Belated Birthday

I didn't have the chance yesterday to note that it was (or would have been) Andy's 37th birthday. Needless to say, he's really been on my mind the last couple of days. I can't decide if it seems like just yesterday or a thousand lifetimes ago since he was here with me. As much as I wish things could have been different, life moves forward with or without us. I realize more and more every day that I still have much to do before I see him again.




Andy, I miss you my dear one, but I know you're never far way. Your light continues to shine on everyone you touched and we are blessed for having known you. May Isis keep you under her sheltering wings always. Love , Your Aisling

Answering the Call

Anyone who reads tarot regularly knows the lovely lady shown here. Most often, the High Priestess card is interpreted as a card of hidden knowledge and intuition. It is her job to walk between worlds (heaven and earth, living and dead) and to be the keeper and dispenser of secret knowledge. She sits between pillars of light and darkness, surrounded by symbols of the divine feminine.

For me, this card always takes on a more specific meaning. When she appears in a reading being done for me (whether I read for myself or someone else reads for me), it's a very strong and clear signal that I am about to be placed in a situation where I have to step into the role of the High Priestess. It is a spiritual call to arms of sorts, a warning that I will need to draw deeply on spiritual energies and so-called supernatural abilities.

Two weeks ago, the High Priestess came up as the card of the day. That night, my dearest friend asked for my assistance in doing a banishing and cleansing at the house of a family member. The family felt that a negative spirit was bothering a small child in the household. A powerful witch in her own right, my friend has done many banishings and cleansings over the years on her own. That she asked for my help spoke volumes about her deep level of concern that she had about the situation as well as the level of trust we have in each other. Dearest friend upset, her family troubled, and a young one traumatized... I said yes to helping before she'd even gotten to the actual asking.

By accident or design, I found myself taking a more active role in this work than I'd originally thought I would. I hear and see spirits more clearly than my friend and was able to confirm her impressions from previous visits and that there was indeed the spirit of an older man who believed that the house was still his. We took a multi-faceted approach to the problem, working to banish this particular spirit from the house and then smudging and warding the home. We hung a protective amulet under the child's bed where most of the contact had occurred. For the child being bothered, my friend made a "Monster Trap" (a decorated wooden box to capture monsters) and I brewed up my version of Monster-B-Gone spray (which is a potion of non-toxic herbs that are said to repel negative energies and provide protection that's then scented with a mixture of calming oils).

Finally, we spent time talking to the family matriarch, who was full of well-thought, intelligent questions, most of which were directed toward me. I really hadn't come prepared for that aspect, but found that the right words came easily. Sharing my own experiences as a child helped, I think, give the family a perspective on their own child's reactions to things that had been happening in the house. Sometimes, I think that people in this situation just need reassurance that they aren't imaging things and that someone from the outside can understand and affirm what they've felt and seen. Sometimes, the best thing you can do for someone is believe them.

A week has passed since our afternoon of ghost wrangling and by all accounts, things are calmer and more peaceful in the house. The child in question takes the monster trap to bed each night and hasn't reported being bothered when he's trying to sleep. As for me, I'm still recovering from the inevitable energy drain that I always feel after intense workings. Yesterday was the first time I'd felt like reading for myself and lo and behold, the High Priestess was the first card turned over. A friend also read for me yesterday and the High Priestess and the Magician came up together. It looks like I still have some work ahead of me...

Random Thoughts - What Do You Send Out?

A friend is not feeling well, so I spent some time this evening doing a little long-distance healing work. As I prepared a candle for her, I found myself thinking of other friends and acquaintances who have been struggling lately with health and other personal issues. One candle became many and I found that I'd spent two hours in a state of prayer, meditation and focused healing.

Shortly after I'd wrapped up my work, an out-of-state friend called to say that he'd suddenly thought of me in the midst of a horrible afternoon and he felt suddenly relaxed and calm. I laughed and told Beau that I'd been thinking of him as well, sending a prayer that he'd find some peace and a resolution to the difficulties he's been facing. That conversation made me think about the fact that I usually only hear from Beau when I've spent time concentrating on him, whether it's in the form of prayer or simply reminiscing about our long-time friendship. We can go for months without speaking, yet if I stop and wonder what he's up to, it never fails that he's on my phone within 48 hours.

I believe that whether we intend to or not, we project onto the world our emotions and energy. A visit to any place where people have been held against their wills can quickly confirm this idea. Places where people spend a great deal of time in pain or agony seem to take on that misery as their own. It permeates the structures and the land itself and can affect those who are sensitive to emotional upheavals.

We can shape our environment with what we project into it. We can each choose what we give to the world. Do we let the stress and unhappiness of our day color the way we treat others? Do we project our negativity and insecurities into the world instead of internally coping with and processing them? Do we give a little of ourselves in the form of love and kindness? Do we send our blessings to the world when we find an abundance in our lives? What do you send out?

Into the Woods

I recently started reading Women Who Run with the Wolves and frankly, am surprised by the rave reviews and plaudits this work has received. So far it has come across as another piece of pop psychology, laden with annoying terminology and poorly analyzed analogies with little in the way of practical advice. For those of us who already run with the wolves, reading this book quickly turns into an exercise in tedium. Trying to imagine this book through the eyes of her target audience, I have to wonder if they're going to come away with anything more than empty words that inspire only discontent with their current lives.

Want to reconnect with the wild spirit that resides in you? Don't bother spending money on a Jungian analysis of fairy tales. If you feel you must have a written book to reconnect with that part of yourself, go out and buy a guidebook to local hiking trails, forests, or waterways. Then use it; go out into the woods and see for yourself what nature is, what wild means. Stay long enough to see the little details, both uplifting and unpleasant. Stand in silence and listen. The woods are never quiet or still. There is always something happening. A woodpecker's work may echo over your head or the wind may rattle dried leaves like so many old bones. Look for the little signs of life and death that surround you... fallen limbs, tender pine saplings, a spider's web. Don't fear what you find, just know it is all a part of that which you seek to reclaim. Your wild spirit does not reside in the pages of a book; it resides in the wilds of the land from which we have arisen and to which we again will return.

Eclipsed

Last night, my little corner of the world had the good fortune of relatively clear skies for viewing the lunar eclipse. For the astronomy geek residing in my brain, the eclipse provided a glimpse into the workings of the heavens.

For another part of me, the event provided me with a new perspective on things. Friends and regular blog readers have by now figured out that the last few months have been rough. Sorrow and struggle have been daily companions and whenever I feel that I am about to part company with these two, they borrow a little deeper into my soul.

Life has been filled with darkness as of late, but the eclipse has reminded me that the darkness is only temporary. Like the moon, I now travel in darkness, shadowed by something greater than myself, the gravity of which I cannot escape. Like the eclipse, this darkness is only a temporary state. In time, I will again stand apart from darkness and reflect the light and beauty of the universe. This darkness is only an impermanent shadow, from which my soul will emerge full again.

Random Thoughts - Putting a Window in that Wall

When life is not going well, I tend to withdraw into myself and put up barriers that would make a certain wall in China look less than Great. I am a Cancer after all and we excel at the fine art of retreating into our shell in times of turmoil. We also tend to snap at those who would try to come near us during those times, often whether they deserve it or not. Cancers have been known to snap at their dearest friends when feeling vulnerable; never mind what we do to those who we hold less dear. It's not right, but it is how we sometimes cope.

I have to admit that, in recent weeks (ok, since October) I've been playing the role of the crab a little too well. Those who know me well are aware of all things that conspired between Andy and myself, some of which I'm just not willing to share publicly. Sometimes I feel like I was handed a couple of very precious gifts only to have them taken back and smashed to bits in front of me. I miss him and I miss the life that I only had a mere moment of. Aside from love and loss, life in general just hasn't been very kind lately. So I've been slowly building layers of brick and mortar, withdrawing from my own life.

Closing doors and shutting out people is a well-honed skill for me. I excel at it after a childhood of constantly moving and a lifetime of battling depression. It's a good skill to have, unless of course, you close all the doors and shut everyone out. I've been edging closer and closer to doing just that.

Fortunately, I have a couple of friends and one guardian angel who will not stand for it. If the walls start getting too high, they start taking bricks down as fast as I can put them up. Between them, they always find some way to bring me out of myself. When simply saying "Stop behaving this way", one of them always manages to come up with a more subtle way to bring me out of my shell. This time they did it by giving me several pokes to check in with an online group where I had previously been fairly active.

After much resistance, I finally took a quick peek at the group. Someone who reminds me too much of myself (a depressed hermit crab!) had posted that day for the first time in weeks, a post full of deep pain, sorrow, and hurt. It was what I needed to snap me out of my self-imposed isolation and into action. It is impossible to stay withdrawn when I know that someone else needs desperately words of encouragement and acceptance. The geas to comfort and aid those I can is too strong and ingrained in me to be ignored. So I put a window into the wall I was building. I'm not quite ready to completely emerge, but I am ready to let in some light and air. Thank you to the people who helped me do that; you cannot know how much it means to me. I thank my Lady every day for putting you all in my life.

It Was Only a Dream... Thank the Gods!

I've spent entirely too much time lately pondering all the ways in which my life hasn't lived up to its potential. Included in this pondering has been the question of how differently my life would be if I'd choosen the safe, well-trod path of all that is normal and average. Last night, I recieved the answer to that question, in the form of a long and horrific dream.

The dream lasted most of the night and came in various tableaus that roughly covered the entire period of cradle to grave. The highlights, if you can call them that, included becoming a hairdresser, having a simple yet terrifically expensive white wedding in a Christian church, accepting a husband who was a full-time accountant and part-time couch potato named Bob, creating a marriage based on begruding tolerance with a dash of affection, maintaining a ridiculous house in the 'burbs, having kids who thought playing football and going to the mall were religious experiences, taking a Disney cruise every year, and eventually dying of old age and boredom in a sappily-named retirement community in a skin-cancer ridden state. It was a very regular, secure, safe life in which the most upsetting occurrances tended to be things like the death of a pet or the family arguments about where to order take-out food. It was an existence protected from all that is dark, scary, and unknown. It was happy, safe, boring, and by most standards, perfect. It was full of sunshine and daisies and completely vanilla flavored. In short, it was hell.

What made it so bad was not what it provided, but all the things that were missing from the reality of who I am. The really obvious things were gone: tattoos, multiple peircings, love of all things dark, my ability to spew witty sarcasms at the speed of light. Then there were the other things that are so integral to who I am... the very strong spirituality, the ability to see and understand things that most people are blind to, the need to wander and explore, my insatiable curiousity, and my openness to lifestyles other than my own. The dream was filled with a bright pleasantness, yet enveloped by a mediocrity and closed-mindedness that I can't begin to wrap my head around. Frighteningly enough, I was quite happy within the context of the dream and wouldn't have traded that life for any other. That aspect scares me more than any other.

So, even though I've gotten a sneak peek at what my world could have been like, I'm more than grateful to have been given the life I have. No, it's not perfect and yes, I tend to be the token freak at most gatherings. However, I've been fortunate to have some incredible, unique experiences and I've also been blessed with a good deal of love in my life. Presented with the choice, I'd gladly take the precious time I had with Andy over a lifetime with the man I'd married in that dream. The well-trodden and secure path has never been mine to take. Although I may sometimes question it, deep in my soul I know that the life I am living is the one I'm meant to have. There may be pain and darkness at times, but I am a more complete person for it.