No Ripley's Required

When I walked into my yoga room this morning, I immediately felt a draw to my animal spirit guides oracle card deck.  It was duly noted.

Before I begin any yoga practice, I sit quiet, and set an intention for the day.  When I opened my eyes, these two very big ears and two very dark eyes were outside my window.  I approached slowly as I have been waiting for the deer to arrive and I didn't want to scare her off.  It was a fawn with a few spots remaining on her coat.  And then I saw momma.  For the few minutes that they browsed my yard, knowing they were safe there, I watched, soaking in their calm energy for once they leapt over my fence back into the unpredictable, that would change.

Deep, slow breath in of gratitude for a connection with animals.  Long, slow breath out of unnecessary concern for the day.

It was a hip opener series today.  Our emotions, in particular old memories, are stored in our hips.  I do my best to include a hip opener series every week, allowing space for what is ready to be released.

After mediation and prayer, at my table I drew a card from the Messages From Your Animal Spirit Guides Oracle Cards deck.  It was the Humpback Whale reminding me to find healing and promote my well being through music, singing, or instruments.  When I turned my radio from NPR to 70s on 7 last night on my drive home, it was a conscious choice to move from talk to music.  I guess I was on the right path.

As I drove out this morning, I was caught off guard by the sight of a peacock on the berm on the side of the road!  A peacock?  It was a male, a striking blue and emerald green against dust brown and sage gray.

"In history, myth, legend and lore, the Peacock symbolism carries portents of: Nobility, Holiness, Guidance, Protection and Watchfulness.

Contemplate the powers of the Peacock when you need more vibrancy and vitality in your experience. The Peacock can also help you on your spiritual Path, and breathe new life into your walk of faith."  ---Whats-your-sign.com

And when I came home later in the day, there was the most unusual and melodic bird song coming from the Juniper trees.  She was singing to me.

Referring to something else, and with  the slightest tone of sarcasm, my father asked me during our telephone chat this morning, "Did your cards tell you that?"  Yes, dad.  They tell me many things.

Life on the Road

For the better part of the two years of 2002 and 2003, I traveled for work and lived on the road.  What does that mean?  It means we worked 80 and sometimes 100 hour weeks and traveled from city to city throughout the country and worked and lived in hotels.  Sometimes we stayed in the same city for a week or maybe two and more often it was two or three cities in one week.  We slept little.

I joined the subcontractor to the TSA in April 2002 just as the organization was taking shape.  It was a very chaotic, stressful, confusing development.  The SOPs were being written and revised daily.  Our roles were changing by the minute.  The instruction was to tell no one in each city who we were working for or what we did, which was sort of silly when a group of 50 of us descended upon the bush in Alaska for example; they knew who we were before we arrived.  We worked and slept under secured floors.  We ate when we could steal the time.

It was an extraordinary experience, both professionally and personally.  It challenged every logical process in our brains and every emotional thread of our beings.

With all the traveling, my packing, airport navigation and hotel comfort skills were tightly honed.  And my bank account and mileage accounts were aplenty.  This was back in the day when an upgrade to business or first was often a handful of miles or another $50-$75.  This is how I traveled, taking advantage of any additional comfort available to me.

Once I left the project for the second time, I needed to travel for myself.  I took a few shorter trips and returned to Argentina each year for the next three years.  All the while accumulating miles and upgrading.  Then I cut way back on travel and used up my miles on the next handful of trips and gave my parents a couple of flights out to visit.

Here it is, several years later and I am traveling, albeit a short trip.  As I move through the airports, I notice I lack urgency.  I listen to those whisking past me, "I'll reach out to an architect on the team," "The program needs some modifications for the client."  The conversations overheard on the hotel shuttle bus are tense and curt.  I climb the bus with spring in my steps and song on my voice and they look at me with a cocked inquisitive head.  There is nothing about what I see that intrigues me or that tempts me back.  In fact, quite the contrary.  It affirms that I am doing what I love just where I am.

What do I miss about that lifestyle?  The upgrades.  Economy is rough.

Detox and Destress and Set the New Course

Whoosh.

It's been a manic three months.  Today, the first of September, under a waxing moon, in a house just cleaned by someone else, having drawn the card New Beginnings, I summoned up an old recipe of mine.  When followed, allowing for slight modifications to suit personal taste, this recipe is effective in detoxifying the body of stagnant energy, negativity, and unproductive holding thus making space for the new.

1 Soaking tub filled with just about hot water
A lot of sea salt
Enough Aveeno Stress Relief Foaming Bath Gel Lavendar, Chamomile and Ylang Ylang
1 lit kabbala Evil Eye candle
Bhudda Bar on the iPod
1 soft lit lamp
1 bathroom door closed
1 bath pillow
1 bottle of water

Light the 4th ingredient just before preparing the first three ingredients by blending together.  While the tub is warming, turn on the lamp and turn off the overhead light.  Place the last two ingredients on the side of the tub.  Once the soaking tub is filled to perfection, close the door and press play.  Submerge.  Soak.  Sweat.  Give thanks for the lessons learned, the teachers sent, and the opportunities in wait.  Smile.

Repeat as often as necessary.

My Bags Are Packed and I'm Ready to Go

There must be a "How to Pack Efficiently and Pause Free" manual somewhere.  Aside from the physical breaks one must take from packing to move, there are the occasional stops along Memory Lane which can bring the momentum to a screeching stop and smell the roses halt.

Packing up the colored ceramic dishware my mom painted for me reminded me of the day I opened the UPS box she sent.  Not only did it have the dishware but it had colored place mats and colored tapers with square holders.  What a thoughtful gift!  She knew I like to make a pretty table at meal time and there she sent me another excuse for preparing good food.

I came across a card written in elegant penmanship from my much missed godmother, Aunt Dolly, who passed on this last December.  For as long as I can recall receiving mail, she had been sending me a birthday and Christmas card every year.  Something was missing in December.

Oh! and the photo of me holding a carrot with the utmost tips of my fingers for a horse to eat.  Gingerbread Man became my good friend and trusted teacher who welcomed me into the horse world.  What a bond we shared.

My poor backgammon board.  It has been tucked away, lonely, at one point a reminder of lamentable sportsmanship.  I always loved playing board games.  Naturally, I would play to win and I play by the rules and I insist on being the banker in Monopoly, but having fun was always the priority.  I prefer playing tennis with someone better than I so I can play hard and work for a win.  If I didn't win, which in all these years of game playing, there were many times, I laughed, congratulated the winner and either set up for a rematch or moved on to whatever I was doing next.  I saw no point in any resentment or anger or frustration with losing.  It was a game!

In the early months of our dating, I would hear the stories of the backgammon marathons at the hospital.  They played at such an expert level because their minds thought this way.  I enthusiastically initiated a game because it had been a while since I had played, but when my much beloved backgammon board was opened, I felt the foreboding of a helpless loss.  The problem was, I didn't lose.  In fact, the game never was finished because the spike in heart rate that my advantage brought about, also brought about a slamming shut of the board with pieces flying all over.  What a shock!

My game companion was only opened another time or two and the experience was so opposite of the fun I brought to the table that it seemed disrespectful to my board to unclip the buckles again.  So there it stayed, in a closet, move after move.

But this move is different.  My backgammon board will hide no more!  And I welcome anyone to a fine roll of the dice.

What's Your Hobby?

It's no secret I was profoundly dismayed by the Supreme Court decision today to allow a for-profit company to claim it has greater religious freedom rights than those afforded to persons as their justification to deny women a critical part of their overall health care.  You can stop there to feel good about this ruling or you can look a bit deeper and acknowledge that this is a corporation, started by a man from a family of preachers and his two sons, that is denying women the power of decision making in caring for their own bodies and health in the best way for them and often under the direction of a medical professional.

This got me thinking about why more women aren't outraged at the slope we are beginning to descend. Also, it got me thinking about the women who support these kinds of rulings and how narrow their vision is.

Being schooled as a Catholic, those Ten Commandments often come to mind when I ponder actions, such as this, that are lauded in the name of god.  I mean, I would imagine every Christian woman who claims superiority over others because of their relationship to god would be devout followers of the sacred tablets.  Let's review:

1) You shall have no other gods before me.
What about that glass of wine every night that you can't live without?  Or is it scotch?

2) You shall not make idols.
What would we find if we looked in your bedside table drawer?

3) You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain.
Check your passion! Are you sure you always scream, "Oh! Goodness!"?

4) Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.
Do you always send the gardener back home when he wants to work on Sundays?

5) Honor your father and your mother.
Surely this includes in-laws.

6) You shall not murder.
I have searched for a qualifier that makes this apply only to humans.  I'll keep looking.

7) You shall not commit adultery.
Doesn't that occasional guilty gratitude for a break from the obligation that you have, in between the repressed rage and anger knowing about the late nights at the office, make you a tad complicit?

8) You shall not steal.
Remember that stop at the charming vineyard taken as a business expense deduction on last year's taxes?

9) You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.
In modern day interpretation, I'm comfortable applying this to lumping all women who use birth control in the category of dirty-sex-for-pleasure-seekers without bearing the consequences... like you willfully did.

10) You shall not covet.
Let's face it, that new car decision was partly to keep up with the Joneses.

Now, I know I'm rusty on the good book and perhaps I could be corrected here or there, but in wracking my brain, I don't recall reading that we get to run Judgment Day, at least from this earthly life time.  How about we get a new hobby and let people choose their own sins, live with those choices and burn in their own infernos.  

Helen

All the animals love to participate, in their own way, in chores, especially when it's something different.  Today, I came back from having the car washed and left it outside the garage so I could clean the inside of the windows and sweep out the garage--also known as packing avoidance.  The dogs gathered around, each with their own ball and the 8 chickens came over to offer their help.

An open garage is always cause for much hen chatter.  They went in, just a little, and back out, back in, back out, each of them checking out the cement floor and telling each other of their individual experience into no-no land.  Meanwhile, I'm trying to get a few things accomplished in a reasonable amount of time but I have to push the gooey dog saliva ball off my lap while cleaning the inside windshield, then do a very quick halt and jump to the side when I got out to avoid stepping on Cinnamon.  As I moved from window to window, I was surrounded.  I have to admit, there is never a lack for companionship here at the ranch.

Well, poor Helen, who only has one eye, was rounding the front of the car from the left side which also happens to be her missing eye, and Boink!  She cut the corner too close and walked right into the moulding.  Thankfully most cars are made of plastic these days so it was no more than a gentle reminder that she ought to swing out a little wider.  But being a chicken, hugging in close is always safer.

My Story: Part I

Some ask,

"How come you didn't leave?"

It was a catharsis in the making.  Once the transformation started, it couldn't be stopped.  We see this in the Death card in Tarot. The sailboat is under sail, the new day is dawning on the horizon and the rider is down to bare bones, no battle gear, no spurs but rather an arrow, a red feather of life's passion in the hat, atop a white horse of purity, a front foot raised in motion, moving forward under the benediction of spirit.  It ceased to be about the other person.  It was my awakening.

"Where did you find the strength?"

As soon as my soul agreed to ask for help, the Universe started to deliver and continued to provide me the tools I needed to allow this process to unfold.  Reconnecting with my parents in a most profound and meaningful way was step one in feeling supported.  Finding the spiritual path that resonated with my being and beliefs gave me the grounding and trust I needed to recognize, if only mildly consciously, that this moment in time was critical in my life if I was to fully live as the person I was brought here to be.  




"But he was an a****!"

And that's what it took to call me out on my mastery of the expert level defensive and avoidance game.  My program was so well oiled, so tight, I could run circles around most.  As my experiences started to spark and were leading me toward a path of healing, it was still only a faint flicker. Only a raging beast could outwit the slyest of foxes.  I could not hide, not even from myself.  And when the beast would rage, finally, I would begin to shake out of the years of numbness.  I could still outwit a simple mirror.  My fortress required a fun house.

"Do you miss him?"

No.  The lesson was, and still is, so encyclopedic and truly that of a metamorphosis that my heart has safely stored the hurt and depression under "was useful, but no longer necessary" and the intermittent joy and love has been absorbed into the ability to be compassionate and forgiving, of both of us.  Our relationship no longer looks the same.  It has been dismantled and the various parts are now blended into a greater, higher personal good.

Namaste.