A Lot of Crossings

There seems to be a lot of death going around. So far in my community, two teachers, two mothers, one uncle, and one father have died in the last 2 months or so. And those are just the human deaths. It adds up to a lot, especially for those who were close to more than one of these folks.

I will say that some I had met, some I had not met, and I was not close to any of them personally. I have sent love and energy and prayers as appropriate, and stayed out of the way where also appropriate. I really feel for my friends and community members as they deal with their grief, and am supportive of them as they process.

That said, I am not bothered by the dying. People die, and thank God'dess for it, otherwise we would be stuck with all the consequences of every choice in this lifetime. The fact that given a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone (especially me!) drops to zero is comforting. No matter how good it gets or how terrible, it will end. Most of those who have died were in ill health and suffering. They have moved on to the Summerlands, where they no longer need be in pain.

I also have the sense of tremendous things moving on a very broad earthly scale. Energetically, things are shifting, and it makes sense to me that there are many who will choose to cross over rather than try to shift as they are now. It is a cleansing, a changing, a shapeshifting, a melting down and recasting some of the cogs of reality. If it is not appropriate to slip the gears you have in this life, it makes sense to leave and come back better equipped.

Again, I have great compassion for those in my circle who are grieving the passing of their loved ones, even as I rejoice in the no-pain and open possibilities now available to those who have crossed.

Slapped Down by the Universe

Embarrassed over my "Durrrr" answer to my five-year plan for money making, I sat down this week and spent several hours processing everything I needed to process in order to get over the hurdle and actually commit and get started to growing my energy healing practice. I spent several nights working on a website (which is almost ready to go live), I wrote campy ads for coffee shop bulletin boards, I developed a marketing plan (for better or worse).

I have spent 6 months kind of dithering instead of seizing my opportunity here, but I finally decided to get going and really commit. And then, after the first week of my being willing to go forth and make it happen, I find out that my opportunity is going away (probably). Due to a ridiculous situation and injustice being done to my generous friend the massage therapist, I am guessing there is about an 80% chance of no longer being able to use the office that I have been using for one week a month for the last several months. The reasons why the situation is changing has nothing to do with me, but it definitely impacts me.

My first reaction was to feel slapped down by the Universe. It has now been over 2 years since I left my "real job" to pursue other projects, and I have pursued a lot of them. I have directed/produced three plays, written several novels, done some community organizing and activism, experimented with various crafts with the potential for profitable sales, worked on community building, sent out feelers about various pagan ambitions and how might they be accomplished, and embroiled myself in a few possible entrepreneurial endeavors. And all this in addition to spending most of 2009 in bed while my spine realigned itself.

And yet, despite a constant churning and ambitious drive, I feel like the Universe has not reflected back the YES I have been looking for. I have tried so many things, put energy in so many different directions, looking for the one that is Right, knowing that when things are Right, I take one step and God'dess takes the next two for me, but it has not happened. Everything has been harder than I would have thought.

In the end, I called Dad. My father is a very practical, logical man who leads a faith based life. When we were building the nonprofit together, we really explored the ins and outs of living on faith together, and though our faiths are different, the process is the same. He was able to listen as I laid out my frustration, and then talk me through the various factors until I got to some clarity.

I have a plan now. But I will say, it has been a rocky last few days. I thank God'dess for my support network and all the people who love me.

I Don't Know How to Be a Spiritual Professional

In a business meeting this week, my friend asked me to describe my vision of my energy healing practice. She is a successful massage therapist and asked some very pointed questions about what I am doing to grow my own clientele. My answers were vague at best. I share her office, using the space for 5 days at the beginning of the month while she is at Chinese medicine school.

She asked where I saw myself in 5 years, and I, the obsessive planner, realized that I am more of an obsessive dreamer than planner. I have been checking off the marriage, babies, homestead list, but as far as my practice, I am a bit lukewarm about it for a variety of reasons.

When I first began energy work, I saw it as my gift from God'dess to the world, and I was reluctant to profit from it. I started giving it away, and then doing it for donations and trade. After a few years, I began to feel like the scales were unbalanced and started feeling okay asking for more in exchange. I eventually got to a place where I am completely okay with making a decent amount of money in exchange for my work; I have other gifts as well, and if this one funds my ability to build with the others, that works for me.

When I do the work that I do, I go into a deep spiritual state, not quite a trance, maybe more of a fugue. I open my intuitive and visionary senses wide and all kinds of knowledge, insight, and imagery comes through. I am very good at what I do, but really, it is not me. It is God'dess (or the Divine, for my non-pagan clients) who works through me, I am but a sensor at the other end taking note of the flow of information. Because it is not me, it is hard to connect doing that work with something as left brained as selling, promoting, and making a living from that work.

When I think of myself in five years, I will probably be doing energy work in some form, and it makes logical sense to have a decently thriving practice. But I somehow have trouble seeing it as central to my passions. It is more like something I do on demand, almost instinctively, like breathing or talking with God'dess. It is too much a part of me to think of it as a product to be sold.

I am not sure how best to strike a balance with all of this. I think I will prescribe for myself an abundant and fulfilling clientele ritual and then some basic advertising and the set up of trades with other healers. I'll let it flow from there while I continue to ponder.

Drumming for Athena

We've been getting into drums lately, my partner and I. We are excited about playing them, dancing to them, and making them. My partner is such a wonderful perfectionist that drum-making might be just right.

As part of the new obsession with drums, for the last few weeks we have gone to the Parthenon at Centennial Park and drummed on the steps with a friend or two. For those who didn't know, yes, there is a full-scale accurate replica of the Parthenon in the middle of Nashville. It is made of a sandy colored concrete, but there is a nicely tarted up Athena inside and it is intact, which is much more than I can say for the original (which I have also been to in person. I like Nashville's better, honestly.). 

We have been going in the late afternoon and staying until almost full dark (or after). Between my partner and I we have 5 drums from tiny to medium large, good for hauling in and easy to switch sounds back and forth. Our friends bring instruments, too, so the sound is always changing. Sometimes one person will play three or four drums at once, all cradled in one lap.

This past week I found myself just wanting to absorb the sound of the drums. I lay down on the giant outer step and stared up the columns to the night sky, the pink glow of the city limning the scattered clouds. There is something wonderful, something that speaks to my pagan soul, about drumming on the steps of the temple. At one point we chose a spot on the water nearby and played to the ducks (I love ducks, they wiggle their tail feathers and it makes me laugh every time), but I didn't feel that same satisfying charge as I do when we are in full physical contact with the temple itself. 

I know, I know, the city or whomever would love to say that the Parthenon is just a gimmick, left over from the World Fair, but Athena has been consecrated (I have heard the story from multiple bragging pagans around many campfires, each claiming to have been the One to do it), and there is Power there. I have gone and sat at her feet, just to have a chat. It feels right, it is right, to live in a city with a Goddess Temple at its center, and I am gratified to play drums on the stones of the Temple.

Comfort-Planning is a Crutch

In poking around the blogosphere, I came across this Generation Meh post called the Truth of C'est La Vie. It sparked a few ideas in my newly defragged brain. Specifically, this concluding quote struck me:

"The best we can do is to do what we believe is best. Forget about micromanaging the vagaries of other people, nature, the universe and apologizing for a lack of omniscience. Life happens – to us, for us and all around us. Recognize this, accept it and don’t apologize."

Yes, life happens and no, we can't control that. But at the same time, I can have a plan. I can think through as many possibilities or consequences as I can come up with and make contingencies or affirmations or refresh my altar to reflect a certain set of intentions. 

Right now, I feel like I am inside the tornado of life. No, more accurately, I am attempting to lasso the damn thing and toss myself inside, even as I chant incantations of suggestions for where I might like to go, whispering them into its windy inner chambers. I am craving more control over my own adventure. I am fearing a lack of planning on my part, because the unknown is frightening. 


The question then becomes: Do I plan more, or do I give up more of my fear of the unknown? I would love to choose to give up the fear, but honestly, I am more likely to do more planning. Even busy-work planning. The kind of planning that is really comfort-planning, planning for the sake of soothing the fear. 


Instead, I think I will go back to my faith. Pray and meditate more. Keep my altars fresher, burn more candles and incense, keep the dust at bay. The problem I am having, I think,  with living a life of faith, is that sometimes it seems a long dark night before the next set of instructions come through.

   

Endless Hallways of Open Doors

Well, turning off my brain seems to have helped my panic levels about bread winning and my obsessiveness about becoming 5 year stable. With a little distance from the emotional turbulence, I have been able to stop and talk with God'dess about the whole thing. I asked for clarity about what comes next, and was shown an image of all the possibilities that are standing wide open right now, like so many open doors. 

It is true, I have a lot of different leads for how to accomplish different goals in front of me, like strings that run into the future, and if I follow the right bit of yarn at the right time, it will take me to what I am manifesting. The problem is knowing how to play them in harmony, like a concerto, instead of yanking at them all at the wrong time, like a cat walking on a piano. 

I asked God'dess again what to do, and was shown 3 particular leads: one to a possibility of land, one to a possibility of a co-creator of community, and one interpersonal connection that shows promise. Following up on those leads will be on my priority list for this week. In the meantime, I will brainstorm on how to expand the business I am already trying to grow (my energy healing practice), instead of scrapping it for a new and more involved dream.