Practicing what I preach

I'm eating too much. And not celery, either.


I'm bumping up against some personal disappointment. No big deal in the larger scheme (I still have some perspective) but I'm upset and I don't want to feel these feelings.

How do I cope? See above.

Now's a good time for me to do what I tell others to do. Avoidance is so easy! at least, on the surface. If I keep doing this, however, the hole that I'm digging for myself will be much deeper when I finally get my face out of the food and look around me.

Time for deep breathing, hot showers, exercise, and some of the aforementioned celery. Lots of water and, perhaps, finally, some tears.

Pain

Sometimes we think that physical pain is a good distraction from, or substitute for, emotional pain. If we hurt enough inside about something, maybe if we do something (a tattoo? a new piercing? 4-inch stilettos?) to ourselves, force ourselves, then the internal hurt will subside, or at least be masked, by the external, physical pain.

I'm here to tell you it doesn't work. Now, I know we're each on our own journeys, and I can't prevent you from making mistakes that you'll learn from. But the next time you think that those expensive shoes which pinch will make you less miserable, or that tattoo on a tender piece of skin will distract you from your grief, please take some deep breaths. Think about what you're doing. Let your future maturity speak to where you are now.

You don't have to. Feeling the feelings, though dreadful, is ultimately a quicker and fuller way back to balance and serenity than distraction.

I've distracted myself with bad relationships, food, reading junk (and other things). When I come up for air, the feelings that I was avoiding are still there. They wait.

What?!

If you'd told me that today would be a Breakthrough Day, I would have laughed in your face. Ha! Because last night I ate way too much cheese, and this morning, no lie, I was hung over. From cheese. Lo, how the mighty have fallen. So I had a headache and I was somewhat spacey.

Then Boss Woman and I got to talking -- and there was suddenly so much energy in the room (the room that she's stuck in, windowless, where the servers are, so it's not only hot, it's noisy.) Information was just spilling out all over (maybe the servers?). It was coming through me, then her. Approaches to psychic information. A new perspective on a situation that has been plaguing me. What she and I are doing together (digging out the Augean stables). Just so much stuff!

I came home reeling. Did tiny chores and lay down to meditate/doze. Went upstairs to talk to Them/the Field/the notobject.* And more came through!

Time for me to make some choices. Decide what I want, how I want to work. Not a narrowing, but a deepening; down into the Marianas Trench. A shamanic practice, an etheric practice, and marrying them into the Duffi Work.

I do want to keep doing readings. The approach will be different, and I am not sure how yet. Prices are stable for a while since I will be experimenting around, seeing what works.

It's not that I'm preparing to be ready: sisters and brothers, I am ready. I can help you access what you need to access, perhaps now more than ever. It's that the process, for me, will be different.

The opening has to do with all this ocean imagery that I've been getting. It's my language to talk about the barely-effable.

Starting to babble. Going off to babble to myself.

I'm glad you're along for this adventure.



*for those who are unfamiliar with the notobject, I direct your attention to the post: Day 3...........the Field.

Heat and fog

The weather is very wearing. Too hot for April, even late April. Makes me cranky.

Even though I knew that things are going very well, and that work is settling in where it belong, and that new structures are settling into place so that some dreams I have can manifest, and my beautiful tabby cat Pearl comes to lie next to me whenever I'm getting a healing or dozing/talking to Spirit (and I love that), somehow.....I'm unsettled tonight. Floating in lightly choppy waters. Fogged in (though not entirely). Vague.

So what I have to offer is that: the vague, choppy foggies. And the clear knowledge that it's temporary. That this, too, is part of the natural cycle: dark, foggy, light. Because in fog, there is light (just obscured).

You will be fine again.

Sunday night check-in

Gotta be quick tonight; blasted Verizon Fios doesn't like the heat, either.

All my outdoor plans got upended, since I neglected to check the weather. I don't thrive outside in very warm temperatures. Where I grew up, even when it got very warm, the breezes still blew. So I was rarely subjected to heavy heat. Now someone tell me why I've been in the Washington DC area for 30 years, which has horrible summers?...... Yeah, me neither.

There's a settling-out that's taking place within me. Moving away from teachers and practices which don't suit me, and starting to settle in to what does. Gratitude to the Field for all the many options, here at the beginning of the next millennium. Starting, too, to settle on what I will be using in my next phase of healing and psychic work. If I were more specific, I'd be lying, since I haven't made any final decisions yet.

Nor did I finish my cards this week. Next week for sure. Have to be ready by Friday.

Gratitude for friendship, too; for the 37 days, not finished yet; for the rich dreams to be dreamed tonight.

It's a good Moon for me. How about for you?

Be well, my dears; remember you are loved.

no planting today

The temperature reached 110F in the sun in the garden. Which is about 20 degrees above my comfort level. I did plan some, and plan to plan more.

Huge movement behind the scenes in my spiritual/psychic life. Hard to talk about. I'm learning to carry very large energies, and I realize that I have to be physically stronger to carry them well.

That's all she wrote tonight. :)

Night and longing

..and I hunger again for the ocean. Until I started writing this series of posts, I had no idea that these images, these sensations, were so deeply embedded.

Now I see the stars above the ocean, off the home beach, very late at night. Before midnight. Shining, even a glimmer off the water. The endless wind is blowing, and the palm tree branches are all pointing towards the mountain range. Everything seems very far away. It's noisy and quiet at the same time.

I need to go see the Pacific. I have no idea how I'll make this happen: we're just not in a position to travel so far. And although all ocean is one ocean, the Atlantic is just not the same. Even the smell is different.

I throw this out, then, to the notobject, to the Field, to the great forces: I need to go home. Or at least to California, to walk on the beach and talk to Mama Pacific.

what do you need to hear tonight?

Do you need to hear that it will get better? It will. Pain comes and goes; just ride the waves: don't focus on the pain. Think of yourself as a surfer: you're sitting on your board, and waves are moving up and down beneath you.

Do you need to hear about clarity? It will come again. You'll be doing what you do best, and you will be challenging yourself. The fog rolls in over the ocean; you think you're lost. But fog burns off (it always happens). And you'll look around yourself and you will see where you are.

Do you need to hear about solace? It will be here; it may already be right in front of you. Obscured by the fog and the rain, or by too much light off the water: you will see it, and reach for it.

Or it will touch you, gently, when you least expect it. Softly, easily. No pressure, but a sudden comfort.


Surrender to the ocean. Surrender to the movement of life through you. Surrender to each moment.

A bit confused tonight....

..with the rains moving in and out (hail! yesterday and today! in April, Goddess help us), and strong winds blowing through, there is no solidity, no root going down deep into the earth. It's a time of deep movement, of realignment. The moon turns Friday, and we're going back up along the spiral, adjusting and adjusting, until we come to our next place of rest.

Ask yourself: am I where I want to be? or, if not quite, am I moving in the right direction? Am I surfing the flow, or am I swimming into the waves? Am I out of my depth? or does it feel right, what's down below me?

Think in terms of water. Think about the flow, and where it seems to be heading. Feel it through. Use all of your senses, as well as your internal compass. This turn is one of the most important of the year. You can adjust your direction; you can take that surfboard of yours over to another set of waves. You have choice; you have your will.

Be free in the waters, my dears.

My friend is right

...we are all sea creatures. We can up from it, and our bodies are mostly water. I don't know the details, but our blood's saltiness is very similar to that of sea water.

I grew up on the ocean. My second childhood home was right on the beach. Some mornings the family would get up really early and go swimming. I remember as an older child going swimming during storms -- yes, young and dumb -- yet it was thrilling and delighful; the pattern of the waves was choppier than usual, and body-surfing was a different challenge. And it was water everywhere: water coming down, water underneath: a feeling of opening wings, and flying.

After a very rough morning..........

I seem to have reached some stability tonight. Thank the nonobject.

Today I'm actually grateful for the stupid rain. I can feel how the plants are just absorbing the water. The lone tulip will blow open again tomorrow afternoon and be waiting for me when I come home.

Somehow tonight I feel like I'm in my solitary boat in the ocean, seeing the shore from a great distance. I'm not a sea creature -- I belong on land. I need to walk the streets of cities, and up the paths of woods. I can sit quite happily on the beach and wave to them out on boats. There's a sense of bobbing up and down, not comfortable, but obscurely something I need to learn. I'm out here for a reason (there's always a reason). Perhaps I need to learn to read the seaweed? or the waveforms? Or commune with the stars -- second-best place to see them, on the ocean at night: utter best, to me, is in the mountains. UP as high as possible.

Yes, now here is peace for me: the stars at night.

Starting to rain

and I'm grieving, too. Little lost tears from nowhere.

DD and I did some garden work today, taking out dandelions with the magnificent Garden Claw. We're going to dry the roots and use them for tea. Since there's been no poison used ever in the garden (except on the patio for the weeds), these roots will be very nourishing come fall.

We've still planted nothing. I'm going to have to get my herbs from Whole Wallet, since there's no way I'll make it out to DeBaggio Herbs in deepest Virginia in time. I still want to get my tomato plants from them; so many kinds it's both dizzying and delightful.

I'm looking forward to a productive week at work. Finally managing my own line, Quantum Herbs. I love the products so it will be fun to get to know the line.

And this is the week I make my cards: psychic and healer cards. To distribute wherever. I need, for my ownself, to be out there more.

Do your breathing, my dears, and I'll be back tomorrow.

16 days! How cool!

Thanks to the woman who suggested at her blog that we all post for 37 days.


Back when I started this blog, I was pretty insistent that we all spend time outside. (It was summer at the time.) Now, in the DC area, we are in deep Spring. And it's vivid outside: green of many shades, cardinals passing through, robins by the metric ton, dandelions everywhere.

We forget that we're mammals. We evolved to be in the natural world. A lot of us go from car, to work, to car, to home, and barely feel the outdoor temperature. It is really important for our health -- physical, emotional, spiritual -- to spend time outdoors. Even those of us who are pressed for time can stand at the door of the car and breathe for a few minutes. Better still is a walk through a natural setting. Bloomingwriter (bloomingwriter.blogspot.com) has a post dated 16 April 2009. about Pine Grove in Nova Scotia which if anything else should convince you. Our oldest cathedrals are outdoors: think of Yosemite in the United States, a holy place if there was ever one. The Great Plains speak to our savannah heritage. My all-time favorite, still, even after Yosemite, is Rocky Mountain National Park, a few hours north of Denver.

Yes, this post is all over the place. But everywhere we travel, whether the Chesapeake Watershed or Northern California, there is holy space for us mammals to experience.

Go outdoors and breathe. Please. You'll be much better for it.

Throbbing headache..

..and a major Mood. A blend of cranky, depressed, angry, and grieving. So not fun. So tonight, alas, This is It.

I just can't put myself aside long enough to reflect on anything --- even myself.

So, tomorrow, eh?

Be well, my dears.

Not grief, not tonight

...I feel too good. Encouraged, really. When I'm talking about the aesthetics of anything -- TV especially these days; comparing Battlestar Galactica to Heroes, for example -- I am happily, deeply engaged. The conversation can segue into other topics, but I'm (re)discovering that this is another core piece for me: the visual.

So it's spirituality, visual arts, and music. And food. And nature. That seems to be enough to keep one woman occupied for her life, wouldn't you think?

What a nice braid.

Nope, no preaching nor advice tonight: rather self-discovery, self-affirmation. This is who I am.

And all will be well, and all manner of things will be well......

Grief

I've been dipping in and out of grief lately: unexplained, for no (apparent) reason, deep. It's a pressure behind my eyes, a heaviness in my tearducts, a compression in my lungs. I'd like to cry, but at most I can well up. Rarely does a tear slip out onto my face.

It's complicated, since much of it isn't mine, or directly related to me. It's not the black dog, either: that's a separate state. A heaviness: so much death and suffering around me. Not a battlefield, but a hospital. And there's nothing, nothing I can do to help directly: except, perhaps, suffer alongside. Take some of the heaviness: lift it up. I can carry a lot. I do think it's part of my job, my assignment, in this lifetime: to carry some of this for other people (not everyone, not all the time, or I would be a pancake rather than a person).

I'm not in this feeling all my day: I'm a fairly merry person at work. But the wave comes up; and really my best option is to feel it, and let it go. Release it, when I can. Know that this is helpful, to someone somewhere, so I'm useful.

More tomorrow, from a different perspective: what is this? and what do we do with it?

the power of nourishment

Another important lesson for me. Today I spoke to a woman, significantly older than I am, who was vibrant and so alive. Her teaching? The morning green drink. After work (don't ask, but thanks for the thought), I went to the organic market to pick up vegetables. Tonight, I cooked a Thai vegetable dish -- oh, mushrooms, bok choy!, lime juice, coconut milk, garlic!, the endless pleasure -- and devoured two servings. Now, I feel great. My circumstances haven't changed one jot. But my body is happy, since it was properly fed.

Proper feeding. What is that for you? What food makes you happy after you've eaten it? What really gives your body what it needs? For me, sometimes it's a big piece of dead animal -- I love a rare steak like nothing else. I'm also learning the vegetable teaching: lots of them make me happy, too.

depression...........

....can be just a lack of food. At least for me. Had a horrible day at work. Came home dragging and slept for a while. Finally, after dinner...........I perked up. Hadn't eaten all day.

Not very inspiring, I know, but it's what I've got tonight.

Regularity

...seems to be a key to the visioning process. Someone wrote, "Be regular in your life that you may be wild and uncompromising in your art" or something like that. (Turgenev?) I'm finding that a regular job, with hours and duties having nothing to do with my mystical life, seems to provide a basis for the visions. Now, to add regular exercise and regular food.

The more stable I become, the easier it is to allow the top of my head to open and new information to pour in. Or just let the top off, and suddenly I'm out there, amongst the stars, in the river of truth and joy.

Or something. Still figuring it out.

a very late start.....

...to whichever day it is.

There is a beautiful wind of energy blowing through the mid-Atlantic right now. I hope it's blowing through your world, too. Open, clear, pure, this wind blows the cobwebs and the worries out of your heart, leaving only an expansive feeling behind it. You're drifting, quiet and serene, along with this energy. Your heart will stay expanded for a few days, and there's be a continuing sense of expansion.

Be well, my dears.

Only my commitment......

....to 37 days brings me to the keyboard tonight. My sciatic nerve is on my right leg is talking to me. A long day spent too much at the desk. (Oh, German sentence construction, I hardly knew ye.) Nonetheless, wave upon wave of joy during the day. Did some heavy space clearing at the beginning of my work day and I was grinning. One of my etheric clients needed a session, and those are full of love. Full moon lasts for three days, and tonight is the third.

Daughter is "making a complete mess" (her words) so I need to clean it up. Be well, get some rest, hydrate: you know the drill.

Tomorrow, I will be coherent.












PS. Sorry about the postus previa earlier. And for my lousy Latin.

After a very social evening...........

Passover was great, thanks for asking. Lots of laughing, people doing shtick, drinking deep of the red wine. I don't think I'm particularly social, and I love a good meal with fun, intelligent people.

Sometimes I get antisocial. I just want to hunker down and be left alone, dammit. Some of it is healthy: the desire of this organism to be out of the social group, re-discovering who I am in relation to the notobject and to myself. Other times, it's an attempt to not feel or think about things.

If you're feeling antisocial, try to figure out why. Look out the window, take a few deep breaths, and let the feelings come up. If they feel too uncomfortable, please know: it really is better for you to feel those feelings, let them flow through you, than to push them down. It's a lesson I'd love for you to learn by trying it out now, than to go through the suffering of discovering this through hard experience.

I have a dear friend whose primary mode is the mind. ("Feelings, Spock?") But lightning sheets of feeling go through him, too, and I believe that he feels them and lets them go. No matter what your primary mode is -- feeling, thinking, sensing, perceiving (go re-read your Jung) -- you can feel your way out of an anti-social period.

And sometimes, of course, an antisocial period is the psyche's way of protecting you against the depridations of the world. That's another subject..........

Happy Passover!

In honor of this family, which DH and DD celebrate (I come along for the ride and the CHOCOLATE COVERED MATZOH for dessert -- oh *sigh*), there will be only these few words from me today.

Eat, celebrate freedom, sing. Get plastered on good red wine. Enjoy!!

love, Duffi

Day 5...the Empowering Haircut

What, hair? Oh, yes. For David Cook fans, there is The Haircut Heard 'Round the World. Changed his life, that's for sure. Remember, all you older readers, when Jon Bon Jovi cut his hair? We felt betrayed! But now, eh, guy looks good.

For women, the issue is more complicated. Will "he" (or "she") like my hair? Too long? Too short? Too butch? Too femme? Aw, hell, I'll just shave it. Simpler anyway. For me, a shaved head would put me right in the monastic caste, and no thank you ma'am, been there, done that. Or tried to.

So, DH loved my hair long. So long past reason, I kept it that way. Until one day a few weeks ago, I was just sick of it. Looked terrible, half grey, half bottle blonde. (All honor to bottle blondes of all sexes and descriptions. Blonde is my favorite me.) So I wandered into an Aveda and found myself in the hands of a genius: Robin, who's family, to whom I revealed some secrets I hadn't spoken in years, and who, when she saw I wasn't happy with what she'd done -- a reverse bob, short in the back and long in front, had that one before, a good if dull cut -- became very very quiet, and...kept cutting. And cutting.......

Now it's very short in the back and I have bangs. Lots of texture everywhere. My hair, always fine and thin, feels thick and full. This haircut makes me feel tall and thin. Powerful. Attractive. And if I fix it up differently, I can go from Chevy Chase matron, to ... motorcycle darlin'. A fierce haircut for a fierce time of life. I totally, totally love it.

As does DH. So it worked out. Change can be very, very good.

Resting in the Field

A small meditation:


Rest on your back on a comfortable surface. Let your knees and neck be well supported; your legs uncrossed, your arms resting comfortable at your sides. Close your eyes and begin to breathe, slowly, in through your nose and out through your mouth. Let your breath find it's own rhythm.

When you feel ready, imagine that the bed underneath you is moving, very subtly and gently, in a slow wave-like motion, from your head to your feet. Find the slow rhythm in this movement, and rest there. Continue to breathe. Allow your muscles and your bones to sink into this slow, subtle, gentle movement.

If you like, you can fall asleep. If not, when you feel complete -- and this can take as long as you like -- allow the movement to die down and the bed to feel stable again. Pull your arms in towards your torso. Wiggle your toes and your fingers. Slowly, slowly open your eyes.

When you decide to sit up, roll over onto your side first, and rest there for a moment; then sit up, using your arms -- not your back -- to move you to an upright position.

Day 3.............The Field;

the Force; God/dess; Atman; Allah. Whatever.


I perceive a dynamic, ever-shifting, multidimensional notobject that both surrounds us and is us. The ocean is the closest physical manifestation I can see: always moving, always changing, restless, peaceful sometimes, vast to our tiny human eyes, and always inarguably itself.

This is what I love: that notobject. It's compassionate, it knows I need personality: so I get guides, angels, Large Beings, animals, even fields of stars. I feel unutterably, immensely safe when I am aware of It/Them. Not the kind of denial-fueled safe that whispers in my ear that nothing "bad" will ever happen to me; but the kind of safe that's rhythmic, nuanced: I can handle what happens -- death, divorce, the ripping-apart of the environment -- because I'm in touch with the deepest, highest, most Elemental of elemental forces.

Music is better for this than language. I don't make music, I have words. So I cast Indra's Net into the ocean of English, and bring up a few sparkling fish.


May these fish feed you, too.

Death: an approach........

........like running, screaming, in the other direction?

No, seriously.

I have the sense that it's harder for those of us left behind than those of us in the process itself. I've been around a number of deaths, and like other things that I knew nothing about, the process was much less scary than I thought it was. It's a natural process, like a plant growing, or the kitchen scraps decomposing into the compost. Part of the Great Cycle (as the Buddhists call it).

It's my perception that we individual souls continue, that we are reborn again and again. I'm still fumbling through the details, but it feels really clear that I've known some people "before," and some of those people and I have been following each other around for many many lifetimes.

In modern American culture, we still try to segregate death into hospitals and nursing homes (though this is changing, thank goodness). We isolate what we're afraid of.

Disjointed thoughts, since the bronchitis has staked its claim on my lungs and I'm now starting the work of uprooting it before it becomes a long-term guest. Muddled metaphors tonight.

Be well, my dears, and tomorrow is Day 3.

37 days

thanks to midlifeclarity.blogspot.com for this.

I'm following the 37 days protocol and posting daily for that period of time. Given all the death around me, and how I've both entered in and avoided it, it feels like a useful and supportive discipline. I'm marking it into my We'Moon calendar when I sign off.

Here's the rationale:

http://37days.typepad.com/37days/2005/01/why_37_days.html

Now, as for me: sick again, though the herbal concoction that I'm taking is blasting away at it. Going to see Watchmen this afternoon: very very excited. Happy to have a day off, to sleep, to rest (different things, those), to play.

I love the quiet. No computer games in the background, no music, just the drip of rain and the birds. Oh, does my soul need this. I know I "need" to do more spiritual work this weekend, but right now it's about the quiet, the movie, dinner out, and more quiet.

This isn't dull (she said defensively), it's nurturing for me.


Be well, my dears, and I'll post again tomorrow. What a concept.