Subversion in the School

I went to a very Christian girls school. It was a boarding school, although I didn't board. One of the most important things in a school like this was keeping us girls safe and away from boys. It was for parents to decide which boys were suitable, not the school. The school also had to think about men, a school full of sequestered teenage girls is many a mans fantasy and some of those girls were very hormonal and men might not have safe from them....

Not surprisingly, there were not too many male members of staff. Those that there were tended to be very respectable married men. Except one. Well i am sure he would have been married if it had been legal back then.... He had a long term partner and the school turned a very Christian blind eye. After all, us girls were definitely safe with him.

I have a handful of vague memories. I so wish my memory was better.... He leant me a book once and I remember when I gave it back to him he asked me what I thought. I have a vague memory of being non-committal in that annoying teenage way. I don't think he ever leant me a book again but it didn't matter.

The thing is, teenagers often are too embarassed of emotion, of adults to be entirely honest with their thoughts and feelings. Sometimes they don't work them out until later and then the moment is gone.

The author of that book is still one of my favourite, a couple of decades later... And I wish I could tell him. But he and his partner bought a bar somewhere exotic......

Thing is though, he saw something in me to lend me that book. Sheri S. Tepper is an author whose books are often feminist and political in nature. She uses fantasy to really dig at humanity and see what lies underneath. When you worked in such a school, to lend such a book to a pupil.... Me, not a different one. He saw a seed in me and I would like to think it grew. I have no idea what he would make of my pagan faith.

So many teachers had an impact on me, often in tiny ways. Some affected me without me ever being able to recall why and what. But sometimes the tiniest things have the biggest echoes down through time - like a book - that authors thoughts have surely helped shape my own.

Cotton Wool Cloud

I feel like wrapping myself in cotton wool, in a giant warm duvet. I guess the land felt the same way today because it did that too. Thick cotton wool. All day.

Fog forms in so many different ways it seems and I don't really have a clue why it formed here today. Maybe the land was warm and moist and a cold air current passed over. Maybe there was a cold front and a big warm front came and sat on top of it. With all the sea and ocean and wind currents that meet over these islands of mine.....

But it covered the entire South West. A driver who came in today said it was thick all the way down from Bristol to us here in Cornwall. This is a major fog and it did not shift at all.

Cotton wool. A giant duvet.

It didn't help us feel better for being back at work. but then I guess we were not going to be happy. Flat.

I feel tired and drained and I can not wait for my upcoming week off.

In other news: I discovered that painting silk on plastic previously used as a backdrop for acrylic painting is not such a good idea... And the Little Princess is not coming back to work and I have yet to decide how I feel about that. To be honest I don't think I feel an awful lot.... Relief maybe. More processing to be done perhaps or maybe I already did so much processing over her, that I am already there. Feelings in cotton wool to maybe?

Hibernate

The desire to snuggle under a warm duvet and do nothing is strong right now. To disappear into that wierd limbo of wakeful nothing ness. To drift. The stock pot caught me yesterday, those bubbles held my gaze and freed my mind, to go, nowhere, to do, nothing.

I feel tired and drained but happily so. Spent. Not sure what it was that I did to get that way. Thing is, a lot of people have been feeling like that this Solstice, and not just those in bloggy land either. On Boxing Day i was talking to the f m-i-l and she said that she hadn't had the energy for it this year and so many others she had spoken to hadn't either. And I bet you, she has spoken to a LOT of other people....

So not just bloggy or pagany circles.... This draining of energy seems to have affected a lot of people.

Part of me wants to link it to the Solstice. To the strange energy that abounded, an energy that wasn't somehow a useful energy to do anything. I would love to have not been at work on the Solstice. Feeling odd, I tried to ground at work and this normally takes a few seconds with shut eyes at my desk. As I opened my eyes that time though, I felt almost drunk.

So why am I spent? Spent implies having done something, put some energy towards some cause. Maybe i did, maybe we all did. Maybe all that energy, so many contributed, has gone and done something. Maybe the world changed that day....

The last time we had a full lunar eclipse apparently was 1638. I looked up 1638 on wikipedia and it is full of wars being won, cities being founded by immigrants, treaties being signed and a giant thunderstorm where a ball of lightning hit a church where a service was underway.... And what of 1639, after the solstice? A lot less.... founding more places, explorers find a canal connecting the orinoco and amazon basins, the first printing press in North America is begun... all generally more peaceful, except for relations between England and Scotland where war breaks out and also for the Russian Cossacks.....

No clues there then, what the underlying change of energy caused by the eclipse will be....

Frost Moon Retrospective

I shan't post my new Full Moon Dreamboard until I get round to scanning it in but last month I really enjoyed looking at my Full Moon Dreamboard with the power of hindsight.

So here it is again. To look at it, go here.

It always felt like a strong and rich dreamboard but it is so obvious to see what it was talking about now. Dreaming. I have begun and I have discovered, although there is so much more of both to do. The rejuvenation and blessing of the figure on the ground, yes I think I have received both this month. The ruins, well I think they are about a exploring a rich and varied past heritage, all that you are, interesting places with treasures hiding under each rock, maybe, depending what you call treasure...

In contrast the lights on the water feel sort of dreamy, sort of drifting with their own paths. A happy image. And the peacock - the dream dictionary says new growth, love, success....

I think this last month has been a good and happy one - tiring towards the end but I am left with a feeling of hope and happiness that sings in my heart.....

To see other dreamboards with Jamie Ridler - go here.

The Sun Rising

I awoke this morning with the moon on my face. Shining through the slit in our curtain, she was full and bold and beautiful. F and I snuggled before getting up and I hurried through my morning routine so I could leave early.

I drove to the nearby big hill and walked to the top. No moon anywhere.... i chose big hill because I knew the moon would be setting shortly after it reached full eclipse. From big hill I should hav been able to see it slip in to the sea.


The early morning was soft and gentle looking, full of pastel hues and a flowing mist clinging here and there. Ice hid in hollows at the bottom of the hill, but it got bolder with height. The sky promised to be blue with little white fluffy clouds. But the clouds and mist were hugging the horizon out to sea and I knew I would not see the moon again this morning.

But there was still the sun to rise and after all, the winter solstice is all about the sun. Just watching it felt like an act of worship. The sense of peace buoyed me through the day and left me contented. And then as I drove home, there was the moon, low to the horizon, full and beautiful and renewed again.


I could talk more about today and I probably will, but not now. The strange energy of the day needs to be digested a little first....

Soul Fish

As I drove home tonight, I asked myself if I wanted to play WoW and the answer came back no.

I went to the shops, bought a lovely turkey crown for the weekend and some other bits and then I came home and did all the things I needed to do. Caught up on things in the online world and then I painted.

And this is what came out.

So what do fish mean to me?

Not sure exactly but I have always liked them. I tried to keep some once upon a time but it was not a successful venture..... I used to have a lovely mobile of fish made from paper, painted in bright colours. They didn't survive a house move......

Fish are ideas, life, swimming around. A dream dictionary suggests that to see them swimming has to do with insights into the unconscious mind. Having read my dream book, it describes the unconscious mind as the part of us that filters messages from our higher self so we can understand them but it dresses them in our personal symbology.

My fish are swimming down. They are going deeper, further in. And the little baby fish? Some new aspect of myself, something growing and developing. The fish are happy.

I painted the background from colours chosen at random and then picked yellow and started painting lines which ended up sort of looking like a fish. A big yellow fish later and there was an empty spot in it's middle which didn't want to be pattern or anything and suddenly yelled that it was a little fish....

So what would a big fish take a little fish down for? Food probably.... Sustenance. Soul food. Some new part of myself needs to grow and this is the message it wanted to get to me....

No Such Thing as a Free Lunch

Our weather here is odd. Those Moors at Bodmin somehow separate us from the weather of the rest of the country. The UK is full of snow, a foot, two foot, more in Scotland probably. Cornwall, the west anyway, is snow free. Whenever it snows it gets warmer and it melts and only partly settles. But it freezes. This morning the roads were covered in black ice. All melted by home time, leaving water everywhere to freeze again.

So this time of year is hard on the wildlife. I imagine in the rest of the country, they are really struggling. It is easier here I think but still tougher than they are used to.

Every day I observe magpies. I have a thing about them anyway. Each lunch time I sit in my car, talk to F, eat and read. And I watch them. They walk along the bank, hunting for food. They skulk around the smoking area (I can see them in my mirrors).

Very occasionally I give them some food. Last time I did, the cheeky bird took all of it, lining them up in his beak and then flew further up the bank and buried them, a little stash.... So I know my friends are well prepared but...

Today I was sat watching them. They were absent from the bank and then the pair of them swopped in. And the magpie sat on the bank next to my car and looked at me. And I knew what it wanted, I knew it was asking nicely, hoping. I knew it remembered and recognised me.

I had already eaten my bread but I had some coconut macaroons and threw out a few chunks for them. And with that, I feel as if I have struck some sort of bargain with them. I have agreed to help them survive this hard, hard winter.

I have no idea if the magpie sees me as a free meal, if it sees me as a friend, but I don't think it is scared of me. It sits within a few feet now although it's mate is less bold. I remember reading that if a magpie looks you in the eye it means they respect you. I also remember reading that magpies are the only bird that passes the mirror test, they recognise themselves and know the world is reversed. They are very, very clever. The cleverest of birds.....

And they got me sussed.

(my titles always come to me and on the whole I like them, that one came very quick and implies I get something from this feeding.... and I do, I get to watch these beautiful birds close up....)

Lucky Man

I am up way to early.

I know I will crash and burn.

But for now, I am listening to my body and I am up.

Last night I persuaded F to drive, so I drank and now my body is in that post alcohol, post caffeine, post some sort of food that it is possibly intolerant of. This often happens after a Chinese take away because of the Monosodium Glutamate they use. My heart races and I get hot and I sleep badly.

Last night was good, not because of the food and the drink but because of people. We do not exist a lone. We make connections, form community. Some times those connections reach out and anchor us, like a wall of vines. For some they trap, but I choose to be me and I choose to be here, so why should they trap?

At the beginning of the year we faced redundancies. I stayed, some went. One man, who had become stressed and ineffectiv, went. He was a lovely man, we all adored him. We missed his presence. He anchored my Boss to, which is one reason I think she disliked him. He made it impossible for her games to reach the heights they have this year.

I often talked of F and his work and how much better this new job had been for him. I knew, before he left, that my colleague would apply to the same organisation if he was one of the unlucky ones.

Looking at him last night though, it is clear that that happening, has for him been a lucky one. A nice lump sum from the old stressful job, that left him tired and drained at the end of each day. A new job, which leaves him unstressed and revitalized at the end of each day. New tricks such as cooking, a vital part of his new job, have shifted things for him at home too....

But the irregular hours mean more time for other things.... Older, needy relatives. Golf. Whatever makes his heart sing and more.

It will give me great delight to go to work on Monday and tell everyone exactly how great he is doing. Exactly how good all this has been for him. Exactly how much better and richer it has made his life.

I think, every single one of us, will sit there and wonder, who exactly were the lucky ones...

The Journey

I had a dream last night. Well I had several dreams as I do most nights but there was one tiny little section, whose meaning was so clear I want to write about here right now before I go to work.

I was on a train with a handful of other people. We were all going somewhere lovely but we had to keep making stops or detours for the different people on the train.

It was kind of obvious to me that this was an observation on life.

I might be ready to get to a new destination where the journey will be different, maybe on foot through forests or by kayak across beautiful lakes but it isn't just about me. I carry with me a group of people, linked by blood, friendship and karma. Some life changes are so huge they take all those with you there to. Winning the lottery would be one of those changes. It would take the train and all who ride on it somewhere new. They would miss their detours and stops.

I don't experience their detours and stops in the same way as they do - they are just delays on the train journey for me. Of course, i could get off the train, I could walk away from them all but that feels to me like an attempt to derail the train for a whole group of people. It wouldn't then get where it is going at all. I guess sometimes we just have to be patient and go through the dull times so that we can arrive with all our loved ones in the place that we belong together.

Would I like to go there alone? No, not really....

So what is in the way towards lottery millions? (*laugh* as if I have a clue where my journey is going, except that it is going) Well my sister has a hard life as a divorcee with two teens and an ex who contributes nothing, she is learning the lesson of living to a budget - one she is not doing to well with right now, one that is leaving her with debt and stress, one that a lottery win would whisk away and I would sooo love to do that! My folks are learning how to live with each other all over again now there is less work and few buffers between them. My Dad has had some issues with death since the loss of his Mother and has become besotted with dogs and gets sulky if my Mum won't let him keep to four.... My Mum has chronic health issues that sometimes it feels like my Dad just can't or won't really deal with or try and understand - waving cakes in front of a diabetics face, helpful? hmmmm, they may like the cake but short term gain, big not so short term pain.....

Then there are the friends that surround us who would benefit if a win was big enough - the friends who in the past year have set up an internet shop that is now big enough to support a real shop. The friends who are trying to move to a small holding but can not find buyers for their own house. The other friends whose relationship seems to be growing more distant....

A massive influx of money would change their lives too.....

So patience on the journey, the train will get there when it does... and I just know that this train is going to the country, taking us on a holiday.... somewhere nice and we are all going together...

Food

In the Summer, we love to sit out. It doesn't get dark until late so staying up past my bed time doesn't feel so tough. We went out a couple of nights and the last was a late one - particularly after the drive home. This has just left me feeling bleurgh. It upsets my sleep pattern, this being sociable. So not much been going on with me the rest of the weekend.

The food was beautiful on the second night. Nice but not outstanding on the first ( a huge lump of ginger is not a nice thing to find yourself chewing). The company consisted of old, close and valued friends on the first night - adopted family.... I knew none of the people on Friday, so although nice, it wasn't as comfy....

I also seem to have a strange thing wrong with my ankle. Most of the time it doesn't hurt and I can walk normally. Then all of a sudden, one step, no different to any other, weight goes down on my ankle and it kills.... but only when I have weight on it. I can walk on tip toe. So I am couch potato and a sleepy one at that.

Wow is still taking up time. I have slotted back in to my guild and my role play. My main character has been welcomed back with many hugs and her boyfriend is still there, waiting for her. But my heart is with a new character.... I even wrote a little introduction for her and then invited others to join in and that has been quite fun.

I am tired, I want to hibernate and hide away. I am so glad the holiday time off will start soon. I can't wait.....

Dream World

One nice benefit of playing WoW again is that I am spending more time with F. Our activities are in sync. I have spent most of the evening running around the virtual world with him and another friend and it was good.

What is surprising though, is how intense and tiring I am finding WoW. I guess this is why i burn out on it eventually. It is too much for me.... This is why I have to keep it in moderation....

So I am going to make a list of things I want to do over the weekend and I am going to do them and play some WoW too....

I may not write any posts the next couple of days, or play WoW either. The Christmas social whirl is beginning and I am looking forward to having some fun with friends! As well as some good food.....

I am still dreaming, still writing them down, although my memory frustrates me. I am planning on doing a mass analysis of them this weekend and see what I get. I am really interested in the one where I go to another planet with someone, in order to cover myself in clay that gives me super powers including the ability to fly..... *grin*

Don't you just love dreams? The crazy, crazy things the mind comes up with..... No sign of lucidity though but then I am not sure I feel entirely comfortable with that idea yet. I am happy getting to know my dream landscape a bit more before I try to consciously navigate it. Maybe I am a bit scared by it.... or not scared, daunted.

Why do we teach kids to stop dreaming?

Life......

I didn't sleep well last night. I woke in the middle of the night to find Little Dog squeezed right up between us. And she was very, very hot. Not surprisingly, so was I. And then I was very awake too.

I hadn't gotten to sleep last night at quite the right time either. So this morning I was awoken by my alarm, rather than awaking at the end of a sleep cycle. So I felt kinda blurry....

Then my car was frozen on the inside.

Then I got to the shop only to have my card refused. It's seems my account got an upgrade and they sent out a card that I never received but also, fortunately, never got used. So now I have to wait for a new card to arrive. F, the darling has agreed to lend me some money....

So I was late to work. Work was OK and I got home and played World of Warcraft for the first time in months which was nice, but odd..... My old guild never closed the door but people move on, form new links, you turn up again, where do you fit? It takes time....

In the past I would play every hour I could of every day. I do not want to go back there. I really do not. After a few hours I found myself feeling tired and my enjoyment had waned a lot, so I walked away. I am determined to keep that ability.

I wasn't in the mood for threading stars anyway!

Sleep Tight

I have a troublesome history with sleep. Having had glandular fever at 14 and then a recurrence at 19 which turned into Chronic Fatigue Syndrome or ME or whatever you wish to call it, I have spent a lot of my life asleep. I think I missed out on things when I was younger because I slept but then again, maybe sleeping stopped me from experiencing way too much! I partied hard, despite being ill, imagine if I had not had to sleep sooo much....

When I first met F, nearly eight years ago, I still needed the occasional nap at weekends or when I got home from work. I was probably still sleeping ten hours a day and that had gone considerably - there was a point when I was only awake for ten hours a day. It has been slow progress but I have been getting there. I rarely nap now and my sleep was down to a maximum of nine hours a night.

Thing is, you read about sleep and you soon come across the apparent fact that too much sleep is as bad for you as not enough. And I was still having too much really. Sometimes if I was feeling enthusiastic about stuff, I would go through a phase of waking up earlier - maybe at six but it would not last. Before long my sleep would be drawn out with a foggy, snoozy bit that didn't leave me feeling good really.

Something in my sleep has changed though, with this onset of dreaming. Apparently we have sleep cycles. Each cycle is approximately one and a half hours long and ends with a period REM (Rapid Eye Movement) sleep during which we dream. Becoming more conscious of my dreams has resulted in the end of my sleep coming much more cleanly. That last sleep cycle comes along, I dream, the dream ends and I wake, straight from the dream. No half hearted attempt at another sleep cycle which ends badly.... You see, to feel rested you need to wake at the end of a sleep cycle, and being conscious of my dreams helps me do this....

The time I wake varies but I can see it is a pretty constant amount of time from when I actually managed to fall asleep. Before I used to fill the available amount of time with sleep.... The only thing that would wake me except for the alarm was the sun... Dreaming is helping me to learn how to sleep in a more healthy way, and that I never expected. I feel better and happier for it to. Who would have expected that the final piece of the answer to my long term sleep issues would be dreaming?

The End

You know what it's like when something that has taken up an awful lot of time comes to an end. You are half relieved, half sad. What do you do with your time now? The more intense the experience, the more tricky it is when it suddenly all comes to a stop.

I remember when I finished my degree. I had had four years of intense experience. I had a year out in the middle - I had an abscess that had to come out and that set me too behind to continue my final year. But I worked and one of those jobs was at the College and the other turned into the basis of one of my final year projects. So my studies were never far behind me.

All that effort and work. I got a first. I won a prize. But it was a very odd experience, finishing. It suddenly didn't mean much. It still doesn't feel like much, although I am proud of it, I do wonder what it was all for, all that work. My graduation day was a strange empty day. It took me by surprise.

I loved my studies, i found them so interesting. Not sure I would have worked quite so hard, been so ruthlessly dedicated if I had realised how little that title of first would mean in the end.

I made myself ill in my final year. I became quite depressed. I started to gain weight and that hasn't really stopped. OK, so some of that was due to giving up smoking but....

But once I stopped studying, I realised there was little else left. All my hobbies had gone....

BIG only lasted six weeks but it was a pretty intense six weeks. Getting through all the exercises, all that paint! Then there was the tribe itself - a bunch of amazing women. Although our NING site is still operating for the moment, the amount of activity has dropped, not quite to nothing, but close.... Some days at the height I would have 100 fearless emails awaiting me, notifying me of new comments and other things going on....

So here I am now and I have my life back and normality can reassert itself. I put away all my paintings today. I am going to let them rest a little. Then I shall come back to them maybe, see which ones I like, which ones I feel like doing something else with, which ones ight end up on a wall.... maybe....

Apart from my Christmas Creativity - which I needed to do anyway - I need to get back to using my Wii Fit. What shape do I want my life to take now? A new beginning - or is that BIGinning?

Day 5 and Seeing Stars....

I was inspired by Rowenna's glittery stars and I thought some would look nice dangling from some strig hanging from our mantlepiece. I soon found some pre-cut stars upstairs in my craft stash. I had forgotten all about them.

We have a shop down here called Trago Millsand they buy bankrupt stock etc from all over the place. Some of their stock is so ancient, while other stuff is so new.... You never know what you are going to find. One time they had some little plastic draw units stuffed full of random craft stuff. They were going pretty cheap so I got one even though I had no idea what was in it...

It was jam packed with card kits, stickers, glitter, a big jar of embossing powder, brads, finishing bits... endless things.... and some little packs of pre-cut shapes that never ever inspired me. So I had never touched them. So I had a pack of maybe a hundred stars, with one side white and the other green, blue, pink, yellow or lilac.

I began by paitning them all with irridescent paint on both sides. Then I painted some of them with interference paint in blue, green or violet on both sides. Then I used my glue pen and started sprinkling glitter..... silver, blue and white.... Then I started punching little holes for white cotton. I have a length of silver stuff for them to dangle off. I had planned to do all this today but to be honest, I have gotten a bit bored! Time to have a break and do something else for a bit.....

I had hoped for a complete project each day but I don't think that is so very likely!

BIG Roundup

Six weeks of BIG creativity! In no particular order.... I don't think this gives away Connie's material. Hope you enjoy them!

Christmas Creativity Catchup

OK, I found my lead so here we have some very, very bad pictures of my creativity.

Day 2

Firstly we have the bracelet I finished off for my Mum. Hex beads in purple, green and blue in a herringbone pattern. I bought a hammered silver catch which needed sewing on.



Next we have millefiori beads, three for each earring, each placed on a headpin - although some of the heads were chopped off and turned into hooks instead. I had a whole string of these beads and they are all sorts of colours so although I tried to select beads that match, the two earrings are different....


Day 3

Five spherical labradorite beads separated by silver matte double delicas. I used thread for these so at the bottom there are three tiny silver matte delicas forming a picot.



Day 4

A very simple pair the beads are amber glass with a band of gold and silver foil. They are threaded on head pins with little silver spherical beads.

Going DEEPer?

BIG has been fantastic, it really has. Connie's material is amazing and the group of women I have found myself with are incredible. There is sooo much good feeling and wonderfulness floating around. Connie's further packages sound awesome. The Tribe for a month with a huge resource backlog to enjoy and DEEP an inspiring continuation of BIG, developing our individual FEARLESS voices as artists.

Except...

A little voice is whispering to me and it is saying no.

DEEP is probably very good value for money but it is hugely expensive in real terms. I could afford it for January. I could. If I scrimped over Christmas and my family and food.... I could if I was prepared to be pretty damn poor for the next two months. It might even be that some nice member of my family might give me the means to pay for it as a Christmas present.

But... if that much money fell in to my life right now, would DEEP be the best thing I could spend it on? A new laptop. The tools for making rag rugs. A new wardrobe system so we can stop storing clothes in plastic bags.

I have learnt that I need to focus on one maybe two things at a time. Working means I just don't have the time and energy for more than that. I have spent the last six weeks painting my little heart out. It has been great and I have learnt a lot, it has opened doors inside of me. But is this the path I want to follow further, to the exclusion of other things?

No, not right now. Maybe later. Maybe if I win the lottery and have lots of money and time. Maybe at some other time it will call to me.

What astounds me is that my horoscope for today was talking about having been frivolous with money and how this was a mistake and I needed to see about reversing some of those financial indiscretions. I was stumped for a moment until I remembered the financial indiscretion I was being tempted to make and in that moment it confirmed to me that my answer should be no. But no never has to be final.

I may do DEEP later in the year, but January is not the time for me, unless things change....

If Excuses were Little Dogs

Another pair of earrings tonight for day 3 of the Christmas challenge... and still no cord.

Part of this is the fault of Little Dog. I need to sort through the assorted hobby stuff by the sofa where I sit. I slouch there covered in duvet and the duvet tends to drape itself generously on the floor next to the sofa. And tonight, for the first time in weeks, Little Dog came and joined me.

Before the fireworks she would come snooze on my legs every evening. Then when I went to bed, she would go and sleep on the duvet on the floor in the room where F plays on the pc. She likes to share herself between the pair of us. Then when F comes to bed, she comes to and snuggles up with us. Well unless F is taking too long, then she comes to bed early.

But the fireworks terrify her and she goes and hides. And then for weeks after, she hides, waiting for them to come back again. At about 9ish she decides it is past time and she comes out of hiding and slinks off somewhere to sleep, normally under the stairs, where she has one of those big plastic beds, full of old wooly blankets. Under the stairs is safe from draughts and right opposite a radiator and a very good place for a snooze.

So tonight, F and I got a Chinese and we ate together and there was no spare room on the sofa but she decided to come and join us anyway. She flopped on the overflowing duvet, and when F left to play on the pc, she never left. And after so many weeks, I was not willing to move and risk having her leave.

Luckily, I keep various things next to the sofa, including my lap tray with beading things on it but I wasn't prepared to rifle through it all again to try and find the cord. So how's that for an excuse for no photos? *laugh*

I will find the cord tomorrow and post catchup photos.

Todays earrings are made using spherical labradorite beads with matte silver grey double delicas inbetween threaded onto some silver coloured thread attahced to the ear wires via a wire guardian. Oh and at the other end of the drop are three little delicas in a picot to hold all the beads on.

Soooo tomorrow..... Sleep well and dream happily.

Snippets

OK - so I finished off the bracelet for my Mum. I sewed on the clasp and finished all the knots. Then I figured I had time for a pair of earrings - three square millefori beads threaded onto head pins with added hooks and dangled from ear wires. I even took photos. But the cable has vanished - and I only had it last night and it was right here! So creativity photo catch up tomorrow - or the weekend if the cable still won't give itself up!

Unfortunately I am out of time - my bed calls. My only remaining decision, given that F is not working over night, tonight, is whether or not hot water bottles would be too much with him in the bed as well. They were soooo lovely last night. Socks to protect me from the lovely stone one by my feet and Oswald the cuddly croc protecting me from the second one and snuggling me all night long.

I didn't really remember my dreams from last night - no drama, no big messages. A peaceful night. A small snippet that was heavily influenced by the TV show Fringe and featured two schoolgirls is about all I awoke with. More along the theme of shadows with a sprinkling of duality? Not enough to do anything with really.... Let's see what dreams come tonight!

BIG is progressing. The background to my last painting during BIG is done. I added some details tonight - then the phone went. Tomorrow night I have some details to add over the top. Then I might scrawl with my pastels and then the final finishing touches.... I have learnt soooo much about paint by playing within BIG.

I am looking forward to reclaiming the space my BIG painting has been occupying because this is where I shall put the tree at the weekend. Always a fun job!

Anyway, I am sat here yawning my head off! Night night, sleep tight, don't let the bed bugs bite!

The First Day of Christmas Creativity

I signed up for Rowena's 25 Days of Creativity for Christmas and I found myself a little short of time tonight... I just had to pick up the paint brush and slap some readymix around for BIG! This weeks painting is now drying because I want to add further layers as the week progresses.

I have a bracelet I was going to finish - put the catch on and sort the threads but my niece called for a chat. Instead I made one of the pairs of earrings I have planned for my Sister. They took about five minutes...

My camera is awful at close up photo's but these earrings are made using two large black beads with silver scribbles on them. They have been placed on head pins with a small spherical silver bead at each end. I used my round nosed pliers to make a hook at the end and connected the head pins to the ear wires with a split ring.

Expect to see more earrings on evenings when I do not have time to do much else! My Sister asked for earrings and earrings she will get!

See the picture on my blog for a link to the challenge!

Dreaming the Shadow

Beware, this is likely to be a long one - full of pseudo psych babble and the like!

Last night I dreamt, this is no surprise, but those dreams disturbed me, a lot. In one I was keeping a dead man's body in my washing machine. In the other, a convalescing soldier nearly raped a school girl - sort of.... Not easy dreams. No way I was not going to analyse them, you get dreams meant to disturb you like that for a reason....

The message form the first dream went as follows - Shadow killed with love. But parts of it have been kept. The memories are spoiling life a little but are being kept clean. Time to go further and remove them completely. Love can remove the majority but the root has to be attacked piece by piece and given a really hard time.

This refers to a very particular shadow I believe, that steaming back to my late teens and the older man who was a very recent ex. He raped me and as much as I have a normal relationship now and I have dealt with the flesh of that experience, some of the bones are lingering. Over a decade of hard work, nearly two and it is time...

The second and third are in many ways more interesting and less straight forward. They offer some intriguing insights into the way my head works and I love all this stuff. These two lead straight on from each other and this is how it goes....

There was a group of convalescing soldiers - the sort that have seen hard battle in defence of their land. A haggard, close - knit group, some a little crazy, all sorts of folk who have been to hell and back but would still fight to defend their country. The group got separated and in order to get back together, they played loud brass instruments (as bold as brass, *laugh*). One of them, a little more damaged, a little more crazy than the others decided to bomb a nasty old nurse's vegetable with a cannon ball.

Then the dream flipped to a group of girls, young, fresh-faced, naive, spirited. School-girls, maybe nurses. They slept at school, hospital, nursing school, whatever and one of them decided to be a little rebellious and try and smuggle some kittens in. This caused her to be separated from the group and she ended up escorting the crazy convalescing soldier along with Dr Gregory House, via horse drawn cart. Then she had premonitions of being in a place and the soldier trying to rape her and then the group was arriving in that place and he tried to rape her but House sedated him and I woke up....

So the meanings I took from these.... My shadow self has had a hard time protecting me. It is good at this, co-ordinated but unruly. My shadow was divided but was bold and is recovering but is focused on the wrong enemy, sees the self as the enemy. My feminine self is learning, young, healing but rebellious. My shadow, self and higher consciousness are moving slowly together. My self has knowledge and knows where she is. Shadow attacks self and is sedated by higher consciousness.

I find the way I am starting to understand how my mind portrays parts of itself as intriguing.... My shadow turned up once before and he was a nameless, faceless man. Now I have a whole group of nameless faceless men, shadows. My feminine archetypes are so naive, so protected. That nurse the soldiers saw as mean, nasty and old - oh she is a crone for sure.... And House, he is my Higher Consciousness - or an aspect of it...

This all kind of reminds me of something from many years ago. I used to have a real problem with anger. As a kid I went through a very unhappy time at school. I was young and my unhappiness showed itself as temper. I would lose control, see red. I hated it. I learnt not to feel anger, completely and utterly.

Then the bad things happened, destroyed my naive little view of the world, destroying the way my mind understood the world. I eventually had a nervous breakdown and from there I had to re-build how I saw everything, how I thought it all worked. Somewhere in this process, I started feeling anger, huge great bubbling bouts of it.

A friend helped me. We did an exercise where I spoke to my anger. It was astounding! My anger turned out to be a terribly sad aspect of myself. It had tried to defend me and being a child's anger, all it's understanding was that of a child's, it got things wrong, but it was always just trying to defend me, and I banished it, disowned it, hurt it and I had to welcome it back, to love it, this shadow of myself. Now my anger is that of an adult, with an adult's understanding....

My shadows, they are all like my anger, all parts of me that have only ever done their best to defend me. The disturbed and wounded soldiers. Having trouble with reality. Protecting me as best they know how - and let's face it, they are war veterans - what do they know of love? But they have the power to hurt me, to damage me through their lack of understanding, but never through lack of love, just lack of understanding and acceptance. They love me, I just have to love them back.

But it seems, one of my shadows is ruining some things for me, is getting out of control. My higher consciousness has sedated it to protect me, but sedation is only temporary. Some crazy shadow is going to come round and need dealing with, probably soon. And all those other shadows to, I need to own them, to love and accept them back as well. They are what is stopping me from having my perfect life, my BIG life, they are scared for me.

I analysed my dream first thing this morning and then had a shower. As i came back in to the lounge, there was some Simpsons clips showing. Smithers was being told to hug his shadow, and he did, he got down on the floor and hugged it... How appropriate - how right....

It also takes me back to a night of dreams last week - a hurt stray black dog that got eaten by a shark (my damaged shadow self?) and a buff coloured pup I had to defend as it was going to be killed because it would not hunt (my normal self - weak and lacking teeth). I guess if I had listened the first time, I might not have had to have had the far more disturbing dreams I received last night. I think there are a lot of lessons here..... Now I just have to figure out how to make friends with my shadows.....