qos: (Older Wiser Do Not Mess with Me)
I had a long-overdue realization yesterday, one of those "Well doh!" moments.

I've always thought of myself as someone who wasn't particularly interested in "helping others" as a goal. There's some irony to this, given that I've been working as an administrative assistant most of my adult life. For those who really like helping others it's a great job, for those who are called to serve it's a great job. Me? No. I'm good at it, but I don't enjoy it.

But I realized the other day that I do enjoy taking calls from members who need help and don't know what to do or where else to go. About a decade ago I was temping at Nintendo and enjoyed being a help line rep. A few months ago on Facebook I joked that "I answer phones and I know things."

My realization of yesterday was that while I don't enjoy scheduling other peoples' meetings, or ordering catering, or taking notes for meetings I don't have another role in, I *do* enjoy helping people with my knowledge. I enjoy eduating them. I enjoy helping them connect with who or what they need. I enjoy 'teaching people to fish' so they can do things themselves.

I don't like helping people with mundane tasks. I do like helping people with my knowledge.

It feels like an important realization.
qos: (6 of Swords)
I've been working through Andrea Balt's Creative Rehab / Year of You program, and have had quite a few powerful realizations as I've engaged with the material. This past weekend the title of the first journal exercise was "Accept Your Multiplicity." (Some of you will understand why this gave me a bit of a jolt/zing/twitch.)

Walt Whitman famously said, "I am vast. I contain multitudes." And so do you. To practice hearing and seeing your multiplicity, to get a richer, fuller glimpse of who you are, try splitting yourself into two (or three) characters -- two voices/people/forces -- two equal yet opposing sides of you. Describe each of them. . . Try not to polarize them. . . .

As has often been the case with these exercises, I did not want to start. It seemed like it would be both too easy and too painful. But that wasn't the case at all. Three "selves" rose immediately to be recognized.

QoS as a trinity )

"A" is My Father's Daughter. This is not just my public personna, this is the part of me focused on being responsible, striving for financial security, fitting in in corporate settings to enable financial security, and etc. When I stopped to think about 'her' as a distinct part of me, she felt like a robe wrapped around me. I've often resented her, believing that she has stood between me and the pursuit of my dreams, but I've been coming to recognize that she is a Guardian. She is very much a result of my father's influence, but that influence has allowed me to support myself and my daughter over the years, and that's important -- and worthy.

"B" is the part of me which embodies my spiritual vocation, the part of me that wants to develop my spirituality not only for myself but in order to serve and to engage in public. This is the priestess, the spiritual director, the blogger. She gets frustrated by the amount of time and energy "A" demands, but also is intimidated because she (STILL) has a hard time feeling worthy of stepping forward in the public sphere.

"C" is the deepest, most passionate, most creative part of myself. "B" has her roots here, but she's still a personna crafted for public engagement. C is the Journeyer. C is the lover, the hierodule, the writer of my best and richest stories and essays, the panther.

And when I tried to imagine her, I saw a thin, wasted form wrapped in something like a shroud, sitting huddled on a chair. She's been starving for years. I've mostly healed from Lohain's death, but the creativity which had its roots in my engagement with daimonic energy has remained crippled. I've had a couple of erotic relationships in the past several years, but more recently my sexuality has been in hibernation. I haven't written anything truly creative in years.

But somehow seeing this part of myself in the way that I did made me feel hopeful. "She" was tangible in a way she hadn't been before. I could work on healing this personification of my core. So I started praying to Freya for help. And I opened some very old story files, files which hadn't been updated since the early 2000's, and started reading my old work. And I queued up some music playlists which went with those stories.

I couldn't go back to who I was when I wrote those stories even if I wanted to. They are the product of adolescent dreams and yearnings. . . but I'm finding that they are capable of setting up a resonance in my core. I'm reminding myself of who I have been, of what has deeply moved me. I can't go back and re-write those stories, but reading them is nurturing me in a way I did not expect.

Ten years will change a person. Ten years of grief-based depression also change you. I am not the same person I was, but I'm still exploring who and what I want to be now. "A" and "B" are important, and I embrace them. . . but I miss "C." I miss living from my core, in touch with my passion and creativity. But almost nothing stirs that fire.

I'm gently blowing on the ashes now, in the hope that I can kindle some new sparks.

Embodiment

Jan. 23rd, 2011 11:01 am
qos: (Big Queen)
I know I said I was going to fast from online communication, but I've found that in releasing myself from feeling the need to keep up with all my online contacts, I'm freeing up the space for personal reflection that's been missing for a long time.

Thinking more about dreams, meta-story, goals, life choices. . . And stumbled (perhaps not for the first time) on the idea that "embodiment" is a concept that I should be applying to my dreams.

My dreams of what I want to be have almost always been safely projected into "somewhere else" -- fantasy locations that freed me from any obligation to take them seriously or do the work required to make them come true. I've already blogged to death the possible reasons behind that, but shied away from really getting into the antidotes.

The idea of embodiment brings a more wholistic attitude to it than simply "well, just start visualizing things in the real world." The gap is too big for that. Grounding the dreams in my body somehow feels more powerful. It's more immediate that visualizing something that is still yet to come.

Still working on this, obviously, but wanted to jot down the thoughts while they were fresh in my mind, before I go out for lunch with an attractive older gentleman I met at the sacred sexuality meet-up. . .
qos: (Alleged QoS)
. . . but I liked this piece best!




And yes, it's at least half again as tall as I am. . .


I failed to note the title or artist name, but [livejournal.com profile] athenian_abroad said that it should be called "Urban Nightmare."


Actually, this is a good reminder of the big insight I had at the museum. There were a lot of what I would consider highly unusual pieces there -- not even counting the Picasso's. And yet it was all considered not just "art" but worthy of display in a metropolitan art museum.

It made me stop and re-think just how "weird" and therefore "unacceptable to the general public" many of my own ideas are. The breadth of possibility for acceptance is much wider than I usually give credit for. Part of me is still stuck, psychologically, in the mill town where I grew up.
qos: (Autumn Queen)
A couple of my friends have recently posted the "10 Things I've Done (That You Haven't)" meme.

It's been a couple of years since I've done this one, and I'm not sure whether to be reassured or concerned that I'm having a hard time coming up with a good list.

On the one hand, I could feel frustrated that I'm not living an interesting enough life to generate unique experiences. On the other, I seem to be in good company with other people who share what might once have been unique experiences. Some of the more "way out" things I might put down aren't unique among my friends.

I'm going to continue to ponder this and see if I can come up with 10.
qos: (Eleanor - Strong  by __stormyskies)
It's been a week of psychological and spiritual insights and breakthroughs, not all of which have made it onto LJ.

This morning's realization: of course I'm exhausted and stressed. The last three-plus years have been literally a live-or-die struggle, even if the "enemy" was all internal. Of course I'm out of touch with my heart. It's been the center of my pain for so long, it's built up a protective barrier around it to prevent any more hurt.

I've been starting to relax this week, really and truly relax. I don't have to fight just to get through the day and fearing the consequences if I fail. I'm treating my convalescing heart gently, tenderly, making it safe for it to feel again, however tentatively.

There is a stage beyond "acceptance" -- at least as I am experiencing it. It's like the 'physical therapy' stage after the cast comes off. I'm slowly getting used to *not* being in pain, to not living in a tightly-curled-up ball, to not feeling desperately unhappy all the time.

It's a slower process than I would have realized. . . but it feels really, really good. . .
qos: (Autumn Queen)
I very much appreciate the responses to my identity posts. You've given me a lot of valuable food for thought.

[livejournal.com profile] watcher457's comment was especially helpful, on a paradigm-shifting level:

IMHO, I think trying to define your identity under one name is as restricting, if not more so, than using other names. You are not trying to disown the work you do under a different name. You may be doing it for reasons of protection, but there is something powerful about creating your own identity. It is not creating something that is fake to hide behind. It's allowing another part of yourself to shine through, and I don't believe that this self has to be identified under your given name. I believe, and I'm just going on intuition at the moment, that the name you use for X spiritual purposes can be, could be, the name of your Shadow self, and then there is you, and they are both you, and learning to accept them both as equally valid parts of you allows you to decide how much of that you really want to give to the rest of the world. Not everyone deserves every part of you. Some only deserve a small part of you and just aren't worthy of knowing you as anything else.


Other people have made similar observations, and/or covered part of this at other times, but there's something about the way she put this together that's resonating especially deeply for me.

Maybe some don't "deserve" to know more than a particular section of myself. But I think that part of what's driving me to wrestle with this issue with the intensity I am is the desire to be known, respected, and loved in all my parts, not just the "socially acceptable" ones -- and there is something about doing that as a single person, under my public name, that feels very compelling.

It may also be an unrealistic desire, and I need to grapple with that as well.

I've seen some pretty sad consequences of individuals (one in particular comes to mind) insisting on being totally open with the wrong people, people who should never have been expected to be able to understand or accept -- much less appreciate -- the things sie wanted to share.

I'd never thought to compare myself with that person before. . . It puts a whole new perspective on this for me.
qos: (Panther)
While contemplating a couple of projects that are important to me, I suddenly realized that if either of them make it to fruition, they will be presented to the public under names other than the legal name by which I am known in my daily life.

That stopped me cold.

What does it mean that a significant portion (although by no means all) of the work that is closet to my heart feels like something from which I need to distance myself? Not because of shame, but because the voices that rise up inside me insist that there would be unpleasant consequences otherwise.

One of those projects involves erotic writing, and there are issues there that touch the privacy of more than one former partner. But the other project, which involves my work as an underworld priestess, doesn't have those types of constraints. Although yes, there are sexual elements there as well. The underworld path has a great deal to do with sex and death, two loaded and usually unpopular topics for "polite society."

I know the other names which I would put on these projects, alternate names. . . Names that are feeling more and more like my real self than the name which I have carried for more than forty years.


I think that I've mentioned recently that I've been doing a lot of journaling to deal with inner obstacles to my goals that have been powerful but indistinct. I think journaling on this topic will be helpful as well. Those internal voices that are so worried about my reputation -- professional and otherwise -- probably need to be engaged directly, and their fears dealt with head-on. I've been deferring to those fears all my life, accepting that they know better than I do about how to be successful in society. I should stop giving them that power.
qos: (Panther)
I didn't run a lot of games during the decade-plus that I was a member of a regular group, probably a half-dozen or so.

One of the unexpected challenges I ran into when creating a scenario was how bad to be.

Our games were almost never fatal, so it wasn't an issue of how hard I was going to work to try to kill the characters, it was more an issue of how evil my main antagonist was going to be, and how much of that evil I was going to need to play out in character interaction. What would the NPC body count be? Would I do terrible things to the PC's if I had the chance? How far would I take it? I would have visions of possible encounters, then flinch back from them, certain I could never actually play them out, even across a tabletop.

You see, I was afraid of how much of my own shadow might come out. I was afraid that if I tapped into my own darkness, even for the sake of creating an adventure scenario, it would reveal too much of a part of myself I didn't usually admit was there at all, much less put on display for others.

I don't think I'm a particularly bad person, and I don't want to overstate this. . . but as I've been working on "old business" I started thinking of this.

It made me wonder if other GM's ever worried about this, or has it always been so much "just a game" and/or "just a story" that it was never an issue?

I think the issue was heightened for me because my old group was very self-conscious about the degree to which our characters expressed different aspects of ourselves, whether we planned it that way or not. Perhaps with a different group I would never have worried about just how much of my shadow I was letting out to play. I don't know. . .

Happy?

Aug. 14th, 2009 04:32 pm
qos: (9 of Pentacles)
[livejournal.com profile] queenofhalves asked an excellent question: When was the last time you were happy before you had Lohain in your life?

I wrote:

Two things come to mind. The first is working at the rocket company. I had meaningful, fun work, and there was a lot of passion in my life.

After that, seminary. I really enjoyed the community, the study, the challenge.

My problem (one of them, anyway) is creating the kind of stimulating work that both these situations provided for me. *Supposedly* I'm working on that with my SD practice and working on the Ereshkigal book. . . but it hasn't actually turned out that way. I'm not as much of a self-starter as I could be.

And I've probably been underestimating the importance of community to my well-being. I've invested a lot of energy into my self-image as an introvert, independent, not a community-joiner. But when I don't have the community and support of others, I flounder.


Re-posting this here to help me remember.
qos: (Qos Inverted)
I was struggling with an emotional issue earlier this morning, and had the following insights:

1. Whatever problem or pain I'm facing, feeling like I don't understand makes it even more painful. The hurtful thing itself is layered over by stress and frustration about my lack of understanding, which often contains seeds of guilt or a sense of failure. I tend to flay myself with thoughts like If I could just understand, this wouldn't be a problem!

2. The quickest way to undercut my pride, my independence, my self of personal responsibility, is to make me believe that someone nearby understands the situation, the task, the concept, better than I do. I will turn to that person instinctively, seeking the information and understanding I lack, looking to them for leadership based on their understanding (or my perception of it). Sometimes this is a perfectly appropriate act; sometimes it is not, as my priestess teacher keeps trying to get me to understand when I ask her to tell me things I'm supposed to be figuring out by myself.

The converse is also true. Nothing is a stronger prompt to me to step up and assert myself than the belief that I understand more or better than the others present. I try to have a sense of humility when processing these perceptions. . .

Both of these insights are consistent with my Enneagram type, which is Five. The "holy idea" of the 5 is "I will understand."

This tendency toward self-affliction when I do not believe I understand certainly undermines my entrepreneurial efforts. If my sense of self-worth, my sense of confidence, my sense of fitness to lead, are strongly grounded in my sense of how well I understand what the situation is, what needs to be done, what is appropriate and called for, then going into new territory puts me at a significant handicap, one I don't yet understand how to deal with or mitigate. This, of course, triggers a cascade of self-doubt.

Friends who use Tarot may rightly suggest that the energy of the Fool card would be appropriate to this issue -- but really looking at that card with the intention of applying to my situation makes me feel like breaking out in hives.

Mentoring is probably the best solution, it suddenly occurs to me. I've been reluctant to reach out, not wanting to bother others. . . but I've also had a couple of people come to my attention recently who could be helpful in at least giving me a sense of orientation to the territory.

As far as my spiritual work goes. . . This is probably something to bring to my vigil next week. . .
qos: (Queen of Cups)
It's always good for me to talk with [livejournal.com profile] oakmouse when I'm feeling frustrated and upset with myself. She does an excellent job of discerning when I'm focused on something I really do need to work to change and when I'm being too hard on myself.

I told her today that I was feeling frustrated because the last couple of months have been so hard, and that every time I feel like I'm getting some traction on my various endeavors (building my business, improving my fitness, getting established in a new level of spiritual practice), something comes along and knocks me off balance and tangles me up.

Usually I am pretty good at having a positive attitude about things and taking responsibility for what I can control in regards to my emotions, my mood, my efforts, and etc. -- but when I can't change my circumstances through a combination of optimism and responsibility I feel worse because then it feels like not only am I not advancing on my goals, I have failed at transforming my circumstances internally.

That's what I've been doing the last couple of days: making a rough patch even more difficult by berating myself for not being capable of rising above it, despite both Wolfling and myself being ill and a couple of other challenges.

I shouldn't give up, but there are times to cut myself some slack, and this seems to be one of them.
qos: (Fionela)
It was only after I'd posted that declaration yesterday that I started to understand its power.

My former MyCo colleagues and my family are thinking of me as "unemployed."

I am thinking of myself as "self employed." There is such a profound difference in the implications of those two labels.

If I were "unemployed" the power to shape my future would lie very much in the hands of the companies I applied to. I'd have some responsibility, of course, but ultimately it would be the company/hiring manager which decided whether or not I would have a job again.

"Self employed" puts the power and responsibility entirely in my own hands. Yes, I need to find more clients who want to do business with me, but no one person or organization will hold the lion's share of the power over my destiny. That lies squarely with me.

"Unemployed" means that I don't have a job.

"Self Employed" means that I do have a job and that I have the responsibility to work at it consistently.
qos: Katherine Hepburn in The Lion in Winter (Frighten the Children)
As I indicated in my last entry, my therapist and I have been digging into the roots of why it's so difficult for me to "put myself out there" with my spiritual direction practice and associated activities, even though I've been getting nothing but positive affirmations on my path and my insights for years.

A few minutes ago I realized this: It's hard to be open and authentic in a fully public forum when your areas of specialty are three things usually not talked about in serious/respectable polite society: religion, sex, and death.

The fact that my specialities within religion and sex are firmly rooted in the "alternative" category makes it even more fraught.



I finally made a Facebook page last week, and like everyone else who does Facebook I quickly reconnected with old friends from high school and college. In my case, this includes two of my best girlfriends from high school -- both of whom seem to be very firmly rooted in the same Christian spirituality we all held growing up. I talk with one of them every year or so, and I haven't had more than three contacts with the other since leaving college. And yet, when I imagine being more honest about my life on my "About Me" note -- even the relatively tame version, I immediately imagine those two women being horrified and rejecting me.

Why should it matter after all these years? And why do I assume the worst instead of giving them credit for reacting in a positive -- or even neutral -- way? Why should the opinions of two women who were once dear friends but who haven't been substantively part of my life for more than two decades weigh more strongly with me than being authentic about the person I am today?

I just deleted several paragraphs as none of it was new or particularly insightful.

The question stands and needs to be addressed.
qos: (Consequences)
Now that I've gotten through last week, I can finish answering the questions left in response to this meme. You can still ask questions there if you'd like.


Someone asked:

What is your strongest compass?

After knocking this question around in my head for a while, I'm coming to the conclusion that this is one of those symbols that for some reason just doesn't work for me. But I'll give it my best shot, and the person who asked the question is welcome to clarify or follow up here or on the original entry.

I don't have a single philosophy or goal or commitment that motivates me, or which I turn to for guidance more than anything else. When I was growing up (until age 22) I would have said that Christianity was that compass. Obviously my spirituality is still a powerful, fundamental force in my life, but I'm not sure I could call it a compass.

However I have two values which -- as I look back on my life -- virtually always outweigh everything else.

The first is responsibility to my family. When I was growing up, this meant that I was always conscious of the impact my actions would have on my family's reputation. (My father was a public figure.) Good behavior started at home. When I didn't live up to the expectations of good behavior, I "knew" that if my actions might hurt my family in some way -- either the external reputation or the feelings of my parents or sister -- I needed to be sure that I shielded them from those consequences. Even when my marriage was breaking up, I felt deep responsibility to my about-to-be-Ex to continue to treat him as well as possible, to not take advantage of him, and etc. Now, as a single mother, Wolfling's well-being is a fundamental concern. So is the well-being of my now-aging parents.

In short: I always consider the needs of and impact to my family when I make decisions. And I usually place those considerations very, very high. Even now, some of my decisions about how open and out to be about my "alt" beliefs and sexuaity are driven less by concerns for my own reputation than by how it would impact my parents.

The second value is passion. When my passions are engaged, just about everything else -- except responsibility to family -- goes out the window. And even the family responsibility usually gets compromised down to shielding rather than upholding.

I've made most of the major decisions in my life based on passion -- and when I haven't felt passion, my decisions have been ones of convenience and expediency. Which goes a long way to explaining the state of my career, since I never felt passion around any job opportunity or career except the rocket company. The biggest ethical violations I've committed have been driven by passion -- all within the context of personal relationships.

Passion is the fuel of my creativity as well, whether that be writing or gaming or other activities.

One of the huge downsides to being passion driven -- and smart enough to have most things that I want come easily to me -- is that I never developed discipline or persistence. So when my passion flags, it's hard for me to keep going. Where others bootstrap themselves and continue on, drawing on values of faithfulness, persistence, discipline, duty, ambition, or etc. I simply go dead in the water. Not all the time, but much more often than has been good for me.


So I don't have an external, objective compass, I have Jack Sparrow's compass: it points in the direction of what I want the most.

Which means that right now, when I don't have any passion in my life, my decisions and sense of possibilities are being framed primarily by a sense of duty to a dependent child and aging parents whose sensibilities are not in line with my vocational dreams.

No wonder I'm having a hard time motivating myself to step outside the boundaries of what they raised me to consider acceptable and responsible -- and which they continue to reinforce when I mention my ideas about pursuing additional opportunities. My father immediately tells me not to do anything that might compromise my position at or commitment to the day job and the financial security it gives me, and my mother expresses worry and concern that time spent pursuing my vocation will have a negative impact on Wolfling because I won't "be there for her." And those warnings go straight to my gut.


I guess the deepest question right now is: why don't I feel passion around my vocation? Do I feel too much fear? Too much inhibition? This is something I want. It's something that gives me deep pleasure and satisfaction when I engage in it. Why do those feelings seem to vanish shortly after the experiences?
qos: (Hamlet - To Be)
Re-connecting with Nick and talking about how we each have changed has prompted me to think again about how little my current life resembles anything I imagined for myself when I was growing up.

I did not expect that at age 43 I would. . . .

* be divorced
* be a single parent
* live in an apartment rather than a house I owned
* not have a professional career
* have a spiritual vocation
* be a Pagan (much less a Pagan priestess!)
* actually have found and be loved by a man who embodied the characteristics of my daimon
* had that man die two years after I met him
* be more or less “out” as a member of spiritual and sexual “alt” groups

Looking back, there is no possible way the girl I was up until age 25 or so could have remotely imagined who I was going to become or what my life was going to be like.

Growing Up

Aug. 14th, 2008 01:55 pm
qos: (9 of Pentacles)
An hour or so ago I sent an email to "Nick" asking him how he perceived I had changed in the decade or so since we'd last been in regular contact.

I'm not going to post his entire answer here, but it can be summarized as "more peaceful, more centered, more humble, more open."

Which isn't so bad.

In my response I found myself writing the following: I think I've achieved a certain level of graceful (as opposed to belligerant) not giving a damn.

I liked that.

When I was growing up, I was taught to be very aware of the expectations of society and church, and to be sure that everything I did was appropriate and would meet with the approval of the authorities of family, school, church, and community. I worry far less about that now. In fact, most of the time, I pay attention only to the degree that common courtesy and professionalism demand.

At the same time, I would hope that at those times when I do stand against expectations I do it in a way that doesn't cause gratuitous conflict or drama.

A certain level of graceful not giving a damn.
qos: (The Breeze at Dawn)
Last night I connected emotionally with a gaming character for the first time in several years. It took several sessions, but I think the whole being-set-on-fire-after-the-Cardinal's-head-exploded incident tipped over my emotional switch. By the end of the scene I was laughing almost hysterically, caught up in the awful absurdity of Jehanne's situation. It was great.

This morning I was awake first, and spent about forty minutes journaling about the experience with game and then close to another hour journaling about other things -- the longest sustained writing I've done in a very long time.

Every so often I would get up and go over to the patio doors of [livejournal.com profile] _storyteller_'s apartment and look out into the gray-lit morning. It was very quiet -- and I suddenly realized how many times I'd been in this situation: the first one up, being alone, writing, enjoying the solitude. Whether at camp, on retreats, or even in the dorms, this first-thing-in-the-morning time was when I connected with myself.

It was also a time that reinforced my sense of being different from those around me. Chances are that I had gone to sleep earlier than everyone else, that I had not been as deeply involved in whatever socializing had gone on before. The nurturing and renewal the others found in each other's company at night, I found in the quiet solitude of morning.

It's been a long time since I felt so connected with my own past.

These last few days have been amazing. I don't know if the eclipse had anything to do with it or not. Most people who wrote about it seemed to be battening down the hatches. I experienced a tide of positive change -- or at least energy going in positive directions, waves for me to catch and ride and urge on. [livejournal.com profile] _storyteller_ suggested that it's a good time for me because I connect with Void energy, which is how he experiences/interprets an eclipse. It's as good a hypothesis as any, since I don't do astrology.

But I had a great tarot reading on Saturday morning, which I did for a close friend. It should not have worked out as well as it did: we were under a bit of a time constraint, and there were several interruptions, but we both knew I needed to cut the cards, and instead of creating a spread or following one I simply knew what each card related to before I turned it over. And it was perfect. And my friend and I used the same words several times to describe what the cards meant, even when they were not the usual/common meanings.

Now my daughter is off with her father visiting his side of the family. I've gone grocery shopping, bought new pillows and a new medium-sized garbage can for under the sink, and balanced my checkbook. I have time and space and silence to savor before [livejournal.com profile] _storyteller_ comes over again this evening.

The bathtub drain is broken again, this time in the closed position, but I'll deal with that, with my brother-in-law's help. No big deal. It's a good day.
qos: (Castle Gaze)
Last night at around 8:30 I was lying on the couch writing in my paper journal. My partner was sitting in the rocking chair in my bedroom with his computer on a tray table doing his homework. My daughter was sitting up to the dinner table in the living room doing her homework. The tv was turned off. There was no music on. The upstairs was quiet.

I just stopped and savored the focused silence of the house, the peacefulness of the quiet that had other people in it. This is how my house should be, I thought.

Not all the time, of course. I want evenings of laughter, of games, of friends over, of movie watching too. But this evening of focused silence has been all too rare -- and it was deeply nurturing to me.

The journal writing was difficult at first. I spend so much time at a keyboard that I've fallen out of the knack of hand-writing -- but the more I relaxed into the silence, the more easily the words flowed from my fingers.
qos: (9 of Pentacles)
I'm alone in the house with all the windows open, after enjoying a good night's sleep and waking up without my alarm clock.

I'm not 100% well, but I'm certaily feeling well enough to keep my date with [livejournal.com profile] a_belletrist -- especially after the months we've spent trying to get together!

In the meantime, it feels good to be alone. The Daughter is at my parents' house; my lovers are doing their own things; the Ex's SO and her twins are on vacation.

It's been so long since I've been in my own space and had silence.

I had forgotten what it felt like, the freedom of it.

The peace.

I need to arrange retreats for myself more often.

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qos: (Default)qos

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