I am Whole Unto Myself

I am a leader with no followers
I am a gypsy with no tribe
I am a nomad in the desert
With no one by my side

I am a single mother
Whose daughter is not home
I am a solitary witch
I practice my magic alone

I am a soulful wanderer
On a meandering path
I am a laughing mermaid
Splashing in my bath

I am a black winged raven
I am feathering my nest
I am a fiery hummingbird
Love is thrumming in my chest

I am a mountain lion
Roaring out of my cave
I am a purring cat
It is my life that I save

I am a white whale
I surface and go deep
I am a true beauty
But I am no longer asleep

I am a well read traveler
My journey is my destination
I banish all sorts of abuse
I drop all my hesitations

I am all by myself
I am happy and content
Each day and night I know
I live a life well spent

I am a big blue dragonfly
I drop all illusions now
I am a monarch butterfly
Transformation is how

I am a glittering fairy
With iridescent wings
I am a strong, strong Woman
Who dances, cooks and sings

I am grounded in the earth
I am filled with sacred fire
I am in touch with my emotions
I live my truth just to inspire

I am a leader with no followers
I am the queen of nobody
I am the goddess of everything
I love myself unconditionally

June 2004

The Path

From the Altar Egos Series:
"Positive Affirmations to Heal a Nation"
Copyright kgr 2004

The Color Chartreuse

I was having one of those moments when I was feeling in touch with my inner Martha Stewart, as I waltzed around Ross: Cross Dress for Less at our lovely River Street Plaza. There I found the most fabulous chartreuse  velvet curtains, the perfect color for my front room, at an astonishing price. I languorously chose new curtain rods, my inner math geek happily translating feet to inches and how to divide four curtains between three windows.

I love that word, chartreuse. It conjures up a particular time in high school and battling with the glazes as I tried to raku a series of ceramic beads that I was making a substantial profit on, selling to Mom’s then jewelry group, The Brass Ring. Renown at the local craft fairs for their amazing creations of fiber and handmade, exotic embellishments, the ladies were gobbling up my chartreuse beads - let’s just say I was an entrepreneur at an early age, and a part of that money is my retirement account today.

Coming home, I spent a fun afternoon removing the old, tired blinds, installing the curtain rod hardware, spackling and painting over the resulting holes, and finally, finally, hanging my magnificent chartreuse curtains. All I needed was violin music and maybe a rose gripped between my teeth to complete the moment. In my mind’s eye I could see the cover of Better Homes & Gardens- This months feature: Enchanting Homes of Santa Cruz...

After picking my kid up from school the next day, I swept into the house and in grand voice announced, “ So, my darling, what do you think of my chartreuse curtains?”

With barely a glance, she calmly stated, “Mom, they’re the color of puke.”

“No, sweetie, they’re chartreuse,” I corrected her, my ire beginning to boil. “Look how they match everything in the room.” She merely raised an eyebrow. Forget her, I thought, I love my chartreuse curtains, they’re perfect.

The next day, walking down the stairs, all I could think was, “Puke. The color puke.”

Needless to say, they were returned that morning, and this time I let my kid choose the curtains. Why not? She lives here too. And guess what she chose:

Pink - a beautiful, dusky rose, unmistakable, pink.

Sorry, Martha.

Thoughts on Cats

In this particular moment
I am annoyed with the cats
Which is not good, since
They own me.

It is their exacting
communication
That is so grating...

The sound of claws on upholstery
The unraveling of my material world
The stench of cat urine on the carpet
Well, I'm pissed off too.

They know I'm annoyed
Small faces at the kitchen door
Round eyes somehow even rounder
Melting my resolve...

Spring Break Up

she thought she had a decision
to make...
but it had already been made.
she felt it inside her.
now she just had to admit it.

-Terri Urban, Bone Sighs

When feeling stuck between two choices, I’ll often reach for the closest handy dandy tarot deck lying around the house or office. I’ll pull one card with my left hand, representing my heart in the moment; one card with my right, representing my mind; and one card with both hands, combining my head and my heart into a soul/sole purpose. I then look to the highest card as the right path to follow...


Recently upon pondering whether or not to contact a certain someone, I found Osho the most convenient of the 17 deck I seem to have collected over the years. My left hand pulled (who didn’t know it) VI: The Lovers. My right hand pulled XI: Break Through. Traditionally the Justice Card (sign of Libra the Scales), Osho instead instructs us to change our break downs into breakthroughs. Venus being retrograde and it being that time of review, review, review, I found myself thinking about spring break up when living in my own private Idaho, in more ways than one.

I moved to Bonner's Ferry Idaho in the bitterly cold January of 1989, living there for almost a year before returning to my beloved Santa Cruz. Less than fifty miles away from the frozen Canadian border, population 2000. My best friend had recently been hospitalized after attempting suicide, and had decided to return to her home town to rehabilitate. She asked me to come with her, and having ended my college classes a semester early, I thought, why not?

Well, considering how much I hate the cold, soon the question was, why? With a wind chill factor registering at 40 degrees below zero, my entire life revolved around getting my friends in California to mail me chai, stoking a wood stove in order not to freeze at night and running a hair dryer over my car engine for 24/7 rather than having my engine block crack. Densely packed snow covered everything, the proverbial white blanket, only a mere 6 feet deep. Interestingly enough, it was that winter I painted my first tarot deck, using water colors to illuminate Ffiona Morgan's Daughters of the Moon , still my favorite deck today, 23 years later.

The only weather more extreme than winter, though, was spring break up - that 6 foot blanket became a six foot moving sheet of ice, churning up everything in it's path. As the creeks and rivers began to thaw, so began the most intense earthly transformations. Asphalt buckled, mountains cracked, and mud became the ruling element. Navigating the roads was treacherous, and mud slides were more likely to close down the schools than any paltry snow day. Chaotic and messy, the sun’s golden rays illuminating the primordial sludge that all is born anew from.

Icicles shifted, melted, and transformed into running streams, babbling brooks, and fast flowing rivers. There is so much power in the melt down, the sudden waterfalls and instant byways as gravity would help sluice down the excess, creating short cuts for more flow. Much like my own tears, expressing my grief, no longer stagnating in sorrow, so too did I find my internal ice-olation shifting and changing in that particular spring time, transforming my thornier parts into the welcoming rose bud, the promise of summer blossoms, the return of joy. Part of the break throughs were the bulbs bursting through the soil, tender shoots reaching for the sun; the dams that had burst free now calming into gentle rivers. The earth truly seemed to shudder as she shook herself awake.

And just what was the third card? Oh, but that’s another story...

THE MOMENT one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves too.
Whatever you think you can do, or believe you can do, BEGIN IT.
Action has magic, power and grace.
-Goethe

Seabright Musings

Can’t seem to sleep, can’t seem to eat
Feels like my stomach is tied up in knots
Can’t seem to let go, can’t seem to move on
Wonder what the hell is causing this gut rot?

Classroom head lice, house might have termites,
Only rich in cat hair, pollen and dust bunnies
Can’t seem to get sleep, can’t seem to breathe deep
And now don’t you know, the IRS wants all my money...

It is a sunny spring day in lovely Santa Cruz, and I am sipping a Pelican Ale at the Seabright Brewery, listening to a rather raucous band do poor covers from somewhere half a block away. Apparently it is a benefit for a taxi cab driver who died a few years ago, leaving wife & children, which softens my heart if not my ear drums.
 
I have not been on any of my blogs in what seems like days & days, and I miss my various & sundry audiences. I went to several doctors over the last week after experiencing chest pains, and have been diagnosed with gerd, which is further constricting my breathing, causing asthma, but more importantly, made me feel like I was having a heart attack.

Being sick is stressful, but going to the doctors is too, bringing up childhood memories of constantly being hospitalized, constantly having my mom yell at me to take my medications. I resist western medicine as a result, and instead choose to treat my symptoms with acupuncture, herbs and nutrition.

My next big project will be to rip out all the carpeting in the house & either install wood, cork, bamboo or tile. While the doctor recommends getting rid of the cats, I’d rather cut off my hands. I can compromise by making them live outdoors and getting an air filter, boosting my immune system and receiving NAET.

So I order my Jiggy’s Pub Club on whole wheat and a side salad with no tomatoes. I’m looking at eliminating coffee (gasp!) no more french fries or chips & salsa for me either. Life looks a little bland, but better without the heart burn. Kinda like my love life...

(Time passes) I have now switched to their Lighthouse Amber, half my lunch boxed away for dinner. While the beer has improved, the music has not, and I may need to move locals sooner rather than later. I have been musing on Pan and my path of paganism, spring thaws in Idaho and my daughter’s “first date” yesterday. More to follow...

Thanks to those of you checking in. You know who you are. I do appreciate it.

VI: The Lovers

There are two beings, naked in their splendor. They have traveled far to meet. This is the time, and this is the place. Their paths cross and a third entity - Love - is born. In the distance is a mountain, their toils of the past to get this far. Between them is is river, gently flowing:

I take delight in
The love that is flowing
just like a river
To the strength of the sea...

And I take delight in
The love that is growing
Just like a river
Between you and me...
(Traditional)

There is green earth under them- they are grounded and stable, a solid foundation. They each come with their gifts - One has a fruit tree in full blossom, feeding them both. A snake winds around the trunk, whispering truth in her ear. She looks to the heavens, as she wonders about worlds of possibilities.The other has a burning bush, keeping them both warm. He looks to her as he has single focus.

Above is the sky, where above a cloud bank an angel of peace brings the message of hope, blessing each of them with outstretched hands. The angel's cloak is the blue of the fifth chakra, communication with love and kindness, kind communication with god. It's wings are purple, color of the higher mind, allowing these beings to rise rather than fall in love. At the apex of the triangle, the angel's hair is a halo of fire, radiant thoughts, and behind the angel is god herself, the blossoming sun, illuminating the whole.

The fog is lifting and the clouds of illusion and despair part as the two lovers come together in perfect love and perfect trust. Each has achieved the trinity within, and now make up the VI: The Six. There is the unity of the one, the polarity of the two, the creativity of the three, the stability of four, fives are the experience of change, and sixes signify the resulting growth. This is a mutually beneficial, reciprocal relationship.

The two beings feel illuminated and blessed, and share their joy with friends and family, their community. They balance and harmonize each other, feeling interdependent and symbiotic, being complementary energies, moving through co-operation and compromise to create together what they could not do individually.

And we can make something bigger
Then anyone of us alone
-Ani DiFranco

These are my notes after pulling IV: The Lovers card at Mary K. Greer's workshop on 21 ways To Read a Tarot Card at this year's Pantheacon