assumptions

I just quit assuming that my parents will understand me or always respond in a loving way. They need my attention, love and validation as much as I need theirs. Just as I would preface things with friends in order for them to understand if I am asking for them to listen, agree, or if I want a new perspective, I have chosen to be specific and open about my conversations with my parents. We I talk to them as close friends and not as the omnipotent beings I considered them in childhood, I am able to make them not a part of me, seperate beings so that I don't automatically get my feelings hurt when I talk to them.
Its a learning process. I'm grateful that my relationship with them gets better over the years and did a lot of healing after I became an adult.
Blessings,

I,29: For I am divided for love's sake, for the chance of union. I,30: This is the creation of the world, that the pain of division is as nothing, and the joy of dissolution all.
I didn't know pain, or heart ache or need until I opened my heart.
I didn't know seperation and loneliness until I felt the depth of initimacy and union that I now have so often. I feel so safe and secure, loved, appreciated, and yet she myself in his mirror in his frustration when I don't give myself enough credit.
We have spent so much time together in the past 1.5 years, and yet I feel, in some ways I barely know him. This rabbit hole is deep and will be forever I feel.
I feel myself falling down the well, falling endlessly into the cool, damp dark, to find myself, cradled among the stars and into everything, and nothing.

The light seems so much brighter now that the cold darkness has passed. The maiden moon cupped the sky like a chalice the other night. It didn't seem to be setting by was held in the clouds gently. The darkness seems rich now.

We saw a tornado Sunday night. Absolutely amazing, scary, and dream-like all at the same time.

Q. mentioned he wouldn't mind living on the eastern shore some day. It would be nice to go home sometime in the future.

I took a mental health day yesterday and got caught up on my sleep. It was much needed. I did some homework on Qabala and runes and got the house straightened a bit.Then I got dressed and made up for my interview in Long Island.

The drive was nice and I listened to Thorn's newest CD Songs for the Waning Year as I went. I wasn't nervous I was ready; I felt strong, I felt powerful, the fehu in my aura glowed.The interview was not the trial I was expecting. It was easy, gentle and became more and more enticing as we went through it. I expect an offer after passover with a 17% raise included. Schweet! More opportunties, more freedom, better pay, better benefits, flex time with a better schedule (I'll get off of work at 3:30), an assistant and best of all, my own office with windows, a door and everything. The job will be both rewarding and challenging in a way that suits me. I'm looking forward to it. Go magick. Q and I have been working on this stuff since January. It's exciting to see big results so quickly.

After my interview I didn't make a turn I needed to and got lost in Queens. I passed a highwway that looked like a good bet, called Q to help me out, then while I was waiting for him to get to a computer, stopped at a fast food place for a drink and the bathroom. Low and behold, there was a valknut on the toilet paper dispenser. Yes, that's the logo for SCA, but the timing was perfect.Last night I had a very weird dream of mixed up Celtic myth, Qabala, Thorn's Cd, and Norse cosmology.

I was in a pagent-like ritual and was looking at my script. I was the Norns and my names were Ivo, Oz, and Macha. Ooo boy. Weirdness. (pun intended). I was advising the king of his path and how to use his power in congruence with the land. Then I was laying out bibles in the glif of the Tree of Life and had parables, excerpts and riddles from each of them that in order to travel up the path you had to answer the riddle while standing on the bible. Yod comes to mind here. I was sitting there, knowing the riddles and tasks I was crafting needed to be intricate and well thought out. I knew I could do this but that it would take time, effort, faith and care. I was excited for my own task. These riddles I was preparing for a friend of mine whom I knew would enjoy the journey.

Bagauk!

I led another roundtable discussion on Chicken Qabala last night. This was the first roundtable that my partner (who is my senior in both age and pagan experience) hadn't joined with me. It seemed too quiet at first, but I went right into my material and we had some great discussion. Some people there were excited to see how their understanding of Tarot, magickal correspondences, the nature of god and the universe, and even paganism's relationship to Christian/Judeo religious thought changed from this little book! Some ideas were challenged and changed, disagreed with and left to germinate for later use.
I am so excited to see people grasp onto new concepts and fly with them. It is so exciting!! I love this!

Thich Nhat Hanh Does it again

This week I read about Deep listening. He spoke about untying the knots in our hearts that happen when someone we love makes us suffer. Last week I tried this by airing my fears. I was heard. Once I had shared them, the fears didn't control me. I could let them go. I was assured that my Love was on my side.

Last night, Q. fell asleep with his arms around my and his face in my chest, open and as honest and trusting as a child. I stirred a bit and he sighed. I listened to his breathing. My heart and breath completely open and connected.

I went to a workshop done by Janet Farrar and Gavin Bone on Labor Day weekend called "The Chalice and the Blade" in the workshop, we coupled and gazed into one anothers eyes, breathing together and forming a circuit. Something incredible boils up from one's core, like a firey serpent. I highly recommend trying it. I'm going to do that tonight.

Blessed be.

Hope and Higher Powers

I see some of the most amazing sunrises over the New York City Skyline on the way to work. I see hawks and cormorants fly through the Meadowlands. I watch the wind tickle the water and sea oats. I see the changing seasons in this biome so close to one of the busiest places on earth. I find it an amazing juxtapostion between human activity and the quiet of the marsh.

Today, the sun was streaming through the clouds and reflecting off of some of the shiny buildings in the city. I could help but will a wish, "Please God, help me get a better job in the city. Help me break those barriers into that bustling art world of culture!" With a shock, I noticed my crown chakra open and pour energy up into my transpersonal chakra. I connected. The feeling, wish, prayer, what have you was fueled by my solar chakra and my heart and pushed up into a circuit toward the divine. It occurred to me, that these type of willful wishes and prayers are not to God (the all cosmic creator, unnamed lord of Christianity), but to our own higher power, our co-creator, our higher self. I sent my wish to my God of Self in alignment of Will and purpose.

Those streams of sunlight give me hope. Face shining, full of light, I look forward toward the future, change, and hope. Blessed be.

True Love: On Suffering

Katrina Messenger put out a challenge to go through Thich Nhat Hanh's True Love with her and her school week by week starting in February. http://www.katrinamessenger.com/ I bought the book, intregued. Its a really good book. So far, this is my response to chapter 4

Going through transitional periods are difficult. Mourning the old you and letting go to make way for the new is sometimes painful, akward, and difficult. Change is both inevitable and worthwhile. The transition through death that a new, more evolved you can emerge is the reason we push through in the in first place.I am very blessed. My partner, came home to me last night, early, I was in bed, moping. He held me for a long time, got me to talk, and then really listened. He supported and validated my process, then he spent the rest of the evening with me as we went grocery shopping, made dinner together, and felt asleep in each others arms. We reconnected and I was able, through his mirror to recognize myself again.

I have never felt a place safe enough to both experience pain and at the same time, have help not to drown in it. Validation, understanding, and patience. Those are the stones on which we are building Ravencroft, our home. ~~~Blessed be.

I went through tremendous change last year. I usually follow a year of change followed by a quiet year that is like a repose to the year before. This cycle works well for me. Last year's change came out of close to 2 years of feeling like I was stagnated and wasn't getting anything done. I was getting ready for a whole new world and a shattering of my existance and current world of being.

I feel that I am starting the new cycle, the new wheel of 2009 with more action and change. This may not be a quiet year after all. Last year, the changes were of my external environment. So far this year they are internal. I likened it yesterday to feeling like I was walking around in a huge costume. The me inside was eclipsed by the outside mask to which everyone was paying attention.

Capricorn is the Cardinal, Fire of Earth Sign. It is the path between Hod and Tiphereth. I understand the imagery of reaching the highest reaches of mountains in this context. Then there is that pesky tail and that curling squiggle of the Capricorn glif. That squiggle curls back in on itself and jumps off the mountain, headed toward the depths of the sea. Swirling around in the darkness, the Capricorn learns to be more fish than goat.

I had a dream over 6 months ago where I jumped into the NY harbor into murkey waters to retreive a wad of money I saw below the surface. The message was: "When you do the dirty work and reach into the depths, great wealth awaits".

I am afraid of what will be shed while I search in the darkness of the underworld. I meet the Goddess and Esus in my dreams. There is no turning back, and yet, what will be the product of this tempering may not be recognizable. Silent footsteps in a silent world. I spread my wings and follow the memory of the Raven's cry.