Beginnings

A new school year starts this week; full of promise and possibility.  I am as ready as I can possibly be -- and, as usual, I am a nervous mess.  There will be new kids to meet, and new classes to tackle, and I am awash in anxious feelings.  What if they don't like me, what if I can't engage them in this new material, what if I'm just no good at any of it...?

My dreams are chaotic and full of disturbing imagery.  I wander lost and helpless through a landscape that I don't recognize, but which still seems vaguely familiar.

Not to worry, however.  It is fine, really.  This mental fussing is just part of getting into the pattern and rhythm of the school room.  I am, actually, entirely ready and relatively certain that my preparations throughout this summer will set the stage for success for me and for my students.  I am physically healthier than I have been for a couple of years -- no major aches and pains, and feeling hopeful that I may even have found a set of things that can help to minimize my migraine issues, too.  I look at my face in the mirror, and I can see my eyes sparkle back at me.  It has been a long while since the last time that sparkle was part of my daily look.  It has been a good summer, interestingly.  Even as we've worked hard to come through His knee surgery and the requisite rehabilitation, we've enjoyed the long, slow, lazy days and nights.  We've reveled in hours to spend together.  We've laughed and loved and learned, once again, how to be gentle with each other.  It has been a summer full of small things, and that seems like a very big thing.

I remember trudging back to school last August, uncertain that I had the personal resources or reserves to make it through the year.  I was, then, exhausted, beaten, and sad.  This beginning feels completely different -- vibrant with power and hopefulness.  I have been conscious about not looking backward; deliberate about focusing on what is.  Still, the contrast between now and then is amazing.  All the various, small steps toward health and healing have paid off.  There are now so many moments of joy and love and simple happy sweetness and peace.  I cannot point to a specific moment when life changed and showed up feeling good again.  I only know it has, and I am glad and grateful.

So, I am headed off into a brand new year, and I am nervous but also excited.  Nervousness will evaporate, I am sure, in the rush and spill of happy greetings and new adventures that lie ahead.

swan

Spiritual Backpacking and Shamanism

Last weekend was our two-day "Way of the Shaman" workshop.  It was a full weekend, packed with new experiences and new information.  I ended each day feeling drained, weary, and a little punchy.  The torrent of information left me unable to make much sense of what I'd learned.  I knew that it was going to take me some time to process and sort.

We learned and practiced a number of techniques, and while I understand that listing them here will not mean much to our readers, I feel like I need to acknowledge what was offered by the presenters as a beginning point for my own practice.  We learned and practiced:

• EXTRACTION
• POWER RETRIEVAL 
• DIVINATION
• JOURNEYING (Upper and Lower worlds) 
• POWER PRACTICE

It is all very interesting, and I found myself alternately diving deeply into the awareness of this bit of reality that I am sometimes only peripherally aware of... and then falling into an analytical frame of mind, evaluating each experience like the science geek I can sometimes be.  From time to time, as the workshop progressed, and I listened to others describe the intricacies of their fantastic visions, I wondered if I was perhaps not "doing it right."  Where some described journeys full of talking wolves and beautiful, strong, young Native American "teachers," I saw simple stone fountains and plates of sweet grapes.  Standing out in the parking lot of the hotel where the workshop was held, singing the morning sun song, seemed a lot like public humiliation play, and trying to "dance my power animal," was only difficult because I had to try not to giggle hysterically. 

OK.  I'll admit it -- I am and earthbound, skeptical, prosaic, old woman. 

I appreciated the instruction in techniques for accessing that "other" reality, but I am not interested in living life there.  I am glad for tools and practices that help me live better, day by day -- but I expect to do the vast majority of that living right here in this world; this reality.  Power animals and spirit helpers / teachers are welcome to the party that goes on in my head.  I'll take all the help I can get.  In the final analysis, however, I am responsible for me and I'll make my decisions as best I can.  

The best, and most useful parts of the weekend for me?  I "heard" quite distinctly that I need to relax; to avoid rigid patterns; to keep my heart light; to go with the currents and tides; to listen more deeply; to keep myself grounded and steady and stable; to practice simplicity; to approach others with gentleness and compassion.  

Rattles and drums?  Soul songs?  Spirit canoes?  Rock divination?  Spirit guides and power animals?  Talismans?  All of that seems like infrastructure to me -- bridges across the gap between here and "not here."  I am glad to have been shown another way to move between the realities, but I find I am not absorbed or enthralled.  Intrigued, yes.   Open to the possibilities, yes.  I am.  I think all of this can just fold into my days and my nights; add another dimension to my experience of my world; enrich my life.  I am not interested in living in the realm of "non-ordinary" reality.  I want to learn to be fully present and engaged with this reality.  The days are each precious.  Life is truly a good gift.  I don't need a spirit ally to convince me of that one.

swan  

Another Kind of Journey

We arrived home, safely, last night, from our Colorado trip.  The kids seem good (although I worry about my son...), and the grandson is growing and becoming more and more interesting as he gets older :-)  We had some car trouble on the homeward leg, but it all worked out fine.

Today has been a day to do the laundry, catch up on some sleep, walk in the sunlight, and try to relax just a bit.  Tomorrow, we head off for a two day workshop that is the beginning of learning how to "DO" shamanism at a deeper level.  We have our drums, our rattles, our notebooks, our stones, our blankets.  We've done some significant amount of reading and study.  We are as ready as we can be.

I imagine that each of us have our own personal expectations, but I hope to...

• learn how to live with more presence, more awareness, and more joy
• begin to form ties to a community who can share this with me
• figure out how to further the healing that began with my soul retrieval
• learn how to transform power and energy
• learn to create for myself and my future

We'll head to bed in awhile, set the alarm for an early start.  This should be interesting...

swan

Westward Bound

We are traveling west to visit the kids and the grandkidlet.  We'll be busy for a bit.  No promises for what will end up here as we are on the road...  Back late next week.  Be kind to each other...

swan

Bondage in the Garden

I have a small patio garden:  some cucumbers, peppers, and four tomato plants growing in Topsy Turvy planters.

This year, I have been pretty successful with my cherry tomatoes.  They have been spectacular and delicious.  We've enjoyed several batches of them already.  The other two planters have a full size tomato plant variety called "Mortgage Lifter," and I am anxiously awaiting those tomatoes being ready to eat.  They are not there yet.

Tomorrow morning, early, we head off to Denver and a visit to the grandson and his parents.  I am thrilled we are able to make the trip, but I am fussy about my tomatoes and cucumbers.  Six days without water in our Cincinnati heat will kill them for sure.  What to do?  Watering my hanging garden is a chore and a labor of love.  I haven't got any neighbors who would be willing to haul water to my green babies for a week.

So, I hunted online and found a self watering siphon system.  It consists of a set of ceramic spikes with tiny siphon hoses to gradually and steadily feed water to the plants.  It gets some pretty good reviews by people who have used it, and I hope it will be the answer for my plants while I am gone.

There are some complications to using it.  The siphon tubes are pretty short -- less than three feet long.  The water supply has to be below the surface level of the soil.  My hanging vines are up high.  So, I have messed and messed with how to supply the water the system needs.  Finally, I settled on hanging buckets with ropes.  A few quick knots and my bit of garden engineering is set to go.

I think I may, at last, have put to use the things learned over the years in all those Bondage 101 workshops.  Tah Dah!!!!

swan

Baseball Dreams

Cincinnati is a baseball town.  Our Cincinnati Reds are the second oldest major league baseball team to play continuously in the same city.

The regular season in major league baseball consists of 162 games.  Opening Day is usually the last week in March or the first week in April.  It is a big deal here, with a parade and an inevitably sold out game.  After the weeks of spring training, we come to the opening game with great anticipation, for here, in Cincinnati, hope does, indeed, spring eternal.  Some years are miserable and our "boys of summer" lose badly from the very start.  In other years, things can start off looking promising.  The pitchers pitch and the hitters hit, and the fielders run and catch and throw with superhuman grace and skill.  We dare to hope.  Somewhere in the middle of the season, they play the All Star Game, and there's a bit of a break.  It marks the halfway point.  Usually, for us, the All Star Break marks the point where the season goes all to hell, and they break our collective hearts -- again.

In Cincinnati, people talk with deep reverence, about the Big Red Machine, and the years when the magic worked, and the team went to the playoffs and eventually won the World Series.  There is a wistfulness to that; the sound of baseball fans, long denied.  

This year has been different.  The early games were not promising.  They lost more than they won.  It seemed as if we'd never see them make it to 500.  But then things began to shift...  Our guys have won 64 and lost 41.  There are, therefore, 57 games left to play.  As of today, the Reds are 22 games above 500, and they have the best record in major league baseball.  We are ahead of everyone, and three and a half games ahead of our nearest competitor.  The excitement here is palpable, and everywhere you go, people are talking about our Reds.  We are beginning to believe, while simultaneously knowing that they might just turn around at any moment, and break our hearts.  But for right now, we are into the "dog days of summer," and our Reds are playing their hearts out, and we are caught up in the excitement and magic and special glow of that place that is full of possibility.

swan

Moonbeam and Moon Shadow

In the early days of May, May 3rd to be precise, I had my soul retrieval.  One of the parts of my "self" that I got back in that healing session was a little girl, about three years old, who when she was found, was holding onto a small cat or kitten.  I thought that was interesting as my dreams in the nights leading up to the soul retrieval were filled with my sweet, old cat, Cleo, who has been dead for a number of years.  I assumed the small cat was Cleo, and went on with the business of soul reintegration and healing.

We have, in the last few weeks, gotten into the habit of walking late at night when our hot Cincinnati summer days have cooled into darkness.  Our condo complex is quiet at midnight, and we don our headlights and walk and talk prior to turning in to sleep.

Last night, just before midnight, we made it about 1/3 of the way through our usual route, under the bright light of a moon that was a few days shy of full, when suddenly, there stood a tiny kitten.  It was startling.  One minute, we were walking along, chatting mostly about baseball, and then, in a twinkle of an eye, there was this kitten.  She seemed to appear from out of nowhere.  It was a little startling ... a soft, fuzzy, ball of determined baby, materialized from the midnight moonbeams.

We looked around, wondering if she might belong to one of the neighbors.  There was one guy working in his garage, and I figured maybe she was his.  I scooped her up, and walked up his driveway --  Not his, though she'd been hanging around his place for awhile.  He wanted no part of her.  We sat her down in a nearby lawn, and started to walk away.  No way.  She followed us for nearly three-quarters of a mile, and we put her down for the night on a soft rug in the garage.

We went to bed with our heads in a whirl, wondering what we would do with her.  Our old lady cat, Callie, is not welcoming to other critters.  And we are planning to leave on Saturday for a trip to Denver.  Now is not a convenient time to take on a new baby kitty.  Of course, we were utterly, completely in love with our little moon shadow...

This morning, we got up; called the vet; and took her in for a check up.  She is pretty healthy -- some fleas and ear mites (to be expected with a kitten who has been outdoors).  She has two sore paws -- probably burned on the hot pavement.  She weighs three whole pounds, and the vet guesses that she is about three months old -- probably born right around the first week of May.  It would seem that our magical, moonbeam kitty arrived here on the planet at precisely the time when my little girl soul part came back bringing her soft little kitten with her...  (insert Twilight Zone theme music here).

We are all in love (except for Callie), so meet the newest member of our family.  This is Moonbeam (Moobie) --

swan