Hanging in the Balance

So I am feeling quiet right now.  This happens every so often and this time of year is a point when it often does.  It is nearing my Birthday, my personal year end and year beginning and things are ending and beginning all around me.  A lot of the stories I just don't want to talk about yet because I don't have the ends, but other things I just don't seem to want to talk about.

Maybe there is just too much going on that I have not figured out exactly.  Maybe I just have too many feelings.  I woke up grumpy this morning, unable to get back to sleep at 6.30.  This is not to say life is bad... quite the opposite.  But I am avoiding people.  I am not leaving blog comments or comments on facebook or elsewhere that I should.  I am not returning my Mum's calls.

Maybe that's because they are moving out of my soul home sometime over the next couple of weeks and I just don't know what to say.
Maybe it's because my sister upset me when she was down and although everything is OK, the hurt remains a little and I don't want to have to tell my Mum what happened and have her try and mediate, because there is nothing to mediate.
Maybe it's because my dosage has been doubled and I don't want to have to analyse how I am doing to tell people where I am at yet, I don't know and I am taking each day as it comes.
Maybe it's because I am avoiding making some decisions about when and how to spend a lot of money visiting friends and there just won't be time to visit my folks in there too.
Maybe it's because I have not even discussed those visits with F yet.
Maybe it's because I have been having some really, really dark dreams which suggest that all the hard work I have done on myself over the years is not finished and because I have no idea how to resolve the next step.  But maybe the signs are that also, this is nearing the end of it....
Maybe it's because it's 2012 and the world feels like it's shifting under my feet a little, maybe I am scared of what might happen a little, I don't know, maybe I am scared nothing at all will happen....
Maybe despite my absolute joy over my friends newly announced pregnancy, maybe it just brings home to me that babies are still some way off for me, due to health, if they ever come at all...

But in that list, there is nothing I can not deal with and won't deal with, I am just very much in a lying low period.

On the good side however...

I went to an amazing drum circle.  Different circles have different energies and feelings, in part because of the different work you do at each circle.  There was a lot of new people at this one but it was also focusing on balance for the Equinox.  The feeling was absolutely blissful, with out being spacey, it was a really beautiful afternoon.  My journeys were nothing earth shattering, which is fine right now.  In fact my main journey repeated the journey I had for the Spring Equinox.  I danced through the elements and then danced into my Dragon.  The Dragon has been my totem for this year as it is my totem for Breaking Masks.  It was lovely, but it was not about me so much.  Maybe dancing the elements with my Dragon is something that should be done every Equinox, I am sure if it is, I shall find myself on this journey again.

We also did little journeys for someone else.  The person I worked with did not so much journey for me as do some healing on me, and it was lovely and I could feel it and I think I needed it more than a journey right now.  My journey for them, did not seem like much to me, but when I told them, it turned out to be a message they had been given before and it was greatly appreciated.

A friend at the circle is a felter and is going to show me how to felt.  While talking she told me about a Swan shawl she made with Swan feathers felted into it.  of course I want a corvid shawl now, and the Magpies have been really, really generous this week....

All my birds are doing fine, and I was most surprised when I looked up from my book the other day, to admire the flock of jackdaws, the Crows and the Magpies, to see a new comer....  I had my first Rook!  It is a like a little Corvid social party *laugh*  I have never seen a Rook in that area, so how it found it's way there I have no idea, maybe he heard from his Cousins.  I imagine he will be back, probably with friends.  What was surprising though was that even though it was his first time there with me sat only about two meters away, he took his cue from the others and was completely unphased by me

My hair has changed colour, from purple with neon purple splodges to blue black with violet and neon purple that makes it looke like it has an ultraviolet sheen.  I like it.  Next time I may have blue and green and look like a Magpie....

I am feeling better, but I am still waiting and I guess part of me is waiting for me to dip down again.  Things feel steadier this  time but all I can do is wait.

But something really, really amazing is in the process of coming my way, something I have been waiting for, for some time.  Something I am bursting with excitement over!  And I can't wait to bring that story together.... 

Life IS good

Greivances

I am kinda cross right now.  Two things yesterday pissed me off.

Firstly I heard from my Sister that the spouse of a second cousin told my niece that he did not think we were really family.  I have a theory about families and how they grow outwards, how you need to make or find your own because with time, you will slowly find yourself on the outside of your family. 

Our Dads were cousins, they were close and formed a good friendship which kept the family tie nice and strong.  For the offspring, the family tie is lessening, we have shared childhood memories but have gone on to make lives with include each other very rarely.  But we still have that shared common root and I for one have good memories.

The spouse always struck me as being arrogant and pompous but now I know so for sure.  I didn't think they overly liked us and had definately gotten the feeling they looked down on us.  Now I know for sur and that the ties between my branch of the family and my second cousins are being unravelled, in large part because of the spouse.  My sister and the second cousin have always been good friends although more recently they have seen little of each other.  They could have picked up that friendship anytime they liked but the presence of a disapproving spouse makes that unlikely...

It is interesting seeing this process in action because I can clearly see it embedded in my family tree everywhere I look.  I have a family album which shows how close my Great Gran was to all her siblings, even when they became older.  How close all the cousins were, but yet I do not know a single one of these offspring.  I have never met any of them.  My Dad has childhood memories of some of them.  But where they went, who survives, who had children is not known to us.

I have a female family friend who had two brothers.  Following an unsucessful marriage and no children she increasingly finds herself on the edge of things.  Her two siblings have had spouses and in one case a second spouse too.  They have children and grandchildren.  When there is a family occasion, making room in the house for their own offspring takes higher precedence than dedicating an entire room to their spinster sister.  Few people can afford houses with that many bedrooms!  She did not grow her own family.  She makes the most of mine though, but even that is getting more tricky as my parents get older.

Anyway, why would you say such a thing to a teenage girl who clearly believes she is family?

The second thing to annoy me is S.  I know teenagers take things like money for granted.  I know they can be selfish and thoughtless or annoying.  S's Mum and Dad were pretty bad with money when they were together and ran up a few debts.  Being the man, F's name went first and so when they split he got landed with them.  Ten years later and we are still paying it all off.  When we first got together we were also paying child support but as time has passed inflation has made these debts a little easier to bear.  But I never got any use of the fancy things I get to help pay for.

Well F pays for them, but of course F having no money affects me.  The first few years we were together, we were pretty poor and we still don't have a huge amount of money.  We both work and have alright jobs but not great jobs.  S's Mum and Stepdad clearly have more money than us and S is used to having the combined might of two sets of parents and two sets of grandparents.  He never goes without, not that he should have to, but he has far better gear than us and I don't think he even realises it!  But also because S lives with them, they get all the government assistance with things like tax credits.

So my sister is a single mum who receives no assistance from her ex and is only able to work part time and she is down here on holiday for a week.  F and I are only able to spend the bank holiday weekend with them and evenings after work but S is expecting to stay with them some nights.  He knows from last year that my Sister can not afford to pay for him or feed him.  He earned an awful lot of money the last few weeks and then went on a shopping trip and spent an awful lot of money. 

Last night he told us he didn't have much left and I am really cross.  We have paid for a couple of expensive days running aorund and have paid for everything for him which is fine but he has arranged to stay with my sister tonight and I have no idea who he is expecting to pay for him to go places.  My sister has National Trust membership so she and her kids can go places for free.  I think he is lying about how much money he has, hoping to hang on to it and not have to pay out for things.  As far as I am concerned if he is with my Sister he needs to pay for himself and if he can not then he can not go and stay with her.  He has seen them and had a couple of expensive days out and we can not afford to pay for him to do more.

Even just petrol is not cheap.  Just runnign him to and fro has probably cost us £20 before we even got to meet up with the others. 

But at the same time my own attitude makes me sad.  My parents still pay for me to do things and they even pay for F too sometimes.  They know we can not afford thigns and they have more money than we do and they wish to see us and help out.  I guess there is a huge difference between helping out and supporting a life of luxury and certainly they have always said no to us when they could not do things.  I also worked and paid for things myself.  If I arranged to go and do things with my friends I had to pay or ask them for money.  if they said no, I couldn't go....


Argh!!!!

Moon of Surrender Introduction

Surrender is all about going with the flow, not resisting, not fighting.  Wheelkeeper describes it as letting go of the emotional reactions, the reactions of our ego.  Surrendering is nowhere near the same as repressing though, repressing is unhealthy.  Of course we all have emotional reactions but the important thing is to do the work in understanding these reactions.  Looking at Fears, understanding why we are angry and so on....

This feels like a good Moon for me right now as I adjust to my changing body.  And things are changing.  The more I read the more I realise that all my health problems are related to my Thyroid and I have many years of problems to turn back through.  It started at 8 with Hydradenitus Surrativa, a skin condition I still have (possible cause of later thyroid problems).  Then at 12 I got strange pains in my joints that were diagnosed as Rheumatism, they went away in my late teens.  At 14 I got very ill and although tests never confirmed it was Glandular Fever it probably was.  Then at 19 I definately got Glandular Fever and it turned into Chronic Fatigue.  After I moved to Cornwall I developed Hayfever, IBS and dry eyes.  Shortly after giving up smoking I started to pile on weight, that no diet ever permanently shifted, in fact diets resulted in me putting on more weight in the long run.  Depression has haunted me through the years too, causing me to do so much work on myself that eventually I got to a place of contentment, when you know you have nothing else to be sad about you know how you feel is physical not mental....  And through all this there has been never-ending tiredness....

I don't think I had realised how tired I really felt.  The last few months when it got really bad and mucked up all my hormones too, I didn't have the nergy to even feel, I was just in a complete fog.  As this fog has lifted, all the other niggles have become evident.  My stomach now tells me when it feels full or when I have eaten badly I feel queasy.  I feel strange pains.  My head fog has lifted enough for me to be conscious of what remains, a headache that comes and goes.  My IBS has vanished completely.  My Rheumatism returned.  The clock is turning back for my body, but I am not daft enough to think that all that damage can go overnight.

I am making progress and this I am overjoyed at!  I hope to work with my Doctor to get my dosage right and experiment with drugs till I find the right cocktail. I am so thankful he decided to diagnose me.  But I do need to surrender to this process.  I can not rush it....

This has always been a tricky Moon for me.  First time round at the age of 8, I changed school.  I went from a mixed school to a girls school, state run to private run and I got bumped up a year by accident too.  It was really tough.  I had just started to realise I was a tomboy and started to find my place and now I was with a bunch of girls...  I was also with a group of girls who came from much richer homes than I did, many of whom were living away from home for the first time and dealing with things I could not imagine, comfy inmy secure family, going home every night.  These difficulties cause them to bond very closely in ways us few day girls could never match.  Then too, I had gone from being top of my class, to being bottom, being tested for Dyslexia and receiving extra tuition at break times....

Everything about me rebelled.  This was when my skin first started to erupt.  And other things erupted too.  I had so much anger and frustration inside me, and they came out.  The other girls would wind me up and I would lose it and hit out like a windmill with all my might.  Some girls would wind me up on purpose.  I hated it, hated losing control.  And of course it only made things worse, not better.

I learnt to ruthlessly control my anger, and along with it many of my other emotions too.  But Anger is such a positive and powerful thing in the right place.  It protects us and helps keep us safe.  With it comes our passion, our fire and they bring creativity.  In repressing my Anger, I lost so very much.  In later years a friend conducted an exercise with me where different seats in a room represented me, my anger and other times and feelings in such a way as I could talk with my anger.  It was very powerful and moving.  My anger was so sad.  It had been the anger of an eight year old and it had been trying to help as best it knew, trying to protect me.  This was a real turning point for me, late on in my second Year of Surrender.  It was probably the first bit of work that resulted in me returning a piece of my shattered soul to it's home.  It didn't happen overnight, it took time and work and persistence...

My second year of Surrender had begun very badly, or very well, depending on your view.  I collapsed under the strain of carrying my emotional pain and repression from the rape a year before and had a nervouse breakdown.  I had to break in order to get well I think, but my 21st birthday was horrid, a meal with  just my parents in a pub we never go to and have never been since, sat in a corner feeling retched.

Breaking allowed me to mend and I started to remake my world from scratch, looking at everything I thought and felt and deciding what to keep and looking for new material to fill the gaps.  I had counselling and I read and read.  On my return to the city I temped and eventually began a job where I met the lady who helped with my Anger.  I remember deciding that I did not want to let my experiences make me hard or cynical.  I guess this year was all about mending.

I had a lovely boyfriend at the time, who I will always be fond of.  I remember one counselling session released my anger, but of course I had no idea what to do with it!  And there was so much!  We had some chipped ornaments and broken things and my bf and I took them into the garden so I could smash them to pieces.  But I was still angry.  So we went upstairs and shouted and screamed at each other.  So convincing did we sound that a housemate watching TV in the extension to the house came up to our attic room to make sure we were not killing each other....

This year not only saved my life, but I had the opportunity to save someone else's.  One of my housemates tried to kill himself after a break up and I was the only one in the house at the time.  I think such a thing creates a powerful bond.  He has had a hard road, dealing with addiction and mental health issues, but he seems to have come out the other side, and he has a beautiful daughter now...

Last year was my third year of Surrender and to be honest it was pretty calm!  I first dreamed of being a Dreamer early on in the year and went on to connect with Lisa.  I took part in BIG, an e-course looking at intuitive painting.  Things began to settle a little for me at work.  The Little Princess left and my Boss started on the path of trying to repair the damage, mostly by blaming it all on the Little Princess and pretending it never happened - which is fine, society depends on these polite fictions!

Surrender for me last year, was all about reconnecting with the Universe, with the magic, with my place in things and who I truly am.  I quite like Surrender, but it really has not been easy for me over the years....

So this next month, I am just going to keep on keeping on.  Waiting and watching.  Onwards and upwards.

Up and Down

It's all kind of up and down right now.  Not knowing if these pills will work for me.  Not knowing how long it will take for them to work.  Not knowing to what degree of wellness they might help me get back too.  Not knowing which of my other conditions are linked...  Jus generally not knowing.... and waiting...

And to be honest I amscared to hope too much.  but I do.  I want to be fully healthy again, who wouldn't?

For now though the sun is shining and I have family to go and see.

Fat

I have gotten used to being judged.  People see Fatness and they decide it is your fault.  You eat too much.  You don't exercise.  You must be a little thick.  You must be looking for a boring sedentary life.  You get on well with people because you are a bit needy, not just because you have a good personality.  You are less attractive.

I remember on the odd occasion seeing some woman look at F and think, 'oh he's quite nice.' and then look at me and realise we are together and give that look of 'what on earth is he doing with you.'

It all happens.

But being fat has made me more confident.  Maybe I dealt with other peoples views and because I am in a different place and know they are wrong, they no longer have the power to hurt me.  I don't need to be attractive.  I don't need other people to fancy me.  I don't need other people to validate my intelligence.  I don't want a sedentary life but I am quite happy with what I have.  I began to understand it was not my fault I ate too much and didn't feel like exercising.  I no longer felt the need to try either.  Or to apologise for my lack of desire to try.

I knew that when I dieted, things went wrong, after a couple of weeks I was pretty much crippled.  I couldn't function enough to hold down my job without returning to the sugar.  It just was not possible.  And when you have just enough energy to do your job, where do you find more to go out running?  Recently I was talking to a health care professional and we got on to the subject ofmy weight and she asked if I had tried dieting and said they had vouchers if I was interested.  I said no and explained.  Many people see obesity as the result of a lack of personal care rather than a symptom and although she was good and professional, I could still feel that judgement, but it no longer bothered me at all.  I knew.

And I have learnt the hard way that dieting is counterproductive for me.  Having forced my metabolism to an even lower ebb by not eating as much until I am crippled by fatigue, when I do return to eating more I put on more weight which I can not lose.  Dieting for me results, overall, in weight gain.  It was bad for me, as a person and I knew it and no longer felt guilty.

OK so I didn't know WHY, but sometimes you just have to trust you are right and know.

Depression is linked to Underactive Thyroid as well, but I also think I have beaten this.  i am not saying I have not felt low over the last while, of course I have!  But I have learnt the difference between being sad and feeling physically low.  I have learnt how not to think myself into depression and how to think myself into being contented.  I believe contentment is a matter of focus, I like who I am and what I have and I appreciate and enjoy the world around me.  I try not to think too much about what I am not, what I don't have and awful the world is.  And when I do think about these things, because we all have to walk with our shadows I don't let them drag me down.  I know who and what I am and what my feelings and thoughts are and no matter how bad I feel, I am not unhappy.  And believe me I have suffered from depression in the past.  And F agrees that there was an invisible turning point when something changed inside me...

I think one or two people of the last few weeks, when I have been feeling so very bad have felt I was down due to the weather...  It will all seem better when the sun comes out.  Well somethings will be better!  But maybe not everything.

I think I have been ill for years.  The more I look at the symptoms the more likely it seems.  Not just the weight gain but sensitivity to the cold, lack of sweat, dry eyes and of course fatigue.  I have learnt how to conserve my energy for what I have to do and how to live with fatigue over a great many years.   I think there was a very small window between the end of my Glandular Fever and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and my Hypothyroidism.

I have had somewhat dry eyes for at least four years and badly dry eyes for at least two.  Shame Opticians are not Doctors, maybe I would have known sooner....  Probably not though as there is more than one hormone involved and the NHS tests are generic and do not necessarily show the specifics of the entire state of the Thyroid.  I am lucky I have an experienced and forward thinking Doctor, some people go a lot longer before being diagnosed.

but already this illness has taught me so much about myself and now I am ready to not be ill any more.  I can feel my energy levels increasing and that feeling of lowness has gone.  I got a bit carried away yesterday and did a bit too much, went a few too many places.  The energy is still fragile and I must not get carried away.  It will take a few weeks for my hormones to stabilise and then it may become clear that I need my dosage upped, so it may take months to stabilise me and give me the chance of the same energy levels as other people.  If it doesn't work out like that I am grateful for just this small increase in energy, it makes all the difference in the world!

And as to my weight?  Well not everyone loses weight when they start Thyroxine but it is possible I will just start to lose weight without having to think too much about it.  If it doesn't happen like that for me then I will need to work at it, but at least I will (hopefully) have no energy trap preventing from getting anywhere.  I am facing the possibility of not dieting but losing weight at best and at worst  having the opportunity to have diets actually work....

So from where I am sat I feel both grateful for the lessons I have learnt from this illness and the possibilities for my life to change for the better that treatment offers.  Life is looking good.

Introduction to Moon of Territoriality

My First Moon of Territoriality fell in my second year at Primary School.  I was not overly happy there.  I liked adults better because I just didn't somehow gel with the other kids.  I have since learnt that this is often a problem for overly intelligent children.  I remember getting on really well with one of the lunch attendants.  I remember the group games that used to get played in the school yard.  I remember not being able to skip very well.  I remember being fascinated by the grasshoppers singing in the grass bank of the middle playground.  I would stand there for ages and patiently catch them in my hands and then try and look at them without letting them hop away.  I never hurt them, I just wanted to look....

The Grasshopper would be a nice totem for me for this Moon, maybe some synchronicity will occur and let me know if it is the Grasshopper, or another totem will step up.  The Grasshopper is a totem for those who dance to their own tune, for visionaries, clairvoyants, artists, dancers and musicians - anyone who sees the world with child-like wonder and awe.  It brings us creative inspiration and giant leaps forward and a sense of adventure.  It is also a symbol of longevity and happiness and can be a messenger from the other side.  He reminds us to listen to our own intuition and those voices within that sing of beauty and creativity.  The Grasshopper grooves to his own tune.

Whether or not he is a totem for this month, he sure had a lot to teach my six year old self if I had known what he was saying....

Things moved on and at 19 I was in my first year at Uni, the first time round.   I was a little goth girl who seemed to get on with everyone and who seemed to have a way with the men.  Inside I was starting to fall to pieces though.  I found it increasingly hard to feel at ease with men.  That fear, once awakened was hard to dispel without alcohol.  I struggled with my studies as I started to sink under the weight of Glandular Fever again.  My spirit had shattered into a million pieces and I was a puppet still walking.  I held it together until the Moon of Surrender though....

My most recent year of this Moon though was the one in which I came to terms with not having made it as  a Teacher and started my current job.  My plea at that time was for a job where I could be myself and whether or not it was what I expected, that is exactly what I got.  It is also when I started blogging and that has been such a wonderful road to self-discovery, learning and friendships.

So what do I think this Moon means?  Well looking at what MaryRose has to say, it seems to be about personal space and how we protect and maintain our personal space. Lisa has written about the boundaries between the territories of the masculine and the feminine and how the two interact across those boundaries.  She laso mentioned that one year this Moon was very much about Death.  I guess the Dead and the Living are in different territories.  So this Moon is not just about our territory and it's boundaries but the way in which our turf interacts with what is beyond our boundary.

The lonely child had her turf but walls other children could not cross and she turned to nature.  At 19 she had boundaries of fear and alcohol was the key to the door through.  In my 30s it was about upping sticks and moving my turf somewhere where it fit better, where I could be me.  Be interesting to see what aspect of this Moon comes up over the next few weeks.

Moon of Omnipotence Review

I think it would be fair to say that I have found this moon tricky.  A challenge for sure.... Not sure I wish to write any more about it because I sure have written plenty throughout the Moon....

There is a fine line between Omnipotence and Impotence and much of the time this all depends on our understanding of the consequences of an action and how we claim it's results.  A small decision can have huge unforeseen consequences and sometimes we are just linked to others whether we like it or not....

There is a song I have long loved that has me in mind of how I have felt this Moon.  They used it in the Matrix, the seen when they entered the building for a huge fight, not knowing if they would suceed or not.  That's how I feel about this Moon that un-nerving exciting feeling as you decide to walk into a big fight not knowing if you will gain everything or lose everything.  And I like this video to it as well



So this Moon's Dreamboard - I think this Dreamboard suited this moon perfectly, how I have been feeling and looking at things.  Why has that rock been dumped there by a glacier, why is it still there?  Why is that pilalr of rock uneroded when all the same rock around it has gone.  Why is that black wave coming and sweeping me away, will I still be able to stand when it has gone? Will i leave a handprint that lasts ages after I am gone?  but there is Home and Dogs and small moments sat round a campfire with friends under a big sky.  And linking all these moments, big and small is that connection with the inifinate, our lives as an eternal conversation with all that is, as a prayer.  I will endure, or not, and everything is perfectly as it should be.  I am alive. With the earth beneath my feet and my mind is the parachute that will keep me from falling.  There is Help and there is Healing and I will never be alone for I walk in the footsteps of those who have walked before.

And so a picture for this Moon....



A perfect Dandelion Moon it has been in it's own unique way.....

The girl sat on the Moon.  Sometimes she would run and play, but only when the Moon was yellow.  But now she sat, for the Moon was white.  All around her a million million Dandelions had gone to seed and the slightest movement would cast a million million million wishes into the world.


Who knew what these wishes would do if unleashed.  They would float down and down towards the Earth and humankind would catch them in their Dreams and wish.  Many would be wasted, a blue car would turn red or someone would find an Oboe at the bottom of the bed.  Ghosts would whisper words of forgiveness and bring comfort.  Others would get to say what they really wanted for better or for worse.


Some wishes would fall into the Dreams of Dreamers and knows what would happen then.  What they would wish would change the world and no one would ever know beforehand what would happen next.  The girl had loved the special blue cats that liked to dance under the yellow moon.  Maybe Unicorns and Dragons would return to the world.  She sighed and a thousand wishes rippled around her.


She had the power to set free possibility and that was terrifying for you can never control possibility.  Maybe things would be worse, maybe they would be better.  Should she trust the Dreaming and unleash the wishes?  How long would she have to sit here, completely still while the wishes withered and died around her?


And she knew, she had to let their beauty fly because that was what they were born to do, just as she had to be a little girl running and dancing across the surface of the Moon.  So that is what she did and a million, million, million wishes took flight in the night and began to drift towards the Dreamers.


When she was tired she lay down and slept and that night there was blue cats dancing and singing under the yellow moon.  She smiled in her sleep and nestled down deeper under her dandelion blanket.

Rolling Down the Road

Sometimes things just don't go to plan.  Nobody's plan at all....

A lovely older couple were going to be celebrating their Ruby Wedding Anniversary this weekend.  We were unable to go up for the whole weekend but arranged to travel up for one day of the festivities.  And we did.

One of the couple has terminal cancer and unfortunately a few hours in, he took ill and went to hospital and has been kept there so far.  I kind of had in my mind that this would be the last time I would see him and I was determined to go anyway.

So we went and left part part way through to visit him in the hospital.  He was only supposed to have guests two at a time but we were lucky and they let us use a sitting room and he came out to us.  Nobody chased us away at the end of visiting time either...  We spent an enjoyable time with him telling us many a story.  It was a lovely time...  He rose to the occasion and I think the visit did his spirits good, particularly as he was missing his party...

But as he took my arm as we walked to the sitting room I could feel that it was not just a guesture of friendliness, he needed my help.  And hidden by his pyjamas, his arms have gotten so very thin.  And if you looked past the animation and personality and spirit, you could see his ill health.  F assures me with the practiced eye of one who sees very poorly people every day that he looks like he has a good while yet, but it was still bittersweet...

And i felt for his wife - running the party and entertaining the guests by herself.  It must have been so very hard, and then at the end, when everyone had left, going home.  But I also think there was some good things for her too.  I think she realised the degree of support she would have from everyone.  She looked so strong.

I would like to think I could have done something else for them, that this path I am on gives me some ability to do something good just by having been there...  If that is so then I shall never know, but in truth, I lack training and understanding to do very much more than have raised his spirits with an unexpected visit.

Those wheels turn how they will and I turn with them.

Spider Weaving Web

This has been a heavy moon for me.  I often find that the feel of the moon changes when the wind changes and often, one half is harder than the other.  I definately found the first half harder.  The Ex has chilled out a little, S seems happier and has a girlfriend, M-i-L is a bit easier as she is getting a little more of what she wants.  but that realisation that my Wheel is bound to theirs was a hard one.  Karma and past lives and unsorted crap that rumbles on and on.....  and on some more....

It makes me wonder if this will rumble through in to another life or more.  None of it feels resolved and to be honest I can't see it all being resolved in this life.  Maybe even some parts of it have gotten worse?  Who knows...  And I and a few others are bound into this situation as bit part actors, not fully a part of whatever is still wrong at the root but there anyway through bonds of love and family.  And I am the least involved of all of us.  I was not born into either of the two families, I was drawn here in the hunt for my soulmate and unfortunately this is what he comes with.

Not that I don't think I was there in that long ago life, i am sure I was.  The feelings and relationships between myself and the other players are too definate to not speak of past issues.  Maybe we and the other bit part actors are just here in love to support those we love in this life and try and help them untie those knots a little more.

S will get older, he will sort himself out, or not, but he will move further and further into his own life, taking control as he goes.  As this happens, the need to talk to the other side of his family will grow less and less and her ability to affect my life will just get smaller and smaller and smaller.

M-i-L is another story though but she is over 70 now.  i think as people get older they retreat further into the core of themselves and show more of what is at the heart.  A person maybe truly kind and content and this will shine through more and more....  Unhappiness, discontent and fear...  Anything unresolved becomes bigger too.  I can already see how I might go - more forgetful and as I am tired more and more of the time,  would be mroe and more grumpy, more of the time...

but M-i-L is different to me.  I can't imagine she will ever be able to let go of her family, she will always be there, demanding, getting rude when she doesn't get what she wants.  The endless phone calls are only likely to increase.  One day she will no longer be able to drive or do housework or gardening.  What will happen then I have no idea.  She has one child still living with her but how much they will step up is anyone's guess, they are rarely home when ever I am there.  There is only one way my wheel in this life with her will end and that is death

but I knew this and the heaviest burdens are not mine.  I watch from the sidelines.  Everyone scurrying around trying not to upset her or let her completely into their lives without accepting that she is ill and that these are not the best tactics.  I think honesty and firmness and very clear conversations work best.  Hints and half promises don't work, oh I might call you later as an appeasing effort to escape does not work it only causes upset when no phone call comes.  But this is easier for me than for others.

I think what was so hard was that chain between us all being yanked so veyr hard coupled with the realisation that we are bound together and have been bound and will be bound.  A glimpse of the scale of the spiders web....

Impotent

This moon is definately a hard one for me.  For whatever reason, life seens me things when it comes to the Moon of Omnipotence.  The thought of it being about power and ability to change things to how you like I have to smile, in that slightly bitter and cynical way.  For me, this Moon is the Moon of Impotence. 

Sometimes no matter how things may impact you, they are about other people, their decisions, their relationships, their lives.  It doesn't matter if they are wrong, you just have to deal and get on with it.  And this Moon has brought me back to being Impotent.

And it all stirs around S. 

I created a calendar on Excel, so I can see what moon was where, when in my life, both the yearly and moonthly moons and looking at that and thinking about S shows a thing or two very clearly about my relationship with him, and his father.

I met both of them in my year of the Blue Moon.  The first couple of years were tough.  F's Ex was very hard on us both, emotionally, mentally and monetarily.  M-i-L was hard to cope with too and all these situations that are now such an integral part of my life walked in, firmly attached to F in my year of the Blue Moon.

But for F, we met at the end of his Year of Value.  His Year of Omnipotence and the Year of Territoriality after that were all about dealing whit the s***storm his deciding to have another relationship unleashed.  Maybe the truth about Omnipotence is getting to make a decision and then living with the consequences!

Which makes me look at my calendar some more and add in F and S's years to compare with my own.  And this is interesting.  Our years don't meet up completely, obvoisuly, because our birthdays are at different times.  But it makes me think our wheels are connected, like there are hints of situations and reactions and our positions within it all.....

So this Wheel of the three of us began in my Year of the Blue Moon, F in Omnipotence and S in Inter-relations.  S adjusted well to gaining me but I think it was hard on him to lose some of the one to one with his Dad.  And then I think of the wider situation and add the Ex, M-i-l and F-i-L and then I start to get sad....

It all starts to tie in, this web of people.  I doubt any of the other people in this web feel Omnipotent either.  In fact I know they don't.  And given how our Wheels are all linked together you can almost see future situations in it too, as the wheel we are on keep on turning, together.  You can see how one situation came out of one previously and they all follow on.

S is not happy right now and is in a bit of a mess, very much in Drama.  F is just moving into Welcome, I guess his new wheel started around about the time we decided we would definately get married and we married inhis year of the Blue Moon.  I guess in this new cycle his relationships are more closely bound to me, a symbolic step away maybe but also a symbolic step of binding me into the wheels of his family further.  I am in Breaking Masks, digging away at things and looking, but so is M-i-L but I think she is manifesting the negative side of this moon - Posession.  And the Ex is in Territoriality for which the flip side is Intrusive.

I have no idea if this is making any sense or how clear it is to other people what I am trying to say.....

From here S is going to move into Value / Protection, F into Affirmation (Submission), me into Reason and the M-i-L into Unreason and the Ex into inter-relations or Isolation.  And while I see things getting better for S maybe in that web, I see him having a hard time with M-i-L and his Mum.

Then at 18 he moves in to Omnipotence and I get the feeling of him making a huge decision, maybe joining the forces, leaving Cornwall or moving out of home....  F moves into Value, M-i-L and I move into Humility and I can imagine in M-i-L's case there could be some broken-ness in that and the Ex moves into Surrender (Resistance) and I can see her fighting and fighting the changes S makes.

Then at 19 S moves on to Territoriality as he starts to really stake out who and what he is and his life. F moves into Omnipotence (ouch), M-i-L and I move into Metamorphosis and she either pulls herself together at losing the S of childhood in preparation for her next cycle or she doesn't.....  The Ex moves into Breaking Masks as she starts to get to grips, hopefully with all that has occurred.

Then at 20 S moves into Inter-relations and maybe starts to build up his relations with everyone on his own terms, rebuilding walls?  F moves into Territoriality.  I and the M-i-L move into our Blue Moon years and hopefully, in this next cycle our wheels will be tied a little less closely and who knows what the focus will be?  The Ex moves into Reason.

But maybe this makes no sense to anyone else - but if one thing is clear, this cycle is all about S.  He is the poor fly caught in the centre of this web, his very existence tying us all together and his decisions tugging us all around just as the decisions each one of us makes tugs everyone else.  And he can't take it any more.

He is cracking.

The question is, how to get everyone to pull together to give him what he needs because at the moment everyone seems to be just pulling even harder...  And the truth is we are all caught in this web.

Moon of Omnipotence Introduction

Looking back at this year, it has often been a year slightly out of step, a year where I have done something different that does not quite fit the flow of the rest of my life somehow.

When I was little I lived in a hamlet, halfway between two villages.  Village A was where we psychologically belonged, our hamlet took it's name from this village and it was where we went to Church and socialised.  But where we lived fell in the catchment for Village B. 

Out of choice my family took me to Play School in village A.  My Mum worked their too and this was a good palce and a happy time.  But then all my friends left.  The school in Village A took them earlier than the school in Village B and I was alone, a big fish in a little pond, which to be honest, i quite enjoyed.

The problem came the following year when I hit 5 and entered both my Year of Omnipotence and my new school.  I didn't fit.  i didn't have pre-existing friendships from Play School.  I was overly clever and preferred the friendship of adults to those of the children around me.  i didn't know how to breach that gulf and I was desperately lonely and unhappy.  This year more so than the ones that follow I think.  but it was certainly the beginning of a hard time for me.

My next Year of this Moon was hard too.  It was my year out.  I moved out of home, left school and started my first job days before my 18th birthday.  In some ways it was a great year, I did very well.  I received a prize for the project I completed.  I did many fun things.  I had a circle of friends who liked and valued me.  But I was really, really lonely, because I could not be with my friends all the time.

I think it was in this year that my dysfunctional attitude towards relationships began to surface, out of loneliness.  Later in the year, I entered a bad relationship with an older man who pursued me at work.  He tried to dominate me and control me and separate me from my friends.  When I left him, he sought to dominate me one last time and raped me. 

I accept it would have looked different from his point of view.  I was in a bad way when I got home that night, severely tired and dehydrated.  I remember very little but I wonder if he gave me strong painkillers.  it is only now in later years that I know anything with Codeine in it makes me feel very out of it and sleepy.

Anyway, a bad way to go and one that that rang down through later years.  It is obvious to me now that this was (is?) a broken moon from my childhood, that loneliness and a desire to belong and a lack of value for myself began there and echoed on through.  I may have repaired the damage from the events the first time round, but I had not repaired the Moon and it blindsided me again the second time through.

So the third time...  This was the year I suddenly decided to go and do a Teacher Training course.  Well no, I decided that in the Year of Value and did it during Omnipotence.  I didn't make a good teacher in the way our school system requries.  It was not for me, but this year had good things too.  it took me back to school, I got to examine the school system again and my place within it and what it does to children.  It seems blatantly obvious now that this was all about healing this Moon.

I realised I loved school for it's learning, I loved learning about all the different subjects.  it reintroduced me to Art and History and helped me understand Religous Education as stories.  I learnt some cool things and valuable skills.  i realised I was very good at telling stories - I love storytime with kids -  I do all the voices and everything....

And this was the year that the Student who reminded me of the Wife in the previous post was in my life....  Kind of curious too that she should appear just as we re-enter Omnipotence, during Value.  Maybe the damage in these moons was due to a slight weakness in my Moon of Value.  Certainly this character has less power to hurt me as I value myself.  And it makes me think I should include my nasty Ex in this character type, which had not occurred to me before because he is male and therefore does not have all the same physical charactersitcs in an obvious way.....

I am not sure how easy it is to get across the realisations I have just had with regards to a personality type, Value and Omnipotence.  Anyway.... no biggie...  I know now.  And last time through, loneliness was definately not an issue.  But this is definately a year that sweeps me away in a different direction, when the tides of fate do their thing.  But I don't think it is Broken any more, but I guess I won't know for sure until I reach 44....

This also explains my Dreamboard.  I did one yesterday.  In the bottom left, is an Erratic ( a boulder dropped by a glacier left out of place) balnced on a smaller rock with a background of stars.  In the top right is a wind chislled column of rock in a desert with stars behind it.  Top left is primitive sacred cave paintings of hands.  Then there is a group of people sat out in the wilds round a camp fire and the way they sit has me in mind of the way the buddhist is sat in prayer in another picture.  Then there is a husky dogs face and words, such as help, healing, home...  But the thing that really adds the edge for me is the picture in the middle, obscured by others so you might not even realise that what it shops is the black wave of a tsunami breaking and sweeping all before it.

I had already figured that the dreamboard concerned fate and destiny.  The things that get left behind after aeons, the things that survive.  And how there is peace in this, but sometimes too, things get swept away and destroyed, that I get swept away.

And looking at how this Moon sweeps into my life it makes sense now....  I make big decisions that sweep me away, and did I ever have much choice anyway?  Were those decisions destined?  Impotence (the negative of this Moon) is as much present as Omnipotence.  And loneliness sings under there too....  Do those rocks sometimes feel lonely by themselves after all around has gone and they still endure?

No wonder the coming of this Moon gives me fears of being swept away by fate of being powerless, a niggle.  I will surrender to the wave that may or may not come, and trust that whatever of me is left standing will be as it should be.

Where the Wheels May Take Me

Now this story I have to be a little careful with.  We met a couple.  F's fault entirely!  He recognised the accent and got talking and when they discovered we lived near them....  Then it turned out they to were celebrating a 40th and a honeymoon.  And they were in the same hotel....  and on the same bus....  and had been upgraded to the room right next to us.

Everything was fine to begin with.

But it quickly became apparent that they were not our sort of people at all.  Not that they were bad people.  But when life throws you together like this with people, you have to pay attention.  I did pay attention but I am still not a 100% sure what the lesson was here....

Within hours of meeting us they would have arranged a lift home, if we had not been staying longer.  They were pushy and matter of fact about things.  They didn't understand social niceties and delicate hints.  The thing is, these things are what society gets by on.  I don't think it ever occurred to them that people on holiday might not want to be social with others all the time.

Now I have to explain all this so as not to sound, snobby.... 

One thing that made us very uncomfortable was their attitude towards sex.  They liked to talk about it.  Over dinner, in public areas.  They liked public areas in more than one way too.  And they liked to share graphic and vulgar details.  Despite having just gotten married, I think they would have been more than happy to include other people to.  One night I went to bed early and F stayed up.  She was joking about F coming and spending the night with them.  F didn't read anything into it, but I knew she was serious and as the holiday played it self out, he knew that she hadn't been joking either. 

She also took a shine to a member of staff.  He didn't mind being charming and flirting.  He didn't mind giving her a kiss on the cheek for her birthday.  He did mind when she grabbed his head and tried to snog him.  After they had gone, it also turned out she had slipped a note into his pocket.  Unfortunately he did not find it, his wife did.  He was very upset when he told us, days after they had left.  I think our outrage on his behalf helped restore some of his faith.  I think he needed to tell us, he seemed happier after he had.

He was a bit of a perv too.  One night we had some dancers performing.  Every routine required a dress cahnge and they were changing just outside the fire exit.  He went for a cigarette and was gone rather a long time.  We all knew he was watching the girls change and he freely admitted it when he returned.

They seemed to think that culture was shopping, and that's fine, they can do as much shopping as they like, but thinking that that is all is a little narrow minded.  His shopping was a little dubious as well, lots of knives and sex related objects.  He would proudly take his purchases out to show us, no matter where we were and who was around.  I doubt others wanted to see them either.

We hung on to the end of the first week and were glad to wave good bye.  If they had been staying longer, we would have to have done things differently.  They knew we wanted to get a hire car and hinted at coming out with us ( we very much like to tour at our pace and go where we wish to.  Going with them would not have been peaceful, non-stop chatter, or given us as much opportunity to learn about our surroundings).  They kept asking us to go out with them and even got a little stroopy that we would not (we did still have colds).  He didn't eat breakfast and she would wait till she heard us go up and then join us and then talk a lot.  We felt we had to call on them for dinner each night after the first few and this became an awkward obligation.

She was moody and liked to be the centre of attention.  She was also a little vicious.  She asked very pointed questions, designed to hurt, about my weight, about our wedding.  Except she just could not understand what made me tick and her questions were not aimed well.  She gave up, but grew moodier.  Particularly when she realised i was well educated and could answer some of the more obscure techy questions in the quizes.  In fact, whenever they felt outclassed, they bit back.  We like to try foreign food and our plates showed that, as soon as they saw them, it was obvious it made them feel uncomfortable and what followed was a long and one sided conversation about all the things they had eaten - of a meat or poultry variety - that we had not.  Their insecurity was tedious.

And they were insecure.  They had a habit of telling everyone their story and showing them their pictures, but different people got different stories.  The husband told one couple he was still in love with his ex-wife and the wife told F that the ex-wife was still in love with the husband.  Not comfortable.  I also think our closeness and obvious love and that of another couple we met began to grate by the end of the holiday.  The wife was perceptive enough on some level to realise that she just did not have that, and that we could see that too.

It is obvious to me that both of them have a number of broken moons on their Wheels.  Maybe not even broken, but pretty much decimated.  The other couple did too, relating to past relationships, but they had healed as much as they could and were waiting for time to resolve situations they could not.  There is a huge difference.

After they had left, we were on a bus one day and there was a group of British girls.  One of which reminded me of someone.  She was overly cheerful and bubbly, but their was something about her that made me think their was a bit of moodiness and bite underneath it, that she could flip.  She liked to be in charge and to know things and show what she knew.  As I puzzled at it, I realised she reminded me of someone i was once on a course with, as well as with the wife, and things started to slot together.  The three of them even had a similar look.  I think if I lined up the three of them, that other people would see it to.

The girl I did the course with had a medical condition, i forget what but she would have to have injections every few weeks.  The closer she got to her injection, the more emotionally out of balance she was.  Her medical condition gave her a reason for extreme moodiness but it also meant she did not have to accept responsibility for the things she said and did. 

We should have been good friends and we started that way, but their is some quality about me that winds people like this up.  Maybe the refusal to play those games, or to let them hurt me.  Maybe it something about how I make them feel, make them aware of some lack within themselves.  i don't know, and to be honest, it doesn't really matter, not to me.  It is very much their problem not mine.  Maybe it is that attitude they can not handle, that I don't pat them on the head and go there there....  Jealousy was definately part of it though.

So the student and I, slowly over time, just got to the stage where we were not friendly friends.  We were still friends within the group, but without the group there was nothing else.  Once the course finished, we went our separate ways.

I know I was meant to meet this couple, I was meant to connect the Wife's personality type to this other person.  I am pretty sure that this circle is over and done with too.  I am more aware of the energy within it now and I hope that if I meet someone with this energy again that I will recognise them and not even begin a wheel with them.   But if I do begin a wheel, then I know that it is not me that will leave it feeling hurt and upset, it will be for the benefit of the other person and I don't have to feel that.

If I am an Initiator, then I am definately an Iniator for them.  My very being sets them off, makes them aware of some lack they have in themselves ( happy relationship, own house, academic ability, whatever...).  But the more I am myself, the less their ability to hurt me as they bite back. 

This time I did not get hurt at all and my indignation was for the hurt they inflicted on others.

Aftermath

Today was supposed to be a busy action packed day. Instead F is ill and tucked up in bed and the next few days are going to be even busier than they should have been. As I write, he snores. And I feel as if I have lost my get up and go for the day... Sat here feeling a little sorry for myself! For no very good reason.

I have lots of things I could do to prepare for all the niceness to shortly come... I could iron. I could pack some of my smaller things. Then I need to go buy Vitamin C for F. Instead I am here whining....

It is a beautiful sunny day out and if F had been well we would have finished his shopping and probably have gotten tea out. Now I face a day of being by myself. I just hope he shakes this cold quickly and that I don't get it.

Of course I know what is really getting me down.

Last night I hit a cat with my car.

It was on the opposite side of the road, watching with great enthusiasm some small scurrying thing in the grass. i saw it there and started to slow, to watch more than anything else, but I think my car startled it and it ran, just before I came alongside. And of course it ran the wrong way, it ran away from the nice verge it was stood by, towards my car. I braked as soon as I saw it run of course, but even so I felt a clunk.

Then the cat was off and running in the opposite direction into a field and then right and away. I was pretty much stopped by this time so I moved off and parked a few yards on and we got out. No sign of the cat at all. No moggy hanging out in the field, no blood on the road, no blood on my car. I choose to think that I had slowed enough, that I could not possibly have run over him for he was still able to run at high speed and there was no blood. Even so, running into a moving car has got to hurt!

My car is quite low to the ground and a cat would need to crawl to get under so the cat needn't have run into the wheel, it could have run into the body of my car but the impact felt around about my wheel, which is why I thought at first I had run it over.

I think that cat has to be one of the stupidest and luckiest around right now. I think it ran into my car wheel and if it had been a fraction of a fraction of second either way, I think the cat would have ended up partially under my car and been hurt badly. What I hate most is that I couldn't help the cat and I will never know for sure what happened to it.

So I am just busy dwelling on the cat. I need to get my behind in to gear and go get medicine for the man and then come home and iron things and think happy thoughts.

Just today doesn't feel like a happy day.

Killing the Rabbit

So having decided I needed the shawl.... and the clary sage.... and the rabbit... I returned to the shop on Sinday - closed. I left work and hurried there monday, closed and Tuesday, closed. Literally only just, but closed is closed.

So yesterday I left work early and I got in, just in time. I whirled around and grabbed the three things I had to get. As I was paying a song came on, Midnight City by M83. This is a song I heard once on MTV Rocks and fell in love with. It is definately a song that I have connected with. And here it was on in the shop as I brought three things I felt I had been drawn too buy.

I felt reaffirmed.

I left and went to the supermarket. Phoned F to see if he knew of anything we needed. He called me back after a few minutes and then I went in and did my shopping. I returned to my car and started to pull out. A lady was walking to the car next to me. I saw her, pulled back into my space and called her name.

She is someone I have known for years but lost contact with for some time. I used to go to a spiritual church with her. I stopped going because I struggled with the religious aspect of it, and because the spirits never ever wanted to visit me. It was lovely to reconnect. Things have moved on for her, now a spiritual healer and a Medium she told me of a meditation circle she goes to and another church she visits which is smaller than the one we used to go to.

I knew I was supposed to be there right then to talk and to make connections to other things. maybe it is time to explore some of those things again.

I said about my previous troubles with it and she told me in no uncertain terms that I had always blocked the spirits from visiting me. And I knwo she is right. My fear of opening myself up while sat in a graveyard for instance. Dealing with the ghost of JD was a challenge and his ability to visit my dreams speaks of a possible something within me, not just about his singular strength of character.... It terrifies me and I think it always has. There are hints around this and I know the things that scare us the most are often the things we have to look at most closely. I don't know where this will take me, what I will find, or if I will like it very much.

Connecting with my Ancestral Spirit Guide at a drumming circle a couple of months back helped. We spoke about JD and I think this guide has helped me deal with him somewhat. Either that or JD is a little less impatient now he has seen me read books and start the laborious task of putting together his story. Maybe both.

Anyway, there is things here to look at, to deal with. TOmorrow's Pagan Blog Project post will be on ghosts I htink so enough of them here for now.

This morning I arrived at work and there was two Crows eating something in the grass. I walked over to see what and there was the small corpse of a baby Rabbit.

Throughout the day the corpse became less Rabbit and more skin and bone.

As I left work, I saw three healthy adult Rabbits run off into the long grass. One passed and looked back at me.

The Rabbit is dead, long live the Rabbit!

Fear, Again

I had a job to do yesterday - I needed to go into town and get the finishing bits for a friends costume for her Hen Party. So I went into town. I don't often go. I don't overly enjoy shopping although I love buying. I find it hard to find things I want in town, they don't have the books I really want or clothes that fit me.

I like shopping with F. Mind you, I like doing pretty much anything with F. Everything is more fun with him....

F however needed his hair cut so we went our separate ways and I started trawling charity shops. The first thing that caught my eye was a pink cotton top in my size. Did I buy it. No. I couldn't really find anything to make into the costume but I went to look at the Cd's and books. As my eye flew across the rack certain things began to jump out at me. The Crow, Wings, Elegance... It was like being in a random omen generator and I started to feel a bit dizzy. Too much. I got scared.

So I went and got some cash and some food, which I ate, then I worked my way down, charity shop to charity shop with a couple of detours to bookshops. I bought Twitchiking - the story of a man who used to Twitter to raise money for charity and get to the otherside of the world. I saw it full price first and it jumped out at me when I saw it cut price...

But I couldn't find anything in the charity shops and I started to lose heart. Then I would hear a Jackdaw fly over calling to me. Believe. Believe. I did lose heart. By the end... Then I saw the little alternative shop and I had to go in.

I chatted to the lady a little and three things drew me. First that little bing went off in my head at a small pink object, when I picked it up, it was a small pink rabbit. Next Clary Sage essential oil jumped out at me so I asked what it was for.... She said depression and uplifting and bringing on childbirth. I looked it up this morning and if she had included it's properties for the skin and menstruation regulation I would have brought it.

Lastly a lovely woolen shawl drew me in. Now ideas for my costume (cowgirl) at work included wearing a poncho. The shawl had the look of a poncho and I tried it on and it was lovely. A lovely long rectangle that had been torn halfway, so that a long bit went down your back and two thin long bits down your arms and front.

I didn't buy it. I didn't buy anything. I went home. The lady told me she hopped I found what I was looking for. I think she could see my defeat and loss of energy and enthusiasm. I was not feeling good at all.

OK so I used to suffer from agoraphobia and depression so I was kinda thinking about such things when I got home. But mostly I was so tired! I joked with F that maybe I should make myself go shopping alone every weekend..

Later that evening I picked a couple of medicine cards. One was Armadillo. As I read about it, the very last line jumped out at me - about being sure depression you may feel is yours. It was all about defenses and boundaries. So maybe when I go shopping like that and I am all open because I am looking for possibilities and omens, maybe I am too open.

I think F acts as a buffer. I find other people easier when he is there. I can interact comfortably with large groups of strangers. Maybe I get included in his boundaries somehow. Maybe his love recharges and protects me.

My joke about going into town until I can do it comfortably and with ease is not such a bad one. Maybe I need to learn the hard way just like I did with my Boss. Maybe I just need to practice.

Anyway. I have decided to go back and buy the rabbit, the sage and the shawl. I may even go back and get the pink top. It took sometime to regenerate my reserves yesterday, maybe I shouldn't make myself go from one end of town to the other every time...

But you know, this makes me wonder what was really going on when I felt agoraphobic in my younger days.

Value and Community

In the group I belong on Facebook that explores the Medicine Wheel and Indigenous Dreaming there has been a recent question of what we value. This is all to do with the Moon of Drama because this is the moon in which we mimic what we value and it tells us much about who we wish to be.

So instantly, the question was a hard one for me because so much of how we place value and worth on ourselves is about society at large and what society values. This can be very different from what we as individuals value. My feelings about society and my place within it are that gven my ability, academic and otherwise, I should have left Cornwall long ago, gotten myself a really highly paid, and highly stressed, job and be raking in the money. And I should have a big house I am never home to enjoy, a whole parcel of kids that I never have time to be with and a highly successful husband who also earns a lot of money but whom I never ever see, except by diary appointment....

OK, maybe a little extreme, but this is how we tend to see ourselves within society when we are having trouble with it. Those little negative voices never ever play fair, they always scale things up. And why would I wish to do any of those things? well I don't. I value my life and I like my life, no matter what society at large might think of it, if it could spare the time to consider it.

I love Cornwall and increasingly I feel connected to the land and history here. I miss the place I grew up in and my family home but those voices called me here and then I married a Cornishman. This is where I belong now. F is my family and I adore him and we have so much fun together. He may not have a high powered job but he has a good job, a job with heart and soul, when he wears his uniform people react so very positively, the value of his job is greater than money. And my house, well... that needs to change at some point! but it is my home and I do love it....

Ted pointed out to me the following.....

'that is why I think shamanism is so different. Whether we call it journeying, vision quest or whatever the indigenous term, there is an emphasis in finding who you are. Your totems, dreams, birth position and place on the wheels equate to who you are and who you are on relationship. Especially in community.

Fortunately it is not a thing that will happen in the future but something you are doing now.

There is always that paradox of what we do to please others or our selves. Shamanism sees your uniqueness as the same as your service. Most religions don't. They try to create uniformity and humility, dependence and even shame.'

In my response I happened to mention Wasp -as in I do feel more conencted to the world around me through my totems - I am even going to try not to kill any Wasps this year.... Wasp is my totem for the first moon, the Moon of Welcoming. I recently realised this via a dream which made me realise that Wasp has had a habit of stinging me at certain important times in my life. As a result of mentioning Wasp, Ted went on to tell me some things about Wasp that I had not found out....

'So wasp is a good totem for you based on what you wrote. I think that part of shamanism is deriving 'medicine' of an animal and much is just learning their behavior.

Wasp is loyal to her community. Unlike ants, bees or termites who blindly follow a queen, wasps are loyal to their piece of the community and protect the community that is weaker. They are organized in small groups and communicate mostly with those who share their smell marker. Meaning that you are more looking for your found or chosen family than seeing yourself by your blood or job.

Wasp is the keeper of ancient knowledge. Long before man, wasps were making paper, mortar,mud bricks and more. This means that your creativity must be useful as well as satisfy a need to feel the ancient earth.

Wasps can sting after they are dead. Part of that loyalty is a connection that transcends this life. A wasp will sacrifice it's life for the colony. At the same time, the colony will give all of it's resources to soldiers in war, mothers in peace and queens when the swarm has to split, move and individuals take on new roles. This is a lesson about values and addresses our conversation. The idea that value and importance can change is unknown in the insect world. Wasps are so adept and complex at this that supply chain experts and logistics experts study their behavior to teach and learn value, supply hierarchies, optimization and value based communication.

In short, we have become more and more like ants and bees when we need to be more like wasp.

Like my totem, the hornet, wasp also teaches that poison and medicine are one. I have been attacked by ground hornet swarms and bald faced swarms and though it hurts, the benefit is to be free from arthritis pain and inflammation for several months after.

Much like A M was saying about witches and pagans, there is a sense that wasps seem more advanced but are actually practicing something more ancient, Matriarchal and intuitive that bees, termites, ants etc. As a 'reclaimer' witch for many years, I subscribe to my teacher and dear friend StarHawk's definition of witchcraft/paganism as a shamanic path that seeks to remember yesterday to use today to save tomorrow. That kind of thinking is very wasplike and an excellent place to find out where you fit. Not in the big 'society'. That would be maddening. But in the society of your intuitively chosen family. Let others be slavelike ants. You are a wasp. A great thing.'

And all of a sudden it all starts to make more sense.... I do have a little family like community around me. I have my friends from college and their husbands. I have my work colleagues. I have my own family. I have my e-community. Small groups, carefully choosen. I have walked away from larger society, the society that thrives up country. Cornwall has a different model, much more community based - through your friends and family you link to everyone else...

I also have that flexibility of role and desire for efficiencey. I often get cross with F when we are trying to do a lot of things quickly because he is inefficient - he just can not see the routes between things that make for the least expenditure of energy and time, his process is much more linear. My morning routine for instance is a work of art - not to say it isn't flexible, it is as long as it isn't interupted towards the end! I do things in the optimal order, to keep the dog happy and have things ready when and where I need them. And towards the end I have my computer time with breakfast and any delays before then just get swallowed by my computer time - sometimes I get half an hour sometimes five minutes...

As for role - I am very flexible in what I do. I always loved temping and I had a knack for begining a new job and slotting myself into the tasks within the team very quickly. I have done so many different jobs and here are just a few - Research Assistant, Event Organiser, Receptionist, Canvasser, Admin Assistant, Date Entry, Warehouseman, Cleaner, Waitress and Student. And I would like to think I learnt to do all of those jobs well.

Understanding Wasp helps me see how I have value within my community, how my flexibility and flitting from job to job is not a weakness, not a lack of knowing who I am, but it is a strength and it is who I am. That I have value outside of myself, my marriage, my friendships

F is for Fear

When I first got my Medicine Cards I pulled out my totems as per the book. The one that caused me an eek moment was Rabbit... Rabbit is the fear-caller. Rabbit fears everything and all the things it fears happen to it. It gets knocked down by cars, trapped, poisoned, eaten by snakes, eaten by hawks, eaten by foxes, eaten, well by everything really.... Rabbits saving grace is it's fertility!

But fear - who wants to have the ability to manifest all the things they are scared of? Not a happy thing. But one you can learn a lot from! if you choose to. Luckily, I am not a particuarly fearful.... But I look around me and I have begun to realise that an awful lot of people are...

OK, so I have lived in fear - over a decade ago I suffered from agoraphobia. bad things happened and made me scared of the world. Terrified in fact. But I didn't want to be like that. I read a very good book called Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway. basically, the things that you fear, accept that they scare you, don't push that fear away, quietly accept the feeling - and then do it anyway. A powerful book and a powerful message....

But I see so many people living in fear, one way or another. The girl with the panic attacks, the wife whose family can not go abroad because she will not fly or go on a boat, not to mention, fellow sufferers of agoraphobia. Fear is everywhere, but that Rabbit, he just gets on out there and eats the grass, knowing that there may well be a Fox lurking in the hedge. But Rabbit provides for everyone, and most of the time, life is pretty good being a Rabbit, sitting there, eating that grass and generally being pretty cute....

Rabbit seems to be linked to this, the third Moon, the Moon of Drama. I found a piece of Rabbit fur by my car in the grass the other day. Not very often something like that happens.... And I am seeing rabbits everywhere right now. Two ran in front of our car ont he way home. I am not sure yet what having Rabbit linked to my Moon of Drama means as yet but I still have plenty of time this moon to figure it out, and if I don't then there is always next time....

Snug

I know I have had some inspiration this week, thinking of the roles from the Medicine Wheel dream I had a little while back. Then there was the two days of beautiful weather during the week, all that bird song and a visit to Big Hill. But everything is still percolating away and not ready to post here, or more likely I am not ready.

It has been a busy weekend. Food with friends Friday, a party last night and the recolouring of my hair to pink. I avoided alcohol but eating food whose ingredients I don't know is always perilous - you can never tell what has had a dash of cream added. But I had a lovely time.

Here I am though on a Sunday morning far too early after not enough sleep. My stomach is bad and I have a tiny bit of a sore throat. The house is cold because the heating was on too high for the good weather we had earlier on in the week so I turned it down.

But there is nothing I have to do. I did everything I needed to do yesterday. Today I am free to hide away and I shall. I would go back to bed now but F is happily snoring away so I shall leave it a little while, maybe have a bath and read first.

I am not the sum of my feelings though. I am more. And life is still good.

Slouch

So far this year has been a happy but painful and tiring year. I came back from my family home after Christmas feeling utterly rested and rejuvenated but four weeks of pain and discomfort with my tooth then my ear zapped all those nicely created reserves of energy.

Then last night I visited the Mistres of Pain for one of her amazing lymphatic massages. I always feel better afterwards, but as I go into a rapid detox, I feel tired straight after. Although I kind of felt good today, I can still feel the tiredness leaching through my body. The problem is, all this pain and illness and tiredness has meant a lack of energy to do anything very much of the things I need to do, for me. And not just reading books either....

The Mistress of Pain said my body was actually doing pretty well and that the good effects of the sage tea were pretty evident. The puffy, blotted, swollen state of my body has reduced considerably and my skin is much clearer. Her saying that made me realise that I have not had a major skin eruption since I started drinking the tea. She also could see the good effects of the corrective insoles I have been wearing in my shoes, which is nice to know.

So everything is fine and I am happy, I just feel that need to pamper myself a little. I love having F home all weekend every weekend, but I do miss the occasional day by myself. After six months, I have just gotten past the not going out without him at the weekend and last weekend I went gallivanting all over the place - to collect plates, to the beach and into town.

but today I sneakily booked a day off, and that day is tomorrow. And now I have done that and I know I can relax, I can feel the tiredness all the way through myself.

I am going to look at my list over the next three days and if it isn't on my list or a nice pampering activity then it won't get done. So books, baths and walks with Little Dog and those tasks i have deemed most important to me and that will be about it....

Bliss

Moon of Affirmation

We are about to move into the Moon of Affirmation so here is a little exploration of what I think this means...

This Moon has had some interesting themes in my life - not that I remember many of them from the first time round! The second time was a year of some respite from glandular fever, during which I took my GCSEs and started my first job, in a Chinese restaurant. It felt good to have my own money and that I was out there, taking car of myself. The third time round was the time following my graduation.

I had a job waiting for me when I graduated and my Boss was a person I loved working with. Their Boss was however a bit of a bully. My Boss got a better job offer and jumped ship, leaving me to cope with the bully directly. One day she spoke to me how she used to speak to my Boss. I probably did deserve a little telling off, but I got somewhat more than that and handed in my notice. Not sure to this day if that was a good move on my part or not! I think it probably was - of the group of us, the only one I believe is still working for this person has had several periods off work with stress and occasionally I spot them around and they look... tired, not happy.

For the rest of this year I did various temp jobs in the environmental area. None of which was entirely successful, somehow, the people I worked for turned out not to be entirely honourable. Eventually I gave up and went and got a temp job doing admin, which has led me to where I am now. Certainly pride, independence and the feminine warrioress principle has been a part of previous turns on this Moon. I am not entirely sure whether this Moon has been a good one for me previously or not!

Wheelkeeper states that this Moon is a lot to do with saying No, which certainly fits, but also about making choices. Wapeyit adds that it is also about saying yes. It is about saying I AM this and knowing what you are, and what you are not. What is true to you and what is not, integrity. Wapeyit includes some quotes on integrity in her post but then continues to talk about role models and this is something she has brought up again this year in our group on facebook. This aspect of the Moon of Affirmation is definately one that needs work for me.

I think role models can be unhealthy when it borders of idolisation. People always make mistakes, they are not perfect, idolising them does not allow them to be human. I was an odd kid and when I was young I didn't feel entirely like I fitted in my immediate family. The person I seemed most like was my Uncle, and I adored him. I could talk to him about stuff the others had no interest in at all, physics and cosmology for instance. He has always been charming and a bit offbeat in a cool sort of way. I think when I was young, I was very like him in many ways.

He was never good with relationships though, of any sort. He divorced his first wife and separated from his second. His second wife was very good about inviting us to see them and making a bit of an effort, something he never did. We never received presents from them, which was fine. They lived some distance away too, so we rarely saw them.

His next relationship though was with someone rather different. She was much younger than him. Far closer in age to me than to him, although they would never acknowledge that. My byfriend at the time was the same age as her. She is well educated and a little patronising - corrects things that don't need correcting etc now, but back then, I think she was more than a little nervous of meeting us all. As if my family would be anything other than polite....

But the thing was at that first meeting it became clear that my Uncle was focused on his new lady and her uncertainty meant that he no longer had time to talk to me. If I tried to talk about the things only we had in common, he would turn the conversation back to something she could join in with. I understand this, but it meant I lost the opportunity to talk to the one person in the family who actually was interested in those things, because our infrequent visits were now kept to safe topics for general discussion.

On that visit they kindly gave me a lift back home. They hardly spoke to me and I sat in the back and read stories to my cousins. I was definately resigned to role of child, and I resented that, not that I minded reading stories to my cousins at all...

My Uncle has an internet life and eventually I came across this. It was very evident that we still had so many things in common, although both our interests had changed. It was also clear that he had a lot of time for many worthy things in his life, creativity, charity work... much more time that he had had for me and my family. I also noticed that he had been regularly visiting Cornwall, quite close to where I live too, pretty much yearly and had never once thought to call. It hurt quite a lot.

I know he never asked to be my childhood role model. I don't think he ever realised he was. But it did hurt and it did not help me feel like I fitted in, like I belonged. I had resumed some contact with him by email, but one day, i just didn't feel like it any more. i know he was concerned and asked my family if I was alright, but I just backed all the way off.

I didn't invite him to my wedding either, despite his being very close family. The wedding was so small, that every guest on my side that I chose to be there was there because of their impact on my life. I had to explain some of those choices to my Mum because from the outside, value within relationships can be hard to evaluate. My Godfather for instance is someone I rarely see, but at important times in my life, when he has heard things have been tough, he has made the effort to contact me, to show he cared. My Uncle had not managed to convey caring in quite some time.

I am sure he must have been hurt by the lack of invite. It would have been a good time to renew contact with my Cousins too, who were children last time I saw them. This relationship needs healing badly, I have to let go of my old resentments and I think in part this requires that I give him some explanation for my behaviour. From there he can do what he wants with it, it certainly will not affect my relationship with him for the worse as I never see him anyway.

This was already on my to do list, before it made sense within the context of the coming moon. I need to disconnect unhealthy idolisation from my role models so that I feel more comfortable saying people are role models for me in the now, because right now, I can't. I think nature, spirit is the most powerful role model out there and I guess all I really want to affirm is just to be me, dancing in my place on the great wheel of all that is.

Who knows what else Affirmation will bring up. It has not even started yet, not until tomorrow night, and it is already making me think!