Lovers (f-f) 1 Dian-y-Glas Wolf

All right. What's been going on is basically that I've been doing lots of work post-layoffs. Some people were terminated at the company I work at and I went from working for 1 person to working for 3 overnight. That alone was a bit difficult, but it was also an extremely busy week on top of it.

I have been having to check in every day to remind myself of my purpose. I remember that joy is my birthright, as are all the points on the Iron and Pearl Pentacles (Iron: Sex-Pride-Self-Power-Passion; Pearl: Love-Law-Knowledge-Liberty-Wisdom). Joy is always just below the surface; all it takes is a moment to remind myself of that, and some deep breaths of gratitude go a long way to remind me of this.

I did have a chance to go to Akashacon at the Poughkeepsie Grand Hotel this past weekend. Heard speakers such as T. Thorn Coyle, Christopher Penczak and Orion Foxwood. Got some insights as to elements that are going on regarding my path through this world. So much more is coming down the pike however. I take comfort (and give it as well) reminding myself to enjoy the present moment. Things are changing all around us, and I know "we ain't seen nuthin' yet." Mr. Foxwood alluded to the notion that if we think addictions are mighty prevalent now, we are in for a major shock. Personally, I think all we see is the tip of the iceberg and that the craziest addicts are holding office and running roughshod over others in service to the vampiric entities attached to their auric bodies.

I'm not saying I'm entirely free of those critters, and perhaps none of us are meant to be. I'm not sure. I discovered one in meditation last week that seemed to be connected to the levels of fear I frequently find myself in at the workplace. (Well, layoffs will increase one's fear load, won't they?) When it realized I'd seen it and sent light to it, it went "Uh-oh" and tried to burrow deeper into my aura, which was kind of funny and pathetic at the same time. I've sent it some light, but it's in denial mode--"I see nothing, I hear nothing, I feel nothing!" Still, I'm on to it, and I remember in my moments of fright that I can choose joy.

One thing I need to say about my recent move to "the Capital District"--a name which will one day have to change for obvious reasons: I am on a short financial leash here, and I don't honestly mind it. I have not been spending my cash on too much frivolity. OK, Akashacon was a bit silly, and my boyfriend and I stayed in a hotel. In a way it's kind of not a frivolity--Jody and I don't get to do as much stuff as we would like. It takes time to be in a couple! I'm not complaining, but I haven't quite figured out the balance between work, creativity, relationship, community-building AND daily upkeep of things like cleaning, bills, grocery shopping etc.

(And of course blogging.)

I'm hoping to post a little later today. There are a lot of things I would like to put out there that need outsorting--separating the old dross from the nuggets. There were things that happened in the Akashacon workshops that I need to sit with and sift a bit.

Good things come to those who wait.

6 Swords 13 Kwan Yin Butterfly

Haven't posted in awhile. It's been crazy-busy at work the past two weeks. It's not been easy either, as there was a staff reduction. (Almost typed "stuff redaction". Fitting.)

I do have a lot that I need to pour out into the blogosphere, however. I'm hoping to get to all that soon. Maybe even tomorrow. Would be a good day, since it's Dian-y-Glas Wolf.

Priestess/1 Dian-y-Glas Angel or Deer

First, just go here:

http://www.ranprieur.com/essays/fallsix.html

This is absolutely wonderful, it's exactly what I want, at least the last part when it gets to "You."

Second, I'm still thinking about my Mayan correspondences. Tried to connect with Phoenix, Sphinx and Angel over the past few days, but they "weren't at home." So I'm thinking perhaps it's really Hawk, Bear and Deer, and that perhaps the switch begins at Numbers 4/14.

There are interesting things afoot in my everyday life. Detox and connecting with the beauty of the ordinary are the hallmarks of my life at present. I have a feeling I'm about to start another whole process of change imminently, with the help of some things happening around me in dear old Albany. I don't know how much of this will radiate outward, but I'm guessing that it could be a butterfly flapping wings/100th monkey moment. Don't know why. More to come.

Queen Swords/13 Rhiannon Sphinx

I don't like drawing the Queen of Swords card. There are certain cards that I get and I go, "great, what sort of day am I going to have." I keep a Tarot Log, and looking back over the days I've drawn this recently, they've not been so bad. Perhaps it's because I've seen that I'm more vulnerable to disconnect my head from my heart. In the deck I use, a sword appears to sever the Queen's head from the rest of her body. When I draw the Queen, I guess I"m sort of on notice that I'll be called on to use my head, but please for goodness' sake, include my heart as well. That has the most important information.

The Queen's energy did inform my meditation (or lack of it) this morning. The seasonal shifting of wintry energy into springing flux has me simultaneously stirred up and tired. I went outside for lunch this afternoon and came back feeling tired. I invigorated myself again by walking up 6 flights of stairs to my floor. That felt so good!

I wish I had some deep insight to offer today. But my 13 Rhiannon Sphinx day is full of quotidian value. I cast an I Ching the other night and got #41: Decrease. It put my everyday life in the context of some sort of loss, but also an embrace of the everyday, the ordinary. I can see the beauty in all that though.

Fine by me.

6 Wands/12 Vesta Phoenix

Don't really feel much like blogging today. I'm at work, it's a Monday, there's lots to do. Over the past few days I've had the insight that I'm protected. I don't know what that means really. Perhaps it's just that I'm willing to embrace an ordinary life.

I threw an I Ching reading last night and got #41: Decrease. This was called "auspicious" in the sense that, if I am willing to embrace the ordinary, than I will be most fortunate. I moved to Albany as a means to embrace the ordinary, and I'm on-track to getting my wish.

That's about all I can say at the moment. I want to say more, kind of. Just don't want to be typing it into a computer. Sometimes I wish I could access the "Inner Net" that I've heard some people tell about.

10 Cups (Again!) Persephone Chimera

My best friend finally read my blog! We over-40 folks can get so busy with our lives, and he's in flux with having relocated to Hawaii and now needing to find new employment. In any case, here's what Michael wrote me:

The Mayan Correspondence System meditation sounds like an awesome one on a
couple of levels. First, as you mentioned, it added to your divination
tool box. But second, it’s awesome to me because it points to the
mirroring aspect of our individual, microcosmic selves, and the collective,
macrocosmic self. In more concrete terms, you discovered that you have
been creating an individualized, personal system which mirrors an ancient,
communal system for understanding/divining sacred influences. It’s in
the way it sits in that cross-over point of “Is this me, or is this the
world?” that this meditation jives with me, because in the final analysis,
it doesn’t really matter (does it?). It works if it works, whether it
comes from inside or outside or both.

And yet, do we see that clearly? Do we, toxic folks that we are with our skewed
perceptions, projections and … get that it’s okay because that’s what the
world is doing, too? I myself haven’t trusted it in myself, but I’m changing. Who knows how it turns out…

Now I can’t seem to get back to the first few posts (the recent ones), but I’ll try again tomorrow. This blogging thing is weird to me—I don’t mean to be judgmental; rather, I’m confused—what do you get out of it? Motivation to write daily? Publication (that is, making personal processes public [which I understand IS crucial right now])? Something else? I really would like to know, if you’re willing to
share.

I hope you slept well. I love you.

*****

It's difficult to say what I get out of this blogging thing. For me right now it's a matter of faith that I'm giving of myself in a strange semi-nonymous manner. I don't feel completely anonymous doing this, but I also am not seeking to become a guru or to promote something other than other people's awareness/acceptance/action steps in breaking free of their domestication/civilization/addiction/thought-cancer issues. I'm still struggling with all that myself. I have moments of clarity, yet "the system" or "the Matrix" comes back with different sorts of enticements that boggle my mind. I'm going through something right now, though the message I'm getting from all sides loud and clear is that I am protected no matter what. For the time being.

I don't really know much more than that. I have no idea who reads this blog, though I have come to see that some people do read it. It's rather exciting to have someone link back to me. So far I only know of one wondiferous and illustrious blog that does this, and because of that, I'm one-step removed from several of the other websites out there that I'm obsessively checking each workday and some weekend days when I have a chance to.

Anyway, I may have more thoughts later. It's another 10 of cups day after all. And it's a Persephone day to boot.

8 Disks/7-Star Goddess Wolf

Dream I had last night: My boyfriend introduces me to a friend of his, an East Village artist named "Jason" or "Jazz" or something like that. My b.f. disappears from the dream after that. I hang with this E.Vil artist, who has all these opinions, and I'm thinking "Ah, to be twentysomething again. Ugh." (No offense to the twentysomethings out there--just that my twenties suc-c-c-c-ckkhnted!! As they probably were supposed to.) This artist was o-so pereniallly disgusted and discontented. We were walking on the west side of Manhattan, on 8th Avenue right after Greenwich and Hudson merge into 8th, toward 14th Street. We were going to catch a bus to E.Vil. (It wasn't referred to that in the dream, just that I like to use it with affection for the place I used to live, a la Soho, Nolita, WeHo, LoDo, etc.)

Anyway, we walk through a patch of broken glass as I'm listening to Jazz/Jason/Jazzon talk a blue streak when I can't walk any further. I'm like, what gives, and I look down and there's this huge piece of glass sticking out of my right calf. I have this big gash there, but I don't feel any pain, that is until I looked down and realize "I'm fucking bleeding. A lot!" And Jazzon looks at me with this glass sticking out of me and asks me "Did you do that on purpose man?" I'm rather horrified and perplexed at this self-interested statement, as I pull the glass out of me and the blood throbs out of me. Sort of reminds me of fecal matter of a diarrhetic nature, the pulsing and the gaping of the hole like an anal-mouth from a William S. Burroughs novel.

I look up, see what I think is a bus and start toward it, bad leg and all. Jazzon has at least the presence of mind to question this move, and pipes up that I need some medical attention. The vehicle turns out to be a semi with those lights atop the car of the vehicle. And a couple of passenger buses heading to Port Authority pass by as well. Then I woke up.

Last night I went to a meeting of a salon of filmmakers and screenwriters in Troy. It was a good thing for me, though I found myself inside an internal struggle that this dream summarizes fairly well. I need to marinate in the mystery of the thing. The preoccupations I had when I was in the writing before my abstinence (anniversary tomorrow--3 years clean of sugar and flour, h'ray for me!) are way different now. I'm actually thinking of using my skill at crafting dramatic materials to point toward a way out of the megalomanic megalopolitan mega-mistake we all live in. The anger is still there, and the 'hipness" factor is still there, though the self-obsession seems to be in transition. There's a lot more thought to put into this, however.

Queen of Swords 6 Freyja Fire Elemental

Haven't posted a lot of late because I'm in the throes of change. Yesterday (5 Hades/Lamb) I drew "The Universe" card. I am understanding there's a whole world open to me in a way I will have to find out for myself. Things are a bit in flux again, and nothing is really stable. It's all to the good, I feel. I know it is, actually. All is all right.

Princess of Cups/2 (Krom) Hawk "The Persephoniad"

and yesterday was Chariot/8 Disks (two cards fell out) and 1(Dian-y-Glas) Otter.

I'm Writing again! I've been writing a lot.

Herewith is something I feel especially proud of--"mein Meisterwerk des Moments!!"

“The Persephoniad”
an Alternate Telling of a Primary Myth

I

None suspected she had prayed for it,
that she prepared for parting from Mom
for at least a few weeks. Young Kore
needed adventure. Thus, her dancing
feet took the maiden farther afield
where she sensed he was waiting: The God,
the mysterious caller who’d caused
that glorious azure bloom to grow
just inside hardest Per-Demeter.
As if hypnotized (but not really),
she skipped over to pluck the flower
but found herself plucked by Dis himself.
Grim Hades piloted his dark car
pulled by brawny black steeds glistening,
erupting forth out the richest earth,
from bleak Realm of Ancestry. He scooped
up his kicking, screaming, joyous
prize, she of fearful-happy frolic
and carried off daughter of barley
down to death’s palace in the sad place
that would have Persephone as queen.

II

Oh, scandalous whirlwind honeymoon!
Every bride needs a true vacation
from the world of mediocrity
The Underworld offers its own charms
for newlywed pairs. Orphic rhythms
propel dancers to primal heartbeat
gyrations. The kingdom of those who’ve
outgrown their mortal coils or ceded
them through no fault of their own has yearned
for a radiance such as Kore. To serve
such a one as she, the breathless ones
could only find ecstatic wonder
in coming to her aid at moments’
notice. Valiant Hades, God of Wealth
and Transition, that fun shadow God,
best kept secret, deeply embedded
in grandmother Gaia’s skin, squired his queen
boldly and tenderly. Hades knew
some things about shaking,
rattling and rolling in as many
words as can be conjured forth. What more
could a goddess of harvesting want?

III

Those halcyon days spent in leisure
through Elysium, Lethe, even
Tartarus with its bawdy ’musements
would have to come to abrupt end.
For every couple who elopes or
somehow denies the chance for public
endorsement of their nuptials crashes
’gainst walls of in-law intransigence
sometime. Kore and beau knew they would
soon face Demeter’s enraging song.
The harbingers thereof came thither
to Dis with influx of newly starved
into Ancestry’s kingdom. Legions
emaciated rattled their way
across the River Styx. Overworked
Charon ferried boatload past boatload
of wispy things reduced to structure
with tatters for skin to cover bone.
Psychopomp Hermes who guides the souls
recently dead to that pier betrayed
little resentment at this onset
of fresh death-work thrust upon him, but
one brutal day the Messenger took
the couple aside to apprise them
of mother-in-law’s wacky antics.
“I want for your union to go on,
of course,” he said. “But Zeus and Hera
are concerned for her recalcitrance.
Things cannot last, I fear.” Aboveground
bodies piled up. Below, souls crowded
in. So the wistful couple waited.

IV

Frequently two sides at least compete
to tell their versions of a story.
Historically, the official press
goes something like this: Wrongéd mother
grieves over theft of daughter from safe
shelter. Deeply wounded, she searches
frantically for her filial pride,
abandoning her sustaining work
in the process. Mayhem ensues as Mom
at last discovers the ugly truth
and wanders from the godly compound
pretending to no goddess’ raiment.
A fierce and comic woman dances
without clothes before this Divine One,
getting a laugh at the ultimate
in-joke and Divine Harvest casts off
her mortal cloak, exacting vengeance.
All the parties are called to table
and a deal is hatched wherein daughter
of grain spends half each year Olympus
bound and the other half in Lethe,
blah blah blah. Of course there’s more behind
the story, thank you very much. But Gods
do circle their chariots tightly.
The girl turning woman, has her side
as does her bold betrothed, that God
with overlooked gifts desirable.
None made it their intention to cause
mother-in-law pain, and yes, all knew
that her Smotherhood called for bracing
and healing tonic to pry daughter
from Agriculture’s hysteria.
They underestimated mother’s grief
and the depths to which she could sink.

V

Persephone, Death’s Sweet Goddess speaks:
“The pomegranate was my notion
kinda. I am Divine, with no need
for food but enjoy tasting berries,
squash’s firm texture, most beans and corn.
I eat only for that satisfaction.
Ambrosia is the only nectar
I crave. But the Elysian gardens
offer so much delight. I made it
appear I stumbled into the taste
of those luscious seeds. I knew what I
was doing. I longed to devour all
of those hanging fruits in his garden.
But I stayed composed. Six seeds would not
be ostentatious. It’s a true boon
to be wanted in both my places
rather than just one. Wherever I land,
I bring joyful gladness and relief.
Neither husband nor mother gets me
entire. I am the stuff of desire
itself. The arrangement satisfies
me, for I do grow tired of orchards
of apples, fields of corn and barley.
Those times, I long for my deathly reign.
And thereunder, I oftentimes grow
tired of dispensing tender comfort
forgetfulness to the departed.
Hence I yearn for the air to lift scents
of wildflowers across meadows, vales
and shore, to feel warm Helios’ rays
warm the skin and the land. Really, Zeus
has blessed this grain goddess with the best
of two amazing worlds. I rejoice
thus in my eternal good fortune.”

10 Cups Rhiannon Beaver

Just a quick post to note a theme going on in my observation of life, which is Detoxification. I'm seeing it playing out across a lot of different websites and find it interesting that my Toltec Reading from a couple weeks ago seems to be right on target.

Also, I had a really amazing experience with the Pearl Pentacle today. My point of Love carried over into all the other points, and the guardians of Law, Knowledge, Liberty and Wisdom all gave me the thumbs up. Wild.

And I had a dream about living inside a play I wrote called Adrenaline: A Denver Play, where the characters inhabit a Denver, Colorado that is headquarters to a Fortune 500 Company that has cornered the market on Selective Human Pest Elimination (or what the rest of us laypeople refer to as "contract hits"). I dreamed that one of my coworkers was gabbing with another coworker about how excited she was to go on this whackjob!

Have no idea what it signifies--Thomas Moore suggests in Care of the Soul that we let a dream marinate over time. I have a couple of those now to ponder. The world of my dreams seems to be a tad less surreal than the world of my waking. At least from an Internet-access-to-news perspective.