My August Moon Full Moon Dreamboard

                                               

            I knew the Full Moon was coming.  I could feel it.  I love that feeling some days.  Then again, there is nothing I love better than moon-bathing anyway.  I am not a sun person.  I have always belonged to the Moon.

            I didn’t officially know it was the full Full Moon until this morning, but yesterday morning I was already planning what I wanted to do for the Full Moon Dreamers DreamBoard.  I did not plan to work on a collage.  I still have plenty of work to do with my last collaged dreamboard.  It took me a bit of time to figure out what I wanted to do, but I decided I would take a picture for my dreamboard.  No drawing, or painting, or collaging or anything else.  One simple picture.

Here it is.

Now, I am sitting here at my computer while wearing a t-shirt that I knitted myself, in just a few hours, on Monday night.  It’s not as amazing a feat as it seems; I knitted it on really big needles.  The point of the matter with this t-shirt is I made it.  I made it myself…and I am wearing it.  I love it.  It is actually something I will wear in public and will be happy and proud to say, yes, I did make this myself.  It is that cool for me. 

It’s the whole process behind this little t-shirt that has me jazzed.  I did not wake up in the morning on Monday thinking, I am going to knit myself a t-shirt today.  What I was thinking was I have to make time to set up different accounts for various things, start applying for different things, get my butt in gear.  I was thinking I would have to make time in the evening to work on my silver bikini set that I am knitting.  What happened was I reached a stopping point with my applications processes, so I started looking for something to do with this amazing yarn we had picked up over the week-end while we were out at a festival in St Charles.

Farmhouse silk Blend, four skeins, in two different colors.  It isn’t enough, I don’t think, to make an entire sweater (although it might be and I am too inexperienced to realize it), but I could make something, like a tank top or a short sleeved shirt of some kind with it.  So, I spent a great deal of time on ravelry, gorging myself on patterns and knitted glory.  What happened while I was perusing the pictures and patterns on ravelry was too much of a coincidence for me to be comfortable.

As I went through all these patterns, I found out how many of the patterns I thought were cute and doable that I already own…because I already own the books…I just didn’t realize it…my books are still in boxes, still being stored.  That’s my life.  I have everything I need—I just don’t know it/realize it—and I need to bring it out, unpack it and make use of it.  Right now.

This t-shirt is a case in point.  I was TICKED when I found out how cute and how SIMPLE this pattern is to make. (It was that much worse to find out when I first bought the book, I had marked this same pattern to do later on…)   I took an allergy pill, went into the basement, and started to dig through the boxes of books, trying to unearth some knitting books.  I was successful.  I found my copy of Loop-d-loop…and I was thrilled to find out I actually have the correct yarn on-hand with which to knit this project.  I cast on about four or five times before I got it down and got it right…then I went to town. 

This t-shirt, the one I am wearing, is my prototype.  I made it on big needles so I could get a feel for making a top-down seamless raglan sweater without having to stress over thin yarn, little needles and days and days of effort hoping it turns out.  When I made this current t-shirt, I was thinking all along, if it doesn’t fit me, then my 9yo daughter will love the fact I made her a brand-new shirt.  There was no way to lose there, unless I really screwed it up.  I didn’t screw it up.  I am now addicted to top-down seamless sweater construction.  I cast on for my second t-shirt, using the thin yarn and the smaller needles, last night.

Better yet, even working top-down t-shirts counts towards my goal of knitting a bottom-up seamless yoke sweater.  It’s the process.  I make something on large needles…I gain the confidence to go back and do it again on smaller needles…which gives me the confidence to try doing the same thing, only different…

This is me.  This is my life.

I am totally afraid of screwing up, of failing, but I can fail.  I’ve been failing all my life.  Failure is no big thing.  You screw up.  You fail.  You fall.  You get up.  You dust yourself off.  You try try again.  I fell down a rabbit hole a long long time ago.  Every time I think I have crawled out of the rabbit hole, I find myself lost in the warren some more, climbing out of one hole only to find myself on another level, with another hole waiting for me to climb out of it whenever I am ready…but I never seem to find that final resting place, that ahhhh place, where the climbing and the crawling all end.  I wonder why I won’t let myself have that?

So, my Full Moon DreamBoard Picture today is all about ACTION…as in I am honestly actually in the process of DOING…I am knitting my t-shirt…I am knitting my bikini…I am writing and being paid to do so…I am creating…I am living…and I am loving it.

Maybe I am meant to remain in the rabbit hole.  Maybe I genuinely like the rabbit hole, and have merely failed to recognize that fact.  I have a whole new bunch of theories about ‘loving the one you’re with’ and ‘being happy with where you are’ –and they all revolve around what utter garbage that is…because that is called SETTLING…and I have settled my entire bloody life…and I am sick and tired of trying to make silk purses out of pig’s ears and then feeling bad because I failed at making silk purses. 

I will make my own purses, not from pig’s ears, and not made of silk…well, ok, except for the purse I have been commissioned to build and create for my lovely friend the Glass Fairy…but she bought the fabric, so that choice was not mine.  That’s a good thing though.

I will have my cake, which I will make myself, and I will eat it too…and of course, I will share it too.

Actual Full Moon Dreamboard

Remember when I told you I had plenty of pieces left over from my larger, not just for the Full Moon dreamboard and that I could use them to make a smaller dreamboard for the Full Moon?

This afternoon I had the time on my hands, as E got to go out on the town w some friends...I had plenty of work to do...even though I didn't get it all done.

I did make the time to do this...
here is is before gluing:

here is is right after gluing:

This one is simply to get me through the next Moon cycle...sounds strange, saying it that way...but that is how it feels.
The larger dreamboard and I have a few months, if not longer, to be working together towards this goal of ours.  This smaller dreamboard helps me focus this month.  The smaller focus leading into and building up the larger focus.
It's a beautiful thing.

A Simple Piece of Posterboard

        

        I did not realize last night was the Full Buck Moon.  For some reason, I had it in my head that this past Saturday was the Full Moon and that I had therefore missed the opportunity to make a Full Moon Dreamboard along with Jamie and the other Dreamers.  Lucky me, I didn’t miss it.  I landed smack dab in the very heart of it, eyes wide shut and prepared to dive feet first off the cliff into the watery abyss that is my subconscious.

            For a couple weeks now, I have been planning this dreamboard.  Not the images.  I had no clue whatsoever what images I was going to use, even after I had them gathered and ready to go.  I didn’t give thought to direction or color or …anything at all.  I have three different sizes of poster board downstairs.  Until the moment I grabbed a larger piece last night, I could not have even told you what size I was going to make this board.  What I decided early on though was that 1-my brain is too cluttered and I needed/wanted my subconscious to speak up and be heard…2-I wanted the message to be very very clear, even if the details were not spelled out…3-I wanted to know what Path I should be taking, what I should be making important in my life and, sort of, how and why.  Amazing, huh?  Not too much to ask, {sarcasm sign held up here}, when you think I’ve been plotting this for weeks without giving it any major thought whatsoever other than ‘this is what I need and want to know…now fork it over’…

            The original intention was to make sure the kitchen table was cleared off …but…that hasn’t happened yet.  I brought my art table (a folding table) upstairs and put E on it yesterday to do her schoolwork (rather than on the kitchen table since she is the main source of clutter) in the hopes that she could work better if she were not surrounded but such chaos.  Alas, that’s not how it worked out.  I had meant to have the art table to my self for my own purposes after she went to bed.  Nope.  The kid is chaotic…it follows her.  The mess was so extensive …notebooks, folders, papers, crayons, markers, pencil shavings…that I decided I wasn’t touching any of it…so I retired to the living room to watch the rest of Season Two of ‘The Big Bang Theory’, which I ordered months and months ago and never got around to watching after moving from across the river, and then moving again into R’s house.

            In the middle of the shows, I got up, grabbed three National Geographics from the 70s,(I have five or six laying around just for this purpose-although I have not used them since I bought them nearly 3 years ago) and went in search of poster board.  Then I had to find the glue.  Since 95% of our stuff is as yet unpacked, those things are not quite as simple as they would seem. 

            Next, I went through all three magazines and just pulled out what appealed to me.  I have enough images left over for another dream board…and I actually think I may use the smaller images to make a monthly plan dream board a little later today, once I am done with my writing and editing and posting that I have mandated I must complete today.  This, of course, does not include housework, though it really should.  After pulling the images, I went through and trimmed all the images.  I set my poster board up across two wooden tv trays and set to work.

            I am actually very surprised by how many layers this board has.  Layers and layers upon layers.  I love that.  You can still see pieces of every single layer, but some of the overall pieces that I thought would be telling and visible are barely seeable at all.  I cut and trimmed and glued and moved things around and glued some more.  When I stepped back, this thing took my breath away.  I took the pictures while the piece was still wet.

            I had to hang it up, right then.  No letting it dry flat overnight or anything.  I removed all the other dreamboards from the wall where I keep them.  I tend to put one on top the other, not removing the old ones, simply adding the new one on top of the old.  With this one, however, the others needed to come down.  I put them in a place where their energies would still be flowing and working, but this one needed its own space, all by itself.  It had to have room to do its work and to grow and to spread.  That’s how it felt last night; that’s how it feels today. 

            When I woke up this morning and looked over at it (it’s on the wall in my bedroom), this piece took my breath away, again.  The colors alone trigger such evocative emotions in me.  I see the messages.  I get it.  Finally.  I know which way I am heading.  I even have more than a slight idea how to get there—which for me is pretty impressive.    Those colors.  Wow.  I recently pared down my wardrobe to the absolute bare minimum essentials…and these are the colors, for the most part, with which I am left.  Stunning. 

One task today that I didn’t realize I had set for myself until I was in the process of doing it was to take the picture of the dreamboard and set it as the background on my computer, so that I see it all the time, every day, not just when I am in my bedroom.  Not that I haven’t been spending more time alone in the bedroom during the day—I have.  I have set myself a little bit of a writer’s nook so I can work on my daily writing practice and my pseudo-morning pages.

            Now, I have been working on a new project, as you can see here.  It is still in the planning stages, to say the least.  I had to write a small blurb about it so I could post it in a public forum, lest I grow cold feet and shelf the project for a year or two.  This is something rather near and dear to my heart that I have pondered and thought about and wondered about and looked for from other people for a good five, six years now, if not longer.  Ok, fine.  I have to admit it.  The basics have been swimming around in my brain since the late 90s, when I ordered a Yogananda program.  The program packed away at the moment, so I can’t give you details…and of course I do not see this particular program listed on the website anymore.  I ordered mine in the 90s—it came with cassette tapes.  I saw it a few years later, offered with cds.  It was a meditation/ self-realization program.  It made a large impact on me at the time, remnants of which are still bound to my body/mind, for which I am truly honored and grateful. 

This dreamboard only solidifies my need to pursue this course that much more fully and openly.  Keep an eye out.  I wrote something this morning, during my pseudo-morning pages (I say pseudo since I program them with a certain topic every day and then basically free write…not the whole unfettered stream of consciousness thing with which Julia Cameron created the concept.)…I need to type that out and post it there today, or quite possibly tomorrow, depending on how things move around here for the rest of the day.

 

            This dreamboard is also actually pushing me more forward with my other creative project, seen here.  I have several entries written out and ready to be typed up…but I have been hesitant to draw or to find the photographs I know I have taken that will aid the presentation of these pieces.  It’s been so easy to just sigh and sit back and let everything overwhelm me of late…but I am trying very hard to get off my backside, get back in the saddle and really get moving again.  I have become very interested in the new goings-on at SoulFoodCafe, as some of the past journeys that have been undertaken by this group are the inspiration for my own personal journey with this blog…

            Strangely enough, the main gist of what I take away from this newest dreamboard is in order to go forward you must go back…do not falter in the details (as in stop thinking you need to read and study and go through other people), but rather focus on what you know (as in what your heart and soul tell you, not your brain, nor your personal frame of reference).  Be open.  Be pure.  Remember who you are and how very infinitely strong you are.  Remember how many there are who have your back, on this side of the Veil and the other (as in friends and family still alive, and those who have passed on, the Ancestors).

            Here’s to a wonderful experience following my Path, going forwards by going backwards, which has always been my own best way.  I look forward to sharing it with you along the way.

            Peace.

In Full Bloom

            I needed this month’s dreamboard.  More than I have needed any dreamboard of late.  I needed that push in one direction or another to help me get on track, or to at least figure out what track I am on.  Once I know where I am going, I can get there.  Sometimes it is the knowing that makes all the difference.

            Jamie is such a huge and powerful Inspirer…I love those times when I catch her posts on facebook or on her website/blog where she puts into words the feelings and emotions that are pulsing through me…she is that added little extra push that gets me going and allows me to figure out whatever it is that I am in need of figuring out at the time.

            This is the Full Flower Moon…and when I set my intention along the New Moon, I was asking for guidance to show me where I needed to be blooming …what avenues I needed to pursue more…which direction in which I needed to focus my often times very splintered attention…this month I was highly rewarded. 

            Now, I’ve been cleaning out my house…which has caused a HUGE shortage in available magazines and whatnot from which to garner pictures.  I’ve been really lucky to find some strange and wonderful things of late.  I found several local magazines that had perfect pictures for what I needed.  I am personally astounded by quite a bit of the imagery used.

            The central image is of Alice in Wonderland…she was the first image I laid down.  She sat there on the board alone, as I found her at the New Moon…but more pieces began to come together…the board began to take shape…and voila…

            All I can say is WOW! 

            There is so much wonderful movement in this piece.

            Now, I will admit that I worked on this board between the New Moon and the Full Moon…I will admit I have had this piece up on my wall in my kitchen for over a week now.  I will also admit that I have already started to put some of this poetry into motion.

            The first thing I did was get some dance dvds…not just belly dancing, since I have actually had those for awhile, but Bollywood dancing.  It started out as a fluke.  One of my favorite yoga dvds is by Hemalayaa Behl.  I like her energy.  I like the way she speaks.  I like her philosophy as it is presented in this video.  My original plan was to see about buying more of her yoga dvds.  I never made it that far.  But, I did buy several of her Bollywood dance dvds.  One reason I bought them was all the reviews that said she goes slowly and explains things, so it’s easy to get into the movement—without getting lost.  Cardio and I are not friends…which is why I have long loved yoga…I can move slowly for hours at a time, but make me move fast and I’ll be done in 15 minutes, if I last that long.  My favorite dvd by far as yet is the dance of the Kama Sutra…and for most people it is not what you think…because my 9yo and I will do it together—which is another reason I went for slow—but fun—which these dvds are.

            I had not realized how much I would love the dance, how much I would love dancing.  If yoga frees my soul and my mind, the dance frees my body in ways yoga never has.  I used to love to dance…then…well…I got married.  I have spent the last year, realizing exactly what the ex-husband “saved” me from…what I allowed him to take away from me.  It’s not sad; it’s a new beginning.  Finding these pieces of me I had nearly forgotten, or had forgotten completely.

            We can also say it was my daughter’s birthday requests that had to be knitted…or my weird jag of wanting to knit myself some tank tops and halter tops for the summer, but I have gone more into my knitting lately.  I signed up to take Level 1 and Level 2 of the Craft Yarn Council Of America’s certified knitting instructor program.  I had thought of doing the crochet program as well…but after reading over things, I don’t think my crochet skills are up to the test yet…I have been thinking for a couple years about taking the Knitting Guild Of America’s Master Knitter program.  I probably will, in a year or so.  For right now, the courses I have signed up for are what I need.  I know I can pass the Level 1 of the Master Knitter program w TKGA, but after that, I am not so sure.  I think it is worth it to build up my confidence w this first sojourn rather than to allow myself to knowingly walk in where I will fail.  Which is strange in and of itself, since the stuff on the Level 2 is the stuff I want to learn.

            Yes, I know what that says about me.  I don’t like to fail and I mean to be prepared before I even start a new endeavor.  I know.  Maybe that is why I am so slow about doing other things as well.

            My one giggle w this board is the ladies in the white bikinis on the beach.  My boyfriend loves the beach…loves the sun.  I love the beach…at night.  I am all for moon bathing.  I do it now.  I am the pale chick, the vampire in the sun…I can deal with some sun…but the beach?  Laying out, in the sun, to crisp my skin?  That’s not me…but I know I am willing to do things for R…and I do know he has been talking about us going to the beach for awhile now.  So I will not say no.

            I have also been pushing back into my more artistic endeavors.  My drawing, thanks to a tree at my local yarn store.  Really.  Just this one tree.  A tree that has always been there in the parking lot, looking like it always does.  But for some reason, over a month ago, this tree caught my attention.  It demanded my attention.  I sketched it that first day—very VERY rough draft.  I had to go back the next week, w my camera.  So, I used it as an excuse to buy more yarn.  Big deal.  But I took over a dozen pictures of this tree.  I draw it over and over…even just in my mind…but I am back in the saddle, even if I am not whipping the horse to get full throttle…Funny thing is now I am more interested in photography as well…

            I actually needle felted for the first time the other night.  My fingers are healing nicely, thank you.  I ordered a Waldorf doll making kit…and am going to start that today.  I bought a small beginner’s set of wood working tools…hand carving.  R and I are really into the ‘-cello’ market…as in limoncello….we have lime-oncello steeping…the blood cordial (raspberry) was addictive…it went over very well.  We now have plum cordial and apricot cordial steeping.  

            On the cordials, I think we are going to cut down the sugar content…and let them steep longer than the recipe required three weeks.  But oh gosh, do we have a new enterprise here!

            R and I have been getting so many compliments…and requests and orders…for our jerky and lately for our fried potatoes…that people are suggesting we open our own restaurant…which pushes us back into our bed and breakfast idea…It’s warm weather…and that means…my weird bizarre upside down clock wants to BAKE…my kids want breads and cookies and scones and you name it…which is why I bought the convection oven in the first place…although I have not run it through its paces of late. 

            Things are really moving forward.

            A couple things do surprise me about this board.  The St Louis picture and the American flag picture.  I have ideas about those, but I’ll wait. 

            I am very interested to see where the coming month leads.

Full Pink Moon Dreamboard...and more

I think today is perfect…the perfect time to unveil both this month’s Full Moon Dreamboard and to engage in this week’s wish as well.

What do you wish to invest in?

Well, see, thanks to Jamie and the crew, it’s not that I am wishing to invest in anything.  I am investing in things, like my children, my family, my relationship w R, my self, my art.  Everything I want to invest in has been started.  We have a patio garden that has leaked over into the yard.  We have rabbits as a start to the farm.  We are heavy into the real estate investment venue.  Everything may be moving in small increments, but everything is moving.  So, we’re happy.

I am actually proud of myself w this dreamboard.  I haven’t done a large scale one, or a very collaged one, since, eons ago…I think it was last year actually.  I still keep my old dreamboards, the ones not in a notebook, up on a wall so I can see them. 

This one is a bit different.  It’s a plain piece of poster board.  I did not feel a need to paint it at all.  There was a need to keep the background white, and to make sure there was plenty of space, plenty of open space, in between the various images.

Now, the way I chose the images is interesting.  I have piles of magazine pages, and piles of already cut out images…we went to the very wet and rainy Earth Day event in Forest Park this past week-end…and we stayed for maybe 10 or 15 minutes.  Long enough for E to actually hold a crayfish at one demonstration…we had all sorts of fliers and leaflets…and hey, maybe I will win that trip to Bali…but…the images in the one mini-magazine we had been handed really caught my eye.  Add in a solar energy magazine…and boom, there is the majority of my project.  I did allow myself to grab one sheaf of ripped out magazine pages.  I allowed myself to use images from those pages and nothing else.

I decided to rip out the images, even if they had been previously cut out…they needed to be ripped and torn for this project…the use of words surprised me…especially given the words themselves…and where some of them came from…

Only one image did not make it onto the board…I tore a picture of a woman doing eagle pose…right through the legs.  The pose would not work without the foundation.  Although I did use other pictures that had ripped in the wrong places, I didn’t feel as if the eagle pose could be salvaged and still retain the meaning of the entire piece.

I still did the same old thing I do…I closed off my conscious mind…I stopped analyzing…I stopped judging…I let it go.  I let my hands and my heart move.

I am not about to sit here and try to figure out what it says or what it is telling me.  I sort of have an idea—per usual—without having any clue as to the details…but there is enough there for me to move forward and be happy.

A Slight Update

Well, I meant to sit down yesterday and set out all my goals for the week.

I have finished my diotima shell.  I have started the poncho for my friend.  I had three shipments of books, not all knitting related, come in this week-end.

I am currently lost in the wit and tragedy of ‘The Midwife’ written by Jennifer Worth at the moment.  I started it last night and am already 100 pages into it.  Whereas I am still struggling through ‘Mr Darcy, Vamppyre’ by Amanda Grange. 

I finally did get all our little veg planted yesterday.  Now we have only, only, three types of basil growing…plus, I have seeds to plant for two more varieties that I am planning to plant come May.  Our spinach is now happily ensconced into two pots.  I think our stevia plant needs a bit more rabbit manure…but they are just rabbits…and even though they are poop machines, they only poop so much.

The storms of this past week-end did not go over well with the bunny twins.  They didn’t eat as much.  They preferred to hide most of the time.  We bought them a little cat cave thing.  It’s a circular thing made of wood, covered w fabric.  They will both hide inside it, but charley will jump on top of it and play King of the World.  It’s very funny.  R still seems to be their most favorite person and chew toy…which is just hysterical.  Since I groom them, they do not always like me…no matter how gentle I am.  It’s the I will hold you to brush you thing…I have to…I have no choice…I can’t let them get full of mats.  Although they do love it when I come to feed them…both will pop up and try to get to the scoop in my hand before the other one…and it doesn’t matter if I fill the feeder, they still want to see what I have in the scoop.  I have not tried any other ‘treats’ or greens yet…especially not w the weather as frothy as it has been lately…

I have had some ‘stuff’—there is no other term—brewing in the back of my head for days…more like weeks…now. 

I decided a few days ago that I am doing the big huge full-sized poster board Full Moon Dreamer dream board this month.  In the past, when I first started doing the dream boards w Jamie and her crew, when I made dream boards, they were not one month long journeys…my larger dream boards are always far reaching.  The smaller dream boards that I made…the ones I tended to frame, the ones I call my doorways, are more short-term goals.  I need a more broad and general view of what I am trying to accomplish.  I know there is a great deal of subconscious ‘stuff’ going on.  I need to have a more conscious view of things.

I had my Liev Schreiber dream the other night.  It’s not as if it is the same dream every single time I have this dream, but it is the same theme.  I do not know why my brain settled upon Liev Schreiber all those years ago, but when my dream mind needed a champion, Liev was the man my mind chose.  I could examine this all day and all night, but I won’t.  I understand theoretically why Liev is the best choice for this particular … occurrence?  Dream?  Whatever.  That I remember the dream at all is a miracle, any of them.  But there is a reason Liev shows up…since I remember quite a bit of the dream (no, I won’t share it, apologies, not until I figure out all the details and the wherefores and the whys and the hows), there is a great deal of work for me to do on this side…and I know it.

That dream was merely one trigger.  I am grateful for it.  I see the wisdom in it.  I see the hope and the magnificence of it.  I also see the potential in it as well.

Add into that, and the email I got today from Creative Every Day.  And I simply get an email every time the website is updated…it’s not as if Leah emailed me personally or directly or anything.  CED is one of those things I have been meaning to be more involved w this year, but that I sort of let sit at the side of the road while I found my footing.  Apparently, my footing is returning…because when I opened this email, rather than moving it to my CED box unread, which has been my norm, I was touched.  I felt the Universe reach out and either touch my heart…or poke me in the chest, depending upon how you look at it.  Maybe it was a little of both.

The whole thing w CED is the ‘totally optional theme’ for the month of May is Intuition…

Intuition…which brings me back to the whole needing to access the subconscious, the unspoken, the inner workings, of my own heart, mind and soul…I need to bring them to the surface.

My artist …drive…has been slowly building up.  I cut back my work hours yet again, with surprisingly good results…I can’t quite believe that…but I have the time to do the other work in my life…and I am more ready now then I was a year ago.  I am very proud of the changes in my life…I know I have other roads to travel and I am excited and grateful for the opportunities.

More to come soon…I am sure there is much to reveal…

Let's Revisit The Full Moon, Shall We?

The original Full Moon Post appears here.

This current post is far more...detailed...here you go:

            The Full Moon is, like so many other things, a Door.  It swings open; it swings shut.  I have spent many Full Moons working with, and working within, these Doors.  I never like to open Doors for others, but yesterday I had to open one for R’s dog Shadow.  Shadow passed last night, into the next world.  He went with peace, with dignity, and with grace.  He also went w a smile, as if he were a younger dog again and it was time for him to chase rabbits.  Maybe he’ll even catch some now.  I know he is no longer in pain, but we miss him dearly here.  He was more than just a good friend.

            It is not with a somber heart that I greet this day; it is with a light and open heart.  Death is not an ending; it is only a beginning. 

            The Full Moon.  I have listened to the whispers at the nape of my neck for long years, those soft sibilant seductions stroking my flesh.  I do not ignore them.  It may take me a bit to reach out to fulfill them, but I always move towards these goals.

           

            The whispers have been getting louder lately.  More persistent.  They are not things that I have never heard, nor never desired.  To say they are the same old, same old, however, would be misleading.

            There is the Rescue Ranch, which comes nearer and nearer every year.  There is the drawing and painting.  There is the writing.  There is the growing things.  There are the animals.  There is the spinning.  There is knitting and crocheting.  There is sewing. 

            If you’ve kept up w my blog for years, you’ll know, I have been trying to get out of the Priesthood, for lack of a better term, as my everyday life, for a long time.  I am not about to drop everything, as healing is in my DNA, but I have wanted for years to shift the focus away from my healing work and back to my artistic work, back towards my green lifestyle work.  I have also wanted to focus more on my family, have more children, firmly anchor us as a family and build upon the foundations and become the rock that I try to be in the shifting currents of the world.

           

Strangely enough, as we were going through the houses to gather things to donate to the abused women’s charity that came for their pick-up this morning, I kept thinking to myself, if I lost it all, what would that mean to me?  What would I really miss?

            See, my one year anniversary is coming up, the time to take stock of everything.  In early April.  Nearly a year ago, well, fine, more than that, but the ‘official’ date is in early April (more on that as it approaches).  In November, 2008, we had that accident.  We almost lost everything then.  The car.  All our stuff.  All my writing.  Anything that might have been important to me…was not actually lost.  The most important things to me…were and are…my children and the people who love us.  My dog was safe.  The dog traveling w me was scared, but who can blame him?  The bird was ok.  My daughter was fine, save for a small bump on her head.  The rest, it was just stuff.  In the end, I could have lost all of it and still been happy, still been alive.  Even now, as I watch one friend pass on, I am struck thinking, one day it will happen to all of us.  There is no way around that.

           Another thing that came up as I was sorting through clothing and whatnot at my own house to donate was one question:  why am I doing this?  Every time I would open a drawer, look in a cabinet, whatever, I would ask myself, why am I doing this?  It had nothing to do w why am I donating this…that answer is simple.  One, because I want to help those less fortunate and two, because I need to pare down and  stop holding on to things that really do not mean anything to me.  It’s a win-win scenario there.  I lessen my load and my burden, while helping someone else who has nothing, but needs so much.  My real question came more from the …am I getting rid of this because I don’t want or need it…or am I getting rid of it because I think someone else would want me to get rid of it?  

            R always spicks on me about my jeans.  I don’t like plain old regular blue jeans.  I want jeans w stripes, or with embroidery, or that are made differently than any other pair.  I wear jeans that have leather laces up both sides.  I wear jeans that have fabric cut-outs in places.  My favorite pair of jeans is an old pair of men’s jeans that I found in the thrift store for $1 that are worn and thin and velvety soft, with a button fly and weird bleach stains here and there.  The jeans have character.  I like that.  I will buy weird things because they are weird and I like it.  I went through my jeans and pulled out several pairs of jeans, some with purposeful bleach patterns, some with embroidery, yada yada, and every time I pulled out a pair of jeans to get rid of, I stopped and thought…am I doing this for me…or am I doing it because R would like it if I did it?  Am I doing this because I am trying to fit into some sort of mold that is not me…or am I genuinely doing it because I want to do it for me?

            You see, I have spent more than 30 years living my life for someone, anyone, else but me.  That is truly what is precious about my life right now.  I can and do live for me, not because some man thinks I should behave this way or dress that way.  Not because society says I should do this or I should do that.  I have had the worst issues since we moved out of WV, trying to figure out exactly who I am and what I want.  You would think I would know, having lived my own life for so long, but honestly, I never allowed myself to actually live my own life.

            The Rescue Ranch is something I used to think about now and then, when I was the walking dead, working as a telephone operator, stuck w T of the wandering pants.  I always planned to buy property and have a farm of some sort, after he died.  I knew I would never have a life of my own, until after his demise.  He would never allow that.  Now, with hindsight, I see he could not allow me to have my own life because it would have interfered so with his.  But I made the choices that kept me there, even though I thought I was doing it because I loved him.  I allowed him to abuse and torment me.  I could have left.  I should have left.  A million times over.  I don’t bother thinking about what might have been if I had had the courage to walk away from him at any point before we got married, before we took the SBC jobs, before we moved to St Louis.  The seed of the Ranch has always been there.  I’ve never really acted upon it.

            Now I can.  Now I am.  I get lost in the wonder of being allowed to do things sometimes.

            By the way, every item I got rid of, every piece of clothing I purged from my wardrobe, every dish, every skein of yarn, every knitting needle and bit of fabric I donated, I did it all for me.  One step at a time, I am reclaiming my own true self by pulling away all these fibrous layers of stuff with which I have long wrapped myself to protect me from…me…trying to please others over myself.

            There is nothing actually that surprising about the things worming to the surface of late.  All these ideas have been here lying dormant all along.

            What is so spectacular at the moment is how I am embracing the ideas, be it one at a time, be it at a snail’s pace, whichever way things come to be, but I am more than willing to see me, to embrace me.  That is the best thing.  That is something I did not count on.

            The picture of the Fortune Cat on my dreamboard is merely a representation of how I feel about the coming future.  Ever so lucky.  Good things are already on my plate.  More good things are coming, even now as we speak.  I am thoroughly enjoying this new round of nesting, the one where I am not building and clinging to my nest, but rather sorting out the wheat from the chaff and letting all the unnecessary things float away, on whatever breeze will have them.

            My only real goal is to hit the miscellaneous boxes that await in my basement.  You know the miscellaneous boxes.  After you’ve moved, you have this box where you keep sticking all this little stuff that doesn’t really have any other place to go, but you don’t want to let go of it and you don’t really have a use for it, but maybe one day you will, so you hold on to all this stuff in this box…well, I have a box like that for every move I’ve made since we left AR.  Sometimes I have shifted items around, changed things from one box to another.  I have even gone through the boxes, pondering what to do w everything, more than once after every move.  Now I have I think two, maybe three boxes of miscellaneous garbage sitting in my basement, waiting for me to do something with all that stuff.  My goal is to go through it without mercy and to toss everything that does not have a purpose…if there is no room to keep it, it’s gone. 

            This is more than just preparing to move in w R permanently, in one big house, rather than the way we’re living w him now, between the two houses.  This is my own nesting process.  I feel like a silk worm coming out of her cocoon. 

I like this.  The world is my oyster these days.  I like that.

            Peace.

Full Moon Dreams

         ‘T is a sad Full Moon upon us this day.  R’s 13 yo dog is nearing the end.  Nothing we can do there.  It’s been coming for awhile.  Yet, today, I look at him and think, there probably won’t be a tomorrow in this world for the old man.   How then to turn my mind to happier, more on down the line things?

            I made my Full Moon Dreamboard this morning, before things grew quite so dire.  So there is a great deal of hope and looking forward in the piece.  Funnily enough, the whole thing, other than the colored pencil background, comes from the children’s menu of PF Chang’s, which is where we ate last night, after running all our nefarious errands, after dropping N back at T’s house.

            As sad as it seems, I only have one set of colored pencils at R’s house.  I got up early and made this bitty collage—but there was no glue, no glue sticks, nothing useful.  Lucky me, I couldn’t get the gorilla glue open enough to use it.  Yes, I did contemplate it.  I ended up coloring in the background.  Then I cut out the pictures I wanted to use.  And taped them to the background, because that, after ransacking the house, and not trusting myself to finish things if I waited until we went to my house today, tape was all I could find.

            So, take this dreamboard for what you will.  I know it means the future is so bright I have to wear shades…but then, that has always been my future.

            The past is the past and I am not going to ask.  The future is so bright…I get to mix up song lyrics from songs from decades ago…

           

            More to come…enjoy your own dreams.  May you soar ever higher…every day.

            Peace.

Full Moon Dreaming

Hey-look-I can post a picture this time!

My birthday was Saturday (more on this in another post) ... and of course, w the kids w us all week-end--I had no computer access...

But, when E and I went home yesterday, to our own house, after I played in the dirt of the house plants for awhile, I did finally take the images I had gathered and put them down on the page.

My old art journal...it had a pre-painted page in it, just waiting for me to collage it... so ... of course ... I did...

I know what it means to me...I know what it symbolizes... I will simply leave the picture here for you to decide...