Seasonal Sustenance

I feel so lucky to be dating a man who actually asks ME to go Christmas shopping with HIM. And who is secure enough (and loves his niece enough) to spend a whole 20 minutes in the pink-and-girly plastic-toys-with-hair aisle at a large and busy store on a Friday Night while we agonize over which MyLittlePony is the right one to give a well-loved four-year-old. And then he bought her two.

Also, there are three cats snoozing on my bed right now. Mostly because I turned the heater on in my room, and cats like to be warm. The grey boys are all curled up together in a ball on one end, and Abbigale rests in majesty on her heated pet-pad with the flannel pillowcase on it (washable) at the other end. And there is a bit of half-hearted eyes-closed paw-licking going on, which is the very best kind, except when they take turns cleaning each other's faces.

Windburn in Autumn

Life got busy. I thought it was busy when I spent all my time applying for jobs and writing my book and working part-time as a Life Coach and keeping up with friends and practicing my pagan skills and working on my other projects. But it wasn't.

For the past two weeks (and this is a happy thing), I've worked six days a week. Four at the Farm, and two half-days as a nanny for this huge chunky four-month-old-baby with a lady-killer smile. Next week, I get to focus more on the Farm. (Which, really, is more about the Foundation that is working to preserve the Farm, and a lot about Education, come to that. I may even eventually get to do the job I was originally hired for, and preserve/digitize/catalog something. You never know.)

And it is SUCH a freakin awesome place to work! We have free-range wild ducks that are huge and black with red and blue and white bits here and there-- and they have little fuzzy yellow babies!! We have three grey barn kittens who keep sneaking into the house and onto peoples' laps when they aren't looking, and one old black Tom who lives by the kitchen stove and was totally offended when the kittens arrived. We have apple trees and pear trees and zucchinis the size of small sports cars. Lots of friendly male goats who come when called ("hhheeeeerrrr goat-goat-goat, hhheeeeeerrrr goat-goat-goat!") and really want you to rub behind their ears, and three dappled white Davenport-Arabian horses that all want to make sure they get some of whatever you're handing out.

We have school children learning to make butter and listening to the story of Florinda Geer who traveled the Oregon Trail with her parents when she was eight years old, and then planted a tree on her parents' land-grant farm in 1856 that is still standing and growing on that same farm today. Look, there it is. We have farm-fresh dairy cheese made with a long-lost recipe from very old hillside cave dairy farms in Switzerland. We have an archive with over 165 years of family history, letters, tintype photos, and furniture from that trip over the Oregon Trail in 1846.

What we don't have is money to keep everything going. We're still working on that bit.

Oh, and we offer farm visits and tours.
Check us out at www.geercrestfarm.com.
Can I just TELL you how much I love wearing jeans to work?!

Anyway, four days working like crazy at the farm with long 45-mile drives to get there and back, plus working part time as an Empathic Life Coach, plus writing my book and keeping up with friends and working as the Moderator for Natural Medicine on an online information distribution website called Factoidz, and carving out time to spend with my boyfriend (I seriously never thought I'd date again, but this man is worth it!) and making time to honor the changing seasons and glorious full moons and and and-- Well it's a heck of a lot busier than I was before. And I love everything I'm doing. I just don't get much sleep. And the days are flying by so quickly anymore, I keep checking my face for windburn.

Roll With It

So talk about your roller coasters!
They finally force-fed my kitty at the vet's right before I came to see her at the end of the day. Then they sent me (and her!!!) home with a bunch of kitty opiate oral liquid pain-killers, and some pepcid. And orders to call with updates, and especially to keep track of her food intake. Of which there wasn't any.

She finally daned to use her litter box for the first time around 8am this morning. I've never been so excited about my cat's peeing habits before, let me tell you. And when I got out another dose of the pain meds, she ran over to me so I could give it to her. RAN OVER TO ME. FOR MEDICINE.

I think she's addicted. Seriously. Of course, being a tortie, that didn't mean she'd actually let me GIVE her the medicine-- she just let herself be caught so I could pry her mouth open, shove the gunk in, clamp her jaw shut, and stroke her throat while she tried to bite off her own tongue. Sigh.

So I was hopeful. Until the Vet called. The final test came back, the CDC (whatever the heck that is, it costs a hundred dollars) and it turns out her white blood cell count is horribly low. So We made an appointment to take her back into the doctor's for another test. This one was to see if she had either feline leukemia or kitty AIDS. Those being the most likely reasons for a low white blood cell count, apparently.

The drama of library conferences has NOTHING on this, folks.

But luckily, I had a massage scheduled (in trade for other work, so neither of us had to come up with cash, thank goodness!) for this morning. So I went ahead and had that done. Unluckily, I realized when my masseuse was a few minutes late that I wasn't going to make it to the vet on time, so I had to reschedule that by a half-hour. Luckily, the noon appointment time was still available. And my cat was still fairly stogned and pliant when I got home to put her in the cat carrier.

Apparently, she was also much calmer about getting her blood drawn this time around. And it only took ten minutes to get the test results back. She is evil illness-free, as far as we can tell. Luckily, it is NEITHER feline leukemia NOR kitty HIV. Unluckily, we still don't know what it IS. I have strict instructions from my vet (who also owns a tortie) to call her with updates.

And LUCKILY, I have a very wonderful update to report. As soon as we got home, she got out of the cat carrier, wandered over to the wet food that has been sitting hopefully in my room for the past few hours, and licked it a few times before wandering back to her blanket in front of the space heater. FOOD!!! She ate a bite of FOOD!!! That's more than she's eaten of her own volition in three days! WAHHOOOO!!!!

And I have finally got some hope back that she'll recover from this insane trip of hers.
Thanks for all your good thoughts, everyone. We both needed them for a while. Maybe we still do. But at the moment, Abbigale is curled up on my bed in the sun pretending that her little fore-arm isn't shaved and listening carefully, just in case I venture over to the pain medicine again. Because, as I said, she REALLY LIKES that pain medicine.

So, basically, three days of worry and vet bills later, the only thing we know for sure is that she had some really painful gas, stopped eating, got really dehydrated, and is now hooked on pain killers. Not necessarily in that order. ...sigh.

Quick

I was reminded today of how quickly I make assumptions. The need for something solid to use as a framework for new ideas sometimes overrides my ability to slow down, and let the new idea emerge in its own good time. Slow is just not something I do well. Perhaps that is why the universe gives me so many opportunities to slow down, to experience something slowly. Because if I had my way, I'd often be out the door and down the street before I found out dinner was followed by dessert!

Today was also a difficult one because of a small event that cut me to the quick. It is so very hard to break a tendency toward emotional self-denial. We stop paying attention to our internal processes for a week or two, and suddenly we are flooded with emotions that surprise us in their intensity and focus. For me, this was the experience of going to the volunteer arm of the Small Business Association, and talking with a marketing coach. With two, actually. They were both clearly experienced, intelligent, and capable. I'm sure they've had (or continue to have) highly profitable careers in the field of marketing.

But one had never heard of an Aura before. And the other tried to connect with me by adding "Feng Shui" to the list of my possible skills as an Empathic Listener and Tarot Healer, because it was the only other semi-respectable alternative healing thing he knew of that didn't require a certificate on the wall. Both of them felt that the best thing I could do for my business was drop the word "Tarot" from my job description and from my marketing. I have to believe that it was good advice. But it cut me to the quick.

And I went in there KNOWING these people were probably not going to speak my language, nor I theirs. I've always been rather dismissive of the cliche about "snuffing out the sunshine," but not after this. I felt like suddenly nothing about me was worthy of success. That I'd have to make-do and half-exist all over again if I want to pay my rent again next month. Like I did in other jobs. I may still have to do that. Although my clientelle is growing faster than most new small businesses collect new clients, and I really appreciate and honor my clients and the opportunity to facilitate their healing process, it still hasn't grown enough to support me fully at this point. I suppose two part-time jobs DO add up into one full-time one for now...

The good news is that I went straight from that dis-heartening marketing meeting to a Tarot client. And my internal balance was thus restored. I hope the session was as beneficial for my client! I also got out for a brisk walk just as the sun was low enough to make the yellow and red leaves on the trees glow. THAT was a magic moment.

It's hard to head into the unknown. It's hard to cope with the stress of a down-economy and a difficult job market. But it's even harder to deny our inner selves, as we make our way in the world. And really, the more skills we have, the more resources are waiting in our back pocket to remind us of how beautiful the sun's illumination can be in our lives. Maybe it's time for me to start learning yet another something new.

So I scrubbed the frown off my face, washed the stress from my fingers, and decided that a positive outlook, and a strong resume, are worth their weight in gold. Or gasoline, that being slightly more expensive at the moment... I also realized that if I didn't post a blog entry QUICK, I'd miss October all together.

As the observant author wrote about the confused cat, "When in doubt, wash."
Autumn Blessings to you.

Be Well, and when frustrated,
Be Cleansed.

With the New Year

So at midnight last night, several people in my apartment complex lit fireworks, banged pots and pans, screamed, laughed, had sex (yup, heard that, too), or smoked one last cigarette (apartment below mine, and boy did it smell bad!)... It was the end of 2007 and the start of 2008.

But that's not really the schedule I follow. New Years, roman-christian style has just never been an amazing moment of connection with the world for me. It's actually a pretty young holiday, as human history goes. I celebrate Candlemas, usually February 2nd, as the first day of my New Year. It is the coming of the light, the dawning of a new cycle, the precursor to Spring. And I always feel infused with new life energy at that time of year. So that is what I celebrate.

Oddly enough, I do also agree with Wiccan teachings that All Hallows Eve is the LAST day of the old year. That is the time when we begin a deeper connection with the dead, the decomposing, with rest, sleep, decay, and remember-when's. We spend the time between November and February in a half-sleep, hibernating, sluggish, grateful, thinking about what was, and what might be next, spending time with family, talking about family (present and past), and trying to keep warm until the sunlight returns to the earth. It is the between time for me.

So I honored the Day of the dead (early November). I celebrated Winter Solstice, and had a moment of silence on December 24, looking up at the crisp dark sky, for Astarte, whose time it was, she of the holy mothers and the stars. I responded jubilantly to my friends' phone calls as midnight happened in their time zones across the world, and I stayed up to comfort my cat when all the noise started around midnight here. But for my conscious and subconscious awareness of history, time, tradition and Earth's Cycles... I will celebrate the new year on Candlemas. The year 9008, in honor of our recorded history as wise women. With wishes and goals scratched onto bay leaves, with a lighting of candles and a blessing of my home for the coming year. I will celebrate the turning of the wheel, and I will dance along the spiral that is my life path, ever deeper into the mystery.

Blessings.

Altars, Photos, and Surface Space

I read once, toward the beginning of my pagan journey, that most pagans/wiccans have many little altars in their homes. And I thought-- I've only got 600 square feet, there is no way I'll ever have more than ONE altar!...

But today I was looking around... well, more specifically, I started rearranging my apartment to better suit the way I live and the things I need spaces for-- and in the midst of this process, I was looking around my apartment. I've got several small altars going on. There's the one by the window, where I have my medicinal aloe plant growing, a cheerful Buddha stretching his arms up and smiling, and a great pillar candle that I light most evenings for a few hours. Then there's the "ALTAR" that I set up intentionally as such, with specific items to represent the four directions etc etc-- and I only light it when I need a spirit-boost or when I'm honoring something. And those two are just the more formal and recognizable altars in my home today.

I've got a great picture of Bast on the inside of my front door, so I bring my true self into the world, and the Goddess comes with me on my travels. Near the entry I've also hung a sun/moon carving and a string of seed beads from across the ocean to remind me of my connection to the whole world and everything in it. To remind me that the wheel turns, and there are always fresh seeds of hope to plant. There is a small wreath of grape leaves/vines that I hang over my fairly useless thermostat to make it pretty and remind me to live with Joy. I realized that my shelf of photographs are all of people who have left me in some way-- an altar of ancestors and of loss. And I moved that shelf so it isn't my primary visual focus when I meditate in my circle anymore. It's important, but I want my primary meditations to be about joy and about the life I lead today.

Next, there's a Venus figurine hanging from the rainbow cord over the doorway to my bedroom, to remind me that sex is a sacred and loving act-- and to protect me from my night fears while I sleep. I've got sacred willow branches that I put in a big vase of water, and now some of them have fresh green leaves growing-- it used to preside over my Aloe and Buddha Altar, but when I rearranged I made it more centrally located. There is a picture of the understory of a forest in Fall behind the gnarled, quirky branches that reminds me of the Wheel of the Year. I've found a few more altars of one kind or another hiding here and there, too. I love them. I smile when I see them, and their presence makes my apartment more of my spiritual home. Plus the cat, of course. She makes everything better. (even when she thinks she knows what time I need to get up better than I do, and wakes me accordingly)

It just blows me away that I've got so much beauty and symbolism and Goddess Energy in such a small space. One of my goals has been to integrate my connection with the Great Spirit Mother with the living of my life-- and when I look around my apartment now, I feel her presence. Maybe these little things are all a part of that integration process. Maybe I'm doing better than I thought. You know, when you live your life fully as yourself, everything you choose to keep in your life has a deeper meaning, or it goes away. There is no room for unappreciated belongings in the authentic life.

The Important Stuff

Clean Water for drinking is very important--
and occasionally highly absorbing to watch, too.
This is John Henry. He's our "work-cat."
He hasn't met you, but he knows you'd like
to spend the rest of your day petting him and cuddling.
Even if your hands are full. He's also very tall.
Taller than the 2-year-old whose stool he's borrowing.

A Nice Place to Relax and Meditate--
That's very important. This is my tiny back patio.
It doesn't take a lot of land to have a retreat.
The dark green leafs at the bottom are my surviving Greens,
and there's another pot to the right of the photo
with a bunch of my herbs growing in it.
I made split pea soup with home-grown
Thai Mint, Basil, and Thyme in it last night.
Yum.

The delicious little pea pods growing below were
a complete surprise to me. This mystery vine
grew out of a group of broken seed packets
in a bowl of spilled water--
and this last one got transplanted outdoors
in the middle of winter
to save it from my cat's voracious appetite.
It lived. And then it got pretty purple flowers on it.
And then it started GROWING.
Lots.
And then the pea pods appeared.
Mystery Solved. Joyfully.

It doesn't take a lot to make an outdoor altar.
I found the black plate on sale at Target for $5, and
picked up the little tea light lamp on a trip to the coast.
Plant some slow-growing ground-cover in a shallow container,
and voila! Instant joy.
I didn't use Chamomile for this-- but I have it elsewhere,
and highly recommend it for this project.
Chamomile has a lot of extra Spirit Energy.
And it smells divine.

Love and positive attention are vital to
every living thing's well-being.
My wonderful cat, Abbigale
gives me unconditional love.
Even when I'm trying to take her picture.
She is one of the most precious gifts
my life has given me so far.
I try to love her just as much back--
but I'm trying to break her of the habit
of playing with the wind chimes in my bedroom
at 3am every morning...

Reasons to celebrate are everywhere.
Just get out your camera and start taking pictures
of the little things that make you smile.
I refer back to these a lot...
It's not the beauty of the picture--
it's the joy involved in the moment the picture remembers.

And with that, my tail is done.
(This is Abbigale, the valiant explorer, under the living room rug.)