Tree Meditation

Pic by Wonderlane, on Flickr

Today, I was stressed out almost to the point of tears. Not over anything in particular. Just about lots of little things. But I was about to snap. So I set Cam down in front of a movie, and I ran off to my room for some alone time. And some meditation time. 'Cause I needed to chill out.

So I sat down (with a chunk of tumbled sodalite), closed my eyes, and tried to think peaceful thoughts. I was reading last night about a girl who was trying to channel tree thoughts, and it came to me as I was trying to relax that being a tree would be pretty peaceful. So, I imagined I was a tree. With a root system below me and branches spreading out from my head. I was a tree, holding onto the soil, the sun warming my leaves and trunk as the wind made them shiver. Then the thought floated through of a thunderstorm, and suddenly my branches were waving in the wind and I felt the pain as leaves were torn from me. As suddenly as the thought was there, it was gone, and with it, the storm. I became aware of the water seeping into the ground, and I drank it up through my roots. I could feel it as it traveled up my body. It was cool(temperature wise); it was energizing. It had just reached my head/top of my trunk and was starting out into the branches, when David came in and jumped on the bed in front of me.

I didn't close the meditation as I should have. Taking the time to sink away from the tree's form and into my own. He distracted me. So five minutes later, I was still feeling the branches sprouting from my head. haha. I put my hands on my head, where I could feel them, and tried telling them to "go away." David asked me if I had a headache. And I told him I still had branches hanging about. Which made him laugh. Because he could see them ghosting about my head. And on came the jokes about my foliage. Oh, geez. Luckily, the ghostly branches faded away before too long, and even more luckily, the peace and tranquility I felt as a tree has stuck with me.

Thrift Store + School

School first, I think. Classes have started for the semester, and this semester is going to be CRAZY BUSY for me. I'm only taking 14 hours, but it breaks down into nine classes. Oh, the joys of being a music major, no? A lot of my time is going to be spent in the practice rooms this semester (and next) because I'm taking methods classes, where I learn to play brass, woodwind, and string instruments, and I have a recital coming up in April that I need to prepare for. EXCITEMENT. So I won't be posting much. I'm shooting for once or twice a week. And I won't have time to read everyone else's blogs, which REALLY makes me sad. :( I shall do my best, though!

Thrift Stores!

I adore thrift stores. I try to go into them with no specific purpose, other than to see what I can see. Because, if I have something specific I want, like clothes for Cam or me, or a table, the stores DO NOT have anything. However, I recently won an auction on Ebay that was an athame and a ton of herbs. The herbs mostly came in zip-lock baggies, which made the package smell delightful when it finally arrived. I was absolutely heady from the scent of all these different herbs. But, yeah. Keeping herbs in baggies isn't really ideal. (It's not pretty, you know?) So I headed off to the thrift stores, with the specific purpose of finding smallish glass jars to store my herbs. And I found them! Lots and lots! Which meant I got to enjoy the heady aroma of herbs some more, as I transferred them to the (newly washed/dried) jars.

So now I have a collection of herbs in nifty jars in my witchy cabinet. Perchance I'll get around to taking a picture later in the week.

Love!

Childhood memories

My childhood isn't very clear in my mind. It wasn't awful but it wasn't great, either, and I've mostly filed it away. I remember places from my childhood. I remember a few people. But actual memories? They are rare. And the memories I do have, I can't put an age to me. I could be one or I could be nine. Like the day I found the cat who would become the mother of on of my family's favourite cats (named Stupid, believe it or not). I remember I found her in the creek, when we (my brother, our cousin, and I) were off exploring. I remember it was Easter, or maybe just around that time, because I tried to feed her a chocolate egg. (She was hungry!) But putting an age to me? I'm fairly certain I was around five, from the image of my brother and cousin. But maybe not.

Two days, no, two moments stand out clearly. One was quite possibly the saddest day of my childhood, and the other the happiest. My birthday, talking to my dad on the phone. We'd just learned the day before that he was being sentenced to prison for vehicular manslaughter (bad car accident). I got to open one of my presents early: it was a bear from the PX I'd been begging the parentals for all year. The other is a few days after my birthday, three years later. Waiting anxiously in the living room. Hearing the truck pull up, dashing out the door in naught but shorts and a tee. My birthday is in December. There was snow on the ground, and ice underfoot. I jumped on my dad and held on for dear life.

I was seven. I was ten. Second grade, fifth.

I got to thinking about childhood memories because one came up out of nowhere as I was walking home today. Classes finally started, and I had a break for lunch, so I decided to make a dash for home to fix a sammich. I walked under a walnut tree, kicking the walnuts as I went, and their scent wafted up to my nose. They say scent is a strong memory aid, and now I'm rather inclined to believe it. Anyway: walnuts. When I was a kid (age: unknown), we would collect walnuts. I dunno from where. But we got them. And we would take them to some place, that was off the beaten path, and kinda creepy, where they would hull the walnuts. My memory: sitting in the truck bed watching the walnuts being hulled. And while this seems rather simplistic... That's because it is. Because I know there's no way I can describe the sun on my face, the cool metal of the truck under my bottom, the smell of the walnuts as they were hulled, the sound of the machine, or what it looked like. It just was. A perfect moment, frozen in time. And kicking a walnut into the street slammed that moment into my head.

Instructions for Life

I stumbled upon this. I like this.

Serial Furniture Movers Anonymous

(Photo not by me)

Is there really an SFMA group? 'Cause if there is, I desperately need to join it.

I am not happy in my apartment unless something has been moved around in the last month. Whether it's something in my bedroom, or Cam's, or something in the living room. I just have to move the furniture around! Maybe, if when I arranged the furniture, I paid attention to feng shui (amazing! I spelled that correctly the first try!), then maybe I wouldn't have this urge every six weeks or so to move furniture. Or maybe I just like new things, and putting my couch in a different spot lets me see it in a new way. Who knows?!

Anyhow, my last endeavor involved moving ALL of the furniture in my living room. Except a lamp. This involves: a loveseat, a futon, a dining table, two dining chairs, a popasan chair, coffee table, large area rug, two end tables, TV and TV cabinet. I also bought a bookshelf, put it together, and added it to my living room decor. The day after this, I was SORE! And I'm still sore! (Moved everything around Monday night.)

But it was totally worth it! Because now I can look out a window while I take my meals. I can quite clearly see both the door and the windows from every chair (just in case of zombie apocalypse). And some how or another, the space just breathes better. (David says its less of a clusterfuck. Nice of him, no?)

Now I can only hope that my back is better by the time I start feeling that itch again. Well, okay. I feel the itch all the time. So, I guess, I can only hope that I'm able to resist the urge to move the furniture until my back is better.

Anyone else have this problem? (The SFM syndrome, not a bad back)

October?

Yesterday, we had a high of ~75 degrees. No, I'm not kidding. It was FANTASTIC! And somewhat disconcerting. LOL (At some point last night, I woke up FREEZING and had to get up and dig a blanket out of the closet.) It is so odd to think that one moment we are in the depths of summer, then the next we are receiving this fall-like weather. Unfortunately, the cold front didn't hang around for long. We'll be back in the 90's by tomorrow.

This "cold snap" has not helped my longing for Fall and its cooler weather, and (insert list of lovely things about fall here). Ah, well. We must all play the waiting game at some point or another.

God-form

On Friday, David and I were bored of just hanging around the apartment, so we decided to walk downtown. We went in a few stores (mostly to escape the oppressive heat) one of which was a consignment shop. I don't usually find anything when I go in there (and I generally find it overpriced) and since I've moved away from the downtown area, I haven't been in. But we went in and looked about. And I found a Green Man! Okay, it's a leaf with a face on it, but I'm claiming it to be a Green Man. (Close enough, right) Anyway, if you've been following my blog, you know I've been searching for a god-figure to go on my altar. And this was it.

However, I didn't have any monies on me. And despite my plans to return the next day, debit card in hand, I was absolutely positive it would be gone. (Because that's how my luck runs, sometimes.) So David marched us to the bank to get some money, marched us back, and bought it for me. Because he was absolutely positive it would b gone if I waited, also.

And that is the story of me finding my god statue.



Normally, he's lying down flat, because Cam and I like to bounce around a lot and I worry that he'll fall and break. But I thought I'd sit him up for the picture. My altar is the top of a little cabinet (which used to be painted with sunflowers, but I painted over) where I keep my craft tools: candles, tarot cards, incense, etc. It's not a working altar, though, since it sits on my kitchen counter and is much too high to reach.

Rocks in my Head

I am fond of rocks. And stones. And pebbles. And boulders. I get it from my mother, I think, although she prefers big rocks to use in landscaping. However, while I'm still living in apartments, landscaping-sized stones aren't much use to me, so I tend to look for smaller rocks.

Today, I decided to go out to the state park and visit the creek. I've been feeling kinda down lately, and I find running water to be soothing and comforting. So off I went! And after battling 1/2 a mile of bugs, mud, spider webs, and washed out bridges, I made it to the creek, where there's supposed to be a water fall. But I guess it's been kinda dry the last week or so, and there wasn't quite enough water for the fall. Which really ruined all my plans! haha

Instead I went exploring down stream, not really planning on finding anything. But, I did! This creek is a goldmine for spiffy rocks and quartz. I found nine chunks of quartz, one of which is a tiny baby (see picture below; I put the wire on it so I wouldn't lose it as easily), and also a piece of quartz that is naturally tumbled. Unless someone happened to lose their tumbled quartz in the creek bed. (For some reason, the tumbled quartz didn't make it into the pic. I found it afterwards, hanging out about five inches away. Go figure.)





This rock (below) was hiding out right around the fall (where the fall should have been). It caught my eye because it was white and angular and was sitting on a grayish area. I picked it up, gave it a look, and was getting ready to put it down, when I noticed the crystals growing in the middle of it. I really want to break it open to see what the rest of the insides look like, but I probably won't, for fear of ruining the crystals. You can't see the crystals that well in the pic, but they're the greyish area in the middle.



And lastly, a picture of a rock that I did not find today, but last week. Remember in my "Vacation" post, I wrote about finding a rock with a heart in it? Well, here it is! I ended up giving this to David. I'm just glad that he's sweet, and as sentimental as I am.

Freeing Secrets

I had a secret. I carried it with me and kept it close to my heart. I shared it once, with one of my first boyfriends. I was convinced he was the one for me, and I could be safe telling him. I told him and he drew away from me. I learned then, that maybe this secret was too much for anyone else to bear. So I carried it with me and kept it close to my heart. I kept it safe and never told a soul. It was my secret, my burden, my shame. It was my cross to carry (haha). Over time, I was able to forgive myself for the secret. I was able to forgive (or just not care enough to carry the grudge) the others involved. It became just a secret, not shameful, not a burden. Just a secret I carried and kept close to my heart.

In April I met David. We've been dating for three months now. It feels like so much longer. I feel as though I've known him forever. But a few weeks ago, I told him my secret. Part of my secret. My secret comes in parts. He did not turn away from me. Now he shared my secret.

We were talking yesterday about... something. I don't remember. Our conversations don't follow a very logical track sometimes, because we are both think in associations. What starts out as a conversation about dinner ends as a conversation about the merits of one couch over another, with gods only know what other topics in between. Our conversation yesterday ended with me talking about the two people who have betrayed my trust to such an extent that I couldn't forgive them. Not yet. And David asked the most amazing question: Has anyone betrayed your trust before? Did you forgive them? Yes, and yes. My secret. It was a betrayal of trust. And I forgave. I told him the other part of my secret. He knows all of it. And still he didn't turn away.

I had a secret. I carried it with me and held it close to my heart. But yesterday, I set it free. And it feels as though I can breathe for the first time in my life. Perhaps it is still a secret, shared between David and I (and the others invovled), and perhaps I carry it with me still. But perhaps it has decided to just float away and enjoy its freedom elsewhere.

I had a secret; I carried it with me and held it close to my heart. But now, I am free.

Beginning of the End

What is it about transitional holidays that lead us to thinking about the season they usher in. Imbolc brought wishes of Summer heat and bounty. Dreams of fishing, swimming, and sunburns. Okay, maybe not sunburns. But zucchini, grilled hamburgers, summer storms. Summer road trips, lazy days, beautiful flower gardens.

And now Lammas has graced us with its presence. The first of the harvest festivals. The beginning of the end of Summer. Now new dreams are dancing through our heads. Pumpkin pies, crisp fall mornings, leaves to crunch. Brilliant gold, yellow, and red trees, the start of school and classes, the darkening days. Stews and casseroles, quilts on the bed, thinking of Winter before us.

Is it coincidence that these two holidays fall at the height of the season? Imbolc when Winter is at its coldest and Lammas when Summer is at its hottest? The seasons know their end is near, which seems to make them fight all the harder. And the harder they fight, the more we dream about the coming Spring/Summer or Fall/Winter.

And after all that philosophical stuff, I just have to say... I'm ready for Fall, even if I'm not looking forward to another NEMO Winter.

Vacation

I've been visiting my parents for the last week or so. It's kinda nice to get out of NEMO with its wet. Of course, I came to SWMO with its HOT and DROUGHT-like conditions. But its nice to see the parentals, and I know Camden always has fun when we're down here. (Plus, I get to take care of dr's appointments.)

Anyway, we decided to do something a bit different for dinner tonight. We packed up some hotdogs + other campfire paraphernalia and took off for the river. We also called up my Aunt and Uncle and invited them to come roast on the riverbank with us. It was only around 98 degrees. Anyway, we had fun splashing around in the water and munching on hotdogs and chips.

And like I do anytime I'm near a place with running water, I looked for holey stones. And I found them! I found EIGHT! Talk about a treasure trove. Maybe it's just the type of rock down around here, or whatever. Now I just need to figure out what I'm going to do with them all! (I think if I manage to have another giveaway anytime soon, I'll put one in that.)

I also found a stone with a heart-shaped indention in it. It's cutesy and adorable and awesome all at the same time. lol

I promise more posts are forthcoming, once I make it back to the drowned lands, I mean NEMO.