Returning to Balance

My first instinct is to apologize for my silence over the past six months but, I remember that there is no one to apologize to, and that even if there were, I have nothing to apologize for.

There have been many changes in my life this year, and many of them I could not process while experiencing them.  Sometimes we have to ride the waves and then process on the shore.  Only after we have returned home can we put a framework around our experiences. 

In the past two months I left my position with my employer, only to be reinstated within two weeks time in a new position at a new location. During those two weeks I moved from my tree-house (where Pwca and I had lived for four and a half years) to a new home in a new town.  I turned 50 and have completed my physical transition into crone (at least the medical definition).  I have begun a new phase in my therapy and a new focus in my studies.  

I have come out the other side of a very dark time, and I am beginning a new adventure in just about every area of my life.

At Samhaine I received messages about my need for balance.  Time engaging in community and laying the foundation for the future, time with my beloveds, and time alone to write and to practice magick, are each desirable and necessary.  I am capable of doing all of these things.  Balancing them is a skill that I am learning.  Recognizing, respecting and communicating boundaries are skills I need to practice if I am to serve my beloveds as well as my own soul.

Returning to my writing is also necessary.  Because communicating about the joy and beauty I find in the world, in my community, with my Gods and Allies and Ancestors and beloveds, is one of the ways I fulfill my purpose. Expressing that joy and beauty helps me to remember it every day, which is how I find light among the shadows.  Blessed be.

Rebuilding...

For the past few months I have been undergoing a process of deconstruction, of tearing down everything that I count on, everything that I believe.  The destruction of my internal structures, the resurrection of unresolved memories, and the complete desolation of self had left me nothing but the core of my pathology, a crippled creature to be put down.  At one point a few weeks ago I was as far down into the abyss as I can ever remember being. 

My sister and Priestess was worried about me and said so, calling me to account and making me admit to the place I was occupying.  My brother and priest recognized that I was on the edge and pushed and poked until I lost the last bit of my control and, like a spring wound too tightly, I became un-sprung.  My beloved kinsman gave me objective guidance and tools to assist me in learning skills that I have lacked.  My lover held me and listened and talked and kept me from total isolation by giving me the comfort of his company and the wisdom of his own experience with his own abyss. 

I had lost my vision, I had lost my desire to continue to engage, to serve, I had nothing but doubt that I would ever be able to become what I need to be, even survival was not a sure thing but, I kept fighting.  And I am once again able to see the vision of what I can be.  I have remembered the desire to serve.  I have regained my feet and have discovered that I am not crippled.  I have found that lack of balance means I need to learn to dance in the void. 

Many of the ways in which I had functioned will not serve me in the work I hope to do.  I have begun new work, I am learning new skills, and engaging in new relationship with Deity.   I am rebuilding a new structure. I have a new vision of how to build a structure that will serve me and those I love.  One with more open space and less obstructions, less obstacles, with bigger windows to let in more light and to let in more air, to let the fires burn warmer and brighter, to let the waters flow more freely. 

I give thanks for those who helped me not only to survive the past few months but to rise from them ready to begin building something new.  May they be blessed and may I live up to their trust and their love.  Blessed Be

Survival

This summer has been an amazing season of growth, self-exploration, and self-discovery.  I have been learning a great deal about who I am and how to be All of who I am.  My forty-ninth birthday is just around the corner, my work on my third degree has moved from the first steps to the beginning of the path, and I have begun to See how my visions of my future might come to pass. 

But I have also had to look at the past, in this life and in others.  And I have come to see that I am a Survivor.  I am proud of that.  Survivor does not mean victim, it does not mean wounded, it does not mean damaged.  Survivor means Strong, it means ALIVE, it means Unconquerable and Unbreakable.

In this lifetime I have Survived;

Clinical depression,

Suicidal obsession and attempts,

Compulsive self-medication,

Self-destructive patterns of high-risk behavior,

Sexual assault,

My own Rage,

Compliance with the decisions of others,

The loss of my children,

Two years under the power of an extreme, militant, fundamentalist, baptist preacher and his followers.

Years of silencing my own self and hiding from my own power,

And the voices in my head that are, and that are not, my own.

I am ALIVE, I am Happy, and I am finally beginning to live my life the way I was meant to all of these years.  I have Survived because I am Stronger than any of those things. 

My Gods, my Ancestors, my Allies, and my Community have all had a hand in helping me to learn to live but, I am the one who Survived to learn. 

I share these things with you because, if you are reading this, you might be living in shadow, you might be looking for the candles. You might have experienced depression or assault; you might feel that you are weak, or damaged.  You might believe that dying is your only option to end the pain, or the fear, or the despair.  You might even think that you deserve nothing good, and that you are destined to be alone and in pain for the rest of your life. 

But I would point out that, you have Survived.  If you are reading this, you are Alive.  You are a Survivor!  You are Strong and Unconquerable, and Unbreakable. YOU are the Beauty to be found in the Darkness!  Nothing is stronger than that!

Quickening

There is a moment during pregnancy when the child inside the womb quickens.  When it stirs within and the mother can feel that the being inside is not only alive but a separate being from herself, a new and different creature.  I remember the moments when each of my children moved within me.  I remember the moments when they became real to me and not just ideas and faces I saw in my dreams.  The remnants of my past lives feel a bit like that to me, like separate beings but, alive and part of me. 

The Queen of the Abyss has been healed and I have come face to face with Another that was hiding behind her.  I understand that the Sorrow was meant to teach me compassion, and I believe that it has.  I continue to nurture that compassion by working with a Goddess of Compassion, by establishing a new relationship with White Tara, a Goddess with seven eyes; Who sees, offers protection, and blessings. 

But the real work ahead is to reconcile the immense Rage I hold within me.  I do believe that some of that Rage is a remnant of past lives. But some of it belongs to this life, and all of it belongs to me, all of it is mine to claim and to reconcile.  And the time has come to do just that.

You might ask “Why?”  Why not simply nurture compassion?  Why ever let the Rage out at all?

It has taken a great deal of my power to keep it hidden and contained for most of my life, power that I was meant to use for living.  In those moments when my guard was down and it has escaped, it has been destructive and out of control, hurting me and those around me.  And suppressed rage, unexpressed anger, is one of the most insidious causes of clinical depression, which I have battled for most of my life.

My Gods, my Ancestors and my Allies have been pushing me to open this place, to find what is hidden beneath and I have.  They will not let me rest until I have learned how to express the anger and how to do so safely.  If I am to serve my Community and my Coven, my Gods and my Ancestors, I cannot have a nuclear bomb hiding inside me waiting to explode and destroy those for whom I am responsible.

I have always been afraid of my power for fear that using it would result in “everyone ending up dead and bloody”.  I realize now that is because I associate my power with my rage.  I can learn to heal it, express it and control it without simply locking it away inside my body like some rotting corpse in a tomb.

So the Rage has quickened and I must as well if I am to learn to do this work.  May I do so with compassion and power, honor and grace, courage and conviction.  So Mote it Be.

Re-awakening

When I finally came to this path, or returned to it, and I do believe that this was always the path I was meant to follow, I was almost dead.  I think that is why I finally found the path.  I needed to, without it I was done for this life.

I had silenced and shadowed and suppressed every natural and wild instinct I had, every magickal impulse, every source or expression of power, every hope my heart and soul and mind and body and spirit had ever had of living.

I can finally see now, that through all of it, I kept trying.  I kept reaching and pushing and scratching and clawing, I kept trying through my childhood, through my adolescence, through my years of wandering the wasteland.  Then, I found a book, and in that book I found a glimpse of what my path should be, what my life could be, and I finally began to let myself live.

It has taken another twenty-one years to fully emerge from that half-life of sleepwalking.  Over that time I have slowly and painfully re-awakened much of myself.  Each of the parts of myself had to be remembered and revived.  Each of my chakras has had to be unlocked and brought out of a state of near-death.  I feel as though I am finally ready to begin. 

In attempting to see my whole self these past few weeks, I have discovered that the last part of me to awaken may be the most important, the most vital, the key to my strength and power. My sacral chakra is the one part of me that I have only recently begun to allow free expression and it is the place in my body that I most identify as myself, as “home”.

From my earliest memories, that part of me has never stopped striving to express itself, not to the world, but to myself.  In allowing my source uncensored freedom to express and explore and experience, I have discovered that life has more depth, more vibrancy, more energy, more color and sound.  Every sense I have, including my psychic senses, as well as my “sense of self” has been heightened.  I have more energy to engage with others, with my work, with my life, with my writing and with my magick.

Each of my chakras, each of my parts, must be healthy and whole, free to express and experience life, to do the work of living.  I cannot allow any of them to be silenced or shadowed if I am to complete my work. If I am to live the life I am meant to live.  I give thanks for dear friends who have helped me to awaken and become more fully alive.  Blessed be.

Leap of Faith

I have done something foolish.  Or at least my pessimistic, doubting, Eyore voice tells me that it was foolish.  I have left my job without another offer on the table.  There are a few offers pending, I hope.  But as of yesterday, I do not have a job.  I have enough money to pay the rent and the bills for a while, I have a few job offers pending and there are a few positions that I can take to get by, if it comes to that.  I have parents, siblings and an ex-husband and friends who will not let me fall on my face.  But I have no clear picture of the future, no guarantee in writing.  No sure-thing plan.

This was a leap of faith.  It was a response to my body, heart, soul, mind, and lower self.  I should think I would be panicked right now.  I should think that my middle, talking self would be screaming at me to “take it back”.  But I am not panicked, not even middle self.  I am calm and peaceful and I feel well.  I slept well, I am eating, I did not empty my stomach this morning as soon as I got out of bed. I no longer feel in danger.

The divination that I have done shows me that this is the right action.  My parents and others whose opinions and advice I respect also support me in this.  But mostly my body tells me that this was necessary and that it will all be ok.

I will be spending my days actively pursuing employment. I will be spending time cleaning and organizing my home and spending time with my Pwca. I will be spending time in the natural world as well.  I will be spending time reading and writing and doing magick to bring a healthy and prosperous job. I will take advantage of the time until I start the new job (the one I do not have yet) to re-set my energetic state and that of my home, to do magick to cleanse myself, heal myself and prepare myself.  

I am also hoping to use it to spend time with some of my loved ones who I have not been able to enjoy since this past challenge began.  Isolation has been one of the worst aspects of it.  I have been suffocating and now I need to breathe. 

This is a thing I could never have seen myself doing.  I am more than a little surprised at myself for being able to step out of the situation without a clear plan, a guaranteed safety net.  I had been looking for the lessons and this was never one I had imagined but, I am glad that I made the leap.  

Following my Inner Voice; Instinct and Intuition

I have been struggling lately with a life change that I pursued because I thought it was what I was supposed to do.  I followed other people’s direction, despite a nagging feeling in my gut (and by that I mean not only my lower self but, my middle and upper selves as well) that made me ambivalent about the change.  I took a new position at my job.  The pay was more, it was a promotion and all indications were that it would be good for me and for my future. 

So, I ignored my own instincts and my own intuition.  I followed other people’s direction and after two months I have come to realize that I was horribly wrong to do so.  I spent the past two months struggling to make it feel right.  Trying every strategy and spell I know.  Being patient and settling in and waiting for the stresses of change to pass.

In the past, I would have just kept showing up, and pushing through.  But I can’t seem to do that anymore.  Before I would have waited until I suffered a break so bad that I would have needed to spend months or even longer recovering.   I am no longer willing to do that damage to myself before making a change.  I don’t like change.  I don’t usually initiate change unless I am so uncomfortable that it is impossible not to do so.   

My intuition tells me that this is now the case.  That I am this uncomfortable because I would not make the changes I need to otherwise.  My instinct tells me that I am not safe, that I am not where I should be.  And it is time for me to start listening to my own inner voices. 

I have done divination to verify these impressions and I have received messages that I am protected in this unhealthy situation but, that change is needed without delay.  The message is that danger and illness surround me and that I will be protected but, only as long as necessary to change the situation, that choices will be the result of diligent pursuit and the application of my own strength and steadfast nature.   The “right” course of action is action, not waiting, not fighting.

I have been aggressively seeking other employment for the past ten days with no responses from any of the two dozen or so applications and resumes I have submitted.  Today I followed my intuition and took off from work.  I submitted an application on speculation and was called within the hour.  Less than two hours later I was sitting across from a very nice young man interviewing for a position that seems to be just what I am hoping for.
   

The money is likely to be slightly less but, the rest of the situation sounds ideal.  Money is important, but only in that I need enough to support myself and my companion.   There are so many other considerations that are equally important to me.  Being in a situation that is healthy for me is most important. 

If I had not been listening to my inner voice I would be continuing to expend my energy fighting to survive in an unhealthy environment.  I would not have submitted that application this morning.  I would not have been available to take the phone call or to interview this afternoon.  I would still be trying to fix my own shortcomings (because of course, that is the reason that I am unhappy where I am, not that the energy is toxic). 

I have learned some very important lessons, lessons that I am very grateful to have learned without having to suffer injury.  I have learned that I need to put my own instincts and intuition above the advice or agendas of others.  I have learned that I need to pay attention and not to ignore my inner voice.  I have learned that the knot in my center has important things to tell me and I have learned how to listen and to act without having to experience cataclysmic upheaval before recognizing the need and making a change.

The body is a great communicator of inner wisdom.  If I feel it in my body, I need be listening to it and following where it leads me.  I give thanks for lessons learned and for surviving them without damage.  And I give thanks for the opportunities to come.

Happiness is a Choice

“Happiness is a Choice” by Barry Neil Kaufman is a book I read about 24 years ago when I was in the middle of one of the worst depressive episodes I have ever lived through.  I don’t own it and I have never read it again but, some things I learned from that book have stayed with me.   The first is the title and the truth of it. The second is that feelings follow thoughts which follow actions.  I do not believe these things to be true, I know them to be.

I am not talking about some pollyanna placebo, or platitude.  I am not talking about some kind of “positive thinking” quick fix.  This is not about “6 easy steps to have everything you want”.  This is about how to do the work to change your thoughts and habitual emotional patters that result in chronic clinical depression; recurring, debilitating, suicidal-thinking kind of depression. 

If you are in the middle of such an episode, please seek help from a psychiatric professional, now.  If you are in crisis, you are in need of emergency medical attention.

Psychotropic medication and intensive therapy have never been a part of my healing, if they had been, I might have learned how to cope with my shadows sooner.  For whatever reason I have had to learn things on my own but, Mr. Kaufman’s book helped me to understand the patterns.  It helped me to analyze my own thoughts and the feelings that followed them and the behaviors that perpetuated them.  It helped by giving me a place to begin. 

I have learned how to take responsibility for those patterns, and how to recognize them before they evolve into yet another long term episode.  It helps to understand the mechanism of depression, and to understand that, for me, that mechanism is within my control.  It is something I can affect and change.  I can choose.

One of the most important choices is NOT to act today on the impulse to do something destructive.  I don’t have to decide never to act on the impulse, just not today.  Sometimes that is the best you can do.  Not act today.  Sometimes you have to create a reason to not act, so you find something, anything, but you do not do anything permanent today. 

Then there is the choice to do those things that you do not want to do.  Get out of bed, take a shower, go to work, go outside, talk to another person, and eat (even if you have no interest in food).  Turn off the TV and turn out the lights and give your body a chance to sleep.  Insomnia, not eating, inactivity and isolation are behaviors as well as symptoms; they perpetuate depression.

When you are suffering from clinical depression, these things are all incredibly difficult but, not as difficult as changing the thoughts that go through your head every moment of every day.  Changing those thoughts is possible and necessary but, it is not easy. 

Like I said, this is not about “6 easy steps to have everything you want”.   There is nothing easy about the choice to be happy, but it is absolutely worth the effort.  I am a happy person today.  I choose to be happy every day.  I have a life that I love and a wonderful companion who gives joy to my life every day.  I have a home that nurtures my soul; I have community and family that support me and my work.  I have work that I love and that allows me to express myself and my truth. 

Sometimes I don’t enjoy going to my job but, it allows me to support myself and my companion.  Sometimes I experience disappointment and stress.  But happiness is not about having everything that you want nor is it about ease and leisure.  It is about being happy with what you have and making choices to change what makes you unhappy.  It is about taking responsibility for your life and pursuing your own happiness.  It is about being grateful for the blessings you have and choosing to release those things that harm you.

I find it wonderful that I can choose every day to be happy about the sun shining or the rain falling or the snow or the wind.  I find it amazing that I can get out of bed and go to work and pay the rent on my little tree-house.  I find it beautiful that every day I can choose to be happy with the life I am creating and that I can have faith and hope that I will find that which I desire in the future if I continue to follow the path my heart sets my feet upon.  I find it magickal that even through the long nights of darkness; I get to choose to be happy in the night and in the morning.  I find it a miracle that I can choose to love.  I choose happiness.

Keeping Faith with the Shadows

In the past ten days it seems as though every fear I have ever had has crept out from every crack and crevice and closet to become obstacles on my path, to make me trip and stumble.  I have not been able to do more than the most simple and rudimentary practice.  I have not been able to hear or to travel.  I have not wanted to leave the safety of my home. Going to work has been an exercise in anxiety.

 I have tried to write letters to loved ones without success.  I have tried to journal, but have only been able to scratch out the most clumsy and awkward of phrases to document the banality of my daily life.

This life feels completely void of magick, poetry or joy.  There is no pleasure or hope or connection.  It feels as though I am completely disconnected from all that I love.  I am trapped in a gray wasteland with no color, no warmth, no light.

For me this is the “Dark Night of the Soul” This disconnection, this cold numbness of my heart, this deafness of my soul, this crippling of my mind and muting of my voice.  This despair brings moments when I doubt there is any reason to keep living.  If this is what my life is to be, I don’t want to face the future, I would rather quit this life altogether.

But I have been here before, many times before.  I may not truly believe at this moment but, I will find a reason to wake up tomorrow.  I will keep waking up until this grayness passes.  And it WILL pass.  I know that it will because I have been here before and if I keep waking up, the magick will return to my life.

I tell you this because this is a part of living with the shadows and I know that I am not the only one.  I tell you this so that you will understand that even in this wasteland, there is hope, even when I cannot see it, or feel it, or hear it, the light is there.  The beauty is there.  This is faith, to keep waking up until the magick returns.  I will keep breathing until it returns.  I will continue to keep faith with the shadows.