Tuesday, February 25, 2014

The Rites of Spring



Romantic love was never my best thing. The men I was drawn to were so wrong for me. I wonder about that. Why? What was I thinking?

During my 20s and 30s my goal was The One, the Soul Mate, True Love. It was a charming fantasy that didn't pan out. Sometime during my 30s I shifted gears, to the idea that I should be looking for security and stability. This is why I married my ex husband, because he had a beautiful house and money. He was an interesting man but deeply haunted. I knew it when I married him but thought it was a reasonable trade off.

Well. That didn't work out! Oh my god.

What would I even want from a boyfriend at this point, now that I'm in my 60s? He most certainly wouldn't have to be The One - for heaven's sake, is there such a thing for a character like me? I doubt it! And I've lived so many years on my own, I no longer think in terms of finding someone else to provide stability. Stability? What's stability?

Marriage? I am not at all concerned about that either. Been there, done that, have the big diamond as a souvenir.

It would be nice to have someone to make dinner for, watch movies with. It would be great to have someone to take to parties - I'm often the only single person in a sea of couples. I'm very comfortable among my friends and neighbors who are almost all of them married, with kids, but wouldn't it be nice to show up at social fetes with a date now and again? My friends would be astonished. It would almost be worth it for that. How fun would it be if I had someone to go to Paris with?

It's all in the realm of my imagination of course. I'm thinking about it because I can sniff spring in the air even though it snowed today and is pretty cold. The angle of Brother Sun can not be denied, and even at my age, I can feel the energy of spring. I surely can.

As it snowed I listened to Mozart, gazed out the window, drank tea. My mind spun out a variety of narratives as I sat, waiting impatiently for spring.

Tomorrow I'll be working, a great thing because when I work, I think about the person I'm working with, not about my lifelong blind spot when it comes to romantic love. I'm not feeling sorry for myself at all, by the way. It's more of an amusement, this train of thought.

Winter has been long, bitter, and severe. Spring fever is already biting my butt. Oh yeah!



Monday, February 24, 2014

See a vision



I'm still thinking about, and in awe of, whatever it was that passed over DC on Saturday. It was quite a celestial dignitary. All the pictures here today are of the combination of clouds and sun dogs that graced the sky on a beautiful, unnaturally warm February day.

Watching this magnificent being I was reminded of the only time I ever saw the Northern Lights. It was not a spectacular showing, I should say right off the bat. It was not nearly as beautiful as Saturday's celestial dignitary. But it was still beautiful - and powerful. The ritual at witch camp that evening involved a walking labyrinth. The campers walked in and out of the labyrinth while we priestesses stood at various locations, whispering Very Powerful messages in their ears as they passed us. It was my task to whisper, "See a vision" to each ritual participant. I probably said it 100 times. By the end of the ritual, I was as entranced as the campers. What a mantra! What a chant! See a vision. In some way, the mantra settled into my being. It "took." I've been seeing visions ever since!

When the ritual ended, a bunch of us sat outside for awhile gazing up at the sky over British Columbia. The stars were beautiful but there was something else, cloud like but certainly not a cloud. One of the Canadians confirmed it was the aurora borealis I was seeing. See a vision - indeed!

Last summer at Lake Canandaigua, I saw the Milky Way in technicolor. It was so dark where we were - out in the boonies - and the moon was dark, too. It was 3D I tell you. I'm sure I've never seen it so clearly before.

Clouds, stars, sky. There's almost never a time when looking up doesn't inspire or provoke insights of many different flavors. It is a wild blue yonder for sure! Want to see a vision? Look up!










Friday, February 21, 2014

Strange Days



It's a strange day astrologically, also a strange day in Washington DC. It is far warmer than it has been in months, stormy, turbulent and humid. Weird! The rain will wash away the remnants of the snow, but I wish I could send it to California where they really need it.

The weather above DC, as well as the conditions out there among the planets and stars, is unsettled. Naturally I feel unsettled, too. Spooked might be a better adjective.

This, too, shall pass. The planets will wander away from their current positions, the weather will pass through. No matter what is happening, it will not last forever is a piece of advice I've received from the Voice in the Shower many times. Oh yeah.

While I wait for the wave to pass, I will tuck into my practices, that is, feel my feet on the floor and the take note of the pull of gravity. I will breathe in and out of my heart, let myself be centered and calm. Even on a stormy day with tornado watches and crazy astrology, I can be gentle. This will help not only me but the clients I'm about to see this afternoon.

I'm not gentle all the time, of course, even now, even after all the practice. We are moody, soulful beings enacting the sacred dramas of our lives. No one can always be calm and gentle. I bet even the Dalai Lama has days when he struggles.

A perfect and everlasting state of grace is not an option, but I have to try, particularly on crazy, stormy days at the very end of winter.

Shalom.


Thursday, February 20, 2014

Paris is the Cary Grant of cities. --Voice in the Shower

Montmartre, where I'll live for a week at the end of April.




I have rented a flat in Montmartre for my week in Paris, halfway up the hill, two blocks uphill from Abbesses Metro stop. I have my flight itinerary on the iPhone Air France app. I paid for leg room on the way home, may buckle and throw more money at the red eye flight over. so I can at least cross and uncross my legs. What I'm thinking is, I'll be excited and won't notice that I can't feel my legs after a few hours. I arrive in Paris at 5:45 a.m. Will it really make any difference if I have leg room?

On the way back, it will be different. I'll be coming back to "real life," whatever that means.

It would be weird, wouldn't it, to be thinking of anything except my dream trip to Paris, a trip that appears as if it will at last come true? Well, wouldn't it?


Tuesday, February 18, 2014

Like someone in love



Everything hits me hard. Everything. I am, as my mother used to say, sensitive -- too sensitive, but good looking. It is one of my all time favorite descriptions. Hilarious.

My innate sensitivity is what makes me a good healer, a good listener (when I remember to listen, that is.) If I weren't too sensitive, how would I converse with ghosts, clouds, the stars, the planets, spirit guides and animal guides, trees, rocks, rivers and such? I value my sensitivity! I've worked hard over many years to refine and cultivate it. This is the shamanic lifestyle.

Being too sensitive has its drawback, naturally. What happens in my life has impact. I feel every little thing. Even a walk down to the coffee shop to chat with the crowd there can take on great meaning if I take time to look at it as if it were a dream. What would it mean, if life were a dream? (Life definitely is a dream, an ongoing, three dimensional divination tool unfolding before us. Believe me.)

One of my spirit guides told me long ago that mastery of shamanic sensitivity involves discernment. We have to figure out what merits scrutiny. I could stare at the lines in my hand all day, but will the insights I glean from that be helpful in any way?

There is not time to pay attention to everything, for heaven's sake. One must do the laundry, book clients, work, sit at the Matchbox bar. I'm sensitive, yes, but I can't delve into every little thing. It never works out when mystics tip all the way into the mysteries. It becomes a pathology.

I am not interested in that level of mysticism. Life as a human being is way too much fun to go off the deep end, if possible. As best I can, I use my powers of discernment and my instincts to decide what I should pay attention to. It's a bit hit or miss of course. Sometimes I'm sure that one event or another is worthy of attention, but it turns out to be a dead end. As the years pass, I get better.

Sometimes it's absolutely clear what merits attention, for instance this upcoming trip to Paris. I bought a ticket and am currently negotiating a flat to stay in while I'm there. This is momentous. I've been thinking about it for years, non stop. At last it is going to happen. Everything about it feels right.

I'm shaky and giddy, also filled with fear. When I feel this way in my body, that's a signal that the cause of the shaky, giddy fear is worthy of contemplation. It surely is!

I feel like I have fallen in love. It is really bizarre.


Monday, February 17, 2014

April in Paris



For at least the last couple of years, an ongoing, ceaseless yearning to visit Paris again has been buzzing in my heart. It was like background music - or tinnitus - because any time the idea came into my consciousness, I rejected it immediately. I can't afford to go to Paris! Relegated to the back burner, this yearning did not go away as I thought it would, but buzzed along, softly but insistently.

Last year when I turned sixty, the buzzing cranked up a notch or three. For a few days I seriously considered just buying a ticket and going. I was right on the verge. I'm grateful for the guidance, whether it was divine, cosmic or simply the voice of sanity, that helped me remember - before I pressed the BUY TICKET button on the Air France site - that being in Paris in February, alone, when everyone I love was somewhere else, was a Very Bad idea.

It took so much will power not to press that button even though Paris in February is gray, cold and gloomy, and I would have been alone, surrounded by Parisians who are formal and polite, but in general could live a long and happy life without encountering another American. That would not have been a great way to become sixty. No.

I didn't go, but since then, the calling to go has refused to be relegated to the back burner again. At New Year's this year my only resolution was to go to Paris. An almost single minded determination came to me, to figure out a way to go this year. The Voice in the Shower said only one thing on the subject: What are you waiting for?

I hear that a lot in the shower, now that I'm in my sixties.

Yesterday I bought my ticket. My hand shook as I at last touched the BUY TICKET button, but there was a smile on my face.

I've never been there in nice weather. It will likely rain but will be much nicer than in winter or in August. The biggest bonus is that very good friends from DC will be there. Hanging out with friends in Paris at the end of April? Yes, yes and YES. I have friends in London who could come over for a day as well. I think it's going to be pretty jolly.

But you know, I'm not going for fun. I don't want to stay "close to everything" as they say, or in a groovy neighborhood like the Marais. I want to be in a normal neighborhood that has one or two cafes and a Metro stop, maybe a food shop. I want to put my feet on the ground, walk around, sit and listen to people speak French. I want to visit L'Arc du Triomphe and take pictures of the Eiffel Tower. I need to gaze at Notre Dame and talk to the river. I have a deep need to reconnect with the land and the history.

I'm completely uninterested in the Death March of Culture through the Louvre, etc. That part of the city will be crawling with tourists. I wish to steer a clear path around all that, as much as possible, considering my desire to shamanically dance with some of the famous sites.

What is the source of this tremendous longing? That I can't say, but I feel in my heart of hearts that there is something waiting for me in Paris. I have to go pick it up in person.

I am so excited!


Saturday, February 15, 2014

After a clean break

Yesterday the sun was shining.


My birthday was wonderful. It snowed all day. Lovely snow, happy snow. Friends took me out for a drink, other friends made dinner and cake for me. It was great. And now, onwards and upwards!

I'm happy to say that the theme of divorce has ebbed in strength. I am grateful even though I know sometimes the only healthy choice is to make a clean break. So be it. I'm done with cake, haunted boyfriends and stalkers. Thank god!

In the wake of the break-ups and revelations, what I'm feeling is the strength of connections that prevail, even when times get tough, such as my relationships with my siblings, for instance.

This morning I was thinking about how pruning makes a tree healthier, more lively. I pluck brown leaves off my houseplants all the time. Destruction and release is part of the life cycle, impossible to avoid even if I wanted to. Why do I ever try to avoid it? Well, because breaking up is hard to do. It's uncomfortable and sad and bewildering. Sometimes, the last part of the cycle of life feels like a mistake or a problem, but it never is. Is it? Everything has a life span.

I've never been able to go backwards to what once was - I've tried, but have not succeeded. I am in general non-sentimental, maybe that's why. I don't yearn for the good old days. I don't even believe in the good old days as a historical reality. Right now are the good old days, right this second, even on a dreary late winter day in Washington DC where snow-like sleet is falling from a dark gray, flat, featureless overcast.

Today I'll work for awhile, cook, and if I get really inspired, I'll walk around the corner to drop off a thank you note to the friends who made dinner for me on my birthday. It's a low-key Saturday, quiet and calm. There is no pending divorce at hand and due to the weather, it's not an auspicious time to start anything new. Today is a lull in the ever changing cycle. All is well.

Shalom.



Thursday, February 13, 2014

The cake, the stalker and another one of those



The theme of healthy divorce continues. First I had to toss the old, moldy cake even though I wanted that cake, I really wanted cake from the Watergate. I've been thinking about it - why did I buy the cake anyway? I can get a momentum going sometimes. I tilt at life unless I remember it isn't necessary to lean in so hard and intensely. When I embarked on my episode with cake, I had romantic ideas about it. Those fantasies blinded me to the truth. The momentum picked up speed and became more than a sum of its parts. It didn't register, when I saw the Health Department sign, that I should reconsider my determination to have cake from the Watergate. I believed I was a lover of cake, that I HAD to complete my mission, no matter what. For heaven's sake. Why?

I always say cake is my favorite thing. I divorced that idea this week when I realized I'm actually very picky about my cake and it almost always gives me a stomach ache. I do not love cake! The divorce decree is final.



By chance the other day I ran into the woman who stalked me for a couple of years. She is such a lost soul. It took me awhile to recognize her. She seems all puffy, the way people get when they're taking psychoactive drugs. She was a client I really cared about. I got a bit too inside her story over time, hence failed to recognize how mentally ill she really was. Realizing the truth was a shock. Ending our relationship as client and massage therapist was appropriate. I referred her to other healers. I thought we were done. It was after that when she began stalking me. An ugly story. The amount of sheer energy it took to do all the things you have to do to be protected from a stalker was exhausting. The process was harrowing. I was anxious for two years. But eventually she ceased and desisted. I hear from her about once a year which is tolerable.

It was a beneficial divorce. May she find healing. Shalom.

Seeing the stalker reminded me that I'm not competent with people who are mentally ill. I can handle every kind of malady, every kind of bodily problem. I find the physical so interesting. But mental illness frightens me. Mental illness confuses me, which brings me to the final divorce decree of this momentous birthday week. I met someone, a man of the appropriate age, who was interested in me. It was thrilling as I haven't been asked on a date in years. He is just my type: brilliant, sensitive, charming and deeply haunted. Almost as soon as we became acquainted I saw the haunting. A couple of further interactions made clear that this is another case of cake from the bakery closed by the health department, edible perhaps but why take the chance? Just say no, Reya, just say no.

A medium told me once that I would meet many people with whom I have karmic contracts, but, as she said, You don't have to marry them! No marriage means no divorce is needed. Nip it in the bud.

I'm hoping that three divorces is sufficient for the time being. I have and will learn a lot from these experiences that queued up and unfolded, one after the other in quick succession, the week before my birthday. You can not schedule this kind of timing. It's part of the shamanic lifestyle.

However, today is my birthday. I would like to relax and have fun today. My original plan was to trudge over to Georgetown to pick up my birthday cake which, believe me, was not cheap. I will not be slogging through a foot of snow for cake. It's over between me and cake do you hear me? I am done with cake!

Amen.


Tuesday, February 11, 2014

It takes the cake.



What a crazy beautiful day this is. Sunshiny, clear, a light wind every now and then, temperatures in the 30s. I have the day off hence this morning I set out as soon as possible to taste the weather, to wander. The sky was intense, full of cirrus clouds that were radiant with presence. Do you know what I'm talking about? On days like today, I can't take my eyes off the sky.

It's not just beautiful. There's a sense of power in skies like DC's this morning. A storm of one kind of another is headed our way. Cirrus clouds foretell these things. In addition, in the Reyaverse, this kind of sky indicates that celestial dignitaries are swooping down close enough to get a look at us, or maybe transact some kind of business.







On my mind was my latest episode with cake. It's a long story not worth repeating. The quick version is that some cake I bought from the historic and once fabulous Watergate Pastries ended up in the garbage, not only because the shop was closed by the Health Department yesterday (though the door was open and the woman gladly sold me cake, the red sign was prominently displayed on the front door). The cake was old and tired. Why I bought the old cake even though I saw the Health Department sign is worthy of contemplation. I was under the spell of what once was, the Watergate Pastries of song and story. Even though clear evidence that that era had ended was right in front of my eyes, I proceeded to buy three slices. When I left the chateau, I was determined to buy cake. I wasn't going to let a little Health Department closure sign stop me.

I guess! As soon as I saw the shop was closed, I should have turned and walked away. But I went in and bought three slices, only to toss them out without even a taste.

This morning I was thinking of this as a piece of inadvertent performance art. Also wondering, it were a dream, what would it symbolize? I decided it pointed to the truth that, even though what's done is done, I can still hang on to my romantic illusions. The experience has the flavor of divorce to it, a wake up call. I'm now divorced from the idea that the Watergate is still glamorous, also from my self identity as a lover of cake. The truth is, I'm really picky, and most cake gives me a stomach ache even if it tastes good. I am not a cake person after all. I had to buy a lot of cake, then even throw cake away, to get it. But I did open my eyes to a different version of "the truth." There are many truths!




There's some kind of parable in all this, I'm sure of it. Until I can find suitable language to describe it, I will continue to wonder. This is the way of life.

Shalom.



Monday, February 10, 2014

Breaking up is hard to do.

Cary and Irene Dunn in The Awful Truth






"The road to Reno is paved with suspicions." --Cary Grant's character in the film The Awful Truth

Is there such a thing as a friendly divorce? It's interesting to think about. Marriage is one ritual that really "takes," even in our post ritualized society. When people get married - most people - they mean to stick it out. Taking marriage apart is rough, even when it's the right course of action.

But the legal agreement between two people, to become family, isn't the only kind of marriage. Plenty of people are married to their work. People are married to their values and ideals. There are also community marriages, as happens when people join organizations, clubs, churches or temples. Many friendships are like marriages, too, without the benefits, as they said in the nineties. (Is the term friends with benefits still in use?)

Hence there are many kinds of divorce. I've been legally divorced twice. Though both of those divorces were amicable, they were not pleasant experiences. What is amicable divorce anyway? At the end of both marriages, my ex husbands and I knew it was over and agreed to move ahead with the divorces, but it wasn't fun getting through it, it surely was not.

When I left the Reclaiming community and cut ties with most of the people, it was like a divorce. It was far more acrimonious than when I divorced my ex husbands. My ex-Reclaiming cohorts blamed me, I blamed them. The finger pointing and accusations were intense. I cried, raged, grieved. It took me years to get over the split. Now I have almost nothing but fond memories of that time, but oh the breakup was harrowing.

One of the saddest kinds of divorce is when a friendship passes its expiration date. As an Aquarian, my friends are everything to me. Still, everything has a lifespan and when it becomes clear that a friendship is no longer viable, splitting up is heartbreaking even though necessary.

I'm thinking about it in part because of the recent end of a friendship that was not working on any level, also because in three of my favorite Cary Grant movies, the plot revolves around divorced couples who get back together. The films are The Awful Truth, Philadelphia Story and His Girl Friday. I love those movies! They are not romantic and fuzzy around the edges, they're not about falling in love, getting married and living happily ever after. They're about good friends who realize they want to be life partners. They know only too well each other's faults and flaws yet in the end they accept each other, warts and all. You can't go wrong watching any of them.

In real life, people don't split up as easily as in these movies, nor do they come back together so smoothly and glamorously. Ah but that's what the movies are for, right?

A blurry capture of Rosalind Russell and Cary in His Girl Friday

Wednesday, February 5, 2014

The Tao of Goldilocks



I remember when, in the midst of praying one day, I "heard" something that sounded like stop groveling. I was an excellent groveler at the time. I loved placing my teachers, lovers, and peers up on pedestals. I prostrated myself in front of the idols I worshipped. It was so unfair as these teachers, lovers and peers were as human as I was. My expectations were ridiculous. Oh my.

Next, I was told it was time to stop apologizing (unless an apology was called for). That was after I left the witchcraft community. I left ungracefully (some would say disgracefully) and owed many apologies. Once I started apologizing, it seems I couldn't stop, even when I had done as much apologizing as was warranted. I went on and on until one day the Voice in Shower said, Enough already with the apologies! 

After that it became clear that the disclaimers and explanations I habitually offered about my shamanic lifestyle were just another way of both groveling and apologizing. So I stopped the disclaimers, too. Now I'm hearing from my spirit guides and animal guides that I can become proud of my role as shaman and elder. That's a big step!

Pride is a quality that's discouraged in the society in which I live. It surely is. But my guides are not asking me to be arrogant. No. They told me that Pride is a harmonious virtue of body-mind-spirit, a triple faceted quality - not blended. It's interesting to think about. According to my guides, I embody this virtue sometimes but could embody it more often. It would behoove me to embody pride more often. This harmonious virtue will help me take the next steps in my work and in my life.

Hmmm.

"Take it on," said my Reiki teacher when we received the master attunement. She said, "You don't have to boast about it, but own it, please." She was urging us to integrate what had just happened, to allow this to become a part of us. I have silver hair, brown eyes and I'm a Reiki Master. No more, but no less either. That is the essence of the harmonious virtue of pride.

It's also a sublime example of the Tao of Goldilocks, something I've worked hard for many years to achieve. My life was, once upon a time, always too hot, too cold, too soft, too hard, too big and too small, but almost never just right. Really, almost never. When my life was too small, well, that's when I groveled, apologized and explained endlessly. When it was too big, I was bossy and cynical.

For years I bounced back and forth from too small to too big, from too much or too little of just about everything. Boing, boing, boing! It's exhausting to remember. Interesting to note that I felt OK about the times when my life was too small - one of those weird quirks I share with many women who love to diminish themselves on every level. I was proud to be deflated. When I realized my life had gotten too big and that I was going around officiously lecturing everyone on how they should be, I was always embarrassed. We're supposed to lose weight, be quiet, not cause trouble and remain small. We are definitely not supposed to get cocky, no. I'll be the first to admit that Lecturing Reya is no fun to be around, but shouldn't I have been alarmed to realize I'd been too small, too?

After ten years on the psychotherapeutic couch, over the many years of learning and teaching witchcraft, of going through a number of initiations, meditating every day and growing old enough to mellow out a little bit, I eventually learned there are many paths through this world that are not so extreme. It was a revelation.

I say with pride of the Goldilocks variety that I am a shaman, a Reiki master, a lover of cake, and many other things. I make mistakes as often as I do good deeds - no more, no less. The path of spirit is clear and my relationship with God is intimate, joyous and life sustaining.

Coming up on age 61, I am more at ease with the complicated mix of myself than I ever have been. Growing old is not easy, but it yields great rewards. I am grateful.

Shalom.


Tuesday, February 4, 2014

Let me eat cake.



Here in DC we have not seen any snow for awhile, and won't have to deal with any from the incoming storm. Rather a shame. I love snow, but this is normal for DC. It's going to rain: a cold rain that might include sleet. I'm telling you this winter has been mean.

But I'm feeling cheerful. I bought groceries today, my favorite thing. As I was shopping, I decided to give myself permission to eat cake every day from now until my birthday next week, if I want to. Cake is one of those wheat based foods that does not agree with me. I'm not allergic, hence sometimes I allow myself the pleasure, no matter the side effects, because I love cake. I really love cake. I even love the word cake.

Here is a picture of today's cake, a slice of vanilla with chocolate chips, from Whole Foods. It was adequate. Should I continue to search for cake, it's all uphill from here.



Last year, right before I turned sixty, I was kind of a wreck. I almost bought a ticket to Paris until my sanity returned, that is until I realized that spending my 60th birthday in Paris, in February, when everyone I love was not in that city, would have been a colossal waste of money, and depressing, too. I came so close to pushing the BUY TICKET button on the Air France site, you would not believe. But reason prevailed somehow and I ended up spending the day instead with a good friend here in DC, feasting, toasting, and taking a walk in the rain.

Coming up on age sixty one, I'm holding steady. In the wake of my nasty battle with H1N1 after the first of the year, I have remembered every day - so far - to be grateful for all the pleasures, dramas, traumas, aches and pains, big laughs and adventures that go along with living in a human body. I really did touch the grave when I was sick!

But I'm alive, completely well and completely whole, and I'm eating cake every day between now and my birthday next week. If I want to, that is. Only if I want to.

Life is good and I am grateful. Cheers.


Sunday, February 2, 2014

Three by Rita Dove, for Bridgid



Third Juror

between the lip
and the kiss
between the hand
and the fist
between rumor
and prayer
between dungeon
and tower
between fear
and liberty
always between

Fourth Juror

Cancel the afternoon
evenings mornings all
the days to come
until the fires
fall to ash
the fog clears
and we can see
where we
really
stand.

Twelfth Juror

why is the rose
how is the sun
where is first
when is last
who will
love us
what
will
save
us

Saturday, February 1, 2014

My favorite holiday



I love the beginning of February and every way in which people in the northern hemisphere celebrate the half-way point between winter solstice and spring equinox. I like the idea of Imbolc and calving and milk of course. I am dedicated to the being called Bridgid or Brigid or St. Briid or the Goddess ... she is an entity of many names and forms. I love them all. Hence every celebration of the Feast of Bridgid works for me. I like the idea of Candlemas, of course and Groundhog Day is excellent. I even like the movie.

I could go on about the holiday, maybe I'll write more tomorrow because I so adore it. What I'm thinking about today is another important early February anniversary. Thirty five years ago today, a Southern Pacific freight train hit the car I was driving. I'm wondering about my subsequent days of unconsciousness in the hospital. Was I in a coma? I don't know. The doctors probably didn't know either - neurological medicine in 1979 was crude in comparison to where it is now. After I woke up, which happened spontaneously, the nurses said repeatedly: "You're so lucky to be alive!" They also said, "We didn't know if you would wake up."

It was my call to shamanism, perfectly in line with the way shamans have been called for one hundred thousand years - at least. I was called, but it took me many years to take in what had happened to me. If I lived in a society where shamanism was accepted - as it has been in most societies all over the planet throughout history - someone would have noticed this was a spiritually meaningful event as well as a nasty collision between Datsun and freight train. Someone would have lined me up with a teacher right away.

I'm not complaining that it took me years and a lot of searching to find teachers, to accept spiritual guidance and to learn that my path is not about being powerful, or becoming more powerful, whatever that means. Step by step and year by year, I trained. Now that I've been doing it consciously and willingly for so many years, I'm starting to get pretty good at it. Shamanism is a life long art to learn, it surely is.

One of the things associated with the Feast of Bridgid is inspiration. I do feel inspired. It's February. It's the year of the Green Wood Horse. The moon is waxing and so are the hours of daylight. My energy and wholeness are at full capacity. I am inspired.

Shalom.