It Never Fails!
Jun 18, 2004

And if you're a woman you know what I'm talking about. The lunar cycle always finds away to spoil our most looked forward to plans. So, due to erm...heavy flow, I will not be going this weekend. To be frank about the physical aspects of it, I can't imagine trying to change a pad in an outhouse in the dark (for starters), I don't like sitting on an outhouse toilet long enough to pee and wipe. Then you have the fact that my first few days (I started today) are filled with cramps that would be very distracting to the peace I was going to seek. It's very hard to concentrate on meditation when all you can think about is a giant clamp taking hold of your lower innards, squeezing as tightly as possible and then twisting this way and that.

There is a spiritual side to it though, and I believe many native americans believed something like it too. Although there are plenty of cultures where this state is considered unclean and the woman is isolated during it, I believe at least a few Native Americans look at the interference it has on magic and spiritual endeavors--it is disturbing to whatever magic or energies are trying to be raised, too chaotic. I've been told by a wiccan priestess friend that I should come to their celebrations anyway because they believe that the lunar cycle is beneficial in magickal workings as it holds a great deal of power that they can work with and it is a natural process at that, signifying the great circle of life--death and rebirth and all that. Well, even if I wasn't inclined to listen to the wisdom of Native Americans, I personally don't see how the cycle can be beneficial. It's not wonderful, it's disgusting, it feels disgusting it looks disgusting, I'm often in pain from cramps and uncomfortable and I'm moody too--that's another indication to me that it's not a good time to mess around with magical and spiritual energies. If I can't even keep my hormones in check and thus my mood, how can I expect to keep the I'm working with in check--they will likely become just as chaotic as my hormones. While I don't believe in isolating myself from life during this time (though most of the times I really wish to lol), I do think they were right about the energies the cycle produces and how it should be kept from working with spiritual/magical energies. It's just not practical in today's society to say, I'm having my lunar cycle and must isolate myself now, I'll be back at work in a week! You may be able to claim religious belief and get away with it at work BUT it will not work financially.

Michael is still away for the weekend though, so at least I can stay home and catch up on my meditation, cramps are distracting, but I'm not really working with spiritual energies other than my own in meditation, so I believe it will be fine. One of the purposes of this trip was to call for my animal guide and possibly do a little other realm traveling--not a good idea when you don't even have a full reign on the energies within. So, I'm thinking I might try to get away with it next weekend, and if not, then the weekend after July 4th. I think I still might go out to the nature preserve tomorrow for meditation and trail walking. One way or another though, I need to get back out to nature this weekend, even if only for a couple of hours.

Anyway, that's the end of one of my grossest entries, I promise not to mention this particular topic again lol.

Good thing I like change
Jun 16, 2004

Just not sure if I like it so soon after I started getting comfortable and making plans. Due to the problem with my brother, my mom has decided she will be moving out of town with my brother when he gets out. Where to I cannot tell you, just in case this entry falls into the wrong hands, but it is far from here and nearby a university I was considering for my further education. However, my mom is considering making that move August this year. I will be at the local community college until May of next year and I will be at my job at LCN until May of next year as well (I won't be able to work here past that because half of the pay for my position is supplied through a grant only DACC student can get). So, going with my mom and commuting is out of the question, I would make as much money at work as it would cost in gas to drive back and forth, that's not even counting the days my mom needs the car. So, at least for now, I need to probably find a new place to live. I think my cousin Nicki and I have something that sounds really pleasant worked out (we lived together with her mother and little brother before and other than hormonal moments that were fairly mild, we got along really well) my only problem now is that I don't have a car and Danville's bus system seems impossibly complicated. Also, if I got a car, I wouldn't be able to afford insurance and all the new bills. Essentially, to upgrade my cousin's 1 year lease that ends in April to a 2 room apartment in the same complex (which they will probably let her do since she will still be there and be giving them more money to top it off) it will cost an extra $100/mo. altogether, counting groceries, electricity, and basic utilities, we are looking at a lump sum of $300/mo. to live together which is really good I think, that would make her current living costs cheaper, mine more expensive but still doable, I just need to figure out this apparently complicated bus thing.

Furthermore, I have other plans being disrupted by financial planning. Right now, I am fine with my sister watching my son for free and so is she, but when it's time for me to go to a university I can't afford to commute, I won't leave my son, and I can't afford a babysitter nor do I want to hire a babysitter I can't absolutely trust because I've known them for years. This has brought me to wondering if I should take prereqs to get into Lakeview (where I work) I have recently come to realize that they do bachelor's in mental health nursing, and mental health practice is something I've always been interested in, I just never thought of the nursing direction because I don't think I could deal with the bodily waste, the cadavers, the cutting things up and all the gruesome physical details.

You know what though? Writing out these plans, at least the ones with my cousin Nicki, don't seem all that hard now that I've written them down. And who knows, perhaps I can get foodstamps to cut back on $100 of my monthly bill. I would only live a 30 min walk from LCN (my job) and my sister has told me if I do this she could pick Michael up for me and since the college is so close to her way home she would likely at least drop me off that 15 min. walk from the corner on her way back home from picking up Michael. This might just work.

On the other hand, the plans with Advait might not work. I still want to learn meditation and all that he might teach me, I'm determined about that, but I'm not so sure about the rest of the possibilities anymore. I've always wanted to be one of those serene people that wows everyone they meet with their grace and serenity, but I also like my corny sense of humor, and kitty-like playfulness. He's really into a life of peace, and while peace is nice, I still need humor and playfulness in my life. Life is serious, but it doesn't have to be totally serious to deal with it correctly. In fact, I still ascribe to take life seriously but with a playful humorous angle that keeps it livable.

I was caught off balance when we first began to talk because he understood the part of me that everyone has always made fun of or told me I was silly, dumb, too much of a dreamer, and sometimes crazy because of it, not even my own mother understands this side of me and what it feels like. To have understanding in that area instead of ridicule, doubt, and irritation was so much of a change it made me cry. Although I still feel a blush when I think of all those silly things I told him I feel and believe that I've never been able to clearly put word for word the way I actually feel and not be looked at like I was nuts. I do think he understands and feels the opposite about what I told him than most everyone else in my life has.

You want an example? Okay, I talk to trees and my cat, and they talk back. Well, my cat sends pictures (but not lately, she's stopped talking to me since we left Dawn and Brian's but I think that's only because now she has her every need taking care of--mostly including more space than one little room where she's mostly by herself) and the trees mainly communicate with feelings. I've become the forest before, I've seen a future daughter in dreams and she will happen to be the reincarnation of a cat I haven't seen since I was 16 and still cry over missing her from time to time. I wonder what she's doing, is she still alive, did the people she end up with turn out to be a good experience. She was my daughter in Benton and my best friend and I worry over her like a mother of a kidnapped child would--if I had any choice in the matter at the time, she would have come back up north with me no matter what. I haven't told him that, but that's just a little peek into the things no one seems to understand about me, no one seems to take them seriously and they make me feel silly for taking them seriously. I also put them in matter of fact ways because I'm not trying to convince you they are true, I am trying to help you see why others would not understand, ridicule or step on my inner beliefs and my spiritual experiences.

However, I don't think he will understand the side of me everyone else sees, my silly, playful, hard to be serious side that likes change and variety. I just met him so I don't know but I hope he doesn't take the opinion that these parts of me are things that enlightenment will cure so I can be a perfect serene being. A little more serenity would be nice, a lot more compassion would be nice, but I don't want it to come at the cost of a good sense of humor and my playfulness, and I don't think it should have to. Not to mention a two-year-old who is permanently (and happily) by my side is not much for preserving the peace lol.

Just current thoughts. I would still like to visit California next year at least, but I think he's too hopeful thinking I can move there so soon, I think I won't be ready for that kind of life for another 10 years. However, I still want to learn what he has to teach me, even if I don't follow it exactly as he does. We all have our own paths but that doesn't mean we don't need teachers to further our progress ^_^

I keep wondering if I should start a commercial site offering tarot readings for some extra cash before I don't have the extra cash to start it up when I move. Anyone want to email me at ethereal_dragonfly@yahoo.com and tell me if they think $10 for a pretty good tarot reading would probably do well enough to bother with all the charges to get a new journal for a commercial website, pay commercial website fees and all that? Or maybe at first I should charge the regular $20 per reading until I make my money back? I've also been considering tinkering with making personalized wooden flutes. No, I'm not trying to make a hidden add here, I really actually just kind of want a vote on what people think. If it were successful it could really help me get out on my own which I've been wanting to do for awhile and I could guide others at the same time (my readings are long and I have to refer to books still to get everything straight, but at least they are pretty darn accurate and I make sure to stress the issue of guidance and advice not this is what you need to do and this is what will happen part of it). I actually kind of hate charging for spiritual guidance, but it is one way I could get that extra support I need for my son and I. E-mail me too if you just want to discuss it, to get more info on why I might do this before you vote yay or nay lol. Maybe someday I could drop my commercial website and start giving them for free because I have enough for all the necessary bills in life (note I said necessary not frivolous but I want it bills lol). We'll just have to see where my path leads me I guess.

Ja ne!

--Saronai

Spiritual Progress
Jun 15, 2004

I suppose I aught to update a different area of my website (like one without a current entry on the front page lol), but I was in Chorus tweaking some things on the html and templates so I decided to start updates here. Although it's not very spiritual to speak of the updates huh? hehe Did you see the new faerie I adopted? Scroll down this page some and meet Sage ^_^ She's in the left hand bottom corner (though she's pretty big so it may not seem like she's confined to the corner).

Anyhow, meditation schedule is kinda slow in coming to me. I've missed a lot of days (I'm supposed to do 30 hrs by beginning of July). Some have been missed to allergy attacks, some have been missed to lack of time, and others laziness. So far I've gotten 5 hours! T_T I'm so horrid at this. The good news is that I've already started a kind of walking meditation--which is taking how I was taught to meditate and applying it as often as possible in my yoga practices--which are not true yoga, it's on video tape and its geared for weight loss and not really any spiritual aspects to yoga and the first half hour is cardio (which means you are working up a sweat) and the rest is strenth and core conditioning (working on strength and the middle area--waist, butt, thighs, etc). Walking meditation is supposed to be the next step that my next lesson the beginning of next month will start on (and I'll have to get 30 hours of that in). Meditation would be a lot easier without a two-year-old, I hope my teacher understands that. I have a two-year-old, I'm happy with a two-year-old and I have just as much an obligation (if not more) to raising that two-year-old as I do to enriching my soul--although I think the more my soul is enriched, the better I will be as a parent, HOWEVER, I also think it will mean slower going for me. At this stage in his life he needs my devotion to his upbringing to create a solid base for the rest of his life. That's pretty important, so if it cuts into my meditation time because he wants to read a story and spend time with mommy or he needs me to stand over him instructing him to pick up his toys (I need to point at each toy and tell him to put it away right now before he'll do it, otherwise he'll wander around aimlessly at clean up), or he wants to be cuddly, or he needs disciplined (trust me, using time out, I have to definitely watch him to put him back in the chair every 30 seconds at first), or he needs education, or just a day out with nature with me, then by the High Ones, meditation will just have to wait. Perhaps my teacher is getting more ahead of himself than he should regarding my spiritual progress. Without a son, sure, I could probably grow like wildfire, with my son, I may not be able to do all these things he says I'm capable of until my son is more than a couple of years older, at least until he's 5, preferably holding off great movements until he's 10. That's probably how far moving to California (if I do) will be in the future. I look at it this way, although I will not control my son's spiritual choices and force him into anything, but not only am I learning new things but I am attempting to instruct a younger life in them at the same time--and anyone who teaches younger children knows that it's a lot quicker to teach older children and adults (the counter-balance to that being that young children, when they do learn their lessons, practice and learn them better than older children and adults) essentially, then, you add to the fact that right now he is two. With American children, and I am subject to raising him somewhat American no matter what I do, there's no getting away from it, around the age of 2 is when most children test the limits of their parents, to see what they can get away with so it's hard to see that you've taught them anything. It seems to go through one ear and out the other. Many of them go through another stage like that in their teen years, I didn't, not really, and I hope that Michael follows suit. I don't want him to be a mini-me and I don't want him to ascribe to everything I do per letter, like a little copy, but some teen obedience and the same lack of parent hating you ruin my life stuff that I had with my mom would be a nice reward. I was never embarassed by my mother and I never understood why so many other teens hated their parents (I see why some do, but others I know for a fact had parents that could be just as pushy and controlling as mine and no more), it was a fad to hate your parents (at least in words with friends) and it was one I never followed. My mom and I had one big fight, but other than that I pretty much listened to her with a little whining and some under the breath come-backs sometimes, but never the kinds of fights she had with my sister or my brother.

I ramble too much sometimes ^^" hehe I got off track. My point is that my pace will be slower because I do not want my son left behind in any way. He will be by my side every step of the way (unless, of course he happens to want some space lol). I will not force my hand in his own spiritual growth or life choices, but I also will not abandon or leave him behind in pursuit of my own. I have a responsibility and it's a pretty damn important one.

However, despite my loss of meditation hours, I have a weekend getaway (by myself) planned. I'm borrowing a friend's tent (just in case it rains) and going tent camping at the local nature preserve. I will be eating very light and the focus of the camp out is spirituality so I expect to get plenty of meditation done, it's easier to be in the here and now when I am where I feel the most at home (the forest). I've been wanting to do this spiritual camp out for the last year now, and I'm finally doing it this weekend *grins hugely*. By myself, just nature and I, connecting. I hope to find my animal spirit guide too. So, I will not be eating any kind of meat three days prior to Saturday, and Saturday I will be fasting (Saturday is the day I will be out there all 24 hours of it and then some before and after)--I've only fasted once, so just in case, I have planned light fasting which I think is bread and water are allowed--although I probably won't eat bread, I'll probably only eat fruit or something light like that--fresh fruit. My plan is this: If I get so hungry I seem faint and it will counter-productive to my spiritual day, then I will look for natural things to eat around me like some berries or something (yes, I've a mind to which ones are poisonous thank you), if nothing natural that I am positive is alright can be found, then I will move to the fresh fruit in my cooler--and, of course, no matter what I will be drinking water, it's too hot this season not to (and don't give me that Jesus went in the desert without food and water for 40 days line--I'm not Jesus and this is the first time I've attempted fasting since I had my son--and I think the only other time was 10 years ago when I was about 13). I will leave Sunday night or Monday morning, I'm not sure which yet, either way, if I leave Monday morning, I will treat Sunday as I did Saturday. My provisions, emergency food and water in a cooler, my tent in case it rains, wood for the fire pit and meditation, a camping place within reasonable distance to the privy (so I don't get lost looking for it late at night) but also as secluded as I can get it), a compass, my first aid kit, several types of journals (I'm a journal freak), among other things. I can't wait until this weekend, I finally get to do it!