New Moon – July 2017
I struggled a bit with this cycle’s New Moon intention. I’ve moved through self-awareness, self-discovery, self-forgiveness, self-determination, self-expression, and this past cycle’s focus on self-improvement. Greece helped a lot in showing what I was physically capable of, and what still needs to be changed. The trip also broadened my understanding and appreciation for my spiritual life.
I had thought this cycle might have been spent basking in the work done so far – but I’m finding I’m not quite finished with the themes of self-determination and self-expression – be it personal or professional, I’m still reluctant to truly speak up for myself.
So this cycle will be spent looking at self-advocacy. While we can look to others for help, we are the ones who are truly invested in ourselves. There’s no one better to speak up for what we do or do not need, want, or deserve.
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New Moon – June 2017
This has been a year of really being mindful of the steps on my path, and tonight brings me to another New Moon intention to set. This year I’ve moved through self-awareness, self-discovery, self-forgiveness, self-determination, self-expression – and with this cycle I move to self-improvement. I have a better sense of myself, my strengths, and limitations and I feel like I have some degree of self-determination and that I’m developing the skills to express it. So now, how to improve by building on all of that. The enlightenment I hope to get from the Greece trip feels like a great first step!!
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Discovering Humanity
I’m discovering that many of my relationships have been complicated – especially the older those relationships are. Some of that is attributable to growing together, some just the compromises two personalities make to try to find joy in one another.
My best friend and I have a very complicated relationship. We’ve known each other for nearly 40 years and have been through a lot of changes. He’s been without a girlfriend for about 4 years now – and sitting at the bar with him the other night it dawned on me that I had become his nurturing relationship. In that moment I felt my feminine side, and began to understand something that I’d already begun to think about.
In simple terms, I’m redefining my archetypes of masculine and feminine. Reframing my belief that equality AND differences in nature can exist at the same time. This shouldn’t be a revelation to anyone – and wasn’t really to me… but the way I chose to frame it is new to me. My inability to ascribe natural sexuality relevant to gender was really called out in that conversation – that’s what set the lightbulb on.
As I was growing up, when I developmentally tried to build personal archetypes I used my parents as models – much in the way I guess any child would. The only way for me to wedge my sexuality into that archetype (built on my mother as archetypical female) was to build a construct around it that would legitimize sexuality. My mother’s personality and my parent’s marriage & partnership was asexual. No physical contact, they did not sleep together, and any displays of affection were perfunctory at best.
Now that she’s gone – I’m finding the archetype is collapsing… and I’m awakening to the blending of strength and pliability, dominance and submission, masculine and feminine in the same space – just to varying, and oftentimes shifting degrees. I’m beginning to build a more complete (and admittedly complex) archetype now – one where a woman I am attracted to can both go play in the mud AND rock a little black dress. The internal transformation in my worldview is profound right now. I’m discovering a world where I don’t have to be “Dominant” to be sexual. A world where I can just be “me”.
It’s late in the game for me to be coming to all of this. I’m trying not to regret so much time wasted and so many hearts dismayed. But maybe I can bring all of this around and become balanced, fun, joyful…
…or as a trusted and loving soul recently said… Human.
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New Moon – May 2017
This afternoon brings another New Moon, and my evolutionary journey through 2017 continues – each new moon brings a different facet of myself to pay attention to or work on. January was self-awareness, February was self-discovery, March was self-forgiveness, and April was self-determination. Interesting that about half-way through self-determination my mother passed away.
I was involved in a very powerful and personally profound healing ritual at the retreat over the weekend. Building on the themes that it uncovered, this lunar cycle’s work will revolve around self-expression. I’m not sure what form that will take yet – but we learn as we go!
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Freedom
The story is my truth, but it may resonate for others as well.
My mother is now dead. Sounds cold and callous, I know – but I feel like a book has closed. She passed away on Monday morning, with family in attendance – by all accounts it was peaceful. I do wish her well on her journey – she didn’t ask for, or want, what this life provided her – and I forgive her based on that. I hold no malice toward her or her spirit. She did what she was capable of – she just wasn’t capable of what she was called upon to do.
My oldest memory is standing in the kitchen with my father – I couldn’t have been more than three years old – when he said to me “you’re mother is coming home from the hospital tomorrow, now we have to be good so she doesn’t get sick again”. My dad was looking for an ally – I know that – but my brain at the time crafted the scenario where aberrations in my behavior could send my mother away. This was when I still believed that there could be care, love, and nurturing found there. It was all up to me – I had to be “good”, to go along, to not make waves.
This informed every relationship I had up until four years ago. I fully admit that I was the one who’d held myself hostage with this emotional blackmail for almost all of my life. I subjugated any needs or wants I had in favor of either keeping my mother or her surrogate (whoever I was in a relationship with) happy. Naturally, I gravitated toward the worst kind of co-dependent relationships. I wasn’t allowed to have my needs met, so why not lock myself into a situation where it was impossible anyway. I lived my life governed by a fear of abandonment. To this day I’ll occasionally still find myself in that same, comfortable, apologetic mode. There’s nothing wrong with being contrite for something you might have done to offend someone – but when you end up with a nickname of “Sorry” because you say it all the time – that’s the sign of an unhealthy relationship.
Thankfully, for the most part, I’d broken that pattern after the last conscious time I’d seen my mother – in 2011. We still kept in touch for two more years – but in 2013, I walked away for good. The catalyst was trivial, but it was enough. Since then, I have tried to find myself in whole, compatible, nurturing, and non-destructive relationships with people who are genuinely self-aware, or at least on that path. Much like a substance abuser not associating with the “old crowd”, the new souls that tend to populate my life help me affirm that this is the way I want to live.
My spirituality gives me occasion to make a monthly vow to myself. This month I had chosen “Self-Determination” – and now during this time, my mother passes away. I feel as though a weight has been lifted, curtains opened, and skies clearing. I have made more choices in the past few days based on what “I” need than I can remember. It’s getting reflexive, and I think I’m on the right track.
There are going to be a lot of changes – some profound, some subtle, but I’m anxious to know what this life can be like lived on my own terms.
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New Moon – April 2017
Every new moon I pick a new topic to reflect on. In January it was self-awareness, February was self-discovery, and March was self-forgiveness. I really had planned on this new moon being about something else… but it’s just not time for that yet. Instead, this cycle will be about self-determination.
There are times in our lives where we act against our own best interests – we do things that inadvertently hurt ourselves or others – but good or bad, we always have a choice. Over the next few weeks I want to try to be more mindful of those cusps and try to lean toward nurturing and fulfillment – not just for myself but for those around me as well.
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Don’t Change
I’ve been singing this song with the band for a few months now – but I always struggled with the motivation. I don’t want to prevent a partner or someone in my life from changing and growing – I always want them to be their best selves. Coming off of last night’s full moon though – I found something deep in myself that I hadn’t felt in about 7-8 years. Suddenly the lyric “I found a love I had lost” makes perfect sense.
We shouldn’t need to change for one another, nor should we need others to change for us. We are all beautiful and flawed and perfect. If we can meet in that space – and embrace the perfect love and trust with and for one another – that’s where the magic happens.
The lyrics:
I found a love I had lost
It was gone for too long
Hear no evil in all directions
Execution of bitterness
Message received loud and clear
~ INXS, Don’t Change (Andrew Farriss & Kirk Pengilly)
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Shenpa and Self-Improvement
For the past few months I’ve been working on different areas of self-improvement. First was self-awareness, then self-discovery, and right now I’m in the middle of exercises in self-forgiveness. That can take on many forms, but it begins with understanding one’s need for forgiveness in the first place.
With time to reflect today, I returned to the Buddhist concept of Shenpa and decided I wanted to see what more I could read about it – because that Shenpa, or attachment, seems like it sits at the heart of my being too hard on myself. When I did a search today, I found an article published just this past Friday from Pena Chödrön – a Buddhist voice I respect very much. The timing and synergy suggested it was important to share this. Click here to read “How We Get Hooked and How We Get Unhooked“.
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New Moon – February 2017
During the past lunar cycle I focused on self-acceptance. Three days after the last new moon I was in the accident and spent the rest of the lunar cycle forced to do little else but accept each moment as it came. It was interesting to “watch” my brain recover from the concussion and accept that each moment was as it should be.
I ended that period of acceptance by acknowledging that I had a role to play in affecting change and spent the last few minutes of the cycle, combined with the solar eclipse, focusing on letting go of that which does not serve me. Part of this references the “thermal exhaust port” post from the Friday.
With the new moon I start a new cycle, and this time I’m choosing to move from self-acceptance to self-discovery. I’m not sure exactly what that means yet – but that’s also part of the adventure!!
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New Moon – January 2017
“Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more…”
I’m back online now.
There are battles to be fought, and wars to be won.
This past Friday’s New Moon brought a vow to focus on the work of self-acceptance – both personally and professionally. This follows the teachings of Sun Tzu who said “So it is said that if you know your enemies and know yourself, you will not be put at risk even in a hundred battles.” – it must begin with self-acceptance.
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