Lady Heather's Domain: My life in a Nutshell

This year has been such a challenging year.  This year I had only three of seeds of intention that I planted.  1.  To continue to support my daughter in every way I could to help her healing.  2.  To support my husband during his lower surgeries.  3.  To continue towards becoming a therapist working with families struggling with RAD. One thing that I have learned to trust although it is still really hard is that when you put an intention out there and focus on it, you have to understand that it may not come to fruition the way you planned or thought it would.  When I decided on my intentions last year and imagined what my life would be like now, I never imagined it would be this way.  I imagined that my daughter would probably have been given another 6 months to a year at the group home she was this time last year and she would be an hour away and making progress to coming home.  I imagined my hubby would be finished with his su...

Beaver Moon, sometimes called Frost Moon is usually the full moon in November but this year it is at the end of October as it is the 2nd full moon after the fall equinox. From Wikipedia: Two reasons are given for the coupling of the November moon with the flat-tailed aquatic animal: (a) November is a month when many hunters used to set leghold traps for beaver, [1] and (b) November is a month when many beaver families are especially active in rebuilding their beaver lodges and dams . [2] Much of the mammals' building and repair work takes place by moonlight, because the beaver is primarily nocturnal . Both explanations implicate November's position as the last full month before the coming of winter , as beaver (which do not hibernate ) need to have ready access to food during the cold months, and need to grow an especially lush pelt of fur so as to be prepared. By the traditional valuation standards of the fur trade , a late-fall beaver pelt was worth more than a pe...

The handouts for this workshop are located here. This was an interesting workshop.  They had many different people from many different backgrounds speak and discussed what culture meant to them.  Birth culture of adoptive children were discussed and how hard sometimes it is for adopted children to feel like a part of a family.  Part of healing has to do with accepting the differences and helping the child find their own part in their own world, even if it is a different culture as your own.  Being able to create a family culture is very helpful too. What I found helpful is even when someone looked like they would be the same as other people with similar backgrounds explaining even the differences in the culture of the age and also acculturation can make big differences in how a person is even perceived within their own culture.

Joyanna Silberg's  Powerpoint Presentation can be found here. I have to say ATTACh did a great job of finding speakers who catch your attention and keep it.  With humor and references to previous speakers it makes it seem like they are all a great big family wanting to help you with each of their specialties. Joyanna Silberg kept me interested even though I was already suffering from jet lag as I am a west coast girl getting up early on the east coast. I highly urge you to look through the Powerpoint Presentation linked above but here are my notes and important thoughts I took away from her presentation. Disassociation is defined as disruption in the usual integrated functions of consciousness, memory, identity or perception - but really it is too adult centric. When your inner life is a place you have to stay out of, having an identity is impossible.  Remembering not to remember such as "I try to forget to remember." or "It hurts to remember." or ...

I had such a wonderful time at the conference and with my good friend on the East Coast and then came home to a backlog of stuff to do I got behind on my blog. So in catching up I wanted to write about the Hunter's Full Moon that was here on September 29, 2012.  This is the first full moon after Mabon (Autumn Equinox).  Some would call it the Harvest Moon as it is the closest Full Moon to the Autumn Equinox but this year since the Full Moons are shifted towards the earlier part of the season the Hunter's Full Moon is actually closest although just past Mabon. The Hunter's Full Moon is named because the full moon give light to hunters tracking their prey before the cold winter settles in.  They are able to stock up on the protein they will need to make it through the winter. I myself am doing that in a manner of speaking.  I went to the conference to "stock up" on more learning material and to socialize before the cold settles in and we look inward and do ...