Come Again

So here we are on Samhain. On the outside we are not going to be looking very haloweeny. We were given to signs by the police, one say trick or treaters welcome and one saying not welcome. I think we shall be sticking up the not welcome one with a little note underneath saying we have the lurgy. I might stick a bowl of sweets on the doorstep, not sure.

I will light candles for my dead. Big Dog. Uncle D who died a few weeks a go. My Gran, even though I never overly gelled with her. Her husband who I never met and know so little about because my Dad isn't very talkative about him (or anyone else). My Nan's two husbands (although she is still alive) my Grandad and my Uncle R. B who was a family friend who died of cancer when I was in my late teens. B who was a cousin's wife who died when I was very young and who was my first experience of death. I remember vaguely having that conversation with my Mum.

I think I will also do a reading by the candles tonight. I like tarot. I like reading others readings to. Eco Yogini posted hers today but blogger wouldn't let me comment....

I guess what I really wanted to write about was the dream I had last night. I dreamt I was pregnant. Very pregnant. I realised something had happened to the baby as it had not moved in some time. I told F and he took me to the hospital. We knew the baby was dead and needed to come out but we couldn't find the casualty (A & E) department in the hospital. It seemed it would appear at the time it was due to open. I kept walking around the hospital trying to find it so I could be rid of my dead baby. Shortly before I woke up, my waters broke. No one cared about finding me the A & E any more, the first nurse around was grabbed instead....

I guess my interpretation of it is that not all things that begin are meant to be. Something has begun with me that is not supposed to be and although I know it is not meant to be I have to wait for it's time to end. That time is close. There might be some pain. No caesarian for me, the department that would have done that wasn't there, not for me. I have to do it the painful, old fashioned way but the people to help are all around.

I know I don't write and remember my dreams as often as I should, only when they really want to be remembered. I have no bedside lamp so i can not write them down in the middle of the night easily. I probably should sort this. Sometimes my dreams are very.... I am convinced I had a dream warning that I would lose Big Dog.

Anyway, Happy Samhain!

Ghost Story

Some of my new books came through the door today. One of these was The Mystery of Grace by Charles de Lint. As well as the second of the Fionavar books, why couldn't it have been the first one that arrived first?

So I start reading The Mystery of Grace and discover it is the perfect book for Samhain. It is all about a lady who dies and finds that she can come back on Samhain and Beltaine when the veil is thin. The first time she comes back she meets a man....

I loved this story. So appropriate and a lovely take on this time of year. Not a scary ghost story or anything halloween-esk.

I love how sometimes i find myself, by chance, doing something appropriate for the time of year, quite by chance. Beltane found me drinking mead on a stag do with the Summer King waving a wand and wearing pink horns. Samhain finds me reading ghost stories. Yule found me standing in a hill fort watching a balefire being lit following a masked procession.

My birthday found me being gifted with rowan witch wood for a wand and a staff. Pure chance.

Chance happenings. Quietly becoming more in tune. How often are we in tune but don't notice it? The world turns whether we watch it or not. We are creatures of this earth no matter what we pretend.

The veil thins tomorrow whether people pay attention or not but unless we are listening or have a particular talent for it, chances are we won't come across a spirit who will make their presence felt. I have never seen a ghost and don't think I have felt one. Doesn't mean they arn't there and doesn't mean I won't remember my dead tomorrow.

Happy Samhain

Standing Still

I have had a go at journeying twice more and I havn't had anywhere near the same results as I did the first time. Beginner's luck maybe or just that there was some stuff desperate to make it's way through.

I just enjoyed the drum rhythms the first time. They took me nowhere at all. The second time I did travel but it was more of a visualisation than a journey. I started in the clouds again before plummeting downwards into a huge river delta with the sun glinting on the water. I fell in to the river and found myself on the bottom. Then there was a shark and I was in the sea and we were going down. Not much happened down there except it got dark.

The only spontaneous thing was the sharks appearance, the rest was very much me and offered no insights at all really to anything.

Maybe this really isn't my home or my way. Maybe I have another way I need to learn. I don't know but I shall keep trying I think. if only because it is nice and relaxing.

Apparently sharks stand for never being still, protection, remorselessness, ability to defend, connection to past knowledge and they guard the family.

In My Mind

So I decided to do a little reading about shamanic journeys as per Sam's suggestion. She is not the first person to suggest a shamanic path to me. It also seems that my experiences of dealing with energy in the workplace are a shamanic thing in some ways too.

I found some shamanic drumming on line here. It is only just over eight minutes long which isn't long - I think they want you buy their CD. It wasn't long enough to have much happen but it is amazing how much my mind did manage to cram in.

Things like this tear me between the scientist and the witch. Is it all in my mind, made up by me, the scientist asks. The witch says, who cares, your mind has a lot of great things to say to you.... Who cares if it is coming from your mind or somewhere else.

So here goes. i was listening to the drumming and I could feel it making me move slightly. Somehow just idle listening isn't enough. You have to feel it an be it. I know this sounds odd but this was something i realised when I did the TAW exercise on drawing to music. Listening is an active thing, not a passive thing.

And then I thought, I want to fly, so I was up in the clouds, doing swan dives and running. I reminded myself of sonic the hedgehog completing levels. Then I thought no, this isn't flying and I was gliding on the winds above mountains with huge wide brown wings. High, high above. Then I tipped to one side to bank and the world tipped and I was no longer there, I was a blue parrot eating a nut in a tree.

I know the blue parrot. I did some visualisaion work years ago on my basic and higher selves. My basic self is a mole called Scrutius who likes to find things and wears some pink winged glasses a la Dame Edna Everidge. My higher self was Anyol, the blue haired, blue parrot spirit.

I called to the parrot and she transformed into the blue haired woman, naked. We hugged and then I fell from the tree. I landed in a river as a rock. Not moving. I remembered that rocks only move in rocky rivers when a storm comes along and then they get swept somewhere completely different. Change hits them completely.

So I asked if a storm was coming and looked up and I could see the sky was turning that bronzey colour, not just a little part of the sky near the horizon but all of it.

Then I was a bear and I was with another black bear and we hugged. Then I clearly heard 'this is not your home either'. The drumming on the computer reached that pitch that calls you out and I was back here.

Maybe I need a drum...

Thoughts on a postcard...

I did find the drum helped. I have done a fair bit of visualisation over the years but quite often it feels a little stilted and forced. This felt far more fluid, flip oh I am somewhere else. I came out feeling better and grounded....

OK so these are my thoughts on it.... The computer game feel of the beginning, I think reflects how my life has been in the past. Study this, progress to this, level up. you can fly, but fly like this.

I expressed unhappiness at this and moved out of it. I am not sure what the bird was, except that it was huge, brown and lived in the mountains. Maybe a golden eagle, who knows. but the whole world was laid out beneath me. These sorts of birds represent seeing things clearly, from above, even things that are hidden, courage, power and blance.

The forest was full of tall trees, forest giants and I remained in this forest for the remainder of the journey. The blue parrot didn't fit and i felt as if i was saying good bye to Anyol.

I think the thing with the rock in the river is fairly clear. It was a warning, an advance notification, that change, when it finally comes will be sudden and complete for me. It wasn't meant to be scary because the rock is still a rock once the river has flooded and moved it.

The bear hugged me in friendship and welcome. Apparently the bear is the animal of shamans and mystics, transformation, healing and introspection. I had been watching a programme last night about black bears in Canada's forests....

The comment about this not being my home, I think, goes back to homes of the heart. Charles de Lint talks of these in some of his books. They are that little corner of the other world which is ours and ours alone and reflects us as we are. The eagle above the mountains, the blu parrot in the tree with the nut, the rock in the river and the bear in the forest, none of these are me, they are not my home. But it is slightly bizarre....

the joy of having time at home ill is that you have time to seize interesting things and do them there and then.... Oh and the animal stuff was from this website.

Would still love your thoughts and insights....

Down but not Out

I went to the Doctor and got myself another nice little piece of paper. No more drugs though as he feels my chestiness is viral. No mention of bronchitus or pneumonia or any other such thing. Swine flu may have been present but it doesn't matter whether it was or not because there is no way of proving it one way or the other now.

I am just ill and I have another seven days off work.

I am in no hurry to get back. I don't want to go back. I am restless and waiting for the wind to blow me on somewhere else. All the politics and difficulties and struggling colleagues. I just don't want it.

I must admit, before I got ill, that last time. On the Friday when I felt rough and had had enough of everyone. I prayed to the goddess to not make me have to go back. I guess you should be careful what you wish for. It also doesn't stop me from having to go back. It just delays it and gives me a breathing space (*laugh* with a chest infection*).

So where do I go from here? Is there any way I can avoid having to go back but still have money? I have to give a months notice. I have no other job to go to and there are not that many about right now. If I didn't go back I would get a bad reference making it harder to get another job.

I guess I just need to accept the inevitable and keep praying that I win the lottery.

I guess not liking your job is pretty common.