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Showing posts from August, 2012

Blue Moon tonight - or is it?

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When I was little my grandparents often had a Farmer's Almanac around.  There were all kinds of interesting things in it.  One summer as I was reading the almanac I found something about a Blue Moon .  I asked my grandfather and he looked at the book and gave a long description of a different kind of calendar and 4 moons in the season and the third moon being a Blue Moon so all of the other full moons had the right names.  It had something to do with why Easter always moved around but it seemed too complex to understand it, I just figured it must be some ancient mystery.  As I grew older I was told by teachers and others that liked trivia that the Blue Moon was those rare occasions when there were two full moons in a month.  I wondered why I had remembered it as something complex having to do with naming of moons, Easter and equinoxes and such. Well while researching recently - I finally found out why I thought it was so complex, because there are a couple of versions of w

Dealing with Disappointment

If you were to ask me why I haven't posted much recently, my first reaction would be to say that I have been really busy.  The truth though is I haven't wanted to actually acknowledge my own disappointments and frustrations because if I don't acknowledge them - then Hey!  They must not exist! I wish that were true.  I keep telling myself that there must be a reason for these things but it is still hard to deal with at the moment. Disappointment on the job front.  I have been struggling to get an intern therapist job.  A few weeks ago, I went on an interview and was excited that the therapist (whom I look up to in the field I want to work in) said she would bring me on.  I left her house with her saying "I will work on the paperwork."  She told me to come to a meeting the next week so I figured I would talk to her and fill out paperwork then.  A week later I went to the meeting and she was busy and had children around her.  The next day I sent an email asking w

Learning How to Fall

I was reading one of my favorite blogs, Permission to Live , and she had a post on Learning to Fall .  It seemed an interesting book so I got it (my first book on my new Kindle).  I got the book a few weeks ago.  It is a slow read for me simply because it is so deep.  It is written by a man who has Lou Gehrig's disease and his journey through trying to accept life as it is including his death.  Since he was a literature professor he uses many references as he tries to figure out the meaning of life and death. This was a hard read for me because I have Parkinson's Disease, Young Onset.  I am now 40 and actually doing better than everyone thought I would.  Those who do not have a degenerative and fatal or potentially fatal disease may find that this book spends a lot of time questioning, looking within, and almost obsessively trying to figure out life but not really living it.  The thing is so much of the time we are sidelined by our diseases and there is nothing but our minds

The ABCs of Keeping Romance Alive

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The world keeps us busy.  We have our daily drama and then we have those traumatic moments.  If we have a partner we just may take them for granted.  We expect them to be there for us and we may find ourselves missing that spark or passion.  You may feel in a rut or question if there are still feelings other than comfortable sameness.  I had this happen in other relationships and sometimes it starts in my current marriage - but I won't let it get far because to me it is too important.   I was on the phone to a friend the other day and she was wondering if the fire went out.  Through our conversation I took some notes as I explained things that helped me stoke our fire when it started dwindling.  And I have to say we have had huge dramas and traumas in our nearly 6 year relationship.  Many of these things would have been enough to smother the fire completely but both of us work at keeping it going.  This is not hard work, just little daily things - so let me go over the ABCs of

Seeing through the Words to the Reason

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So often when raising a child that has had early childhood trauma, they learn from a very young age to cover their reasons with words, usually angry and hurtful words.  This is so they can distract you from seeing their true reasons that often would show what they feel is weakness.  Angry, nasty and hurtful words so often cover up a hurt and scared child.  My daughter is so good at this.  She can often distract me from the real reason and push my buttons so I cannot see through her words.  The last several days I have had a barrage of phone calls and police visits all over an iPod Touch.  (Quick back story - around Christmas of 2010 the group home my daughter was at was going to buy her an iPod Touch.  I was still trying to work with my daughter to get her capable of coming home and so I insisted I buy an iPod Touch because otherwise she would hold it over me as a reason that other people loved her and not me.  Well I bought it and by the time Christmas came around she had been kicke

Transforming Grief through Transforming a Room

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I guess it was time to transform my grief into passion into helping others.  I did not set out to work on my grief or to transform a room.  It will never cease to amaze me how those little whispers you hear inside of your head are actually nudges from the Goddess trying to keep you on the right path. So the past few weeks have been tough while I have been waiting for my daughter to be moved out of state to a better group home that hopefully will be more therapeutic.  While waiting though I have been grieving.  It is hard to know my daughter will most likely never be able to live with me again, nor would living at home be healthy or therapeutic for her.  When she blew out in April after doing well for a few weeks and then started having sex and doing drugs, I realized she would never be able to come home.  I tried to change her bedroom into a guest room then.  I bought a bed and put it in the room but I just couldn't bring myself to taking her stuff down and redecorating it.  I kn

Lughnasadh - Lammas - First Harvest

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    Lughnasadh (pronounced LOO -nə-sə ; Irish : Lúnasa ; Scottish Gaelic : Lùnastal ; Manx : Luanistyn ) is a traditional Gaelic holiday celebrated on 1 August in the northern hemisphere and 1 February in the southern . It originated as a harvest festival, corresponding to the Welsh Calan Awst and the English Lammas .  It is also known as Lammas or the First Harvest. For me this a time of reception.  A time when you get to "receive" the fruits of your harvest from the seeds you planted and tended this year. Quick note since I have not written about any other sabbats as of yet: Samhain - October 31/November 1 - Death and Decay - end\beginning new year Yule\Winter Solstice - around December 22nd - transformation Imbolc - Around February 1st - intention Spring Equinox - around March 21st - creation Beltane - May 1st - Expression Summer Solstice - around June 21st - Manifestation Lughnasadh\Lammas - August 1st - reception Autumn Equinox - around September 21s