lessons from hitting "the wall"

Special Black Rose. Source Unknown to Me. (9/15)

Although I talked about my experience with Depression in the past tense in my last post, it's not completely gone. It's no longer ranting and raging in my awareness, but it sits patiently in the corner, waiting for a chance to come forward and do its little destructive dance to distract me from what's going on in the outside world.

At the end of this past week, as I say, I "hit the wall."
Part of it was the inner teenager of my mother triggering my inner teenager, and we growled a bit at each other. Part of it was the numbers in my bank account not flowing the way I wanted them to. There was a third, very important factor that I wasn't taking into account; more on that in a moment. Now, I want to shed a bit of light on my Depression's mad dance in the off chance any of my two dozen (or so) peeps can relate...

First comes the anger - huge anger that borders on total unthinking rage. I don't physically harm myself or anyone else, so don't worry about that; having said that, I want to destroy something. This is why I'm considering taking a boxing class or two, both to vent and also to learn how to throw a punch properly, ya know, in case the Apocalypse really does roll out in the next year or so. ;)

The raging anger starts the Depressive spiral, as my brain locks up on one negative word/concept and comes to a screeching halt (sometimes with actual screeching and screaming for good measure). It takes a while to unlock and begin to process again, but only on a primal level...Eat. Drink Water. Rest. Sleep. That sort of thing.

After some quiet time, the mental and emotional density have filled my head. Then come the tears, often accompanied by keening, along with the Inner Critic screaming its usual litany of put-downs and insults around Being a Failure, Not Being ___ Enough, and so forth. (I wrote more about this in my previous post.) Once I have cried and wailed enough, though, the density empties out, and I can grab on to some Inspirational material to peel myself off of the wall and re-inflate myself. This is what I'm doing more often these days, and I'm able to "rebound" faster. :)

What I didn't realize this time, at least not initially, is that an important Anniversary of the Heart had come up for me - the anniversary of my miscarriage two years ago. I'm not ready to share more on that right now, but I want to note something important: big personal events, especially around the death of a loved one, can create a significant Vortex of energy that can pick you up and toss you all around on the anniversary of that event. This is what happens to me when the calendar arrives at the date of my father's death...for the first ten years after he passed, I went batshit crazy every August 3rd. Once I learned some esoteric techniques, I was able to shift my relationship with that energy Vortex so that I could do some powerful Work with it, instead of having it work me over!

The Vortex around my miscarriage, on the other hand, is not tied to a specific date. It is actually tied to the third Thursday and Friday in February. With this information, I can take some steps to shift my relationship to this Vortex starting next year, and perhaps accomplish some significant Work with this potent energy. In the meantime, I light a candle in her honor and acknowledge the experience, and the Vortex that has formed around it.

(special shout-out to Sarah Ban Breathnach for the phrase, "Anniversary of the Heart.") <3 p="">

finding my words

Signs of Life (@ Home, 2/15)

Ten years ago, February of 2007 to be exact, I started this little blog as an online journal of sorts. For the last two years, the blog has been silent, but not for lack of trying.

Between September 2014 and now, I've written several dozen posts in my head. I've even tried a few times to write a new entry, but they became too much of a litany of woe and bland lists of "things that happened on such-and-so date" each time, and I've abandoned them. Now the energy is finally (YES!) starting to shift, and I'm finding the words to describe what I've been through in the past few years.

The main thing is Depression. Since March of 2014, I've been swimming through its murky waters, with Catfish as my guide. I will tell you - Depression can visit anyone at any time, no matter their social status or occupation, race or religion or gender. There were probably a handful of times when I could have been diagnosed as clinically depressed, had I bothered to go to the doctor. I never got suicidal, but there were plenty of times when I just wanted to go to sleep and wake up, oh, in about ten years. Take me away, Calgon, and let me nap by Rip Van Winkle, ya know?

The Depression arose from huge Anger that had turned in on itself and savaged me regularly. I was constantly seeing myself as an utter failure...not Positive enough to pull out of this fugue state, not Magickal enough to manifest the necessary prosperity, not Devoted enough to pray my way into my Dream Life. Basically, fill in the blank of "Not ___ Enough," and I was feeling it at some point or another. From this perspective, I was the World's Biggest Fraud. No way could I lay claim to being a Priestess, my Spirituality was only skin deep and therefore worthless, and I couldn't work the Law of Attraction to save my life. I was a Failure at being anything concerning "metaphysical" and I might as well give up, take that Blue Pill, and forget everything I had done for the last fifteen (or so) years.

Not. Fun. And there's more...

When I thought I was pulling myself up in 2015, I was dealt a surprise pregnancy followed by a not-so-surprise miscarriage. Just as I thought I was decently recovered from that in 2016, my husband was diagnosed with colon cancer (Stage 4, no less!), and I wound up caring for both him and my aging mother. It was like 2014 and 2015 were a rehearsal for 2016, with all of its inherent insanity!

Interestingly enough, it was when the rest of the world seemed to go mad (think early November and you'll get it), I found my way back to my sanity. My anger suddenly had a tangible target it could focus on in creative ways. A door that had remained stubbornly shut opened wide for me, and I heard the directive: This is what you've been waiting for. Go Forward! I have...not super rapidly, but I have.

With the dawning of this year comes some perspective: the past three years were my huge Take-Apart, where everything in my life was energetically broken down and cleared away, so I could start fresh. Think going back to Square One, except on level 1,001. Now that everything has been cleared away, I can tell a new Story for myself, which might incorporate some of the familiar elements, but in radically different ways. Shamanically speaking, I needed to die before I could be reborn, and it was a long and intense death process! I'm very happy to have made it to the rebirthing point!

With my new Story comes a review of my cyberspace Presence. I am starting the blog back up. I have made some revisions, so it's a bit leaner, and I'll be continuing to tweak here and there for a month or two, perhaps. I can say for sure that it won't be another two years before my next entry! I'm thinking weekly or so at the moment, though that might change; if it does, I'll let you know.

It feels good to be back. Here's to new adventures in the New Reality! :)

A Spot of Transparency

Light Through the Clouds (Carlsbad, 8/10)

I've been wanting to write this for a while. I would make plans to sit down and put this out in the world, then the plans would dissolve. I actually managed to start this once, then stopped, because it didn't feel right. Then I wrote a "summary" on Facebook, and it all seemed to gel together. This is taking that summary and expanding it.

Transparency, yes. More of my peers have been engaging in Transparency lately, coming out from behind the veil and sharing more of themselves, ditching their fears of perfection in favor of greater Authenticity. Now I'm taking a turn at this.

2014 has been HARD. I got the idea fairly early on that this was going to be a year of stripping away the bullshit and coming face to face with the lingering Sticky Ego Bits in our Closets of Shadow - and it got personal real quick, starting right around the Spring Equinox. I had to give up one of our cars, a Hyundai Elantra, because it got to the point of diminishing returns (putting more money into the car vs. what it's actually worth). Dealing with the challenges of having one car and two people with a lot of obligations, in an area of the country where everything is a bit scattered and public transportation plays second fiddle to the Almighty Car, was just the beginning. I've lost count of how many times the energies and the shifts have knocked me on my ass this year. Year of the Horse, indeed; the Windhorses are going forward at a mad gallop and not showing any signs of slowing down in the near future! Year of Inner Strength, indeed: I have been pushed to my boundaries, and then beyond them. In the middle of May, during all of the wildfires, I had a moderate mental meltdown and had to step away from my muggle work. My mother's health scare then all but shut me down completely, and I'm just now starting to swim up to the surface, away from the murky bottom.

As much as I would like it to, and as much as I have expected it to at times (if I'm going to be totally honest), being a Shamanic Priestess does not shield me from the Special High Intensity Transformation, but it does allow me to see the gifts...like being removed from the wilder "outer" storms so I could focus more closely on my inner unrest. Like seeing exactly how this demon called Perfection has been messing with every aspect of my life.

Ah yes, Perfection - which wonders snidely why I have to rely on credit cards to cover basic expenses like gas and groceries when I should be using the Law of Attraction to get massive amounts of prosperity in my life. It chides me for gaining back Every Single Pound of weight I had released prior to meeting my husband. It suggests that I have to everything for everyone because no one else has their shit together enough to get things done the way they're "supposed" to be done, and only I know how things "should" be done. It whispers that my husband is going to leave me because we're not on the same level sexually and he's going to want to be with a woman who is more encouraging in bed. It insists that I will fail in my heart-centered business because "You have to have everything in your life in perfect order. Your house is a mess, you never get anything done, and you break all of your promises. Who's going to follow a Fuck-Up like YOU?"

So often, we are our own worst critics. That's why I had a meltdown so I could Melt Down all of the myths and untruths rooted in Old Reality and still hiding in the Shadows. That's why I broke myself wider open so I could bring both halves of my brain into greater balance, and synch it up with my own HeartWisdom. That's why opportunities to reach out and ask for Support where and when I need it have appeared before me. That's why I've given myself Permission to create a whole new Structure in my life that accommodates the "Me" that I still am, even within the structure of the "We" I am building with my husband.

There have been breathers during the chaos, which have allowed me to Micro-Move my way forward in the chaos... I created a Facebook page for my Shamanic Priestess brand/aspect. I have become a regular reader at the Philosophical Library and have Juju Bundles on sale there. Yay Me!
There's So Much More I want to do, but I realize: all in the fullness of time.

I still have a reading I did from SARK's "Ask Jupiter" oracle many moons ago; it's on a sticky note on my bathroom mirror: Your path is clear: Surrender and Proceed as the Way Opens.
Though it may be with much kicking and screaming at times, I am continuing to Surrender, and continuing to Micro-Move my way ahead as the fog continues to lift, and the Windhorses storm their way through the canyons of my mind.

Navigating my way through the Dim

Pretty things in the Dim. (Del Mar, 7/13)

Let me be entirely frank: This period of time from the Spring Equinox to the Summer Solstice has been a right BITCH! Between Grand Cardinal Crosses, solar flares, and Mercury Retrograde, I have seen the stuck points of my Shadow, indeed - and I'm totally Over It All.

When I last posted in April, I thought I was at the end of the rough patches. Newp...turns out it was just a breather. At work, it would get better, then worse, then better, then worse. Then we had a firebug or two try to set the whole of northern San Diego County on fire, which led to the evacuation of my workplace. I was just about a basket case when I got home that day.  I knew I had to make a Radical Change, and Quickly. So I left the muggle job in May. Okay, maybe NOW I can breathe, I thought...

...until the other shoe dropped when my mother's doctor called a week later, saying her blood tests showed she was on the verge of kidney failure. Suddenly her mortality smacked me hard in the face - and all of my knowledge of reincarnation and life after death could not even begin to comfort the little girl who suddenly realized she would, sooner or later, lose her mommy, just as she had lost her daddy. I had a total meltdown the last weekend of May.

The month of June has been about sorting through all the pieces of my*self and figuring out what will stay, and what will go. Slowly, steadily, I've been pulling myself back together. Slowly, steadily, I have seen the extent of my Stuckness: that part of me that is terrified of growing and succeeding because she knows her identity, her essence, will be destroyed in the process. She. Does. Not. Want. To. Change. Period. Slowly, steadily, the path forward and THROUGH this obstacle has been revealed to me, with a little help from my sister-friends. :-)

In the middle of all this, there have been tiny steps of growth and of change...and they look really promising! I have put down roots at the Philosophical Library as a reader and an energy worker. I have also formulated some specially aligned Juju Bundles for anyone to use and they are now (insert trumpeting) On Sale at the Library! As Mercury goes direct in July, I'll see what I can do to build on this success. Dear Husband has been providing many ideas and "What If..." snippets for me to sit with.


Heeeere's Juju! :-) (Escondido, 6/14)
 

I'll be all right. My primary Matron, after all, is Bast - the Cat Goddess who always lands on Her feet! ;-)

Back in...Turquoise!

Here comes the sun... (Naples, FL)

Perhaps the energies swirling about have driven me a wee bit crazy. Perhaps I'm finally loosening up and not taking everything SO seriously. Whatever, I'm finally back and posting here, and it feels Really Good. :-)

Talk about your Special High Intensity Transformation processes - holy shishkebab! My muggle job has gone from tolerable to crazy to full on Insane! Such is life when you transfer operating systems and discover the process is like one extended Tetris game! I have been pushed to my limits...and then seen my limits pushed out further than I could have imagined. As my capacities for endurance have increased, so has my discernment. What I could tolerate in the past is often rather unacceptable now, and solutions need to be devised sooner rather than later, thank you very much!

To add to the Tricksters' frolicking, my old computer became infected by a rather pernicious spambot that would pop up umpteen ads on my screen whenever I visited a website, any website. I was basically unable to do anything on the old comp. Himself and I have come up with a solution; sometime in the near future, I'll be transferring all of my pics and docs from the old comp to a "new" one. Then I'll be completely back in business once more.

In the meantime, I'm finding my way back to my key sites, like this one, and starting to do some long-need updates. Progress might not be coming as quickly or on as grand a scale as I initially expected, but I'm getting where I want to be...one step at a time.

I thought once I was seeing the light at the end of the tunnel, but it turned out to be a train coming headlong at me! Fortunately, I managed to jump out of the way in time. Now I see sun rising once more...and I say, "It's All Right." ;-)