phoenix-like from the ashes, and burning off everything that wasn't innately mine. All cords and ties that didn't originate with me were seered off, leaving me totally and completely in my own power.
The thing is that these fires were pure Love. There was no judgement, or anger, or blame. There was no room for those things. Just pure, ecstatic Love. Radiant. Self-sustaining. In fact there was no room for anyone else because this was a full, unfiltered expression of me at my essence.
This all occurred on a Friday, and for the entire weekend after performing this radical new cord-cutting method, I was totally in my own power with nary a nudge from the other party. "How cool is that? It really worked!" I thought, until that Monday when I received a couple emails averaging around 6 pages each. Okay. I know sometimes these things need to be repeated until they take. I had already, very clearly and precisely, ended things with her so I didn't want to engage in more conversation. There was nothing to converse about seeing as there was nothing between us, and doing so would only create more energetic cords tying us together.
Besides cutting energetic cords, I cut practical ones as well, blocking her from my phone, email, and Facebook, but was beginning to get a little concerned. I started feeling protective of myself and even a little frightened, running 'what if' scenarios in my head about what to do if she showed up on my doorstep. I tried repeating my "Phoenix Flame" method from Friday, but the flames didn't seem as strong, nor did I as lingering doubts continued to hover and drain my sense of power.
Then this morning, on my way to work I realized why I was feeling that way. The initial 'Phoenix Flame' had been solely centered on myself, regaining my power and center. She didn't even enter into that equation. But here I was focusing on her -- getting away from her, staying safe from her. It wasn't working now because I was giving her the power to control and affect me. She was the center of my focus and you can't cut ties with something you're focused on! Not that there aren't practical, real world concerns, but I had to refocus on my life, my path, and again take her out of the equation. As I had learned years ago, from an episode of Brother Cadfael, there is a huge world of difference between running from something and running toward something. I had to stop running from her and running toward myself.
So I reset my bearings toward my personal North Star (Second to the right and straight on til morning), following my guidance to the path of my fullest expression, where it doesn't matter what she, or anyone else does. This is about me -- Taking the lessons I've learned from this experience and moving forward to embrace my wholeness and power, by which this holographic world and all around me heal.
By ferocious feathered Phoenix flame
Over the world I roar my name
And all I am I boldly claim
Forever me, never the same
Reborn by fires too wild to tame
FLAME ON!
FLAME ON!
Friday, May 31, 2013
Just Part of the Job
I was talking to a friend just the other night and mentioned how I've lost count of the times people have approached me and, very hesitantly, asked if they could share some experience because they didn't know who else might understand such a weird happening, plus they were just a tad worried they were going crazy. I usually meet this with a little laugh, assuring them that I can probably out-weird them any day of the week.
That seems to be at least one of my stations in this life, kind of mid-wifing people into the weirdness of this dynamic, quantum Universe, because I can get really out-there-weird (which you already know if you've read much of my blog) but at the same time I tend to be pretty well-grounded, at least in comparison to the aery-faerieness that usually goes hand in hand with such experiences. I think it's that balance that helps them realize that 'weird' is 'normal.' These sorts of things happen all the time. We just don't pay attention. I've even been thinking about figuring out a way to start a support group for people who are just beginning to wake up to their spiritual reality, and all the woo-woo strangeness that accompanies that, so there's a safe, supportive place for people to come with such stories, where they and their experiences can be validated, and fears of insanity can be dismissed.
Why do I bring this up, you may wonder? Because, have I got a weird one for you!
This particular happening happened last week sometime. I was driving either to or from work and I was listening to my Glee (yes, I'm a "Gleek") CD. One tracked ended, the next one began, and I sat there in a slightly shocked state of surprise. "I don't remember that song being on this album," I thought to myself. "Huh..."
I didn't think much more about it, just figuring I must have forgotten -- despite the fact that I'd been listening to that CD almost everyday for a while at that point. Time goes by and this all settles to the back of my mind, until yesterday when I was trying to remember what song it was that had caught me by surprise. I started clicking through the tracks one by one, listening to the first few notes of each until I recognize the tune then moving on. Huh... Nothing jogged my memory. Okay. Once more around the block. Nope, nothing. What the heck? It would help if I could remember what song it was, but that too seems unavailable.
That's when I remembered the 'Jimmy Smits' thing. A number of years ago, not long after meeting another friend of mine, we were talking about some out-there stuff, and my friend asked me if I remembered when Jimmy Smits died. "Yes!" I cried excitedly, "And then shortly after he was suddenly still alive and starring in a new TV show!" "Yes!" cried my friend, at least as excitedly as my previous outburst. Neither of us had ever found anyone else who remembered that, but the two of us did. It was like this strange overlap where we'd jumped from one parallel reality to another.
I'd remembered another instance from a long time ago, when I was reading the Seth books, and was first introduced to the idea of parallel realities and parallel lives. Seth talked extensively about such things and how they happen all the time but we just aren't aware enough to notice. There was an anecdote where a pair of Jane Roberts' (The medium who Seth spoke through) students experienced a switch from one reality to another, literally witnessing the windows on their barn change to a completely different style than they'd always been, and yet remembering the prior style. This sparked a memory of seeing a movie (a classic along the lines of "Singing in the Rain" though I no longer remember which movie) that starred a totally different man than the normal version you could get at the video store. I mean I had solid memories of this alternate leading man, and could clearly hear his voice, with its unique inflections, reciting the well known lines of this movie, even though in this reality, he has never played that role.
With all this in mind, I text my Jimmy Smits friend asking if she'd ever heard a song on a CD that she didn't realize was on that album, and then when she went back later, it actually wasn't. "Yes!" was her reply. "Good," I answered, "Then we're going crazy together. ;)"
In the words of Captain Janeway from Star Trek Voyager, "...Weird is just part of the job!"
In the words of Captain Janeway from Star Trek Voyager, "...Weird is just part of the job!"
Saturday, May 25, 2013
Two Dog Night
Recently I had a dream that has stuck with me, and it continues to unfold in my diurnal life--
I was watching a friend's house while she was away. Of course the dream house was nothing like her 'real' house, which was evident as I walked through the gate of the white picket fence to head up the front walk to her door. Before I could reach the house, though, a boxer with its tongue hanging out came bursting out the screen door and excitedly bouncing up the path to me. "Uh-oh! You're not suppose to be out here!" I said, greeting her with a scratch behind the ears. "C'mon!" I said with a tilt of my head as I started back for the door, and she happily, and bouncily, followed. Once inside I greeted the other canine denizen of the household, a very low-key basset hound, who greeted me back with a doggy smile and a wagging tail.
After spending time on the floor scritching, scratching, and playing with these two extremes of dog-hood, I went on a walk-through of the house to make sure everything was alright. It wasn't. When I got to the basement, I found it totally flooded, the water apparently running down from my friend's mother's room upstairs (My friend's mom does not live with her in ordinary reality).
--There was a little more to the dream after that, but this is where my clearer memories ended. So what does it all mean? The following is how I interpreted it...
To start with, Dog medicine is about Loyalty, representing family and relationships, as in those of my personal pack -- those I consider family whether blood-related or not. The temperament of these two canines suggested a couple of my closest friends, one who is very bouncy and very in touch with her inner puppy, whose excitement and playfulness will not allow her to be contained in any box you may try to put her in, and the other who is quieter and more shy -- the basset actually representing the person whose house this was in the dream.
The water in the basement, aside from its obvious connotations of the emotional realms, instantly reminded me of the Tower card in the Tarot, where the water is rushing against the tower, eroding its foundation and threatening to tear it down. However, in a reading I had by a friend in which the Tower appeared, she pointed out to me that the water that was shaking up and changing the tower was also the same water that would carry the tower down-stream to its new location -- to where it belonged.
In the dream I take this to mean that our relationships are changing and shifting. Indeed, there had been events that had happened prior to the dream in both friendships where I felt disappointed or let down, but which allowed me to claim back some of my own power that I'd been giving away to them. Things had definitely shifted in a way which lessened what could be classified as areas of co-dependency, making me feel more independent and able to perceive both relationships from a different, more self-empowered perspective -- and still feel the strength of our connections.
It took a while for another significance of the dream to light on my consciousness. As I was recounting the dream to another friend, some time after I'd had it, it suddenly occurred to me... white picket fence -- Oh my gods, it was the 'American Dream' -- True Love, happily ever after, and all that! I also realized it was someone else's ideal -- had it been my own, it would have been a farm house or cabin surrounded by woods (with a Delorean parked out front).
Now there has been a spectrum of emotions between my friend and I, that we've been having to sort out pretty much since the day we met, and I can't deny a certain spark existing on both our parts. But there are also reasons, spark or not, that going in specific directions would not be in anyone's best interest. And that's what I think the picket fence symbolizes -- Sometimes as much as we may think we know what we want things to look like, just like that American Dream, it doesn't really exist and is just an illusion (and by which saying, I in no way mean to sound cynical. I'm not saying, for instance, that True Love doesn't exist -- if you know me, you know I'm one of the biggest romantics alive -- just that outdated facade of it.). In other words, it is further validation of the shifting perspective of our connection and friendship, and that any steps in that direction would not be based in reality; would be empty without substance -- It was the importance of seeing the relationship, whatever that is, for what it is rather than projecting dreams and desires upon it.
It also reminded me of something I'd heard toward the beginning of the year in the weekly Sacred Pipe Circle I attend. The leader of the circle was talking about manifesting what we want in our life. She said that when something appears, to try it on like a piece of clothing to see if it fits. I piped up (Hee-hee! Pun intended.), asking, "If it doesn't totally fit, can we have it tailored?" She looked back at me, intensely in the eye, and replied, "No! No tailoring! If it doesn't fit correctly, it's not yours and there's a better fitting garment coming along."
That really struck me as I thought of how many times I've settled for things that were close to what I'd wanted to manifest but needed some tweeking to really make it fit. The thing is that they never really did -- especially in the area of romance. And I've learned that when things come along that are close to but not completely my desired outcome, it is usually a stepping stone toward that desire. The missing components are there to tell me that this is not the end result, while the parts that do fit let me know that I'm heading in the right direction -- kind of in the way a chef may keep sampling the meal being prepared, and adding ingredients needed as the dish nears the peak of yumminess. It is the chance to really raise the bar and fine tune my vision, as well as to assure me that these things really do exist and I do deserve them. I can taste them.
So I embrace both relationships for what they are, honoring and honored by the presence of these two dear souls in my life. And I shift my vision toward dreams of farm houses, Deloreans, and that one precious soul I have yet to meet...
I was watching a friend's house while she was away. Of course the dream house was nothing like her 'real' house, which was evident as I walked through the gate of the white picket fence to head up the front walk to her door. Before I could reach the house, though, a boxer with its tongue hanging out came bursting out the screen door and excitedly bouncing up the path to me. "Uh-oh! You're not suppose to be out here!" I said, greeting her with a scratch behind the ears. "C'mon!" I said with a tilt of my head as I started back for the door, and she happily, and bouncily, followed. Once inside I greeted the other canine denizen of the household, a very low-key basset hound, who greeted me back with a doggy smile and a wagging tail.
After spending time on the floor scritching, scratching, and playing with these two extremes of dog-hood, I went on a walk-through of the house to make sure everything was alright. It wasn't. When I got to the basement, I found it totally flooded, the water apparently running down from my friend's mother's room upstairs (My friend's mom does not live with her in ordinary reality).
--There was a little more to the dream after that, but this is where my clearer memories ended. So what does it all mean? The following is how I interpreted it...
To start with, Dog medicine is about Loyalty, representing family and relationships, as in those of my personal pack -- those I consider family whether blood-related or not. The temperament of these two canines suggested a couple of my closest friends, one who is very bouncy and very in touch with her inner puppy, whose excitement and playfulness will not allow her to be contained in any box you may try to put her in, and the other who is quieter and more shy -- the basset actually representing the person whose house this was in the dream.
The water in the basement, aside from its obvious connotations of the emotional realms, instantly reminded me of the Tower card in the Tarot, where the water is rushing against the tower, eroding its foundation and threatening to tear it down. However, in a reading I had by a friend in which the Tower appeared, she pointed out to me that the water that was shaking up and changing the tower was also the same water that would carry the tower down-stream to its new location -- to where it belonged.
In the dream I take this to mean that our relationships are changing and shifting. Indeed, there had been events that had happened prior to the dream in both friendships where I felt disappointed or let down, but which allowed me to claim back some of my own power that I'd been giving away to them. Things had definitely shifted in a way which lessened what could be classified as areas of co-dependency, making me feel more independent and able to perceive both relationships from a different, more self-empowered perspective -- and still feel the strength of our connections.
It took a while for another significance of the dream to light on my consciousness. As I was recounting the dream to another friend, some time after I'd had it, it suddenly occurred to me... white picket fence -- Oh my gods, it was the 'American Dream' -- True Love, happily ever after, and all that! I also realized it was someone else's ideal -- had it been my own, it would have been a farm house or cabin surrounded by woods (with a Delorean parked out front).
Now there has been a spectrum of emotions between my friend and I, that we've been having to sort out pretty much since the day we met, and I can't deny a certain spark existing on both our parts. But there are also reasons, spark or not, that going in specific directions would not be in anyone's best interest. And that's what I think the picket fence symbolizes -- Sometimes as much as we may think we know what we want things to look like, just like that American Dream, it doesn't really exist and is just an illusion (and by which saying, I in no way mean to sound cynical. I'm not saying, for instance, that True Love doesn't exist -- if you know me, you know I'm one of the biggest romantics alive -- just that outdated facade of it.). In other words, it is further validation of the shifting perspective of our connection and friendship, and that any steps in that direction would not be based in reality; would be empty without substance -- It was the importance of seeing the relationship, whatever that is, for what it is rather than projecting dreams and desires upon it.
It also reminded me of something I'd heard toward the beginning of the year in the weekly Sacred Pipe Circle I attend. The leader of the circle was talking about manifesting what we want in our life. She said that when something appears, to try it on like a piece of clothing to see if it fits. I piped up (Hee-hee! Pun intended.), asking, "If it doesn't totally fit, can we have it tailored?" She looked back at me, intensely in the eye, and replied, "No! No tailoring! If it doesn't fit correctly, it's not yours and there's a better fitting garment coming along."
That really struck me as I thought of how many times I've settled for things that were close to what I'd wanted to manifest but needed some tweeking to really make it fit. The thing is that they never really did -- especially in the area of romance. And I've learned that when things come along that are close to but not completely my desired outcome, it is usually a stepping stone toward that desire. The missing components are there to tell me that this is not the end result, while the parts that do fit let me know that I'm heading in the right direction -- kind of in the way a chef may keep sampling the meal being prepared, and adding ingredients needed as the dish nears the peak of yumminess. It is the chance to really raise the bar and fine tune my vision, as well as to assure me that these things really do exist and I do deserve them. I can taste them.
So I embrace both relationships for what they are, honoring and honored by the presence of these two dear souls in my life. And I shift my vision toward dreams of farm houses, Deloreans, and that one precious soul I have yet to meet...
Saturday, May 11, 2013
A Horse of a Different Color
Recently a friend told me about a friend of hers who had just bought a filly who was only a day or two old. She asked me to 'check in' with the foal to see how she was doing because no one was sure if she was actually going to live very long. So on my afternoon break I tuned in to this baby horse to see what her story was, and the story she told me was totally unexpected.
The very first thing I felt from her was that she hadn't made up her mind whether she was staying or not. This totally synced with what my friend, and her friend, were picking up from the filly. Phew! As long, and as much as I do this kind of work, I always appreciate the little validating feedback I receive just to corroborate that I'm on the right track. Of course this was not all there was to the story...
As I continued to connect with her, this foal deepened her background by sending me pictures of her former life -- another incarnation as a horse, only a horse from millions of years ago. She at one time had been an Eohippus ("Dawn Horse") or similar horse ancestor, which was very much smaller in stature -- Eohippus, or Hyracotherium as it's been reclassified, stood only 10-20 inches at the shoulder.
She 'told' me that this life had been originally intended as a brief nostalgic trip. She really just wanted to smell the air again and feel the earth beneath her, and not from much higher than her former form, before leaving again. Still she was indecisive because she was intrigued, and a little intimidated, by the power and size of her descendants she was now among, and she was considering sticking around to experience what that would be like.
Holy crap! Not what I expected!
What I didn't know until after this exchange was that this filly was the daughter of a pair of draft horses and was big, 200 pounds, when she was born. Apparently, because of her size she was unable to unfold her legs or get much movement in the womb, so when she was born, her front legs were still bent up and she'd been unable to straighten them. When I heard this a chill ran up my spine. What better way to keep your view close to the ground than to be born under circumstances that kept your legs bent up?
On a side note, another trait of this particular foal is that she is a "Medicine Hat Horse." A Medicine Hat horse is primarily white with a colored patch covering its ears and the top of its head, and through Native American lore these horses are said to be very special with magickal abilities. If she does decide to stay, I am eager to see what kind of magick might follow her around.
Last night I found out that one of her legs had straightened out, so my friend's friend had braced the other one, enabling the young equine to take her first steps. I could almost hear her saying to herself, "Okay. Let's see what this baby can do!"
So we'll see what she decides, to stay or to go. Personally I hope she sticks around, at least long enough for me to meet her in the flesh. But even if she doesn't, I am so grateful for this encounter and the insights it's afforded me. Thank you little one, and my best wishes for you for greener pastures on whatever plane you decide to roam.
The very first thing I felt from her was that she hadn't made up her mind whether she was staying or not. This totally synced with what my friend, and her friend, were picking up from the filly. Phew! As long, and as much as I do this kind of work, I always appreciate the little validating feedback I receive just to corroborate that I'm on the right track. Of course this was not all there was to the story...
As I continued to connect with her, this foal deepened her background by sending me pictures of her former life -- another incarnation as a horse, only a horse from millions of years ago. She at one time had been an Eohippus ("Dawn Horse") or similar horse ancestor, which was very much smaller in stature -- Eohippus, or Hyracotherium as it's been reclassified, stood only 10-20 inches at the shoulder.
She 'told' me that this life had been originally intended as a brief nostalgic trip. She really just wanted to smell the air again and feel the earth beneath her, and not from much higher than her former form, before leaving again. Still she was indecisive because she was intrigued, and a little intimidated, by the power and size of her descendants she was now among, and she was considering sticking around to experience what that would be like.
Holy crap! Not what I expected!
What I didn't know until after this exchange was that this filly was the daughter of a pair of draft horses and was big, 200 pounds, when she was born. Apparently, because of her size she was unable to unfold her legs or get much movement in the womb, so when she was born, her front legs were still bent up and she'd been unable to straighten them. When I heard this a chill ran up my spine. What better way to keep your view close to the ground than to be born under circumstances that kept your legs bent up?
On a side note, another trait of this particular foal is that she is a "Medicine Hat Horse." A Medicine Hat horse is primarily white with a colored patch covering its ears and the top of its head, and through Native American lore these horses are said to be very special with magickal abilities. If she does decide to stay, I am eager to see what kind of magick might follow her around.
Last night I found out that one of her legs had straightened out, so my friend's friend had braced the other one, enabling the young equine to take her first steps. I could almost hear her saying to herself, "Okay. Let's see what this baby can do!"
So we'll see what she decides, to stay or to go. Personally I hope she sticks around, at least long enough for me to meet her in the flesh. But even if she doesn't, I am so grateful for this encounter and the insights it's afforded me. Thank you little one, and my best wishes for you for greener pastures on whatever plane you decide to roam.
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