02.07.16 – End of Day Notes

What I did today: I completed all of my writing projects for the day. Read some new blogs, read some emails, commented on some blogs. Watched an episode of Midsomer Murders while I ate dinner. Took a nap. And am now preparing myself for the Super Bowl.

What I learned today: I’ve been quite reflective today, a lot lately, in fact. It’s been a while since I’ve been so melancholy. Perhaps it is from writing these Horror stories and being in that mindset. What I am learning though is that although I am in that mindset, I do not have to allow it to consume me to the point of depression. Thank you, Mindfulness!

What I am most proud of today:  It has been 38 days now since I began organizing and using my online calendar to keep me on track with my writing goals. This has not only allowed me to mange my time better, but to be in control of my goals as well. For that, I am immensely proud of myself.

Seeds

Another lesson I needed to learn today. I’ve realized that for years I sowed seeds of selfishness. Perhaps this is why I have so many health issues today. But I am changing my gardening ways and have opened myself up to helping others. Thanks you thezenofbeingblog for this amazing post and beautiful quote from my teacher Thich Nhat Hanh 🙂

Why I Didn’t Scream

This is the bravest post I have ever read… as one who was molested by my sister’s boyfriend and sexually harassed by classmates at age 11, I can somewhat relate. I *was* raped by a boyfriend years later when I was in my 20s. Still, it’s hard to tell anyone what’s happened to you… thank you, Rose!

Darkness and light

I am quite late with the holiday part of this, but the message is serendipitous of my own post early on Darkness, so I had to share! Beautifully written historicals…

Mindfulbalance

One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light,

but by making the darkness conscious

Jung

Today is Lá Féile Bríde, St. Brigid’s Day,  celebrated on the ancient Celtic festival of Imbolc, a word meaning perhaps “in the womb”, and linked with the feminine, fertility and the birth of lambs.  The Celts were much more in touch with the rhythms of nature and with symbols than we are, and so lit fires in the darkness to mark the fact that they had arrived at the midway point between the winter and the spring solstice. They celebrated the lengthening days and the early signs of Spring,  in a declaration of trust that the darkness of winter was not going to last. It was the start of a period of planting and birth: a time for looking forward and beginning again. For us too, some form of death and rebirth is…

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My Love-Hate Relationship with Darkness

After reading Keith Garrett’s poem, Darkness and leaving a comment, I began to ponder about this love-hate relationship that I have with it.

I’ve always been a night creature. I would stay up past bedtime as a child and read under my covers or sneak downstairs after everyone had gone to bed to watch a scary movie on television. I loved everything Gothic – the literature, architecture, and the fashion, even that of the modern Goths which was just coming into scene in the early 80s. I often mused that I had my own dark soul (and still do) and this was why I was so attracted to the night, to darkness. As an adult, I surrounded myself with anything and everything darkness – clothes, make-up, boyfriends. I began studying witchcraft as a way to capture the essence of the night and all that it embodied. My poetry was dark and foreboding. I played an RPG game about vampires and created my own persona as that of a dark, brooding vampiress bent on revenge and surrounded by ravens. I lived and breathed the dark world I had created for myself.

And then madness set in. I’d always suffered mild bouts of depression, but managed to bounce back from each one. Some time around my fortieth birthday, I became not only severely depressed, but psychotic as well. I heard demonic voices telling me to harm or kill myself. My muses were gone and these voices replaced them more intensely than anything I’d ever experienced before. I become lost and hopeless. I spent my days and nights enmeshed in darkness. I rarely ventured from my home. I saw no one but my husband when he returned from his trips. I refused to go anywhere with him, even to shop for groceries. The result was endless arguments and physical fights. And suicidal attempts. I was hospitalized numerous times and drugged so badly that most of the time I didn’t even know my own name.

My ray of sunshine came in the form of a therapist who taught me Mindfulness and encouraged me to live in the light. I am well now. I no longer hear voices and I am not medicated. My muses have returned in full force. And yet, I still love the darkness, though it nearly caused my demise. Love. Hate. And love again. I just hope this isn’t a vicious cycle and I am just awaiting the madness to set in again.

WTF Blogger?

It’s bad enough that when I read blogs over at Blogger and try to comment that some blogs won’t accept my WordPress ID. I’ve gotten pretty used to that and have worked around it as best I can by having my own Blogger account that redirects people to my WordPress blog. And it’s bad that some of them make you jump through hoops to sign up for their blogs by email (if you even can!) and to comment by checking that “I am not a bot.” But now Blogger has come up with even more hoops!

Now when you click to comment on some blogs, another little box will pop up to get you to chose pictures of things. And the pictures are small and sometimes too obscure to be recognized as what they are asking you to check. I don’t know if this is being set up by individual bloggers or if it is a new feature with Blogger itself. It’s frustrating and time consuming. And it makes me hate Blogger even more than I already do.

WTF Blogger? Do you want people to actually comment on blogs there? Or do you even care?