Queen of Swords

At some point during the past three years I stopped defining myself by my pleasure, my passion, my stories, and started defining myself by my duties. It's a cruel way to live -- at least the way I've been doing it.

A little while ago, in what started out as a light meditative state, I was inspired to do a descent progression: releasing those things which provide shape to my expectations of myself and my perception of my limitations.

First to go were my parents and my understanding of their expectations of me -- and immediately I felt much lighter. Next were my academic credentials: my BA from one of the most highly selective liberal arts colleges in the US and my Masters Degree that was supposed to be the start of my own professional academic career. With them went all my baggage around what kind of future those credentials were supposed to have laid out for me, those futures which I so often feel I've failed to live up to.

Next I let go of uncrowned_king, and then Wolfling. In my daily life they are non-negotiable, but for the purposes of this exercise I let go any and all obligations to both of them. It was kind of scary how much lighter I felt after that.

Next to go were priestess vocation and responsibilities, followed by everything that required money: lodging, food, insurance, car. . .

Six gates passed, and I was feeling almost bouyant.

I never got to the seventh gate. I was so caught up in realizing how much weight of "should" and "need to" that I carry around that coming up with a seventh 'thing' didn't seem important.

Without all my references of duty and responsiblity I felt like I was being reborn.

Somehow I need to balance my authentic love for the people I let go of in the exercise, and my very real need to continue to support myself and Wolfling financially, with this sense of expansiveness and openness to joy that emerged at the end of the releasing.

It's like the perception tests of "what do you see in this picture?" These days I see bars and chains everywhere. There must be other elements to the picture of my life that I can bring into the foreground.

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. . .

I've had the good fortune to connect with a really good employment counselor who is part of WorkSource. She recommended very strongly that I update my LinkedIn profile, removing the spiritual direction business from it and making it a more focused tool in my search for a day job. I hadn't realized that recruiters are using it as much as they are, and that the profile I've had up could have been working against me.

This has really been a theme over the past few months: juggling the degree to which I can bring my whole self to any given encounter. I grew up understanding that some things are not for general public consumption, and I am fine with being sensitive to the comfort boundaries of others, but I am continually frustrated by the fact that several of the things which are most important to me fall under the Do Not Discuss in General (or Professional) Company.

Anyway. . . I'm going to be creating a new LinkedIn profile for my vocational identity, using my business email and phone, and a different photo than the one I use on my public profile (which needs to be udpated). If I have to split my life into pieces, I might as well make each one shine as much as possible.

Elsewhere on LJ I saw a post by someone on the theme of wanting to be "anywhere but here." The place she described as being the particular "anywhere" she'd like to be sounded very appealing -- but I surprised myself by realizing that at this moment I don't want to be anywhere else.

I'm doing what I'm supposed to be doing, and I'm loving it.

Being anywhere else right now would be a distraction.

What a terrific and unexpected sensation after so many years of frustration!

I've been having trouble winding down to to go to sleep. . . I need to start enforcing bedtime on myself again, and doing some gentle yoga in the late evening to help me relax.

Today should be good: spiritual direction appointment this morning, a massage this evening. Between those two events I need to go to the grocery store and get my kitchen sorted out (boxes and bags emptied and out of the way), so I can actually cook dinner instead of getting Chinese take-out again.

Today is also the day to get back to work on developing my spiritual direction practice, submitting the paperwork for my severance package, applying for enough jobs to get unemployment, and work on my business plan. ..

Most importantly, I need to get back on track with my spiritual practices. I'm starting to lose touch, and that is not good. I'm not acting like a priestess, and being a priestess is core. When I don't do that work, I stop being myself.

A nap may also be called for in the early afternoon. . .

This was the inspirational quote from SparkPeople.com today:


Your goals may not come easy. There is no accomplishment without work, and no "win" without something to beat. It's easy to get discouraged when roadblocks appear--in fact, it's only natural. You've invested time and emotion into creating the perfect plan, and then something has to come along and muck it all up. Sometimes, though, all you have to do to beat that barrier is to get back up and move forward again. Obstacles are like the Wizard behind the curtain--they're a lot less intimidating once you see them up close. Next time you take a step back, don't let guilt pile it on top of your previous "stumbles." Just take two steps forward and you're still farther along than you were before. It doesn't matter how many walls you face. You only have to get the better of that last one.


I really like the metaphor of obstacles as the Wizard behind the curtain. I have a bad habit of letting obstacles appear much larger in my mind than they need to be. Intellectually I know that most of them can be easily dealt with if I simply face them and take constructive steps in a calm manner -- but all too often I end up standing well back and staring at them in terror, convinced they are insurmountable, and then go into avoidance behavior, frittering away my energy on inconsequential things.

I'm trying to transform my life right now. It's not just about a new job, it's about finding an entirely new way to generate an income sufficient to maintain Wolfling and I comfortably, while enjoying myself and using my true gifts. It's an exciting prospect, but it's also intimidating. It's hard for me to find the balance between breaking it down into manageable steps while keeping the bigger picture there to motivate me and remind me that it's about more than any one step.

Looking at job listings depresses me. I really, really would prefer to not go back into corporate life. And it's possible that I wouldn't have to. But if I'm going to create that reality, I have to pull back the Wizard's curtain and stop letting myself be intimidated by smoke and mirrors.

Applied for 3 jobs, looked at a lot more

Went to the post office and mailed a long-overdue mini package to _storyteller_

Took photos of my dining room set and uploaded a "for sale" ad to Craigs List

Cleaned the kitchen

Took photos of my altars for my spiritual director and emailed them

Tracked my food and water intake on SparkPeople

Joined a few more SparkTeams for inspiration
(I'm not ready to go "trail running", but I'd love to be able to do so in a few months!)


Yet to do today:
Send list of magical books to oakmouse Done!
Go to Nia Done!
Check out Skype for possible use in long-distance spiritual direction

Last night was truly, utterly awful -- but as usual my occasional low points and crashes have been cured by a good night's sleep.

Today I've done my taxes and discovered I'm getting a large return, cleaned my kitchen, and have cooked myself a lunch that included vegetables (seriously, this is a big thing for me).

Next it's time to get dressed, do my "morning" spiritual routine (so long as I do it before I leave the house for the first time, it counts as morning), pick up a check from my folks to cover the deposit I had to make on the new apartment yesterday, and then head out to finally talk to one of my spiritual director's other directees who worked as a chaplain at the VA hospital during his internship at the seminary I also attended. I've been trying to get this together for months.

My ordination was February 14th.
Today is the first day since then that my energy has felt normal.
That's quite probably the longest high I've ever been on.
Somewhat to my surprise, I'm not crashing.
I should probably thank the daily magical-energy practices I've been doing.

As things settle out, I'm aware of feeling more deeply rooted than I've been in a long time.

And I'm aware of all the things yet undone -- but I feel a bit more capable of actually accomplishing them.

I'm going to be revisiting my Stephen Covey/7 Habits principles, starting with my mission statement. When I first started working the Covey system, my mission statement was "To bring light." "Light" to me meant the illumination of the mind, new ideas, different perspectives. It's one of the things I'm good at. But today I was realizing that it no longer quite fits as a mission statement.

Today, it feels more like my mission is more about living in the borderlands and reporting back. I'm not stopping with that; it's something I need to meditate on.

The three fundamental truths of my personal existence are these: I am a priestess of Ereshkigal; I am Lohain's wife; I am Wolfling's mother. It feels very strange to write those and realize that never before in my life have I defined my existence in terms of my relationships to others -- with the possible exception of my identity as "[Dad]'s Daughter." I've never been that kind of person. I seem to be changing. (What was your first clue, right?)

And yes, two of the three others in the above paragraph are non-incarnate. That's also a fundamental fact of my life.

My fundamental ethical values are what they have been for decades: Wisdom, Integrity, Courage, Tenderness, Humor. My other values include Creativity, Spirituality, Stability (I'm responsible, after all, for maintaining a stable life for Wolfling). I'm doing my best to add Fitness/Health to that list, but I'm still working on integrating it.

My To-Do List doesn't cycle through as often as I want it to. I have items that linger for months, items that relate to projects I supposedly care about. I'm working with a therapist right now on why that is, trying to get to the roots of some deep issues around avoidance and denial that stand in the way of becoming what I say I want to be, do what I want to do.

And of course that begs the question Do I actually want to do these things, achieve these goals? I believe so, but I have a hard time associating less-than-pleasant immediate tasks with the payoff of the goal in the future. It's embarrassingly childish.

There's more to process, but Wolfling and I are due at my parents' house for dinner soon.