Just do it

In some ways it is hard for me to believe I've been home and off work for over 15 months now. I've had some pretty intense and pretty peaceful moments in that time with all this time by myself to reflect and I've been slowly going through a lot of internal changes.

I've been realizing some things about myself, and recently getting more involved with not only natal astrology again, but with the predictive side of things, those realizations are starting to really sink in. I'm a very curious person, and I have a lot of interests. I can also be fairly intense about those things I care about and become pretty good at them. The problem is that intense and scattered do not make a good combination for success. I am pretty strong-minded and stubborn when you get right down to it, and I can hold things together for quite a long time by sheer force of will when I'm feeling enthusiastic and energy levels are high. But after a while, that takes its toll, I deflate and the balloon crashes, and I am left on the ground in a busted basket, cursing myself for my stupidity and short-sightedness, and always, always, always for my "weakness."

Well, I'm tired of it. I could never see past my "weakness" long enough to realize my "weakness" isn't lack of strength, my weakness is in not having a plan, a structure, and a commitment to it. I can be very disciplined when an already-extant structure of some sort is imposed on me from an outside influence...school, work, etc. But my own plan? I never got that far, too engrossed in "dealing with things" and putting out fires. Hard to make a plan in a war zone. After a while of that belief, I think I started to actually be afraid of trying to make a plan. What if I made the wrong plan? What if I really suck at planning? What if I somehow make things worse? What if I'm actually just better at reacting? I always like to have flexibility in everything so that I can change my mind and opt out of whatever "in case something happens," that something usually being some sort of imagined disaster, large or small, external or internal. In a phone conversation last night, someone asked me what my life's goal was. I said I was still trying to figure it out.

I think by now I understand that I'm a lot better at adapting and taking care of myself than I have realized. I can start sticking my neck out and dreaming a bit and then trying to convert the dreams into reality instead of just daydreaming and hoping something's going to change. Maybe I won't do so well at first, but I've got to start somewhere, otherwise I'll never begin to learn how.

Something big has been happening for me for several years now. I had huge destruction in my life and then I began to limp along, slowly recovering. Things aligned themselves into functionality. Once functionality got established, then I was forced to take a look at all the stuff I've been refusing to deal with out of fear -- fear of loss of what little security I have, fear of failure. I've got a whole bunch of planets in the Fourth House of my natal chart, and right now there are a bunch of planets transiting my Fourth House and making conjunctions left and right, and here I sit, literally at home and very deep inside myself, pondering all this stuff. I feel like something new is brewing, stirring, and wanting to get out. It's not going to do so unless I start pulling in all those scattered feelers, all that diffuse energy, and start focusing it on manifesting what I have discovered about myself.

I have always detested what I see as many people's obsession with lists and organization. It always seems too rigid and officious to me...and obsessive-compulsive. But I'm going to have to learn how to get over that and navigate that sort of territory if I'm going to focus and keep myself on track. That means schedules and lists will become a valuable tool, and I'm going to be blathering about them here, not just stuff I'm going to be doing, but I also need to start documenting more of what is going on in my world. I don't have any sort of great legacy that's going to revolutionize the lives of anyone who looks at it, but, for better or worse, it's mine, I've worked hard to understand what of it is mine, what of it was handed down to me, and how to go about fixing it and polishing it up so that at least I can hand it down to Ree and it will be a gift and a treasure rather than a big welter of "what the fuck?"

So I'm going to be talking about a mixed bag. Some of it will be practical, some of it philosophical, and some of it might be, quite frankly, just plain kooky to some people. I'll see what I come up with over time. I might end up making a filter. I reserve the right to play whatever psychological games with myself necessary to get the job done.

Here goes nothin'. Virgo Alchemical Powers -- ACTIVATE.

A Dream from This Morning

Right before I awoke, I was having a dream that I was on a plane to Ireland, traveling with a group of people whom I supposedly knew in the dream, but not really in real life. Some of them seemed to almost morph into people I know, but never quite made it that far. It was very chaotic. Even the plane was very chaotic, like a labyrinth, almost, and the interior was dark brown. The trip had been spur of the moment, and I had gone with these people because it was a chance to go, and I've been trying to get to Ireland for the last two decades at least. I remember being shocked that six hours had passed on the plane, and that I'd never felt any kind of pressure change in my ears when we were landing. There was a huge, high-tech video screen that appeared in the aisle so we could actually see what the pilot saw as we were landing. Kind of odd, considering the interior of the plane looked rather musty and moth-eaten.

I was wondering how things were going to go with this chaotic group of people I'd attached myself to for the trip. They couldn't seem to communicate properly when I tried to ask questions about where our hotel was, how we were going to travel, etc., locked as they were on whatever frivolous, nonsensical concerns they had. I think maybe my mind was trying to wake up and have a lucid dream. Any time I question things very heavily in a dream, I think this is a signal that the dream has a potential for lucidity if I manage to ask the right question. Ever since my first full-blown lucid dream several months ago, I've been having more and more dreams that don't make sense to me while I'm in them. Don't get me wrong -- I have always had plenty of dreams that don't make sense, but that would be upon waking when I would remember them. My dream-self usually went along with whatever weirdness was going on with a few questions, perhaps, but would ultimately end up being convinced and swept along with the plot of the dream.

When we disembarked from the plane and I touched ground, I wept in the dream. I was finally in Ireland. I couldn't believe it. Somehow the fact that the people I was traveling with made no sense, I had no idea where we were going and only that we were staying for eight days wasn't that big of a deal to me. I was finally there.

Somehow I fell in with some trad musicians who were returning to Ireland, and somehow of all the people on the plane, we managed to get into the country without ever passing the security or passport checkpoints. I could have probably hung with the musicians. They were a laid-back group. But I didn't feel right because I hadn't brought my harp with me. I decided to try to find the others from my original party so I could find my luggage. The luggage didn't come off one of those revolving conveyor belts. Instead it was just all thrown pell-mell into a corner of the airport, and people were digging through it, trying to find their suitcases. I didn't see anything that looked like my suitcase and gave up, trying to find the others.

I found myself in a duty-free shop of some sort, and I found two of the women from my party. They were on the floor, digging through bins of little books that looked to me like the missalettes Catholic kids are given on the occasion of their First Communion. I said come on, let's go, to them, and they glared at me angrily. One of them said something nonsensical to me like, "Can't you see we're looking for a place to put our Jesus beads???" It was the same type of thing with the others I found from my "party." They all seemed to prefer to stay in the duty-free shop and purchase trinkets and other silly crap, with no intention of ever leaving.

I found myself in what looked to be some sort of delivery dock or something to the airport, I was outside finally, and it was dusk. Groups of people from the airport were clustered here and there, again, content where they were and not wanting to move. I remember being annoyed. No one could tell me where we were except that it was Ireland, so I had no idea whether we'd flown into Shannon or Dublin. I remember thinking that once I got away from the airport and its influence, I'd finally be able to figure out where I was, and then maybe I'd be able to locate a hotel or something with internet in the lobby where I'd be able to send a message to acquaintances I had in Ireland to let them know I was in country. With nothing but the clothes on my back and my purse and no idea where I was, I should have probably been more nervous than I was, but I figured it didn't matter anymore the details. I'd made it to Ireland and I knew a few people there. Somehow I'd find my way. My two biggest things were finding the people I knew and finding a harp. Then I woke up.

One small step toward a Saner Me

Reality has slipped its moorings for me of late. Between maternity leave and then the subsequent birth of my daughter, I've been pretty cut off from my former routines and my previous life. I sense a tremendous potential to use this period of chaos to seriously reorder my life from the ground up...if only I could find a bit of focus. Between weeks of sleep deprivation, recovery from a cesaerean section, and the unpredictability of a newborn's natural rhythms, focus is a hard thing to come by, and my mind is all a-scatter. Bits of intriguing ideas flash in my brain like will-o'-the-wisps, but the current swampiness (and fogginess) of the terrain prevents me from chasing any of them down.

Things I've been contemplating in snatches:

Pregnancy and Initiation
Pregnancy, Birth, and the link to ancestors and heritage
What the hell do I /really/ want to be when I grow up?
Practicing the harp and keeping up my chops
I have all this time alone, why don't I start reorganizing my house?
I need to finish Foucault's Pendulum

I need to finish reading a few astrology books
I want to start working with the ogham again


It's hard to do any of these things, however, because it's exceedingly simple to completely underestimate how much time things so basic as preparing and feeding bottles, burping, changing diapers, and socializing with a newborn actually do eat up.

Which means I need to start writing things down and prioritizing and scheduling. It would be a great time to actually develop a habit of writing in my magical diary(ies).

Every action begins with the germ of an idea. I think if I can remember to water the damned thing on a daily basis I might manage to grow it into something functional.

The World Is Too Much With Us

I was looking for a more solitary, more thoughtful place to journal and thought I'd try this out. I have accounts in a couple of blogging environments. There's a bit too much of a popularity issue on one at this point. I've been there for, oh, let's see...over five years now it must be. I've accrued a decent-sized readership that ranges from real life friends to passing acquaintances and complete strangers, all with quite divergent interests. It's not a bad environment, as blogging environments go, but I suppose it's become...I don't know...a bit too everyday. The other is a bit silly when it comes to the idea of blogging. It's really more of an elaborate messaging system...or a way to keep track of certain people.

I want to write about things a bit more contemplative, a bit more profound here without any expectation of an "audience." Whatever audience I end up attracting here, if I do attract any at all, I'd rather it be of of a quieter, deeper nature. My primary blogging environment is more of a socialing, diarizing, and commentary sort of a place. This place will be more reflective, more sacred. Hidden, but accessible to those who value such things.