Monday Already?

If it weren't for the dark days,
we wouldn't know what it is to walk in the light.

--Earl Campbell--
 

Another Monday morning!  Spent much of yesterday nursing the aches and pains that come from all the physical labor required to dismantle Christmas and bring the house back to normal.  What a hectic weekend it was!  Shopping, cooking for two weeks, AND taking down the decorations, but it The house is all back in order....village is packed away and books back in their respective places on the shelf. There is something so bittersweet about this activity each year; the season is just so short.  All the fun, excitement, and planning for the holiday is over...and far too quickly.  Adrenaline, once high, has now hit its yearly low.  I really didn't want to do all this this year, all those decorations.   Actually, I say that every year, but every year the village still goes up in the end. It's just so much work for something that comes and goes before we even realize it is here...but it is one of our family traditions.  Christmas wouldn't be Christmas without the skaters circling the tree or the children looking in the toy store window as the carolers sing nearby. 

The post holiday blues. Come this time of year, and I find myself overwhelmed by a feeling of sadness...and I am not alone. Many people suffer the post holiday blues. Holidays are times when we suspend our ordinary lives and enter into an entirely different universe. And then, quick as a flash they are over, and we once again find ourselves back in reality. The excitement of pre-holiday planning is over and for some strange reason the blues hit and that joyful sense of new beginning that I felt at New Years has gone. The emotional crash I experience is hard to explain. It feels like something is missing and I experience a sense of sadness and emptiness.

And January can be such cruel month. Terrible weather plagues us, and the cold and darkness keeps us indoors. Perhaps if I could take a nice walk in the country woods, I wouldn't feel so letdown, but alas, I am a city-dweller...and the change of seasons has turned the hot, steamy concrete into an icy walkway; getting about can be difficult in the snow months.  Yet, while the month of February is a cold and bitter month, the arrival of Imbolc at the beginning of the month is a promise that Spring will soon arrive, and new life will begin again.

The bud itself is the miracle.  To watch the upthrust of a daffodil,
to see it take form as a flower-to-be, to see the bud grow and take
on the warmth of color--there is the very synthesis of spring.
--Anonymous--

   

Taking a Weekend Break

There is a pleasure in the pathless woods,
There is a rapture on the lonely shore,
There is society where none intrudes,
By the deep sea, and music in its roar:
I love not man the less, but nature more,
From these our interviews, in which I steal
From all I may be, or have been before,
To mingle with the universe, and feel
What I can ne'er express, yet cannot all conceal.-

Roll on, thou deep and dark blue ocean-roll!
Ten thousand fleets sweep over thee in vain;
Man marks the earth with ruin-his control
Stops with the shore;-upon the watery plain
The wrecks are all thy deed, nor doth remain
A shadow of man's ravage, save his own,
When for a moment, like a drop of rain,
He sinks into thy depths with bubbling groan,
Without a grave, unknell'd, uncoffin'd, and unknown.

His steps are not upon thy paths-thy fields
Are not a spoil for him-thou dost arise
And shake him from thee; the vile strength he wields
For earth's destruction thou dost all despise,
Spurning him from thy bosom to the skies,
And send'st him, shivering in thy playful spray,
And howling, to his gods, where haply lies
His petty hope in some near port or bay,
And dashest him again to earth: there let him lay.

The armaments which thunderstrike the walls
Of rock-built cities, bidding nations quake,
And monarchs tremble in their capitals,
The oak leviathans, whose huge ribs make
Their clay creator the vain title take
Of lord of thee, and arbiter of war;
These are thy toys, and, as the snowy flake,
They melt into thy yeast of waves, which mar
Alike the armada's pride, or spoils of Trafalgar.

Thy shores are empires, changed in all save thee-
Assyria, Greece, Rome, Carthage, what are they?
Thy waters washed them power while they were free,
And many a tyrant since: their shores obey
The stranger, slave or savage; their decay
Has dried up realms to deserts:-not so thou,
Unchangeable, save to thy wild waves' play-
Time writes no wrinkle on thine azure brow-
Such as creation's dawn beheld, thou rollest now.

Thou glorious mirror, where the Almighty's form
Glasses itself in tempests; in all time
Calm or convulsed-in breeze, or gale, or storm,
Icing the pole, or in the torrid clime
Dark-heaving; boundless, endless and sublime-
The image of eternity-the throne
Of the invisible; even from out thy slime
The monsters of the deep are made; each zone
Obeys thee; thou goest forth, dread, fathomless, alone.

And I have loved thee, ocean! And my joy
Of youthful sports was on thy breast to be
Borne, like thy bubbles, onward: from a boy
I wanton'd with thy breakers-they to me
Were a delight; and if the freshening sea
Made them a terror-'twas a pleasing fear,
For I was as it were a child of thee,
And trusted to thy billows far and near,
And laid my hand upon thy mane - as I do here. 

--Lord George Gordon Byron-- 

I have a very busy weekend ahead of me...food shopping, cooking, and taking the Christmas decorations down.  Will see you all on Monday.  May you all have a blessed weekend.

Winds of Fate

 But to every mind there openeth,
A way, and way, and away,
A high soul climbs the highway,
And the low soul gropes the low,
And in between on the misty flats,
The rest drift to and fro.

But to every man there openeth,
A high way and a low,
And every mind decideth,
The way his soul shall go.

One ship sails East,
And another West,
By the self-same winds that blow,
'Tis the set of the sails
And not the gales,
That tells the way we go.

Like the winds of the sea
Are the waves of time,
As we journey along through life,
'Tis the set of the soul,
That determines the goal,
And not the calm or the strife.

--Ella Wheeler Wilcox--

In the above  poem we are told that the set of the sails determines the direction the boat takes.  In other words, the boat is controlled by  outside forces.  What about you?  What about your life?  If your  life is not seem going where you want it to, do you blame circumstances outside yourself?  Do you blame the winds of fate?  Oh gosh, do I know I how that can be.  I spent many years blaming others for my unhappiness.  After all, life had dealt me a raw deal, hadn't it?  My childhood was dysfunctional, and because my parents hadn't allowed me any room for growth, the choices I made in life were nothing but a series of mistakes.  If only, I used to say.   I never even thought that the experiences in my life were necessary learning experiences.  It was easier to feel sorry for myself, that my misery was all the fault of others and the bad choices I had made as a result....

... Bad choices? In this, our voyage through this miracle we call life, we all make some bad choices because none of us not perfect. If we had already reached the stage of perfection, there would be no need to incarnate.  We all make mistakes, without which, we would never be able to learn.  Each of us is here to learn about ourselves, others, and life; for some of us, the road is a hard one, while others may have an easier journey. But this doesn't mean they don't make mistakes.  And it certainly doesn't mean that we are bad people.   Good people sometimes make poor decisions and learn from them  We are ALL good people who have chosen to come to this earth plane in order to learn, and the fact is, we only learn through trial and error. And, if we are afraid to take a risk because we are afraid of making a bad choice, then where is the growth. The sailing metaphor is a great one for telling us about our attitudes. Instead of saying 'I can't', ask yourself 'How can I?'

I'm not talking about life-threatening risks like saying "Okay, I'm going to cross this super highway without stopping because I want to see if I can do it."  No, I am talking about those everyday choices.  Suppose you have been looking for work for a long time, and suddenly you receive, within a few hours of each other, two calls with job offers.  One is close to your home with a higher rate of pay, while the other offers more job security.  So, you jump at the job with the higher rate of pay.  But then, when you discover that the amount of money withdrawn for health insurance  at the job is sky high or you discover that your new co-workers have a little clique and you are not included, you become very unhappy and feel you made a bad choice. Or, perhaps you get into a relationship with a man and a couple months into it, you find out he is not the man you thought he was.  

This happens to all of us, but isn't it much better to,  instead of saying that our choices were bad and dwelling on them, categorize our decision by saying that at the time it was the most practical choice. When we place all of the burden upon ourselves...that we feel we've made the wrong choices in life...it just depletes our self-esteem another level. Life is a mere journey through time that has no definitive destination....and, like the winds of the sea, one ship drives east and another west. And, as the Winds of Fate provide us with the opportunity to move forward and to experience the world as it comes to us, we must accept what we've decided throughout your lifetime. There are no good or bad choices. There are only choices.


Good decisions come from experience, and experience comes from bad decisions.  --Author Unknown

(Update:  My garbage was picked up yesterday.  Finally!!!  And I also heard on the news that two sanitation supervisers from Brooklyn were reassigned.)

First Rant of the Year: The Blame Game

This picture looks really pretty, but it's not really very pretty over here.  Matter of fact, it is downright ugly. Wasn't really planning on ranting this early in the year, but, when I heard on the news that they demoted the EMS chief because of the blizzard bungle, I was left shaking my head in disbelief.  How is it HIS fault that the streets were not plowed and the ambulances could not get through.  Granted, he did have other problems and probably would have been canned anyway, but now?  Seems to me that someone is looking for a scapegoat.  

I've heard of several deaths due to the inability of healthcare workers to make it through the snow.  One was the death of a 3 month old child who

was left brain dead  after snow-clogged routes prevented medics from reaching him quickly.  It took almost a half hour for rescue workers to reach the home, and on top of that, the ambulance got stuck in the snow on an unplowed street just 30 yards short of the emergency room.  Workers grabbed the infant and and ran across the snow filled street.  Imagine that...the main street outside of the emergency room was not cleared of snow.  And this didn't happen during the storm.  This was several days later.  Unbelievable, isn't it?

Meanwhile, the one who really should be taking the fall, sits back on his arse and pronounces on television that HIS guys get an A+ for the job they did.  If it hadn't hurt so many people, it would actually be funny.  The guy is a comedian.  I've lived on my block for twelve  years now, and I can honestly say that the street cleanup service we got for this storm in no way compares to the service in the past.  During other storms, the plows kept me up all night long.  This time, I only heard it come through once and as it went through, the snow was still on the street.  Many say the trucks were going through with their plow slightly raised...and from what I saw, I have to believe it.

He also stated that all this garbage pileup is NOT a health hazard.  Is he for real?  Rotting garbage and rats are not a health hazard?  Seriously, does he really believe that we are that stupid?  I've not seen a rat in my neighborhood, but who really knows what goes on at night!    I've had no garbage pickup since December 21st.  That is 17 days today.  You can just imagine what it looks like with all these trash bags piled sky high.  (I wanted to take a picture this morning, but hubby borrowed my camera).  

Yesterday as I was climbing the subway stairs I looked down and saw about four sanitation trucks parked along the side of the road.  The workers were drinking coffee and eating and having a good old time.  Now, this is just around the corner from my house, yet, when I got home last night, the garbage was still there.  Yes, they do deserve breaks and a lunch hour, but come on now, you were RIGHT there, and nothing has been done.  And, the news has shown pictures of workers during the storm drinking beer and sleeping.  

And now they say more snow is on the way.  The garbage was still piled up when I left this morning.  If they don't collect it today, who knows when it will be picked up...and do you know what else?  It will be MY responsibility to dig it out of the snow so they can collect it...if and when.  Will this nightmare ever end?

Attracting What We Know

Dear readers, have you ever had something in mind that you wanted to write about; in fact, already have it written, and then something starts gnawing away at you, and you know it is something important that has to be written and shared....and as you begin to type, the words just start flowing?  This, my friends, is what happened to me this morning.  This is a post that HAD to be written.

The other day I read a comment where someone wondered if we attracted what we know, and my response would be an indisputable yes.  We are emotionally drawn to those people who feel familiar on our energetic level; i.e., those people who are on the same emotional vibrational level as we are.  We find ourselves drawn to them and they to us, and it feels as if we have a strong connection to them.  In other words, we are attracted to people whose emotional dynamic is similar to our early experiences of intimacy and love...and this is usually our parents.

“The healthy man does not torture others. Generally it is the tortured who turn into torturers.” – Carl Jung

Males grow up seeing Dad physically or emotionally abuse Mom and feel that this is all right; this is the way relationships are supposed to be.   Yes, they are wrong, and I am not making excuses for them, but this is all they know.  This is what they equate with love, and the cycle continues until one day, one brave little boy decides he doesn't want to be like Daddy, or the abuser confronts and takes responsibility for the verbal and physical abusive patterns of behavior and seeks outside help....and, sadly, that is rare.  All of the men who I have worked with all find a way to blame the wife.


This generational cycle also holds true for the victim.  A woman who has spent her life watching Dad abuse Mom develops unrealistic beliefs of what constitutes love.  Many women equate abuse with love...if he doesn't hit me, he doesn't love me.  In my case, I was never witness to abuse of any kind.  My parents HAD no relationship, each choosing to live together for the sake of the child, but living separate lives.  Mom was never around; she worked all day, came home, ate dinner and freshened up, and then she leave and spend the rest of the evening with her boyfriend.  My dad was an alcoholic, and all he cared about was having a six-pack in the refrigerator waiting for him when he got home....what you would call a dysfunctional family...


...and as a result, I grew up to become a dysfunctional adult.  I attracted what I knew...men who had problems--alcoholics, drug addicts, a sex addict, a gambling addict--and, when one is in the throes of addiction they can become quite violent.  It took me far too many years to realize that I may not have been abused as a child, but I had been wounded and focusing on men with issues kept me from looking into myself...so, in order to avoid going within, I kept drawing men on the same vibrational level into my life.  One relationship would no sooner break up than I would find myself in another.  I literally was drawing men into my life with a sickness like my father...

...and no matter how much I  was making a conscious  effort not pick anyone like my parents, my energy was attracting those  people into my life whose inner emotional dynamic is similar to my first experience of love.  Many of us spend our lives searching for our soul mates, but those of us who grew up with dysfunctional families,  had better watch out, for these may be exactly the people who will fit your patterns  and recreate your wounding... 

...We get involved with people who are unavailable because WE are unavailable.  We continue to be attracted to people who feel familiar because on some level,  we are still trying to prove our worth by earning the love and respect of our unavailable parents.  We throw our lives into  rescuing the other person  because that will prove our worth when the truth is, we need them to rescue us because of our lack of self-worth.  It can become an endless cycle because the more we rely on dysfunctional people to prove our worth, the less worth we have for they drain it from us. 

Sadly, until we realize that it is not  possible to love someone enough to make someone to stop hating or being unavailable, we need to let go of the delusion that we can be someone's savior, and we need to take the focus off others and place it on healing our self...on understanding and healing the emotional wounds that have driven us to choose those who can never provide us what we want and need emotionally.  Taking time to develop develop some healthy emotional intimacy with ourselves is imperative before we will ever be capable of being available for a healthy relationships.

Every woman who thinks she is the only victim of violence has to know that there are many more.– Salma Hayek

(This has been cross-posted at my I Am Woman.  I have seen many blog postings in recent days on spousal abuse...verbal and physical...and feel this topic is too important to limit it to one blog.  There are many here, who do not read that blog and vice verse.  I work with both abusers and victims, and it is not pretty.  Some of the stories would make you cry.  Thank you all for listening today.)

New Moon Solar Eclipse - January 4, 2011

To our ancestors, the Sun was a God to be worshipped.  The Egyptians saw him as Ra, while the Greeks saw him as being drawn across the sky by Apollo in a chariot of gold.  And, before  the advent of science, our ancestors gazed up at solar eclipses with apocalyptic fear. They saw it as a portent of doom.   The disappearance  of the Sun was a scary thing — without its light, they would all die...

...and, here we are only few days into the New Year,  and we have the New Moon and Partial Solar Eclipse in Capricorn; the  Moon is in between the Earth and the Sun.   A Solar Eclipse is a New Moon that packs a tremendous wallop; it always occurs at New Moon when the Moon and Sun rise together.  The Sun, Moon, and the Earth are in exact or nearly exact line up, and from its position, the Moon cuts off not only the light from the Sun to the Earth, but the Sun itself.  Hence, the Sun appears black. In other words, the Moon,  our emotional body, is blocking the light of the Sun.

The impact of an eclipse is typically much more potent than a regular New Moon, and may last up to six months. It is also true that at times the ramifications of an eclipse are not immediately felt...although usually they are...and often we can even feel the affects of it up to three months prior to it.  The New Moon or Solar Eclipse is all about new beginnings, new starts,  those areas of our lives which we hope to work on.  They describe the crossroads of your life and show where change may be necessary. The Eclipse opens doors and invites you to take a look at those areas your life that need attention.  Sometimes Solar Eclipse will  bring focus to a prominent male figure in your life---father, husband, boss, or some other key man.

The New Moon signifies  rebirth, beginnings,  the start of a new cycle, and while it is true that something may very well be coming to a close, the greater focus is on the initiation of the new that it brings.  This month's New Moon falls in Capricorn, the sign  which is symbolized  by the goat climbing up the mountain...with the mountain signifying the personification of success.   The Moon in Capricorn helps us to reconnect with the Earth element in our lives.  The challenge we face here  is to awaken our inner self-reliance   Capricorn wants to be successful in whatever it does, so this New Moon Eclipse will likely have the effect of firing up your ambitions making this the perfect time to really get going on whatever  New Year’s resolutions you may have made for yourself. 

The New Moon in Capricorn focuses on discipline, responsibility, structure, and authority.  Hence, this  will be one of the best New Moons for pursuing new goals and making serious commitment towards success and achievement. Capricorns are hard working , persevering and goal oriented. Capricorn defines itself by the work it does and takes great pride in their accomplishments and professionalism..

Opening to the Dark Moon

Good morning, everyone.  Well, it's the first day back in the New Year and the world is coming alive again.  Supposedly garbage pickup begins today, but only for those who have usual Monday pickup...so I guess I have to wait until Wednesday to have my rubbish removed.  That means my neighborhood will have gone 14 days without a pickup.  What a shame!!!

Well, the Dark Moon will soon be once again upon us.  Some people do Dark Moon work.  Others do not.  I believe that we have to look at both sides of our nature...the light and the dark, for without one, there cannot be the other.    

When the moon, after covering herself with
darkness as in sorrow, at last throws off the garments of her widowhood, she does not at once expose herself impudently to the public gaze; but for a time remains veiled in a transparent cloud, till she gradually acquires courage to endure the looks and admiration of beholders.--Augustus William Hare and Julius Charles Hare, Guesses at Truth, by Two Brothers, 1827

Our ancestors revered the Moon as a Goddess, and each of Her lunar phases - New Moon, Full Moon, and Dark Moon - was said to correspond to the three phases of a woman’s life: Maiden, Mother, and Crone. The Dark Moon,  associated with the Crone phase, is traditionally the last three days of the lunar cycle, immediately preceding the New Moon.  During the time the sky is without moonlight.  The Moon is still there, of course, but it cannot be seen with the human eye.  Often referred to as the “Dead Moon,” the dark moon doesn’t necessarily represent death. It is, however, a time for life-enriching endings and a prelude to new beginnings. 

In the beginning was the Tao.
All things issue from it;
all things return to it. 

To find the origin,
trace back the manifestations.
When you recognize the children
and find the mother,
you will be free of sorrow. 

If you close your mind in judgements
and traffic with desires,
your heart will be troubled.

If you keep your mind from judging
and aren't led by the senses,
your heart will find peace.

Seeing into darkness is clarity.
Knowing how to yield is strength. 

Use your own light
and return to the source of light.
This is called practicing eternity. 

Astrologically speaking, the Dark Moon represents the darker side of our nature--shame, guilt, envy-- our negative side,  hidden depths of self that we know exist, yet  prefer not to acknowledge....our shadow self.   It is the kind of thing that we intrinsically know we have to confront and deal with to progress unhindered, yet most often it is something we try to ignore. It is the deeper truth that we are forever in search of within ourselves, and probably the best use we can make of the Dark Moon is to spend some time in quiet and reflection, exploring  our hidden depths.

The waning moon marks the  phase of letting go, of peeling away the layers. The Moon reflects the powerful light of the Sun, and when the Dark Moon appears, it becomes easier for us to shed our emotional baggage and free ourselves of people and ideas that no longer serve us or add value to our life. It is a time to cleanse ourselves and create space so that what is new can enter. For others, the Dark Moon signifies is a time to rest, be introspective, and replenish their energy. Powerful, healing dreams have been known to take place during the Dark Moon, and you may find yourself driven to meditate, to explore your intuitive abilities, retrieve past life memories, or delve more deeply into your psyche.

One way to harness the energy of the dark moon is to perform a ritual where you light a black candle. Call forth and visualize the different parts of your life that you are ready to let go of. Through visualization, bind these parts together with light and imagine this bundle moving toward the candle. Watch these old parts being devoured by the flames, and let the candle burn out. Trust that what you’ve released has left you. You are now ready to welcome the new into your life.