posts of blogs past

Wednesday, September 06, 2006

sign seeker
Current mood: curious

Ok, to be perfectly honest, I am not a sign seeker. Ok, to be more perfectly honest, I totally am! I don't hold merit to much of anything that has to do with personal faith because it is just that, personal. So something that holds true for one person is not always true for the next and unless I experience it myself or see it myself or research it myself, I will not believe anything no matter how meaningless it is. But, I am very interested in the different views and beliefs that people have. So here is my non sign seeking/sign seeking tale! We were walking along the banks of a river in Georgia and my aunt while carefully watching each step on her path happened to find a beautiful butterfly that was dying, she picked it up and told us that the butterfly in the native american totem represents rebirth, change and metamorphosis. That made perfect sense to me. As for her, she was ecstatic to see it since she had left California and moved to Georgia and it was only her second day there, without a house or a job or selling her home in California. She saw it as a wonderful omen. I didn't think much about it until last night during one of my freaky insomnia nights. She found and saw a butterfly as a wonderful omen and my faithless, envious self wanted to see one too so I tried to figure out what our omen was. Then I remembered my uncle telling me that in the four years he had lived in Georgia he had never seen so many snakes as he had seen the day he went out with me and my family. I had written that off as something my boys had manifested, all they had talked about the entire drive is if they would see snakes and how many and so on. That was the most exciting prospect of the trip to them, seeing snakes. We happened to see seven of them in one day! So, I decided that was our omen, our animal totem whispering of what would soon become our reality in Georgia. Yes, I was a little freaked, snakes of course have a bad rep for being evil and all that, not to mention Adam and Eve. (Not that I am superstitious, but it is fun to dabble and learn mystical beliefs.) My hubby informed me that snakes are supposed to be a good sign, but couldn't remember why, and I had an inkling that he was absolutely right. So being who I am, first thing in the morning I headed straight to the internet to do some research. And what did I find?
The Magnificent Snake Totem possesses the following virtues:
Wisdom, healing, intuition, awaking of creative forces, ability to handle change without resistance, new opportunities for change, material vitality, intellect, power over rashness in speech and thought, emotional control, increased sensitivity to the environment, increased powers of smell, transmutation, and increased powers of observation, improves business and social life; wards-off negative energies; personal charm and magnetism; healing; regeneration, attracts luck.


Wow! I love it and then I read on to find out that the snake is also my birth totem. And, not that I am a sign seeker, (though, I love seeking signs) but it does lend some hope and cover some of the dreaded fear that tends to sneak up on me in the middle of the night when everyone is asleep and the only sound is the rambling voice in my head that never shuts the @#$% up! And of course it is another way to identify with the universe around me and respect a living creature that usually promotes fear. Native American folklore, religion, and beliefs seem to me to evolve from generations of human experience (so I tell myself) and I believe there must be some truth in it. Yes, yes there must be some truth in it, to me anyway because I see the beauty in it. Besides, Keats himself says,"Beauty is truth, truth beauty,--that is all
ye know on earth, and all ye need to know."



I suppose it is all just another crazy rambling on, trying to justify and find purpose and reason and comfort in the unknown. But, what the heck, if it is just a placebo that will help me sleep at night, bring on the placebo please!








Thursday, July 20, 2006

so I lost my faith
So I lost my faith, (which to keep I had pretty much stifled all logic, so no big loss) I am sure that everyone is on their own path to self-discovery spiritually speaking, some starting where their parents left off others starting "rock bottom atheist" as religious zealots would say, I say completely open-minded and willing to see spirituality at its true source. On my journey/decision to come back to believing in god, or a god (I definitely love the celtic gods, life was so much simpler to them: fish, war, pillage, kidnap and be buried with your weapons and combs cuz they had thich ass red hair) I came across this opportunity in a unitarian church to listen to a monk from tibet! (gotta love the unitarians) I swear before I saw the man enter the room I could feel his presence. I am sure everyone has experienced this in the presence of a spiritual giant whether they are christian, buddhist, catholic,baptist or mormon. This man was beautiful, like a statue from the middle east, red robes, bald head, wrinkled with wisdom and twinkling eyes. He spoke no english, so of course he had to have a translator. But, listening to his words and the emotion in his voice was a moving experience in itsself. He proceeded to tell his story: he was a political prisoner in tibet tortured by the chinese government on a daily basis for 30 years. He told us that occassionally he would be released only to be thrown back in prison for speaking out against the government. But the true message that he shared was preservation of the human spirit and how he understood that the men that tortured him were blinded by their greed and hate, he felt no anger toward them and realized his plight was one of less suffering than many in the world. He said that as a buddhist he practiced the law of well wishing and giving. He said he was not angry with these blinded men, instead he attempted every day to give them love and wish them well, but he did not have the power to give them a gift of love that they could recieve. His well wishing failed and he took that as his weakness that he could not love enough. He was very humble and genuinely sad about his so called "failure". He then proceeded to talk about anger and tempers (a huge red headed irish viking heritage fault of mine). He said one act stemming from anger can undo all the lessons of a lifetime! What an amazing way of looking at life. Anger only blinds and is usually a disguise for other more difficult emotions. So I keep this in my heart and try to remember when my temper flares: how can I be a stronger person than one who indulges on my selfish anger. ( I know that I had to learn this lesson, how else could I be the mother of five boys!) And when I feel like I can't get over my anger, I remember this humble man of small stature, withered with time and abuse whose spirit was unbroken, who loved deeply despite a degraded life and who still smiled with twinkling eyes because he could feel real, true joy. Who am I and what do I have in my life that I can justify my anger, hate, judmental nature? I am only blessed. And I am finding my faith.






Tuesday, July 18, 2006

insomnia
Current mood: discontent
Category: Dreams and the Supernatural
Lately I have had insomnia. I have never really had it before, I guess I am getting old and restless in my old age. I can not seem to turn my mind off at all. Too many thoughts running rampant. So last night I decided to try to meditate until I fall asleep (which is something I do at least twice a week even though you are not supposed to meditate to fall asleep, I guess I am just a rebel.) To fully understand my meditation crazies I must tell you that ever since I was a little girl and read books by Edgar Cayce I have tried to astral project. Okay, yes I am a nut, this is what I do when I cannot sleep. I must also tell you, I do not believe in astral projection at all, but am willing to be proven wrong. So last night as I lay in bed relaxing every part of my body and focusing on my own breathing I decided to once more attempt to spiritually leave my body. But, I tried it differently than usual. I read that your spirit leaves your body through the base of your skull or through your forehead (very contradictory, where is the science in all this mumbo jumbo?) So I decided to let my body leave my spirit. ( oh my hell I am a lunatic) It took me a second to figure out which way the earth was rotating because my logic told me the earth was carrying my body with it while my spirit would stay stationary (now remember I technically do not believe in astral projection so I do not understand myself why I put so much thought into this crap!) So I close my eyes and let my body sink into the bed, but then my leg itches (damn can I ignore it, no) Now I have to start all over. So I relax close my eyes and focus on my breathing, the hum of the fan sneaks in. In all seriousness, with my eyes closed, I see the rotation of the fan in lights. Obviously a trick of my crazy mind. I focus on the earth carrying my body from my spirit. I let my body fall away from me and I feel like I am left in a darkness, complete black (I tell myself I must be passing through my skull now, that makes perfect sense especially for a crazy loon like me) Then I see a light, almost like a tunnel. It is like one of those pictures you have to unfocus your eyes to see. You know, it is a jumble of beach things and when you unfocus your eyes you can see a woman on a beach towel. Anyways, that is what this tunnel thing was like, but I could not get it to come into focus. So once again I failed to leave my body. Bummer! And still I do not believe in astral projection, but that will not stop me from trying it at least 3 times a month. I will keep you updated, if I do leave my body I will let you know! I do have to tell you one kind of weird experience about my personal quest for astral projection. When I was pregnant with my second I meditated myself to sleep like usual, nothing interesting, but during that time a particular old friend I hadn't talked to since high school had been on my mind, a lot. Well, I dreamed about her and in my dream I was looking down on her and a baby girl, her daughter. I didn't think much of it but the next day I thought I would track her down and say hi, you've been on my mind, how is your life? So I called her mother and got her new phone number and found out she had gotten married. I talked to her on the phone and sure enough she had a brand new baby girl. Just something a little strange that keeps me thinking "could astral projection be possible? I'm gonna try it!" Now if any of you decide to join me on my psycho quest, let me know how you fare! Especially if you make it out of your head!!