what happened after that... or how i quit writing, etc...

in retrospect, it all seems easy. it all seems... preordained. but it didn't feel that way then.

i had my Sign, i got my severance, AND unemployment. for the first time in months, i was able to put money away. and yet, it was still an enormous leap of blind faith to first of all, acknowledge the Sign, and then - to turn my attention utterly away from everything everyone had ever told me about what you are SUPPOSED to do to succeed in the world. it was the scariest thing i ever did.

but i had no idea as i walked away from corporate america and into the dark that anything was going to work out. i had promised jenn to turn a new proposal in to her at the beginning of january. i had thirty days to create something out of what felt like not much. it took an enormous amount of Something - courage, faith, and a kind of dogged understanding that i couldn't fail any worse than i'd already failed before - to not only believe that i'd received a Sign (which was why i asked for an obvious one) and then, to follow through on it, in the kind of wholehearted, make-it-or-break-it passion that i had not ever given my writing, because it didn't seem like i should.

the week my severance ran out, i got an offer for a three-book deal from harlequin. the last book in that series came out in december 2006, but that's another story. currently i have another manuscript under consideration at another major house. just yesterday, a friend of mine and i decided to collaborate on a political thriller. (she's into politics, im into thrills.)

but what took me a long time to see, was that the Sign wasn't just permission to open to my creativity, or to embrace my writing in a whole new way. the Sign also opened me to my intuitve gifts and abilities, and it was from that time on that i began to allow myself since childhood to acknowledge my Gifts, to claim the Awareness that i have always on some level had.

for me, writing is the doorway - my Sign was the welcome mat. i believe there's a similar place for all of us, and it's a question of finding it, and being brave enough to claim it when it appears.

and furthermore, the war must end. blessed be.

happy birthday, jamie jim

monday's child is fair of face, tuesday's child is full of grace, wednesday's child is full of woe, thursday's child has far to go, friday's child is loving and giving, saturday's child works hard for a living. but the child that's born on the sabbath day is blithe and winsome and bonny and gay...

my son's birthday dawns as clear and as bright as the day he was born, 23 years ago. he was my sunday baby and he came kicking and screaming into the world two weeks late. he emerged red, wizened and wet, and he literally howled for hours afterward. at least we were sure there was nothing wrong with his lungs.

like a lot of kids, jamie was full of questions. unlike most kids, "i don't know" or "we'll have to ask so-&-so that" wasn't an acceptable answer. if i tried to explain to him that mommy didn't know the answer to a question that required an understanding of algebra, chemistry, or physics, for example, he would narrow his eyes and scream: OH YES YOU DO, as if i were deliberately witholding a Secret of the Universe.

jamie also didn't believe that no meant no. if i tried taking a toy out of his reach, jamie didn't believe the game was over - he thought i'd just added a new dimension. he loved to climb. once i found him on top of the refrigerator. another time i found him running up and down the dining room table holding on to the brass ring at the bottom of the chandalier.

when he got older, he'd disappear for hours, despite my explanations that not telling mommy where one can be found constitutes a violation of the rule against hurting oneself AND the rule against hurting someone else, since it was mommy who experienced heart palpitations every time jamie got himself lost.

what kept him alive, i think, beyond his unshakeable belief in his own immortality, is his undeniable, indisputable charm. tall, with my father's eyes and my mother's smile, jamie is as winsome, bonny and blithe as they come. (i wish he'd tell my ex he's gay. he's not, but it would really bother my ex.)

i read somewhere that for every boy a woman raises, she loses five years off her life.

happy birthday, jamie-jim... from the mommy who never wanted to live forever, anyway.

how i quit writing... then started up again (part three)

on halloween, 2002, i asked for a Sign about what to do with my life, because i was about to be laid-off for the third time in five years. all through november, i hunkered down, and watched and waited, as the handwriting on the wall grew easier and easier to read.

the vestigal work ethic i have arduously cultivated over the years prevented me from doing extracurrricular writing on company time. i read a lot of online papers, read a lot of interesting stuff. the story - the one i hadn't been able to interest my agents in for love or money - had begun to percolate in that maddening kind of way stories and characters do, but i was steadfastly ignoring it all. my work projects had evaporated. the only time my phone rang was at lunch and coffee-break time.

i had no idea what i was going to do. my oldest daughter was at uconn. my son was in his senior year of high school. my two younger girls were in ninth and fourth grades. christmas was coming - my ex owed me over thirty five thousand dollars in child support. i couldn't justify starting to work on a new book when i was facing certain lay-off. i knew what i SHOULD be doing, but everytime i'd turn to my resume, or think about looking for a job, i'd hear the little Voice say, you don't have to do that.

i want my Sign, i'd say back. i want my Sign NOW.

just trust, said the Voice.

finally, on december 3, 2002, i went to work as usual. by 9 AM, i had read the online editions of the wall street journal, the new york times and the washington post. i checked the drudge report, the huffington post and maureen dowd. a long empty day stretched before me. i had nothing to do.

in sheer desperation, i decided to work on the story. i opened a new Word file, typed out "p-r-o-l-o-g-u-e." i typed out the first sentence.

in the bottom right corner of my screen, the email cursor began to blink. ignore that, said my internal editor. i could hear the whip crack in the background.

but i was so, so terribly curious. for the last month, my email consisted mainly of my horoscope and mass-mailings. i just have to know, i told my inner editor. maybe it is just my horoscope. but i have to go look. i wont answer it and i will come right back. i promise.

so i clicked on the cursor. when i saw the title, my mouth dropped open and i know i started to cry.

it was from my agent, who i hadn't heard from in nearly a year. the title of the email was FANTASY NOVEL. she wrote that harlequin had started a new fantasy line, for which my last idea would be perfect, and she was inquiring as to the status.

and i knew i had my Sign.

and furthermore, the war must end. blessed be.

how i quit writing...and started up again (part two)

i see what your trouble is, said the career counselor. you're not good at low-evel tasks.

i make a nice pot roast, i replied. that's not exactly rocket science.

but i bet you like to eat pot roast, he answered.

we made an appointment for another session, to discuss possible options. don't bother, whispered the little Voice in the back of my head when i stopped to make the appointment.

why not, i whispered back, as i drove away.

just trust, said the little Voice.

it was hard though. by october, my work began to dry up, projects began to cancel and to be put on hold. a round of layoffs rippled through the company. i spent my days surfing the net, reading online newspapers and resisting the urge to write the story that was beginning to bubble in my brain with increasing frequency.

i don't do that any more, i'd tell myself. i don't have to do this any more, i'd think. i made some half-hearted efforts at polishing up my resume. don't bother, said the little Voice. easy for You to say, i answered. You don't seem to have any bills.

finally, on halloween - samhain - i asked for a Sign. i'd experienced a series of what i could only characterize as paranormal/mystical experiences, the last being in april of 2002, when i had a vision in which i saw my mother being healed of the breast cancer with which she had just been diagnosed. why is it given to me to know this, i remember i asked.

so that you may be absolutely assured of the presence of the Divine in your life, replied the Voice. i remember even now how those Words, how that knowing resonated in the core of my soul. i remember how calm i was through my mother's surgeries and treatments, how unsurprised i was when my mother did indeed make a full recovery.

i decided to put that to the test. i remember i took a ritual bath with great care, cast a salt circle, lit a black candle, and got to work. i need a Sign, i said. i don't know where i'm going, i don't know what i'm supposed to do. i used to think i was supposed to write stories, but that didn't seem to work out. everyone else thinks this corporate stuff is the right thing to do, but it doesn't fit right with me. over the years, i've heard You and You always give me good advice, and You always tell me things that are true, so... could i please have a Sign?

and, oh yeah, i remember i added, almost as an afterthought... would You please make it Obvious?

and furthermore, i'd really like this freaking war to end. blessed be.

how i quit writing...then started up again (part one)

at the end of last month, i explained how, on february 28, 2002, i officially quit writing. driven by bills, rejection and inability to produce a marketable story, i decided i'd had enough. eight published novels had to be enough. i was determined to stop torturing myself, my family and my agent, and focus on my "real" career - which was in corporate communications.

after all, i reasoned, if writing the story i'd been struggling with was something i was meant to do, let it come back.... all on its own. i was finished chasing after it.

so i quit. just like that. the funny thing was that come september, october of that year, the story did come back... in bits and snippets and snatches of half-heard dialogue. but i had bigger problems to face.

the events of sept 11, 2001 had a massive effect on the insurance industry, and the company i worked for - a british company in business since 1710 - had taken a particularly hard hit. the handwriting on the wall spelled lay-off, and for me, the third one in five years.

when Heaven wants you to know you're walking down the wrong path, She always sends you Signs. i'd begun my study into indigenous mythologies and practices, i'd delved into wicca and other forms of neo-paganism. but a very large part of my head was still locked into the place where i believed i needed a "career" to support my family and be acknowledged as a contributing valued member of society.

so instead of consulting the stars or the sky or the trees, as i might do now, at that point, i decided to consult a career counselor.

and furthermore, the war must end. blessed be.

in like a lion

the old saying about march's weather has always held a special meaning in our family. my father's birthday is the first of march... mine is the 31st. i remember how predictably my father would chase me and my brother through the house on his birthday roaring "in like a lion!" - no matter what the weather.

the lion's slowing down, his heart - interestingly enough - beginning to fail. he took a hard blow in his heart chakra when i was young, and while that wound may have healed, i can feel the scar tissue lying thick around the muscle. he is complex, quiet and creative, brilliant and inventive, and my mind is cast in his image.

if my mother encouraged me to write my stories down, it was my father who taught me to tell them. every saturday, when my mother headed off to the hairdresser's, my father cooked us pancakes and told us stories - stories that hold the rapt attention of another generation of little girls.

this time next week i will be on a plane, on what has become an annual birthday trip to see my father and the rest of my family on the west coast.

happy birthday, daddy - you'll always roar in my heart.

and furthermore, the war must end. blessed be.

how i quit writing...

as serendipity would have it, six years ago yesterday, i decided i'd had enough of writing. i had eight published novels to my name at the time, by anyone's measure a worthy accomplishment. it was time, however, to acknowledge that i had not sold a book in three years, that i was having trouble putting together a proposal my agents were even willing to read, and that i had no idea what i was doing or what i was doing wrong.

i also had four children - two of them in college - a mountain of debt, and a despicable ex. my career in corporate communications was shaky, to say the least, but at least it paid the bills.

and writing didn't feel good. it was painful to drag myself to the computer every day, it was painful to read what i'd written. i didn't like my stories, i didn't like my characters. i didn't enjoy the art or the process.

i have never responded well to negative reinforcement. i generally avoid any kind of pain or discomfort - my idea of roughing it is motel six. i buy clothing not based necessarily on how it looks, but how it feels, and whether or not i can tolerate it against my skin. and so, i remember, on very bitter day at the end of february, 2002i decided i was no longer a writer.

if it was meant to be, i figured, let it come back. and i quit. just like that.

and furthermore, the war must end. blessed be.

cutting the cord

i don't make friends lightly. i make friends easily enough - i am, generally, agreeable, easy-going and witty enough im amusing to keep around. but those who earn a place on the roster of those i trust, those i love, those i cherish, are few and rare and far between.

i remember once i said to my mother that i wished i was more like my sister, who even at five or six, managed to run with a gang of little girls up and down the neighborhood. well, my mother said, in a rare moment of connection, you dont have as many friends - but the intensity is deeper. you'll always be friends with your friends. sheila wont.

my mother's assessment came true. as i've gotten older, ive amassed quite a collection of friends - when you keep them forever, eventually, you rack up a bunch.

so it is with a sad and heavy heart, i contemplate the deliberate severance of such a bond. the Friend in question is not a very long time friend - but she is - or was - someone i considered a close friend. she was close in the sense i shared not just my gifts, but my hopes, my dreams, my fears with her. i let her see a little of the dark side of my soul and when it seemed she didn't flinch, i let her see a little more.

but now i realize i was deceived, not so much by the Friend, but by what i wished the Friend could be. i wanted her to value me as much as i valued her. i wanted her to understand my wounding in the way i tried to understand hers. and because i wanted these things, i made a mistake. i perceived what i wanted to see, and not what really was.

i have been resisting this crossroads, this severing, this winnowing. and yet, i see how necessary it is. there is a silence so deafening, it begs for a Voice to fill it.

im afraid i feel the words building in my brain.

and furthermore, the war must end. blessed be.

confessions of a non-journaler

there have been times and places and company in my life where confessing to not keeping a journal seems tantamount to confessing a secret interest in cyberporn. people glance away, look down, murmur. read any self-help book - many of them, anyway - on topics as diverse as creativity to codependency, dream interpretation to tarot - and journalling is recommended, advocated, even demanded - as in julia cameron's otherwise inspiring series that begins with the artist's way.

in fits and starts when i was young, i attempted to keep a diary. dear diary, i'd begin, and then hit a wall. i loved to write - poetry and short stories. the blank pages of my diaries seemed to demand something else though, something i didn't have to give.

then i went to high school and was forced to keep a journal. coming up with a short essay night after night wasn't so tortorous after i decided to start writing stories in it. but it left a bad taste in my mouth.

i don't write on demand - not well, not easily. i write because it is the way i live and breathe and have my being. writing, even then, wasn't something i DID. writing, though i didn't realize was so much a part of who i am, i didn't - and don't - need to be forced, cajoled, or tricked into doing it.

but there's another reason why i don't like to keep a journal. no one will remember you for your secret thoughts, says one sage, and no one can convict you for them, either. the blood of my irish and italian ancestors runs thick and silent in my veins.

when you have two words to say, say one, my mother likes to say. when you have one word, say nothing.

maybe its my scorpio rising, my neptune in that scorpio that likes to keep things murky. maybe its the fact i grew up in new jersey, where - as i like to remind Beloved who grew up on the dangerous streets of Bed-Stuy - all the bodies are buried. maybe its my own natural wariness and instinct for staying alive. after all, i grew up during watergate, when it seemed self-evident that what no one has on paper and tape is far more successfully denied.

and furthermore, the war must end. blessed be.

in the interests of better blogging (or how i find my characters)

i enjoy blogging. i never expected to enjoy it - it smacks too much of journal-writing, and i've never kept a journal except for a few tortured months in freshman english in high school. but i enjoy blogging - i think the fact that it is at once a public venue and a private platform creates a kind of tension not unlike that which leads some people to enjoy sex in semi-public places.

so in the interests of improving my blog, i signed up for a series of (free!) emails entitled 10 Days to a Better Blog. today, at the suggestion of the instructor, i checked out her "monday motivation" post.

what i found there touched me so profoundly that i knew right away i'd been given a glimpse into a mindset so different from mine, it was like seeing a bunch of crayons in colors i never had. it was like opening a door, or the flash of a match. IMMEDIATELY i saw shapes and forms, whispered sentences, fragments of words. IMMEDIATELY this unwitting woman was slurped up in the stew, where she will churn and brew and burn until i call her forth as Someone the original person will most likely never recognize.

i look for the flashpoint, for the reaction, for the place of discomfort, of fear. but instead of turning away or pushing back, i have learned - slowly, painfully - to open to it, to allow it in.

just yesterday i had good news. my agents' representatives in spain have found an offer for the spanish language rights of one of my older titles, A Once & Future Love. it's the best of my romances, i think, and completely unexpected.

the light is growing stronger every day, the snow yesterday fell in fat wet flakes that are already melted on the driveway. there are three possible novels and one short story in some form or another simmering. the characters all seem to have settled into a kind of queue, as long as i continue to forge ahead.

and furthermore, the war must end. blessed be.

working the Plan

a flock of diarrhetic pigeons would've gone over with more enthusiasm than the presentation of our Plan to elissa. with all the petulance of the 8 year old that she is emotionally, elissa greeted our proposal with sneers and snide impatience.

i could have a new car, she declared. i could have a job, i could take classes... i just don't want to.

why not? i asked, genuininely bewildered.

are we making you uncomfortable? asked Beloved.

i could see that we were. but growth IS uncomfortable, growth IS painful. growth DOES take you beyond the boundaries of where you are comfortable. that, after all, is the point.

but despite the apparent dismissal, something may have clicked. we woke up this morning to a note from elissa (who came in at the quite reasonable hour of nine pm after disappearing all day) that she has a job interview this morning at 830. we have no idea what kind of job, or where, or anything else, but she did ask to be awakened by 730 if she's not up already.

a few weeks ago, i purchased an extra bottle of rescue remedy that i didn't really need and left it, unopened, in the packaging, on my desk. try this, i said to elissa, after Beloved left. it might help, and it can't hurt.

maybe it helped.

and furthermore, the war must end. blessed be.

planning the Work

this morning, before anyone else was up, Beloved and i sat and hammered out a plan to help elissa launch. with reasonable goals, measurable objectives, clear boundaries, and rewards in the form of shopping trips and independent living, it seems quite possible that within a month, elissa could be on a far healthier road than the one she appears to be heading down now.

but of course, it's all up to elissa.

my hope is that having, literally, hit the wall, she's ready to take some less hurtful steps.

my belief is that what worked with my kids will work with someone else's - even one as hostile as elissa.

my prayer is that she will understand that all her father, her mother, and i really want for her is to be all the elissa she can possibly be.

and furthermore, the war must end. blessed be.

sissa's a pissa

Beloved and i were awakened at midnight by the sounds of barking dogs and a whimpering elissa, who showed up, out of the blue, limping and teary, with an outlandish tale of slipping on the ice and breakng her foot.

the radar that has functioned without fail since katie drew her first breath blipped a few times... from the comfort of my covers, i smelled a rat. Beloved of course, saw the opportunity to play Daddy, a much more comforting role than the one i would've played had it been one of my own brood who so rudely interrupted my sleep. the first unwritten rule of the house is - Dont Wake Mommy Up. if one must wake Mommy up, there'd be better be blood involved. i have to say im proud that my kids therefore tend to shy away from activities in which blood is bound to be involved. no one wants to wake up Mommy. the wrath of god, as katie likes to say, IS preferable.

it is not that i am without kindness or empathy, or even that i lack the ability to spring immediately into action, if that indeed is what's demanded. it's that from their earliest years i felt the need to impress on my children that i, unlike many parents they may meet, have needs. the first need is for a decent amount of sleep. once we were beyond the stage where they needed to eat every few hours, i began to make it clear that the reason they needed to go to bed when they did and to stay in those beds was not primarily for their benefit - it was for MINE. whether or not they got the sleep they needed wasn't my main concern - it was whether or not i was going to get the sleep *I* needed.

consequently, even in their teen years, i can count exactly once when i was awakened by one of my three older children in some kind of trouble. elissa, on the other hand, does it routinely enough to annoy the shit out of me. and while Beloved might share my feelings, in general, he lacks the ability to take any definitive action that might stop her midnight visits - like installing a deadbolt.

so when she came limping and whimpering in at midnight, amid a raucous chorus of hounds, i was less than sympathetic. did you ask her what the fuck she was doing here at this hour, i hissed at Beloved, when he finally returned to bed.

no, he said, in that tone of hurt bewilderment. she's hurt. she's upset. she needs her daddy.

the lateness of the hour, coupled with my new awareness from a few days ago (see food for a fight) sent me fuming back to sleep. we were again awakened at five am by a plaintive little voice calling "Dad?"

there's no doubt that elissa is in serious pain. i did, when i got up, feel sorry for her. i looked at her foot, which was puffy and red. i started the car, i put down icemelt while Beloved made appropriate daddy-noises. but when i asked her how it happened, how she'd come to slip and injure herself in such a funny place for a fall, she confessed she'd kicked a wall. score one for the mamma-radar, i thought.

as they drove off for the hospital, i reached for Louise Hay's You Can Heal Your Life. i read the entries for foot problems, ankles, bone problems and fractures. i wonder what goddess appears in the guise of querolous, troubled, young women. i think i am about to find out.

and furthermore, the war must end. blessed be.

oops i almost forgot!!

OK...so now I've been tagged by a new blogging friend: http://shespeaks.webs.com/mythoughts.htm

Here's how it works:
1) Find a book closest to me with at least 123 pages.
2) Turn to page 123 and go down five sentences.
3) Type the next three lines into my blog.
4) Tag five other bloggers.

The book closest to me is...Kindling the Celtic Spirit by Mara Freeman....i turn to page 123 to see what i shall find...and its a section entitled The Sacred Grove...(how interesting...i think.)here's the three sentences, five sentences in...

In the Celtic landscape, hazel (trees) grew in "thin" places where wisdom might be found (and where, in celtic mythology, typically the entrances to the Otherworld are found - ak). The Gaelic word for hazel is calltuin (kawl-tin) and a number of places called Calton or Carlton are associated with entrances to the Otherworld, a famous one being Calton Hill in Edinburgh, which was still used for magical gatherings in the 17th century...Tara, the royal seat of kingship in Ireland, was built close by a hazel grove...

i tag:
rose (http://blog.myspace.com/walkinthewoods);
stacie (http://love-2-learn.blogspot.com);
judy (http://cabinfeverinalaska.blogspot.com);
cyn (http://cynwrites.blogspot.com)
and kathy (http://theamortizationofgoodwill.blogspot.com)!

sprucing up for spring

today i begin the task of packing up all the books and other items in my writing room, taking down the pictures and the curtains, the mirrors and the bull horns. a week from monday, a painter is coming, to paint my writing space, and the entry foyer beneath it, a soft robins-egg blue. the woodwork will be cream, the wall where the fireplace is will be smoke blue. i can't wait.

it's taken me five years to choose a color scheme for this room - when you like every color its hard to settle on just a few. but the colors came to me, in the form of fabric at walmart of all places, for the unconscionable price of $2.00 a yard. walmart, in fact, is one of the last places it's possible to buy fabric.

im going to refinish my desk and all the bookcases, as well - in shades of cream and blue to match the walls. i have smoke-blue curtains to match the valances i will make.

but one step at a time.

this week i pack and sort, decide what to keep and what to discard. it seems i've had a lot of practice at this, lately.

and furthermore, the war must end. blessed be.

soft as snow

the snow was falling already when i walked the puppies, little fairy flakes that shimmered like crystals on the puppies' fur. the sheer loveliness of the landscape as i stare outside my window entrances me, leads me teasingly into that place where characters sing and live and breathe.

the ones i sense waiting there are not the ones i was expecting. i was expecting amazonian rainforests, inca shaman, cat-eyes glinting green. instead i see the glint of bronze and steel, of fire and stone, and yes - i hear Beloved groan - horses.

it's my own fault. last week, at the behest of the Voice, i purchased a cd. the rational reason i told myself was that i wanted to replace a favorite cassette tape. when it came, i resisted opening it for several days. it's almost as if i knew where the music was going to lead me. now it's playing as the snow falls and a fresh pile of old manuscript sits in front of me. i sense a Presence behind the paper.

dive in, says the Fool i drew this morning. follow us, say the drums. watch me, whispers the snow.

and furthermore, the war must end. blessed be.

food for a fight

Beloved and i had an argument this morning, one of those fierce flashes of temper that can spark over the breakfast table. Beloved was relating his latest effort to set his daughter on the Right Path. i suppose i was less than enthusiastic.

you're so negative about elissa, he whined. she's only 21.

by the time i was 21, i had a house, a husband, a baby and a job - every single one of them, in retrospect, a horrible mistake in judgement. (i also had a BA from johns hopkins - which wasn't at all a mistake.)

i realized, somewhere between the shouting and the sneering, what the fight was really about. most of the time i agree with and even admire Beloved and all he does. but not when it comes to parenting. when it comes to parenting, not only are our approaches wildly divergent, our emotional landscape is so different that one of us might've well have come from the moon.

i know what Beloved wants. he wants loving, supportive, kind annie - the one who sits and smiles and pats his back at usually every turn. but how does one support actions one doesn't agree with in the first place, even when one sees they are undertaken with the best of intentions? when actions consistently yield unsatisfying results, shouldn't a new course of action be considered, especially when one has an alternative course with proven stirling results laid out like a track before one?

you want to make it hard for me, whined Beloved.

the work of being a parent is very hard. it's the hardest work i've ever done. but of all the work i've ever done, it's the one that has yielded the most consistently satisfying, and, (dare i say) stirling results.

to be fair, to adopt my position with elissa would pit Beloved against her mother, who i blame for 95% of elissa's problems. but i know how it feels to fight an implacable foe. my ex tried to use the legal system against me. i never let who i had to oppose get in the way of doing what i felt really needed to be done.

Beloved likes to bemoan the fact that if only everyone listened to him, the world would be a better place. this morning, i know exactly how he feels.

and furthermore, the war must end. blessed be.

full moon in virgo

the sky was bright blue at six am, last night's gibbous moon long set. today, the sun enters pisces, and the full moon's in virgo.

someone asked me yesterday if i think the moon influences our behavior, collectively and as individuals. my answer is an unequivocable yes. i believe that its influence can be seen not just in tide tables, but in the very soup inside our cells. each of us isnt really much more on some level than a membrane around encased droplets of the primordial sea from which all life spawned. i believe one can attune oneself and one's energies to these influences, and can use them, preferably to the benefit of one's Self and others.

i believe this is the Work of the Witch.

the virgo full moon as the sun enters pisces is an "afflicted" moon - the energies of scientific, analytical virgo don't mix easily with soulful, transcendental pisces. but in their most evolved expression, virgo and pisces together represent the principles of healing through action, of conscious awareness for the holiness of all reality, down to the smallest particle. for virgo, caring comes when one works with others to find workable solutions to everyday problems. pisces provides the vision and the intuition, virgo provides the service, and the craft.

the lunar eclipse tonight intensifies this already intricate dance.

i know more than one person who's struggling to find solid footing under this challenging moon.

and furthermore, the war must end. blessed be.

spring showers

this morning, i stepped out of my chilly tile entry way and into spring. a thick white mist rose above the flooded lakes of snow, drifted like the ghosts of lovelorn maidens underneath the trees. a warm rain fell, in spring's gentle patter with none of winter's sting. the air felt like a sauna and smelled like mud. for the first time in a long time, i was warmer outside than in.

i know better than to trust this phantom season. rain on top of melting ice is dangerous, and the temperature can drop on a dime.

but still we stood this morning, buddy and i, transfixed by the warmth, the scent, the sound and textures of spring.

and furthermore, the war must end. blessed be.

one for you, meggie moo

my 20 year old daughter meg just bought herself her first car. armed with the ten-year-old neon i bought her a couple years ago, her sister's shrewd negotiating skills and six grand she saved herself, meg drove off the lot in a brand new 2008 subaru, her monthly payment the lowest the dealer ever secured.

Beloved, hearing of it all, offered on the spot to pay her first payment.

she also has a 3.75 average at uconn - where she's a sophmore - and holds down a part-time job as asst swim coach for the jewish community center. in her spare time, she paints, reads and shops. she eschews drinking, smoking, illicit substances and casual sex. how'd she get this way?

she suffered. life wasn't easy for meg. her father scapegoated her at every opportunity, she got held back in second grade. she watched me struggle, fail and try some more. somewhere along the way she learned that determination pays off, that gratification deferred is worth the wait. somehow she believes - most of the time, anyway - that it's more important to be meg than to conform to anyone else's ideal. somehow she understands its better to be alone in a room than lonely in a crowd.

i don't know the precise magic brew that produced the miracle named meg, but i do know that at times it was very very bitter.

i am very very proud of meg. more than that, i know she's proud of herself.

well done, meggie moo.

and furthermore, the war must end. blessed be.

what i know about love

hard on the heels of valentine's day, my puppy sam is sick. she's not really a puppy any more of course, and we don't really know how old she is. sam found her way to me by way of magic and abuse, when she was found, abandoned and alone, running around a friend's backyard during one particularly polar january. we brought her home on valentine's day, 2004.

i had to take her to the vet this morning for the second time in two days with vomiting and bloody diarrhea, caused by unknown origin. there is a very real possibility that sam may not come home. mommy loves you, sam, i whispered when i said goodbye. and i thanked her, for coming into my life at a time when i was ready to understand the projection of a Shadow when i saw one.

there was something in the loving of sam that enabled a healing in myself. there is something in loving sam that taught me a great deal about the nature of love, itself.

i believe that love is another word for the energy that creates and sustains all that is. i dont think we choose to love, we are created out of and by that love to sustain itself. love is more than our nature, it is what we are.

i think we sometimes fail to differentiate between human expression of that energy, and the energy itself. the human expression of that energy - whether it is romantic, filial, or friendship - always appears to us to be flawed, if only because it always ends in loss.

even the most perfect of relationships head to a bad end, because someone has to die first. the human experience of love is always shadowed by the human experience, itself. it is also shadowed by other aspects of the human experience - the aspects that create the wounds that damage us all.

but love - as the apostle paul suggested in one of his few actual moments of clarity and grace - never ends, any more than energy ends. love doesn't end, it only transforms.

sam has won a place for a homeless puppy forever in my heart.

and furthermore, the war must end. blessed be.

happy valentine's day, Beloved

this morning, on a whim, caught between an unexpected two-hour delay and the needs of sick puppies, i happened to consult the i-ching. what is the wisest course of action, i asked, if i wish to nurture and enhance my relationship with Beloved?

this is the answer i received...it spoke to me so eloquently, i thought i would share it here:

Your Present Hexagram

Two - Great receptivity attracts exceptional results, especially in relationships. The natural responsiveness of pure Yin energy brings about success through support and perseverance, rather than through bold action. Thus, the wise person demonstrates strength like a powerful but gentle mare. This hexagram, consisting of all yin lines, represents a power of the feminine principle no longer honored in our modern world, but such receptivity is most auspicious.

The receptive force is sensual as well as powerful, and it can be missed by too much talk and planning. When spring comes, does the grass "plan" to grow? This is a time to concentrate on realities rather than potentials -- with how to respond to a relationship rather than how to direct it. The mature mare lets herself be guided by a higher power, and is skilled at graceful acceptance. In a strong spiritual way, her quiet contribution is most effective, and brings success.

Do not be too assertive at this time, for if you try to direct things, you are liable to become confused or alienated. Take your time. Draw strength from carefulness and you will be doubly fortunate. Focus more on feeling than on action. Be broad and deep in your attitudes so that you can accept everything that comes your way with grace and equanimity. Be receptive and spacious like the ocean; let the river of changing developments flow to you. Allow a partner to take the lead for now. Strive for a pure natural responsiveness that is based on inner strength rather than outer show.

Your Changing Lines

The Changing Lines are the part of an I-Ching reading that give the most powerful advice about a situation or issue, because they represent the factors that are causing things to change right now.

You have two Changing Lines. Either one or the other or some combination of both of them will be relevant.

The first changing line is line 2
Let movement and stillness meet. When action springs naturally from inner calm, and proceeds to harmonize with external creative forces, all is well. Good results are achieved without artifice, complex intentions or great effort.

The second changing line is line 3
Leave the pursuit of fame and praise to others. Focus on accepting yourself. Freedom from vanity can be a powerful force, and very attractive. Do not display your virtue for all to see, but nurture it within yourself. Attempt to be of service and your life will improve by itself. Allow fruit to ripen slowly. Quiet effort is called for now.

Your Future Hexagram

The forces of growth in springtime demonstrate this hexagram's energy, as new plant life pushes upward through the earth's crust, and the sap is rising. The emphasis is on upward motion, from obscurity to influence, with growth fostered by adaptability and the absence of opposition. Constant, flexible growth is the key attribute of a plant pushing upwards. This reading suggests a period of new richness in your relationships.

The wise person, in harmony with fate, is sensitive but determined. Make a sincere effort to apply resolute efforts. Break through inertia, and good fortune will follow. By remaining flexible and tolerant, you will be able to retain the kind of conscious innocence that fuels growth and advancement. Will power and self-control are necessary to manage developments, but the life force is behind everything.

and furthermore, the war must end. blessed be.

intuitive eating

about a year ago, i began to get a lot of Messages around what would be Good for me to eat. my Angels and Guides were at great pains to assure me there was Nothing i couldn't eat if i so choose. however, if i wanted to improve my health, enhance my energy, lose a few pounds AND clear my psychic channels - they suggested i could make a few changes i would find immensely beneficial.

i won't bore you all here with the excrutiating details of how They gently coaxed me down the path. as a dear friend of mine remarked, "i'd listen to Them - They're nice to you, annie - other people aren't so fortunate."

all through the fall, i struggled to adapt my thinking to what i Felt my Angels were suggesting that i eat. and then weeks ago, i happened to hear of a book called Intuitive Eating. a lot of what i heard about it made a lot of sense, especially within the context of how and what the Angels were encouraging me to eat.

i bought the book and - hah - devoured it - within a few days. the book's principles are simple. the authors not only confirmed the Deep Wisdom i'd been Hearing, but gave me permission to Listen. it was validation of the best kind. for the first time in years and years, i am at peace with what i eat.

sometimes in retrospect i wonder what took me so long, but i've only to turn on the tv, open a magazine or surf the internet to answer that question. it's one thing to Hear the still, small Voice. it's quite another to heed it.

and furthermore, the war must end. blessed be.

back to earth

great thoughts spring from the heart, said my fortune cookie last night.

this morning, i pulled the king of cups, the two of discs, and the six and four of swords - cards that seem in sync with the approaching virgo full moon. the last three cards suggest self-care, balance, and the establishment of firm foundation, while the king of cups reminds me that the basis of all great endeavors is love.

as the days lengthen, and the moon swells, it's time to consider not resting in the soil, but rooting in it. it is time to consider how best to feed my dreams, my soul and my body this year.

and furthermore, the war must end. blessed be.

fickle february

the weather was the most erratic i've ever seen yesterday - from sunny and almost warm, to bitter and blowsy. snow squalls sprang up at intermittent intervals, almost as if the weather were having some sort of psychotic fit. the air was bright, the sky went from gray and clouded to bright and piercing blue in what seemed like a matter of minutes.

friday felt like spring - today the wind chill's in the minor digits. i gave myself a bit of a break today - a massage in the morning, lunch at my favorite tea room, a nap cuddled with the puppies.

the moon is heading into virgo - that time of year when we work to put solid foundations under our dreams and visions. today i nourished my physical, emotional and spiritual foundation. tomorrow i plan to tend to the seeds of dreams and visions far more ephemeral and far-reaching.

and furthermore, the war must end. blessed be.

first star to the right...

...and straight on til morning. like peter pan, i believe, i believe, i believe.

there are no stars tonight. all day the weather was fitful and erratic, and tonight an arctic wind howls in the trees, bitter as the breath of kali-ma, harsh as the bite of hecate's claws. the die is cast, but whatever comes of this day's work comes not in my time, but in theirs.

i believe, i believe, i believe.

ready for my close-up

for a few years when i was in high school, i flirted with the idea of becoming an actress. acting was something that seemed to come to me as naturally as breathing. once i learned to loosen up and get over the jitters, stepping into a role seemed as easy to me as stepping into another suit of clothes. standing on the edge of a stage, staring out over the banks of lights into the dark sea of dim faces, i knew myself to be in another kind of reality altogether - here, but not here, present but not really.

at the boarding school in england, even the drama coach was impressed. have you ever considered applying for RADA, she asked one day. that road not taken might someday be the subject of another blog.

today i am reminded how all things spiral. who would've foreseen that the lessons of my high school drama and voice teachers would've suddenly become so important? down the years, the echos whisper... eye contact, find your center, drop your shoulders, lift your chin. fill your lungs, feel your breath.

this morning, as i light my candles and sage the house, i offer a prayer of thanks to harry, to mrs hartley, to all my voice and drama teachers across so many years and miles.

and furthermore, the war must end. blessed be.

anticipation

the snow is falling in thick soft flakes, the scene outside my window could be a new england post card. Beloved went to the store, and didn't get the right ingredients. i knew i should've sent meg.

i had a lovely afternoon. the puppies and i cuddled and hummed and meditated and sang. the puppies even had a bath. everything...and everyone.... is ready.

and the snow keeps falling.

happy birthday, johnny joe

according to family lore, while my mother was in the hospital having my brother, my grandmother told me a story about a telephone repairman named jake. im not sure what amazing adventure the lineman could've had, but the name seared itself into my not-quite-two-year-old brain and when they brought my brother home, i suggested we call him jake.

to pacify the little demon brewing in my soul, they agreed. so jake my brother was, until my aunt katherine showed up for a visit and declared, "you can't possibly call this dear little baby jake - call him johnny joe." and johnny joe he was, until he got old enough to resist.

people who think they should have children spaced close together should think again. i remember being two. i remember the rage of sibling rivalry. i'd have killed him if i could.

just yesterday i was reading about a pediatrician who has a new technique for handling the toddler terribles. his approach is founded on the premise that children that age aren't civilized. you can't reason with them yet, because they have no ability to reason. the hard-wiring in the brain isn't there. i believe him. i remember being two.

my brother grew up in spite of any effort of mine to the contrary. today he is a successful man by any standard, the wonderful father of two adorable and adored girls. he lives safely on the other side of the country. i like to think he's a better man because of me.

so happy birthday, johnny joe.... from the sister who let you live.

and furthermore, the war must end. blessed be.

blind terror

i've reached the point of absolute fear.

there. i've said it, admitted it, bowed my head. i'm not just scared, i'm terrified. this is the real thing - a shaking-in-your-shoes, quaking-in-your-boots, wake-you-screaming-for-your-mother kind of scared.

have no doubt, gentle reader. if i've appeared at all calm in the last few weeks as you've read this blog, it's only because i'm practiced at telling lies for fun and profit.

this is the genunine thing. it grips my neck, invades my gut, and tries to take my breath away. it is not a place i like to spend a lot of time. but here i am suspended, paralysed not just by fear, but by circumstance and the slow tick of days.

i remarked to my friend rose last night that it was good my house was a mess after holidays, illness and finishing Seventh Son. the much needed cleaning has given me an opportunity to do something other than capitulate to the gut-wrenching waves of terror that periodically sweep from head to toe, and back.

that is good, said my wise friend rose.

i'm terrified, i mentioned to my friend jane the other day. that's good, she said.

it is? i repeated, startled - for a few minutes at least - out of my fear. i could feel my inner optimist peek out of the cover she takes when my inner banshee starts to keen.

terror is a form of an extremely heightened state of awareness, said my wise friend jane. it puts you into just the very place where it becomes possible to do the most impossible things.

and furthermore, the war must end. blessed be.

spring cleaning

the rhythms of my childhood linger in my semi-annual rituals of domestic overhauling. twice a year, sometime in late february or early march, and then again in september/october when the children go back to school, i engage in a grand round of sorting, storing, and sprucing. up and down to the attic, into the deepest corners of the closets, and off to the stores, i go, lists in hand, intent focused, will engaged. this is the time of year i refinish furniture, paint, sew, and scrub.

Beloved watches, lifts, and carries. why do you do this, he asked me the first few times he came home to find rooms radically or subtly transformed.

part of it is the dictate of my childhood, a pattern laid down so long ago, i have but to close my eyes over a box of mothballs and i am tiny, tiny, watching rolls of rugs hauled up and down attic steps.

but part of it is the sheer pleasure of creation, the satisfaction one can sense in sunshine after rain, a winter's first fresh snow, or the bare pristine soil of a garden in spring.

and furthermore, the war must end. blessed be.

new moon in aquarius

a black woman, a white woman and a black man are running for president, and one of them is going to win the nomination of one of the two major parties.

the winds of change are blowing.

the new moon in aquarius reminds us that global change begins in the Self, and invites us to consider the most radical transformation of ourselves that we dare. if the new moon in capricorn reminded us to get grounded, and the full moon in leo reminded us to get healed, the energies of this new moon call us to be everything we are capable of being, to be all that on some level of reality we are barely capable of perceiving, we already are.

this is a time to question and to examine the ties that bind and shackle, the lies we tell ourselves to keep us comfortable, and the beliefs that hold us back. aquarius is the visionary of the zodiac, an energy that looks beyond accepted truth, honors originality, and flatly refuses to honor the dictates of others.

it is energy i dance with all too frequently for some. change is hard enough. radical transformation is scary, powerful, awesome, and sometimes, awful.

the winds of change are blowing.

and furthermore, the war must end. blessed be.

fat tuesday

the book i just finished on intuitive eating pretty much confirms for me the wisdom i've felt all along - eat what you want until you're full. i am fortunate that i don't have a particularly sweet tooth - that salty foods like pretzels are more to my liking - and that writing seems to burn up an inordinate amount of calories.

perhaps its appropriate i woke up thinking about food. i have apples to use up, bananas to possibly make into bread. i have sweet-potatoes from dinner last night in just the right amount for sweet potato muffins. i have chicken breasts in the refrigerator that must be either cooked or frozen.

i have a brunch to plan for sunday.

and furthermore, the war must end. blessed be.

happy birthday, roey-rina

it boggles my mind that a bare nine and a half months after the titanic sank in the north atlantic, my grandmother was born. i had not made that connection until i discovered my great-grandmother's naturalization papers, dated april 12, 1912.

wasnt that when the titanic went down? asked my stepfather one day when i was telling him the story of the discovery.

my great-grandmother was a young woman, then. her age is given as 23. her boys are listed as frank (4) and joe (1). and soon, so very soon, there would be lucy, nicknamed rose.

if she'd been born even a generation later, i think she might've been happier. if she'd been born now, she'd go to uconn on a full basketball scholarship. my grandmother was uncommonly strong woman, athletic and vigorous well into her seventies. even now, her ailments - much to her chagrin - remain relatively minor, and even while her head sometimes wanders, her body retains the legacy of a life spent breathing clear ocean air, walking everywhere and an abstemious appetite that confined itself mostly to yogurt, cottage cheese, bananas and ice cream.

in her own way, i don't think she felt that she fit in any more than i frequently do. in her photos, she is usually glaring suspiciously at the camera, as if daring the person to take her picture. even when she is not directly the focus, she is most likely casting a sullen eye over the subject. no one understood the uses of evil eye more than my grandmother.

that i have always known myself to be her favorite is a fierce and terrifying thing. when fay wray is swept up in kong's arms, i know exactly how she feels. no tiny human could bear the weight of such crushing, all consuming love.

as we filed into the limosine after my aunt babe's funeral mass, where my cousin julie had spoken eloquently and with love about her grandmother, my aunt, and grandmother's sister, babe, my grandmother said, to no one in particular, "gee, i wonder whose going to say all those nice things about me when i die."

"don't worry, roey," i said on cue, as my aunt katherine gave me a Look. "i'm sure i will be there to stand up and say all sorts of good things. after all, i'm a writer, you know."

i forebore to remind both old ladies that i am primarily a writer of fiction.

and furthermore, the war must end. blessed be.

neither god nor the devil (reprise)

on the eve of my grandmother's 95th birthday, i repost one of my favorite blogs from last august:
my mother is convinced that the reason my grandmother hasn't crossed yet is because neither god nor the devil are willing to put up with her for all eternity. according to my mother, the argument going on sounds something like this:

"YOU HAVE TO TAKE HER," thunders THE LORD.

"like hell..." sniffs satan. he inspects his fingernails, buffs them against his black silk lapel. from the garden of paradise, he plucks a single pale pink rose, which withers instantly the moment he puts it in his buttoniere.

"AHEM," replies the GREAT GOD ALMIGHTY. "SHE'S CLEARLY ON YOUR TEAM. SHE'S MEAN, SHE'S SELFISH. THAT POOR GRAND-DAUGHTER OF HERS WAS BY HER SIDE FOR HOURS TELLING HER HOW MUCH SHE LOVED THE OLD WITCH AND DID THE POOR KID EVER HEAR ONCE BACK - I LOVE YOU, TOO? NOT ONCE! WE DONT HAVE TYPES LIKE THAT HERE - THAT'S WHY WE CALL IT HEAVEN. SHE BELONGS TO YOU - YOU HAVE TO TAKE HER."

"so what - she prays to YOU." satan raises one brow, refolds his pocket handkerchief with a flourish. a day in HEAVEN is a breath of fresh air. he raises his scaly armpits, flaps his pock-marked wings. these arguments with the DIVINE PRESENCE always leave him feeling so.... fresh.

"THAT DOES NOT IMPLY WE SANCTION HER ACTIONS."

"but what have ever you done to disavow her of the notion that you do? EVER?"

for one eternal MOMENT, the breath of ALL HEAVEN suspends, while YAHWAH debates whether or not to obliterate this Great Pretender's ass for all eternity with one well -placed cosmic bolt. an angelic chorus swells, a mighty plea for mercy for The Fallen Brother, and reluctantly, the wrath of the LORD OF HOSTS subsides. "WE DO NOT PUNISH THE TRANSGRESSORS."

"but YOU use them," whispers satan as he slithers back to hell.....

fires of imbolc; blessings of bride

the sky had a milky cast to it this morning when i walked the puppies, though the stars were still quite bright. for a few seconds i was confused and wondered how stars could be so bright through a veil of clouds. then i realized the sky was clear, and beginning to brighten. it was just after 530, the earliest glimmer of dawn i've seen in a long time.

today we celebrated my grandmother's 95th birthday. she exhibited all her usual vinegar. initially she refused to come downstairs at all. she threatened to faint, to fall, and to wet her pants. only baby jake merited a real smile.

the rest of us had a good time.

a couple weeks ago i was actually a bit concerned for her health. she'd come down wiht the miserable virus that had me laid low for so long, and i really did wonder ever so briefly if it could be possible that god and the devil had settled their argumment and one of them was about to take her off my hands.

then i walked in last monday to find her sitting in the lobby, waiting to have her hair done. when i complimented her on how well she looked, she replied, well, i certainly didn't expect to see you today!

i like to keep you guessing, old girl, i said, as i kissed her on the forehead.

i remind myself that both bride and pele - fire goddesses both - appear to those who would seek their favors as a querolous old woman.

and furthermore, the war must end. blessed be.

vaulting into action

the thick cover of clouds suggests the groundhog did NOT see his shadow, and thus forecasts an early spring. the feast of imbolc dawns, the sky pearly as new milk. i slept remarkably well last night, and woke up refreshed and energized. i feel the new sun filter through the clouds.

a totally unexpected kind of spring has opened up before me. i reach into my aries soul, and leap.

and furthermore, the war must end. blessed be.

a baby bite of the Big Apple

a predicted blast of icy weather has cancelled schools across the state. what astonishes me is how balmy yesterday was - a sunny 40 in new york city, at any rate.

but new york city is a magical place. anyone who doubts that cant have spent much time there. countrified hermit that i am, even i always have fun, despite the fact the city intimidates my very soul. the buildings are so high, the streets are so teeming, the landscape creates a tension between up and immediate vincinity. the architecture draws my eyes up, to the serene sky, but all around myself, i feel buffeted by churning tides both seen and unseen. one looks up at one's peril.

but, oh, those churning tides. there is an energy to the place unlike anywhere else. new york owes its existence to the fact it sits at the juncture of one of the largest natural harbors in north america. before there were fleets of taxis or buses or bicycles or even ships.... there were tides.

and furthermore, the war must end. blessed be.

leap of faith

one thing i have learned by doing readings for others, is that frequently - mostly - i will hear myself say something that i need to hear as well. it is a phenomenon that i've discussed with other readers, as well. the person who sits down with me for a reading brings me a gift of insight as well. i'm not sure if people who come for readings understand that.

another thing i've noticed is that themes will emerge if you do a lot of readings in a short period of time... say 18 in 6 hours.

the theme for the readings i did at the expo last sunday was about following one's path. how will i know if i'm on the right path? wondered one querant after another. am i on the right path? am i doing what Spirit/Goddess/God wants me to do?

and time after time, i gently as possible said, life doesn't come with an instruction book, you know. even once we figure out what it is we're supposed to be doing, we're in a conversation with Spirit, not a classroom. we don't get given all the directions all at once the way we expect we should because that's what we're used to. finding out a glimmer of one's true Self is like a gift, and like a gift we expect it to come with instructions. but life's not something we assemble, though at least, the batteries ARE included.

i think that Spirit understands how scared we are, how intrinsically like children we must coaxed into the wonder of all that we are. because the Light blinds us the closer we get to it, the more we hesitate, as if we stumble on the edge of a precipice. if we can't see it, we think, how can it be There?

the only way to Know, is to leap.

and furthermore, the war must end. blessed be.

dancing in double-time

sometimes things happen for more than one reason. sometimes we meet people who take us places we never imagined. sometimes the world reminds us to be careful what we wish for.

a sudden confluence of events has conspired to throw a radical shift in my calendar this week. what i thought was going to be a relatively laid back week, full of catching up and planning, is turning out to be a dance in doubletime.

i am not the only one. my daughter, my son, my friends, Beloved - are all feeling the motion this week, as slowly, surely, the Wheel continues to turn.

and furthermore, the war must end. blessed be.

home again, home again...

i did nearly 20 readings today at the Whole Health Expo. it was a pretty amazing experience, but i am very very glad laura and i were in a quieter corner than the main gallery. the energy made my head buzz. i came home to a house that was marginally in better shape than it was when i left...my able apprentices earned their prime-rib dinners!

seasonal rotations

the stirring in my blood propelled me through a whirlwind frenzy of cleaning and freshening in bedroom and bath yesterday. aided by my able apprentices, i hauled the last of the christmas decorations went up to the attic - though the snowmen and red winter berries are still in play.

a new kissing ball hangs over our bed. the dust bunnies are banished, new rugs carpet the floors. two trash bags of clutter - mostly old shoes and cosmetics from the days i still wore such things - are now consigned to the rubbish heap. a pile of gently worn clothing awaits consignment to a Worthy Cause. the drawers and closets and cupboards are swept and sorted and saged.

the energy of the room doesn't just feel cleaner, it feels lighter and higher. in addition to cleaning, i also planned my spring projects - and either acquired or ordered most of the materials to accomplish them. a bit of refinishing and sewing will freshen the room even more. with a bit more planning and focus, they will be completed by the equinox.

i know some of the impetus comes from my childhood, when carpets and drapes and slipcovers were hauled up-and-down and on-and-off with precision regularity. but lately i have come to realize that it also comes from the ebb and flow of energy i feel more and more acutely all the time. my house is both canvas and mirror through rise and flow and fall.

and furthermore, the war must end. blessed be.

leaving on a jet plane

Beloved left before the sun came up,off on a whirlwhind weekend trip to florida to see his daughter. elissa, the apple of his eye, his baby-fox, has decided to abandon her college degree, run away to florida and become a hooter's girl. (im sure she's not the only one with such big dreams.) to say Beloved is bewildered, disappointed, puzzled and hurt is an understatement.

the shoals between 18 and 22 are particularly tricky ones to navigate, i've found. if anyone had told me it was this hard to be the parent of an emerging adult, i'd have had puppies. lots of them.

i don't know why these years are so difficult. i only know that untangling the ties that bind, releasing the cords, and severing the connections are a delicate two-sided dance fraught with landmines of charged and laden emotion and mountains of misunderstanding.

there is no getting it right in these years, i've decided. you've either gotten it right with your kids by this time, or you haven't. the parent's work is mainly done - the question increasingly becomes - does the child rise to the task?

and in my experience, given a good-enough foundation, children mostly do - but not necessarily in ways the parent can predict or expect. this is part of what scares the living daylights out of me - because i don't know which pieces of my children are adult in the sense they can look out for themselves, feed themselves and support themselves, and which pieces aren't.

children mature unevenly. no one flicks the switch on the morning of anyone's 21st birthday, or 18th birthday, and voila - presto, chango - there you have a GrownUp. i began to see evidence of that Adult within each of my children at two. She or He looked back at me the first time i watched each of them willfully disobey. i remember looking into my oldest daughter's eyes when she was around 19 months old, and seeing Someone Else looking back.

i remember i paused. NO, katie said. firmly, emphatically, with a new deliberation and a kind of ownership. you are not the boss of me.

i remember i thought, oh my... this is different. i remember my initial reaction was one of amused respect. make friends with Her now, i remember thinking, cause She'll be back when katie's 13.

it was the first time i saw and heard the woman katie would become, every bit my equal, every bit as real as the Child she still was. that glimpse stayed with me all through her growing up. because i had seen Her so clearly, i was able to tease Her out, speak to Her, encourage Her. that became my goal - to allow that Adult - who was already present in each of my children in some nascent, embryonic form - to step forward bit by bit.

at times it feels like walking on one of those rope bridges strung across some unfathomable chasm.

and furthermore, the war must end. blessed be.

kindling the spring

lying awake in the predawn darkness, i noticed the eastern sky began to lighten much earlier than before. spring is coming, i thought, and, as if answer, i heard a plaintive cheep-cheep-cheep from the nest outside the window.

the puppies sensed something, too - running around with ears pricked, noses pointed, tails alert. despite the bitter air, they took a while to do their business. i watched the brightening sky.

imbolc - oimelc, in ancient irish - the feast of new milk, of new lambs and spring is ten days away. i feel the ghost of a quickening stirring somewhere, in my blood, on my skin. spring may still be months in coming, but the light is growing brighter every day.

and furthermore, the war must end. blessed be.

pause to breathe

the first morning after i've finished a major writing project always feels like the first morning of summer vacation when i was a kid. inevitably, my mother let me sleep in. inevitably, i'd wake up right around the same time i always had to get up for school. and inevitably, i'd wander around the house wondering what it was i supposed to do with myself.

my desk is littered with scraps of pencils, pens and hairbrushes, old coffee cups, tubes of hand cream, lip balm and heart-shaped post-it notes. sheaves of drafts pile like dirty snow drifts around my feet. where to next, i think...and the voices of other characters rise in all too eager chorus.

but the big screen in my head stays blank.

my body feels a familiar, forward motion, even as my center pauses, stills. to connect back into that deep place, that still place, will be my task today.

and furthermore, the war must end. blessed be.

full moon in leo

the full moon in leo is a good time to look at the shadows or the blocks that might prevent one's light from shining as brightly as it can in the world. it's a time to examine old fears, old limiting beliefs,and old issues that may be holding one back from allowing who one REALLY is to be fully present.

the entrance of the sun in acquarius is always an invitation to consider social causes and right action - the full moon in leo reminds us to look inside first and make sure there's no icky stuff to clog up the works. this is a time to examine and conquer hidden fears, so that we may step more completely into ourSelves.

the full moon in leo as the sun enters aquarius reminds me that in order to truly be who i am, i must confront and accept my own inner shadow. if the capricorn new moon suggested a need for fluid structure in order to manifest this new cycle's harvest, the energy of this moon suggests that it might be fruitful to first contemplate what or where the blocks might be.

leo is a fire sign. it accents showmanship and being seen, drama, recreation, praise and flattery. it’s the sign that encourages us to step out into the world in our full power… to be - in the words of a very clever advertising slogan - all that we can be. under a leo full moon in Leo, all creatures want to feel special and loved, and that includes ourselves.

this morning my first goal is to put the final, final, final tweaks on jack and sarah and then print out a beautiful new copy and mail it to jenn by high noon. already i can feel other characters nudging, jostling, pushing for position, for recognition, for attention: pick me pick me pick me ... the insistent whispers rise.... tell mine tell mine tell mine... mine's the best story...mine mine...mine...i swear i swear i swear you'll see you'll see you'll see.

i intend to hold those voices at bay for at least a week. the house needs attention, it's time to give thought to planning spring projects. i'm starting spring cleaning this week - in my bathroom, one of the places where an insidious kind of sludge can accumulate if i dont pay attention. i'm also planning on devoting some time to reconnecting and strengthening connections with friends, old and new.

tonight...i will consider again... what am i manifesting?

and furthermore, the war must end. blessed be.

i have a dream, too

martin luther king's day dawns dark and cold. in the morning stillness, i reread that famous speech.

and one thing i notice... is that it's all about men.

i understand it was the parlance of the time. i understand the uses of rhetoric. I understand that this speech is as much a work of oratory as it is a communication to a crowd.

but this is clearly a man speaking to his fellow men. dr. king refers to his brothers, his children and his fellow man. when he alludes to all of god's children, one might think that all of god's children are male, because there's no mention of any other kind.

i was eight years old when dr. king was shot that january day. he was a person of courage, of vision, of eloquence and passion. certainly he changed the world more than i ever will.

but from my vantage point of forty years and a different sex, i see that the stumbling block to dr king's dream still rises as high as any mountain and murky as any sea.

until women - all women, of every race, age, color and creed around the globe - are recognized to be equal in value, measure and worth, as any man; and respected and honored for the life-giving, life-affirming, life-sustaining sex that we are, dr. king's dream lies beyond reach of us all.

and furthermore, the war must end. blessed be.

signed and sealed

i finished the last touches on the revisions of jack and sarah last night. as the last page rolled off the printer, i thumbed through the white and pristine pages. a revised manuscript doesn't have quite the thrill of a completed first draft... if that feels like birth, this feels like a first wobbling step.

this time through, i eliminated old mud, clarified actions and intentions, and hopefully, explanations.

today i'll go to staples, have a couple bound copies made, and one loose one for jenn. one bound copy goes to my mother to read as she recovers, the other to my father. it makes me happy that my parents read what i write. it would make me happier, of course, if they enjoyed it more. but in the same way some writers are uncomfortable with the idea of their parents reading their work, i imagine it might be difficult for a parent to read the work of a child.

those who know me well enough recognize parts and pieces of my experience woven into the warp and weft of all my stories - names, places, dates. but those who know me really well will recognize much more than that, and those who know me intimately will realize just how much of my own sweat and sinew are strung across the page.

i imagine for a parent it would be difficult. no parent wants to think his or her child will suffer in life. and i know that at least in my writing, through all my stories, hung like a gossamer web, is the evidence and the report card of all the battles i've ever fought, all the challenges i've ever faced, and every painful lesson that i've learned.

i didn't know you knew all that, my father said one day. the regret in his voice was like a kiss on a boo-boo.

and furthermore, the war must end. blessed be.

gray day

7:15 and the world is gray - gray and white and wet. the snow has turned to rain, and a steady trickle is dancing on the sill outside the glass. buddy sprawls at my feet, sam's gone to sleep with libby. even Beloved is back in snoring slumber, soothed by sound and sex.

there's a two hour delay this morning, no one need stir before eight o'clock. i am alone in this delicious decadence, held captive by the richness of this hour.

all my intentions to DO evaporate.

i settle next to buddy, pull a blanket over us both. he sighs and stirs and smiles. i drink my coffee. i watch the white mist drift across the faces of the snow-laced trees, and thank the Gracious Goddess that this hour has come to me.

and furthermore, the war must end. blessed be.

cruise control

i like to drive. events conspired to withhold a driver's license until three weeks to the day before katie was born, but once i got the hang of it, i was hooked.

there is a part of me that functions well behind the wheel, genetic memories, perhaps, of chariot races or long ago cattle drives. my father was an especially good driver, smooth, quick to analyze and respond, assertive on the road, but never agressive. i know i drive like he did.

there is another part of me that functions even better. i had a clue of this when katie and i commuted back and forth to job and daycare when she was three. tell me a story, mommy, she'd say, as i buckled her into her seat. tell me a good one.

i don't know how it used to happen - how words would flow and images appear, how concepts would occur and leap and bridge themselves, almost effortlessly among the knotted gnarls of rush hour traffic. inching up market street, braking on 95, something in that knotted coil opened up a doorway into something else.

some years ago, i read something that said that driving was a left brain activity, that set the right brain free. thats why listening to music while driving is so satisfying - the side of the brain that appreciates music is free to really enjoy it while the other half drives.

i went down to my mother's not so much out of filial duty, as for the eight hour drive it took me to get there and back. there is something about putting the car into cruise control on an open stretch of road that allows my mind to wander, to soar, to refresh.

the open sky reflects for me the inner gray void, from which the characters emerge and act, like stick figures at first, bare as winter trees. as some piece of me remains critically engaged with the outer world, some other piece sinks with equal clarity into that inner landscape. 19 chapters into this final revision, my vision feels refreshed by that four hundred mile drive.

my mother has no idea what a gift that was to me. :)

and furthermore, the war must end. blessed be.

i've been tagged!

I've been tagged by Beth the Wicked Flower Girl, for this meme. Here are the rules:

*Link back to the person who tagged you.
*List three things that you believe are necessary to make writing good and powerful.
*Tag five others and comment at their blog informing them that they’ve been tagged with this award!

So, three things that make writing good and powerful.....

1. the right detail. the devil may be in ALL the details, but god is in the right one. discerning what information is necessary, what isn't and how to present that information can sometimes consume acres of drafts.
2. sensory images that engage all a reader's senses and elicit physical reactions from the reader - chills, tears, laughter, nausea. make me feel something - really feel it - and you've got me hooked.
3. passion. the writer must have passion for the story, for the characters and for the art and craft of writing itself. you shouldn't be doing this for the money. if you are, there are far easier and more immediately rewarding ways.

I tag:

Cynwrites: a blog for grownups
Vale of Evening Fog
Walk in the Woods
Sometimes You Feel like a Nut
Cottage of Blog2

what i learned from my mother about being a mom

i learned a lot about about being a mother from my mother. some of the lessons she meant to teach me, but the most profound ones were the ones she didn't know she was teaching, like the simple understanding that my children aren't me.

they're not extensions of me, they're not reflections of me. if there's anything of me in them i recognize, its a happy accident of fate. i can no more presume i know my children than i can presume i know anyone reading this. they have needs and wants and desires and dreams and goals that i don't have; they don't necessarily share mine. they have gifts and talents i don't, and i can't presume they have any of mine.

to that end, i decided to approach motherhood as if i were playing host to little aliens who arrived from outer space, as if i had no idea who they were or what they wanted beyond basic necessities - food, diaper changes and sleep. i knew not to assume i knew anything else about them beyond that. i looked at them like crayon boxes - with their own unique shades of colors, and maybe even a few i don't have,and therefore, would not see.

because i was aware that there were going to be things about my kids i couldn't understand, i knew i was going to get things wrong. i was going to zig, inevitably, when one needed a zag. i realized that all of us - even those raised by parents with the best of intentions - are inevitably hurt in some way - simply because we are not our parents, nor our children, and we simply can't always know what the thing to do is. because there isn't one.

and so my mother taught me, even before i was a mother, that i was going to make mistakes with my children, that i was going to mess up, that i was going to want things for them that they didn't need, that i was going to not give them things they really needed because i didn't know they needed them. they might even need things i couldn't begin to imagine.

it was inevitable. in the same way it was very clear to me that my mother had no clue who i was, i knew i wasn't always going to understand who or what my children are.

and so, even before i gave birth, i forgave myself.

i knew i was going to do the best i could with what i had to work with, but even that wasn't always going to be enough. when my children were born, i paid attention to their non-verbal, and then verbal, signals and cues as closely as i could. i balanced my needs with what i perceived to be theirs.

i made it clear to them that i was doing the best i could, and i expected the same from them. i made my own limitations, my own needs, clear to them, so that they could learn how to make theirs clear to me. i made it clear to them that my goal as a parent was to create healthy independent adults who rejoiced in their own uniqueness and understood how to roll with the punches and withstand life's viccissitudes, not to create for them some perfect experience of childhood.

i look back over the twenty seven plus years i've been a mother, and i realize that what i learned from my mother was how to be a better mother than she was.

and furthermore, the war must end. blessed be.

snow day

there is nothing quite so pretty as a world reduced to black-and-white. the sky is soft blue-gray, the only hint of color in this otherwise stark landscape, the very color and texture of my blanket when i was a child. the snow falls steadily, piles plush and pillowy around the trees.

come rest, it seems to whisper, as it brushes past my window. come sleep, and heal and dream.

i finished the revisions of seventh son yesterday - one more final read-through, one more final polish, and then i shall print a copy and send it off to jenn. i hope she will be pleased. tomorrow i go to my mother's, to spend the night with my brother, david. david has downs' syndrome and my mother is in the hospital, having her hip replaced - as i write this, in fact. a healing candle burns on my altar.

today i plan to wallow in domesticated bliss. libby's sick, but im finally feeling a bit better, and meg wants to earn money to replenish her holiday-depleted coffers. it's nice when kids are willing to work.

and furthermore, the war must end. blessed be.

letters from long ago

yesterday i discovered a cache of 30 or 40 letters. they were written by my mother to my grandmother and my great-grandfather during the period when my parents were divorcing and before my mother and stepfather had married.

to read these letters from the vantage point of 40 years is both sad and insightful because they chronicle my mother's attempt to reconcile her mother and her grandfather with her decision to divorce my father and marry my stepfather, who was a catholic priest at the time they met.

it is sad because i understand both what my mother so desperately wanted and why she could never ever have it. the gulf that separates my mother from hers is as wide as her boarding school education, as deep as her college degrees, as long as all her years of therapy. i pointed that out to her one day, not too many years ago.

my mother never understood me, she said.

how could she, i asked. she has the worldview of a 19th century european peasant. you've got the worldview of a 20th century american princess. on what playing field did you expect to meet? she laughed, but i was serious.

there is one other thing i noticed about all the letters. my mother talks about my father, my brother, my soon-to-be-stepfather, my aunts and my cousins. she shares snippets of conversations, of accomplishments, of hopes and dreams and goals, chronicles daily woes, inquires and relates much about health, her own and everyone else's.

in all thirty-something letters, she mentions me exactly once.

and furthermore, the war must end. blessed be.

how i learned to write (and from who)

one of the fallacies that i constantly encounter is the belief held by the general population that writing - especially the kind i do - must be not just fun, but easy. most of the times it's fun. only on the rarest of days is it ever easy.

many people seem to think that the writer - especially an accomplished writer -must surely have but to sit at the keyboard, stare at the screen and watch the words flow. a few tweaks here, a few edits there, and voila - in a few weeks or months, you have a book.

nothing could be further from the truth, at least for me.

it's true, certainly, that there are days the words do flow - but on rereading, most of what's flowed out usually has to be mopped up and flushed away. there are days when the characters sing, when they hound and pester and wont shut up. but they hardly ever do that sequentially and they certainly dont do it in WORDS. they give me pictures, scraps of emotions and sensations, needs and wants and desires. they SHOW me the story - they don't tell it.

the work of translating the movie in my head onto words on a page is the Work. and anyone who tries it soon discovers that it isn't easy, that words are clumsy things and language has its limits.

writing is both craft and art, and while the art may be ephemeral and hard to explain, it is possible to improve one's craft. below is a list of books and writers from whom i have learned as much about the craft of writing as i have enjoyed the art of what they've written, and to which i return again and again.

A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving - i loved this book. i walked around the house laughing my head off and then cried buckets at the end. if i ever write half a book half this good, i will die a happy woman.
The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver - kingsolver's uses of point of view and first person narration are absolutely amazing. for a writer, this book is worth reading just to see how each narrator has a wholly unique voice.
Anything by Jane Austen - for the uses of nuance, and the telling detail, there's no one like Jane.
The Da Vinci Code - by Dan Brown. the best example of breakneck pacing i've ever read.
Everything - by William Shakespeare. much of what i know about language, about cadence, about flow - not to mention character and conflict - i learned by reading the plays of the Master. i dont care if the glover from stratford really wrote them or not. SOMEONE did.

and furthermore, the war must end. blessed be.

january blues

i woke this morning to the sound of crying puppies and lightning-spiked rain. i walked them in a storm that sounded like august, and felt like april. the waterfall is running, the snow's retreating in smaller and smaller white circles beneath the birches as i watch, revealing broad patches of dark green moss and dun brown mud.

it would be easy to hope, to believe that this is spring, come early, come to stay.

don't be fooled.

each season has its colors, scents and sounds, and like a kaleidescope, they blur and merge and mesh. there is a color unique to a january dawn, a crystalline blue-violet never so acute any other time of year. it has a healing quality unlike any other kind, reminding me to rest, to nourish, beckoning me into sleep. i'm still not quite over my cold, and rather than being impatient with myself, i've decided to baby myself. my body will get better in it's own time... i might as well relax and enjoy the recuperation.

consequently, i haven't done a lot this week other than rest, eat and write.

sarah's chapters are coming together, the weaving is nearly complete. my trip to take care of my brother next week while my mother is in the hospital will delay my finishing the story on the timetable i originally set - the new draft will be finished by the time i go away, but i will want to give it one more read-through, one more polish, before i send it off to jenn. i know Beloved will want to read it, too.

the movers are coming to my grandmother's house today to take the things i decided to keep. tomorrow they come to connecticut, to be distributed, stored, and packed. i try to imagine what the house will look like empty and bare, and i can't. my mind balks, goes blank - my copious imagination stalls, turns gray and empty as a january sky.

again, i ask myself: what am i manifesting?

and furthermore, the war must end. blessed be.

ashamed to be an american

there. i've said it. i never thought i would voice such an opinion - i never thought i'd have such an opinion. i never for a moment dreamed the day would come when i would look upon the actions a government has undertaken in the name of we the people and been so disgusted and appalled. we impeached a president for lying about a blow job. why aren't we impeaching this one for lying about Weapons of Mass Destruction?

if this is the best country in the world, and if this is the best system, it's sick and sad and broken and needs desperately to be fixed. and no, i don't have any ideas quite yet as to how that might happen, but i do know that one definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.

my sense is that we need a new world view and vision so different and so compelling that it enables us to see the paradigm under which we function as the fear-mongering, war-producing, competition-and-agression-driven paradigm that it is.

the last 8 years have made me ashamed to be an american. the last pope made me ashamed to have been raised catholic.

thank goddess i am a woman.

and furthermore, the war must end. blessed be.

new moon in capricorn

chapter nine - sarah's first appearance in the novel after the prologue - is rough and raw, but there...and so far... i like it. the scenes are sketchy, but etched out enough that they form a sufficient frame upon which to lace the flesh.

chapter ten is stewing. i can feel the characters churning, hear snippets of dialogue. like a movie unfurling in stop action, it rises and falls, spooling into coherence, then swirling away into chaos. i have to let it cook.

there is a rhythm to these intense writing days, a rhythm i accept grudgingly, a rhythm dictacted in part by the limitations of my body, the demands of the external world.

but it is also dictated by She Who Makes the Cauldron Spin, the Muse who sends the words that bubble in my brain. the Story comes in Her time, and not in mine.

and furthermore, the war must end. blessed be.

progress

i got a lot done yesterday. the new prologue seems to segue smoothly enough into the first chapter that i can let it go and move on. lila, jack's wife, is softened, the ghosts jack sees are creepier. i found the place where sarah fits. my goal is to finish her chapters by thursday. my plan is to work on one chapter a day.

my most productive hours of the day are slipping away beneath my fingers like grains of sand. time to get to work.

and furthermore, the war must end. blessed be.

where to begin

finding the place where a story begins is something of an art. unlike real life, the beginning of a story is never arbitrary, never accidental. it may appear that way, of course, and it probably should - but finding it can take a lot of time, a lot of work and a lot of rewriting. a good beginning has spark - it ignites something inside the reader, and propells her or him into the rest of the story.

sometimes i find the beginning buried somewhere in chapter three or four, under paragraphs of throat clearing, character development and far too much telling. but more frequently, i have to back up into it, and provide a framework of reference without which the story can't stand.

that is the place i find myself in now.

my writing goal for today and tomorrow is to work on the beginning third of seventh son. with sarah's prologue done and out of the way, i can move into the revised jack chapters which aren't much more than inputs of edits already complete. the prologue will rest now, until i circle back around to it once im finished the first section.

the challenge for today and tomorrow, however, is to weave three new sarah chapters somewhere into jack's. i don't know where the new sarah chapters should fall - like a sailor heading into only partially charted water, i have only a bare idea of where i think they should fit. i could, perhaps, spend time reading and sorting and thinking.

instead, i've avoided thinking directly about it. i know what the chapters have to be...i have a sense of where they have to fall to make sense in the timeline of the story. and i have sarah, to tell me where - and when - to begin.

and furthermore, the war must end. blessed be.

twelfth night

the last official day of the holiday season dawns gray and cold, but i hear a wistful catbird calling in the trees. the ebb and flow of Ordinary Time beckons like a balm.

today i take down the tree, pack away the ornaments, and haul the tree itself out to dry for next year's yule log. today i plan my calendar, sort through paperwork, take one last breath and pause before the plunge. i am mostly better...i'm finding the last vestiges of the cold a good reminder of of the need to maintain nuitrition, rest and exercise.

the end of the season was traditionally marked in britain by a feast presided over by the Lord of Misrule - the Fool. and like the Fool, i perch on the edge of this next cycle, peering off into the distance, my dogs nipping at my knees. and again i ask myself ...

what am i manifesting?

and furthermore, the war must end. blessed be!

fluid structure

one of the challenges i set for myself last year was to figure out how to better manage my time. writing demands that i frequently find myself in that world-without-time. but my children, my puppies, my gardens, my house, Beloved and my friends are all (mostly) firmly grounded to the world-within-time, and their needs, as well as my own physical needs and emotional needs have to be met on that plane.

it took me a long time to understand that this delicate Stepping-In and Stepping-Out is my daily dance, that it's easier to step-In, and not so easy to step-Out. and so last year, i decided i needed to create a way to manage what i consider to be my most precious of resources - my time.

the one tool i created is a weekly spreadsheet. the other is a daily pattern of hours modelled on the medieval-monastic schedule of ritual worship and work. the third tool i rely on is a timer. when i function within this framework, i can accomplish an amazing amount, both Within and Without. my goal this year is to adhere to this fluid structure more attentively, to fill more fully each intended task and hour, so that like a double helix, the patterns of my days unspool, a wheel within a wheel, the timer replacing the monastery's bell.

and furthermore, the war must end. blessed be.

what are you manifesting?

last night at pagan study group, we discussed manifestation in all its aspects and forms. we agreed that it involved at least two parts - imagination, or visualization, and action. Spirit always seems to demand one meet Her half way.

the new moon in capricorn approaches - a time of new beginnings, projects that favor growth, the externalization of ideas, and awareness of the need for structure, discipline, and organization, a perfect time to ask, to consider and to dream...

what am i manifesting?

and furthermore, the war must end. blessed be.

so, sweet sarah

somewhere in my travels over the last few weeks, i found sarah's song. the sixth track on loreena mckennit's An Ancient Muse cd, its haunting harmonies give me a glimpse of this most elusive of characters...someone who's been waiting her whole life for something to happen... with no idea what it could be.

consequently, the first writing day of 2008 got off to a very happy start - the new prologue came pouring out of my fingers and onto the screen in a record burst. it took Beloved all of five minutes to assess what needed to be fixed. i'm not finished yet, but nearly. playing the song over and over again helps. i'm not sure why. i am quite sure it drives the people around me crazy.

and furthermore, the war must end. blessed be.

for my sister, on her birthday...

i am a woman
who stands
at the end of a driveway
with a child
waiting for the school bus
to rumble up the road
while the sunlight flames
through the trees.

i am a woman
who waits
at the end of a driveway
looking for the school bus
to tumble down the road
spilling children
while the shadows darken
across the fields.

i am a woman
who sees
at the end of a driveway
the seasons rise up,
then fade;
and school buses come and go
churning children
across the years.

and furthermore, the war must end. blessed be.

hogmanay

although no one knows for sure, it appears most likely that ancient celts all over europe celebrated a twelve-day or longer midwinter festival, and many historians believe that the spirit of the british new year celebrations still reflect some core element of one of the oldest festivals of our kind. in scotland, the reformation banned the traditional yule activities, and so gradually, over the centuries, the old rituals and customs found themselves edged forward, to january 1. no one knows where the word comes from, but i think its most likely provenance is from the gaelic phrase "oge maidne" which means "new day."

whatever its origins, hogmanay is charged with magical significance. just as the sun is renewed in the depths of the dark, hogmanay offers the opportunity for both closure and renewal, to forgive and forget, to settle and to heal. it is a threshold time, and for the celts, the threshold of anything, including the entrance of a house, was sacred time and space.

considering how sick i was a few days ago, i am feeling remarkably better.

on a whim, i drew a tarot card for the new year.

the card i pulled was the Hanged One, the card of willing sacrifice, the card that signifies that which we willingly lose in order to gain something else. the 12th card in the major arcana, it is the card of surrender and release, of the integration that comes with dissolution.

last night i wrote an email to an old friend, a woman i have not spoken to in over twelve years. our parting was painful, but she emailed me back within ten minutes so i think she was glad to hear from me. i know i was glad she wrote back.

and furthermore, the war must end. blessed be.