Category Archives: Family

Family, Health, Learning, Spiritual

Harmony and Bliss

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Some places just feel different.

Like memories of grandmother’s kitchen – either of them, a warm place filled with love, hope and dreams.

Focusing on only the positive places of these for a moment, there are many that are commonly feeling – that everyone can share that same positive feeling about.

Vestibules of churches, usually have this feeling – from all the weddings, services and general positive energy that has passed through them over time.

I know that part of what makes these places feel different is concerted effort, but its also just daily routine of consistency. Energy flows, and if it repeatedly flows through a place in harmony then the place will have a harmonic feeling to it.

Much like if you paint over a wall green for long enough, eventually the wall becomes green, the essence and sense of green.

I’m not certain what I expected to find coming to India, I had a friend tell me as a well wishing as I was on the flight here, she hoped I found what I was seeking. I really didn’t understand that I was seeking, but I do now.

Sometimes the best things in life are the ones that stop and run you over like a happy wave of positive emotion.

I love it here. Its crowded, and bustling, and my rational mind can think of all sorts of not pleasant things to describe the reality of it here. My heart however, is so busy soaring, that it refuses to allow my mind to take root with any of those things.

When I return home, I’m certain the reality of the specifics will bend its will around me once more, but for now, for this brief moment of respite, I will embrace and indulge in the harmony and bliss I feel utterly swept up and contained within.

It feels like a comforting warm blanket of hope and possibility. I keep finding incredible irony in the fact that this city is just as crowded as NY was, and I do not feel engulfed and swallowed here, I feel embraced.

We did sight seeing yesterday. Its a festival time here in Pune now, and there are decorations all around, so many people all dressed up and happy, moving from place to place.

We sat in the hotel lobby yesterday morning after breakfast, and enjoyed people watching. There was a large baby shower gathering in the hotel conference center, and it was wonderful to watch all of the people arrive to the hotel dressed up and in local attire.

There were children running screaming and playing in the lobby, and I was caught up in the moment of enjoying it, rather than feeling that overwhelming sense of dread that someone should be scolding them. I looked around, and the adults, they were just allowing the children to be children, and this was such a profound sense of rightness to me.

We went shopping, I got to haggle — not something I find particularly enjoyable — and apparently made good trades. I found so many wonderful and beautiful things, we shopped, toured, and explored all around Pune.

We had lunch at this chain Indian Barbecue style restaurant, where they put the charcoal in the middle of the table, the food was great, and we ate far far too much. The vegetarian options seem to be something I’m actually enjoying significantly more, and they are just so much more prevalent in abundance.

The next stop was a coffee shop, a local version of a Starbucks, on a cobble style street, with very high steps, as this area apparently floods in the rainy season – which the humidity here attests is stretching to linger a few weeks longer than normal. P was sweating buckets in a few of the places in which we shopped, I personally have found the temperature, all be it very humid, not uncomfortable. Its warm, but the air moves, and there is not a stifling sense in the air. Even when the air is still, there is a sense of well being, hope and abundance that permeates the air. Permeates the soul.

We did a tour of the city from air conditioned vehicle, I will explore out a bit more later this week, to walk some of the pathways. It was nice with the car though, we paused at some of the many many temples and shrines, and there were many opportunities to say a quick silent prayer to the goddess for continued enlightenment.

So many things struck me as heart and soul warming. So many sights, from the bustle and sheer insanity of the roads, where people sneak by with a quick friendly (yes I did say Friendly) tap on the horn to say “I’m here and I’m passing”.. to the families riding on a small small motor bike, pressed 3-4 deep with out helmets, in close full regalia for the festival. The traffic is, well I’m very glad not only for the perspective of having very very experienced drivers to navigate us around; on the opposite side of the road — thats another thing, the driver being on the other side of the car, is unusual enough, but watching them cross across traffic to get to the other side road is a little bit terrifying. It feels much like a real life version of Mr.Toads Wild Ride – and yet somehow, even in the midst of all of this craziness of the traffic, the roads being 3 lanes and cars being piled 4 and 5 lanes deep using the lines as a mere guideline of where to separate — Somehow even through all of this, the sense of overwhelming peace and harmony pervades.

Not saying that it would not be possible to try and maintain some other sense, I’m certain it might, but the cost and tax on the level of energy would far exceed any potential desire I could muster to do that.

India gets into your skin, the smiles and the true connection – the sheer compassion for humanity, its just overwhelming in a very positive and harmonious way.

I am truly blessed to have been afforded this opportunity to travel here, and this experience will remain with me. And while I recognize that I am experiencing this from a very sheltered angle only, I can’t help but feel that this is one of the most uplifting and positive experiences I have ever been able to experience in travel.

My heart is happy to be here, and I am truly deeply in love with India.

Family, Health, Learning, Spiritual, Stream of Consciousness

Happiness

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What is happiness?

Happiness is a dog laying casual attentive by the front door, wagging where his tail would have been before it was docked, froggy doggy style (yeah look it up) barking at the squirrels, the people, the nature and the sounds of life.

Happiness is a after happy hour is over happy hour with your brother and reconnecting as best friends after years of separation, over mutual discussion and enjoyment of beer. Him wanting the beer rep glasses, the waitress being a two timing hussy and trying to take them and his sister smiling as she was told to bring them back to her brother. Naked eyes undressing all the people around the place, as calmly melting sexual energy into a glass of quite tasty beer.

Happiness is a 20 minute work out at 6.0 with a 2 incline, where you can’t really breath for 2 minute intervals, and you feel like your going to die from the pressure, but you keep panting away while talking to a friend on the phone also working out. Work-out partners by proxy.

Happiness is waking up from a drunken hangover and realizing you might not have irreparable damaged one of your best long time friendships by drunk texting in a sad lonely stupor. And still clutching your sore but not spasming calf that decided to charlie horse, at 3am when you decided to get up and pee half drunk half already hung over and falling out of the bed.

Happiness is waking up before your mother, who expected you fully to halfway blow her off but is pleasantly surprised by both you calling, and waking her up to take her to breakfast and share some of your joys with new found culinary delights, and watching the young children play carefree at the restaurant. Then heading for some much needed discussion, and chatter.

Happiness is a 2 hour yoga class that brings perspective, clarity and harmony with direction and purpose, and reminds you that always meeting your needs, provides happiness.

Happiness is blissful awareness that your needs are being met, and are planned for, provided for and while ever changing are not some distant ambiguous unattainable toll that never gets met.

Reminder to myself that I need more happiness in my life.

Reminder to myself that happiness is all around me in my life.

Family, General, Health, Learning, Spiritual, Stream of Consciousness

Shake it up

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Song comes to mind “Shake it off” by Taylor Swift — I seem to be doing A LOT of this lately.

Even as I type this…. sometimes, I’ve found and I’m trying to learn — its best to keep the personal diatribes to yourself.

Sufficed to say, I was a bit too outgoing with my thoughts, and ended up with more work.

On the one conversation, the work might be productive, and end up resolving the issue, however its messy and annoying and will be uncomfortable throughout the process.

On the other conversation, the outcome is just annoying, and it left me more frustrated then resolved. Now not only do I have this thing I want to hash out, but I have the drama associated with having let someone else in on the information.

People, generally are annoying. I’m not saying they suck or don’t suck – they both suck and don’t suck as may or may not be applicable and appropriate at one time or another — I mean I know I suck sometimes — I did cut in line in front of that guy, and pretend that it might have actually been my turn, even though I knew it wasn’t really my turn. I did say that thing that was brash and blunt and caused the person to be annoyed, frustrated or hurt. I’m not exempting myself from the annoying and sucking or not sucking part.

Just having one of those days, that I wish I were a squirrel. Let the pup out a few minutes ago, and as I was talking him into doing his business — yes you heard me correctly, he likes to be persuaded, otherwise, he will play the game of “Oh oh I need to go now, no wait…. Oh oh , its now… no … maybe…” for the next few hours. So I was persuading him to do his business.
When a squirrel on the other side of the fence all the sudden started chirping at me.

I feel like I need to chirp at someone. Just you know, sorta let it all out – not in specific context, just let myself be freed from the annoyance, frustration, and indecision.

Open myself to the infinite possibility of being in the moment, and realizing that none of the other stuff matters. Sure it seems like OMGITHASTOBETHISWAYORELSE … but really, in reality — and I do mean True Reality. It doesn’t matter.

Yellow will still be yellow, and pink will still be pink, and the sun will still rise in the east… Infinite cosmic power, itty bitty living space.

Breathe.

So it was another day, I got to hear from a very good friend of mine today, and listen in on her dramas. Sometimes, well often in fact, its nice to do this … Just sit back and listen, and be thankful that the experiences of others are not mine. Both for the challenges and the triumphs… not mine. Mine are my own, unique, and utterly insignificant to others 😉

Human, the ultimate spec of dust.

I did have a funny epiphany on the way home – as I was suffering with a mean mean case of emotional eating craving… I think that needs an acronym going forward.. EEC, yeah I had a bad case of EEC. What a world it would be if I could turn my compass, and direct my EEC at exercise instead of eating. I’d be the most fit person in the whole world. Maybe this is what my friends – the ones I’ve dubbed “fitness nuts” are really doing – maybe there is some secret power to re-form that EEC… I remember snip-its — yes I’m getting old — of a scifi episode where the were a mutation re-writing dna and mutating people into other things… maybe I just need that thing-a-may-bobber to change my filter from food to fitness… from hungry to healthy… from weight (the belly type) to weight (the lifting type)… Flab to Fit… hrmmm amazing how many of the letters are so close together… why has this never occurred to me before?

It must be another one of those imaginary lies… you know the type … I have had many in my history… maybe emotional eating really used to be emotional exercise, but people were having heart attacks or pulling muscles, and so they decided “just eat away that pain”… hrmmm I can’t even fathom how that could have occurred, but imagination is a wonderful thing.

Will have to give this some more thought.

Books, Family, Health, Learning, Spiritual

In the moment

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Published 2 old drafts that had kept me from progressing. Listening to a book these days… very good book actually, through Audible, that basically reminded me that when you figure out something that you are supposed to be doing, and are passionate about, your the only person that keeps yourself from doing it.

So I’m doing it.

Habits and patterns are tenuous things – they sprawl around in our lives, causing all types of action and consequence.

Harnessing the good ones, and minimizing the bad ones, or overwriting them is what I’m working on now. Its sort of like clearing out the rubble before you can plant a garden.

I wonder how people do that every year without feeling the frustration I’m feeling now. How do you clear out the same space over and over again, and feel empowered by the effort instead of kicking yourself while your down.

That concept of fake it till you make it only takes you so far, I’m very good at faking it – Yeah Baby. I don’t want to fake it, doesn’t really serve me.

This book, it helped me seize the day, the moment for a brief moment in time, and I realized how far far away from it I was…. stepping into that whoosh feeling of being connected to the universe, and spirit, and creation — and I was crying. Realizing how much I’d missed that… Its a simple thing for me, to step back into that moment, I know precisely how to take myself there in a breath, a heartbeat….. but I get so distracted by the mundane, I had failed to realize how truly long it had been before I’d frolicked in that moment for a bit.

I consciously spent many hours pushing myself back into it over the course of this week, and I am feeling so much better, its hard to understand why I continue to let myself drift away from it.

The glitz and glamour of the distractions I guess…. Shiny Treasures. So so easily distracted, its a wonder I can stay focused on anything – including this post – for more than a few moments.

About to be an Aunt – for the 5th time, but somehow this time feels alot more like the first, I wasn’t so close to any of my other nieces & nephews births or wee lives, and they all live a distance from me even now. Plus being able to share in the joy of these two is … priceless. Its such a magic thing, and I am hopeful to see that sweet little angel soon.

This is an odd year, 2015. Its a culmination of a 2 year growing cycle, and as I reflect upon this I see some of the correct paths I’ve trod, and some of the less beneficial ones I’ve dabbled along. Spirit has sent me many guides and messengers to let me know that I’ma bout to embark upon the next 2 year cycle, and I’m very very curious.

We have some strange things afoot at the Casa this year – things I’ve been wishing and hoping for over the past few cycles, will likely come to fruition this year. Its a little overwhelming and frightening to be honest; its always amusing to me how I put these large goals up on a height, and then tirelessly work towards them, only to be scared to death once I actually get close to achieving them. Its like my consciousness is this naysaying ninny, that has no faith in my subconscious and ability to manifest. I_Know_I_Can_Manifest. I have done it so many countless times in my life, the only thing I lack is focus.

I’ve read many times about people learning the bow and arrow, and how you focus, you have to clear your head and be the target, same with firing a gun I’d imagine, but something about firing a gun still feels very very wrong to me. Gunpowder is not meant to kill people. That focus, that single minded intent of clearing your mind, centering your breath, stilling your body and being one with the target, in order to reach the target. That faith and believe in your own accuracy and aim and that removal of second guessing or hesitation.

Thats how you manifest.

Eye on the prize, heart centered and focused.

Time for me to pick a new target, right now, I’m floundering in a sea of possibilities, with out an oar or compass.

Had this weird thought the other day, there are a few people that are alive that I’d like to meet. I’d like to share tea or in a few cases a beer with them. I’ve had meditative conversations with all of them a few times, and I know its a possibility to cross our paths, but I hesitate to manifest it because I’m hoping the universe will provide me with some goal or purpose that will match up with this desire. Other than the sheer vanity aspect of being able to say “I had tea once with … “… I mean, I do have a vanity streak, but I’d like to believe I’m not quite that vain.

Yoga teaching keeps coming up in my meditations. I like yoga, the way it makes me feel, the empowering sense of connecting my mind with my body and breath and the centeredness of action in spirit. I very much enjoy teaching – I’ve just never really seriously considered this path as constructive for me…. Maybe its time to ponder on this one some more.

I think this is a good start for re-joining with my passion, so I’ll leave here, and go off to take P out for some much needed refreshment.

Family, Learning

Genie out of the bottle, Cat out of the Bag, Writing on the wall…

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99 Red Balloons, 99 Bottles of Beer on the wall, 99 Problems, 99 Metaphors… but why did you have to go and try and kill yourself?

A dear friend, and coincidentally family member decided that life was too much, and tried to end his suffering.

My head took over, when my heart checked out at the news. My head is very logical, clinical, and was seeking to restore balance and harmony into my body and energy. Balance was clearly broken. This was a frustration. My head decided that it was easiest to be Angry.

Yes, Anger would work. When all else fails, and the heart is hurt, lash out and be angry. Anger is something my mind can understand, hurt is not.

My mind started tearing through my personal history for times when I have been angry. How did we process this in the past…. Surprisingly, there aren’t many. This is not to say I don’t get annoyed, mad, or agitated – this happens, and more frequent then I’d like or hope to experience — but Anger, bordered on Rage – this is not a response I am very well equipped to accomodate.

From my emotional growth and enlightenment exercises, I recognize that anger is one of the more toxic emotional states one can have, it literally poisons the organs of the body. The body is not designed to sustain this emotion, and has no defense to contain it, it must allow the anger to run rampant through the body raging_against_the_machine — as it were.

So, my mind and my heart decided I needed to have a pow-wow – after a day of coping through anger, I was exhausted, and realized that this would NOT be something I’d be able to prevent doing critical damage to myself to hold onto.

I did some self therapy and drank myself into release. While I’ll acknowledge that this is not a particularly constructive method for dealing with anger – it was perhaps less destructive then my initial idea to hire someone to let me beat the crap out of them — considering I don’t really know how to do this, it would likely have been more injurious to me then to them – not to mention the all sorts of red flags from a sensible rational human perspective about the wrongness of intentionally hurting another. So I drank – it was good beer — I’ve sort of developed a taste for IPA lately. It took a little more than I would have liked – 5 beers over about 2 hours. But I was finally uninhibited enough for my brain to shut off the anger and for my heart to cry out in anguish.

How could someone do this to me? How could they change all of my world, by trying to intentionally change the course of destiny? How could they be so cruel, so heartless, so selfish? From my perspective, suicide is one of the most selfish things one can accomplish. Choosing to try and shift the plans of this lifeline, to force them to artificially conform to some alternative, for the sake of a temporary relief to the self imagined feeling of helplessness is just — selfish.

No person is an island, every other person has an impact on every other person in this life. The kind thought, the kind word, the smile, the hug, the touch – all of these things have an impact. Trying to remove yourself from the playing field because of lacking the skills to deal is just not the best option. There is always help, there is always hope. Sometimes it doesn’t feel like it, I too have and share despair, hopelessness, pain. In those times of darkness, I remember that there is always light. Darkness can not exist without light. I find comfort and solace in remembering that the darkness is just the shadow of my present circumstances, both my choices and the conditions beyond my control temporarily blocking the light, and I have the power to make different choices to let the light shine brighter. To change my circumstances for the better.

I had talked to this person about suicide in the past, we had talked through about these feelings and reaching out for a lifeline, a support, a friend – I had reached out to this person, and offered to always be an ear, always offer a word of encouragement, a kick in the ass, or a general shoulder to cry upon. It was my deepest belief that this person knew they were cherished, loved, admired, and respected. Clearly this was not the case.

While I do not take responsibility for the choices this person made, it is very hard for me to reconcile the hurt and broken trust I feel. While I have walked through the anger, and have embraced the hurt, I still feel betrayed. I feel like my words and love were not only not accepted, they were not welcome. That this person could not reach out to me in their darkest moments, to ask for my help – hurts.

There are not many people that I would allow to hurt me this way, while I generally love most all of humanity and while I would generally be a willing listener to most people in dire straights, there are not many that I make this true and realistic offer unconditionally. I do not walk in front of the moving truck for mostpeople – while I would try and wave, scream or move them out of the way, or get the truck to stop – I would not walk in front of the truck for most people. This person is one of the ones I would consider to be amongst the few I would — would have…. Right now I don’t know.

I feel lost. I feel dazed and confused. It feels like I’m in this desert of sand and just looking for that drop of rain. How do I trust this person again to not hurt me? I’ve read the statistics, the likelihood is that he will try again, and trying again ultimately he will be successful. This is the numbers speaking. I know from a spiritual perspective, that it doesn’t matter one way or the other, if he made this commitment before he joined into this body in this lifeline, that it will happen. I do not have control over this, its not that I ever did, but I thought this was not a concern – and now it is a concern.

How can I value someones life higher than they value it themselves? How could I have been so stupid to value his life when he did not?

I just don’t understand. My heart is making all sorts of excuses for him. Well he was in pain, well he was hurt, well he had a bad day, well he was in a bad place, well he felt the loss and the grief and had no support — but it always comes back to that, no support – and that is a lie. He had support, he pushed it away … why did he push it away?

That expression “you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink” — all the water in the world won’t help a thirsty man if he refuses to take the cup and drink the water…..

We only have each other for support in this life. We can only take what we each say and believe it or disregard it – I offered him support, and he didn’t take it. I offered him advice, suggestions, recommendations…

I keep going through the motions, go to work, play games, play with dog, clean the house, sleep, shower, shit, shave – but its not helping the hurt be any less, and its not helping the others who were hurt.

They seemed to have a plan, I went with it – they had some idea of a solution or a fix. …. Maybe it will help.

More prayer, more rest, more being good to myself. Time, more time.

Books, Family, General, Health, Learning, Spiritual, Stream of Consciousness

Mad Caucus race and other round maps

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The Caucus Race

Another good quote is: “Everytime she finds a minute thats the minute they begin it” — From Disney’s Cinderella.

Time for a brain dump, or so my guides have indicated to me. I seem to be a bit of a slacker about this, and seem to like to be overly melodramatic about “waiting” to post, when really its just pure slacker.

Reading a very interesting book about Habits – why we have them and how to shape form mold them. “The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and …”
It is definitely providing some much needed food for thought about where I am and how to get to where I want to go, whilst also explaining the where I detoured and what caused those patterns.

Many things going on, not sure where to start. We took the trip to NY – and it was educational – it is not a place I would chose to return, hopefully the universe does not require this of me. It was not a horrible trip, in the sense that I accomplished what I had hoped, and found pleasure in the little things – it was however much more of a working trip then a vacation.

Speaking of working – Stress is an interesting beast. Its definitely a lower elemental form, and while it is a highly enticing title and description to utilize, best to not give this one any more power than necessary. There is really no such thing as stress for me, there are conditions I am able to accommodate with the tools I have at present, and there are conditions that are beyond my ability to handle and require me to learn rapidly new tools. This year has been greatly filled with the latter, and while it would seem like a welcome condition to request more of the former, I am evolved enough to recognize that there is a balance in both, and while I do not perceive the balance at this moment in time, it is progressing as it should.

We have a new pool – its P’s pool really, for me its somewhat a chlorinated heavily hot tub. That is not to say I am unhappy about the pool – more that its urgency and need was not my own driving force. It certainly is nice, and it will especially be nice on cold winter evenings and weekends. P has been using it extensively, which is quite nice to see – score another one for me about knowing and timing.

Right now it feels to me like I’m on one of those very very long road trips, where the journey is more than halfway over, but the brunt of the trip is still lying ahead. There are some lag times, long times of very little scenery and quite moments ore reflection, but they seem to be frequently punctured by the noise of horns, blares of sirens, and general ambient lively distractions.

I did a stupid female thing the other weekend. I was turning and missed an extra median in the road, and drove my little electric car over the curb – popping both the front and rear driver side tires. While I was quite blessed that it was only the tires that were popped, having no damage to the car itself or even the rims, it was a quiet respite, it was an unusual condition to have some what of an enigma in the sense that I had done something “dumb” that afforded me the luxury of something I had highly craved. Quiet time to contemplate.

They are doing renovations at my “Muggle Job” – to coin a phrase my dear sister has started using, and I decided I have found it endearing. My Muggle Job is doing office renovations. They managed to blow up enough dust and dirt to make nearly the entire department sick. Many of us were out for almost a week – I guess this is what comes from turning a warehouse into an office with the lowest possible margin of cost. Not to say it was cheap – heh far from it.

This would be the same Muggle Job that sees fit to give and to take from me nearly in the same breath on a repeating schedule of oddity. Promote here, Punish there – Reward here, Chastise there — I don’t get it. Sufficed to say, I’ll leave it up to the muggles to figure it out, and spend more of my time and energy focusing on the important things in life.

As I mentioned previously, the universe is driving me towards decisions about a few things, but presenting me with challenging opportunities to clearly decide things. For example, for this coming weekend, there were actually 4 available opportunities for me to allocate my time. Two of them being clearly down one path, and two being clearly down the other.

Each day, I begin to feel more and more like Alice in the wonderland of life – verses feeling like the caterpillar or the Red Queen – both of which I have felt in the past for extended periods of time.

I remember a play many many years back that I saw in Orlando – a semi small stage performance of a re-written version of Frankenstein – there was one part of the production that was particularly dramatic – the main character was huddled down, and three other performers were circling around as if the voices inside ones head, chanting loudly “Who are you, What are you, Why are you” over and over to a beat of a crescendo. Lately I’ve been feeling more and more like that huddled figure. Not so much that the questions are the same, but that sense of overwhelming space enclosure has been amping itself up. — This was a queue from my mind that it was time to blog, and I chose to ignore it until it reached a numbing point.

Life feels alot like a roller coaster, from the line through the wait, through the anticipation, the picking of the seat, the start of the engine, up the first hills, around the bends, and over the fast turns and twists, back to the station and exiting to start at the line again. Endless cycle of known possibilities repeating in a fresh perspective over and over again.

The barista at my favorite Starbucks the other day tried to explain to me how Starbucks Green Tea had more caffeine then coffee — and I laughed and tried softly to educate him to the difference – did some research, and while I realized I was indeed correct it has significantly less — less than 1/4 the amount of caffeine of an equal amount of coffee — I realized that it just didn’t matter. At the moment when we were having the discussion, in the drive thru line when he was trying vehemently to get his point across — to the point when I bothered to take the time to look up the actual numbers. Being Right doesn’t matter.

Commissioned an artist to create a Soul Mandala for me back a few months ago, and reached out to her because it seemed as if it were being delayed. She expressed that she had some difficulties, and had restarted the work twice – apparently my soul is more varied then any she had previously worked with – and while she was struggling with some personal challenges, it was assisting her and helping her to develop tools. She expressed gratitude for being able to do this work for me, and at the opportunity to meet with me and my soul. The work is still not finished. While I have no doubts that she is the real deal, in terms of having seen and experienced other of her art work – and I also understand the need of an artist to have an open window of time, the business person that my Muggle Job has cultivated — this person never existed before this particular Muggle Job – is struggling with feeling the need to be overly protective. Its an odd sensation to be balancing two sides of my personality to find a happy medium. I embrace the need of time for achievement of the highest possible good.

We have had the same cleaning lady for many years now, after a string of cleaning staff that stole from us and or did not perform a very adequate job. This lady is kind, and a hard worker and her rate is both within what we can afford, and a rate that we feel is adequately compensating her for her time. We have a cleaning lady because cleaning is not something I particularly relish – and while she doesn’t do a spot on perfect job, she does the rudimentary tasks of cleaning, allowing for the time to expand upon her works for both P & I while still affording us luxury time – the benefits of having a muggle job that can afford this luxury. This cleaning lady has a mischievous side, she likes to move things around in the house in the interest of “straightening” – and she has trained us both to clean up before she comes, for fear of having her “hide” things we might need in the immediate future. Overall her regular routine visits have kept our house presentable, tidy and trained us into some nice habits. Lately however, I’ve been having this sense of doubt. Like its time to stop having her clean the house. While I recognize part of this is from the need to take on some of the actual cleaning portion she performs – I would be much more acceptable to this, if it weren’t for the Muggle part of my mind starting to infringe on my head with all sorts of nonsense doubts about the value of the service and whether or not our house is safe.

Have been seeing alot of Dragonflies and Dameselflies lately – looked up the meaning in animal speak and its spot on – I suspect this is a new animal totem for me. It is also the reason that it became part of my tattoo from the trip to NY – the pink lotus with the blue dragonfly representing a balance to the experience and the rite of passage being achieved.

S has been quite interesting lately. It seems he has decided he would like another dog. He has decided until we get him another dog to micromanage, he will micromanage P & I both. He has exhibited more behaviors of trying to train us. While I still dearly miss both Rommel & Sasha, he is an interesting family Member to have around.