Hello, me lovelies. I am going to make a grand attempt at playing catch-up today on my Five Minutes A Day segment. My internet has been bouncing off and on for several days and I’ve already lost several attempts at putting something here. I’ve finally wised up and have been putting everything on a notepad so I don’t lose it when the ‘net goes poof!
So once I’ve had some coffee and a sweet breakfast treat, I will attempt a fifteen minute catch-up here. No guarantees though; the ‘net’s already gone down twice this morning. The joys of modern times!
As I related in my last post, I’ve been struggling a lot with what is going on in the US since Trumpism took over. I see this country sliding into a Theo-Fascist state (fascism mixed with hard far-right Christian doctrine) and yes, it worries the crap out of me. I have many strikes against me should I be deemed an enemy of the state – I am not a Christian, I am primarily a Buddhist who believes in Christ Consciousness, Angels and Ascended Masters. I am bisexual. I am disabled, both mentally (bipolar disorder, BPD, GAD w/panic attacks, and OCD)and physically (neuropathy in both feet due to chemo use years ago for uterine cancer). I lean more toward Democratic Socialism politically. And finally, I am a woman of middle age who can no longer bear children. No reasons whatsoever for a Theo-Fascist state to keep me around.
So all these things keep me awake, anxious and unsettled. I wake up wondering what fresh new hell Trump has put us through and go to sleep wondering if we will ever get our country back. For a long time, I also fell asleep asking “Does the Divine even care what is happening here?” or “Is this truly the will of the Divine and if so, why?” As a Buddhist, I am supposed to just let this pass and focus on the here and now. I know this. And I do try. Yet, I am still unnerved and disturbed by all that is going on in the US and the damage being done to our allies and neighbors.
In a dream, that I believe was directed by the Archangel Michael, I sat through the history of the human race for a course in a university’s large auditorium. The topic was how civilizations fall. The professor’s theory was to teach humility. The peoples of these civilizations had become so greedy, so corrupt, and so out of sync with the universe, that they had to learn humility and so horrid leaders rose up and destroyed that civilization. The result was a more humble people, ready to embrace a more democratic way of living.
When I awoken that very early morning (due to pfairies chasing me to the bathroom), I glanced at the clock by my bed and the time was 3:33 am. A smile creased my face as I hurried to the bathroom. I know about Angle numbers. Generally I will see 111 or 222, etc. But rarely do I get 333. 333 is unique. It stands for peace, love and harmony, but it is also the call number of the Ascended Master Jesus, the very person I’d been hoping to hear from for a while! It lead me to believe that yes, the Divine is still with us and knows what is going on and we have not been abandoned. Peace, love and harmony will win out in the end, but first, we need to be humbled as a nation.
That ray of hope sustained me for a while. And then Supreme Court Justice Kennedy decided to retire, giving Trump another chance to pack the highest court with an ultra-Conservative rightwing justice. I envisioned Roe vs Wade going away. I envisioned my sisters and brothers in the LGBTQ community having their right to marriage slip away. I envisioned all of the civil rights we on the Left have worked so hard for slipping away as well. I could see the US definitely becoming my worst nightmare – a Theo-fascist nation with all the hallmarks of Gilead from The Handmaid’s Tale. Again, I was despondent over this and fretted for days and nights about it. And just when I’d given up all hope, I awoken two mornings ago at 3:33 am again. The Ascended Master Jesus had again assured me that all would be well. Not to fret so – peace, love and harmony would prevail.
So I wanted to share this with my readers and ask if any of you have been receiving messages of this kind, either through dreams or Angel numbers? If so, I hope you will share them with me. If not, I accept all discussions on this topic. Thank you all!
It was bad enough that the friend I’d just reconciled with dropped me like I never existed, but now my girlfriend has cheated on me. She knew how devastated I was about the broken friendship and we’d just spent four days together. We also talked every day on the phone, online and via emails together. It wasn’t as if I’d been ignoring her. We were so new, so fresh, just a little over a month as lovers. And she cheated. With a man. Oh but it meant nothing – her words. She still loves me, wants me, needs me. So why the cheating? And I am supposed to forgive and forget.
Well, I cannot. This was a last chance at love for me. It took a lot out of me to give away my heart one more time. And of all the people in the world, she was the last person I ever thought would hurt me. A life-long friend who’d always cared, or so I thought. Someone I swore I’d never go there with for fear of ruining a friendship, but she convinced me that she wouldn’t hurt me. Promised me that she wouldn’t hurt me and in less than 45 days, she did just that.
I am more than done. I see a dark, lonely cave in my future and I couldn’t be more glad.
In recent months, I have reconnected with an old high school friend. After a bit of a tiff years ago, we hadn’t spoken since the late 1990s, but seemed to fall right back into our friendship as though it had never ended. She’d been going through some rough patches in her love life and recently had a run-in with the law, resulting in an upcoming court date. I’ve been there for her through all her recent woes, tried to be understanding, give advice when asked, offer solutions, guidance, or just a shoulder to cry/lean on.
Lately, she has been distant. I know she is worried about her upcoming court date, so I’ve tried to give her as much space as possible, just leaving her encouraging messages once or twice a week on Facebook, to let her know I am thinking about her and if she needs me, to call. I did my first of the week message posts today, but got an unusual response – “Please stop.”
I was dumbstruck. Still dumbstruck. I haven’t a clue what I’ve done wrong. All I have heard from her is that no one has been there for her or really cared and when I’ve tried, this is the response I get? It feels like someone sucker punched me in the stomach. I’ve listened to her cry over a lost love at all hours of the day and night. Listened to her complain about the relationship she is in now. Worried with her over her upcoming court date. Never once I have I told her to shut up and let it go, or not been there to listen. And now, I feel like I’ve wasted my time. I don’t want to feel that way, but I do. And I don’t even know what I’ve done wrong.
Should I just cut her off completely? Not answer if she calls? Just let her go, again? I am so confused, so hurt, so… *sighs*
I swore I’d never let another person hurt me this badly again. Swore I wouldn’t get attached to anyone enough to let them rip out my heart. And yet, I’ve done it again. Time to just go crawl into a hole and ignore the world again.
Yesterday, I participated with hundreds of students, teachers, parents, and other activists locally in the #MarchForOurLives event. It was exhausting and painful for me due to the neuropathy in my feet, but gracious young students kept walking with me, encouraging me and even lending me a hand the few times when I stumbled. Their enthusiasm for this cause exhilarated me!
We shared stories about school life, mine during the 70s and early 80s and theirs today. How different our worlds are. My biggest fear in school was getting knocked down in the hall by a bully, or teased in the girls locker room. They do drills to keep them safe from gunshots.
By all statistics, I would have been one of those with a gun had I been in today’s schools. I was a loner in school. Horribly bullied. Now suffering from multiple mental illnesses (probably had them back then too). There were many like me in school. So why didn’t we turn to gun violence? That is a question which has no answer for me. It never even crossed my mind. I hated the bullies in HS. Despised them with every fiber of my being, but I never wished them death. I just wanted to get through HS and go on with my life. It could have been easy for me. My father owns shotguns. Nothing like what kids can get their hands on today, but I was raised around guns. Still, I couldn’t kill. Not even a housefly.
It can’t all be the bullying. It can’t all be mental illness. It can’t all be the violent video games or movies. There are a million excuses thrown out there as to why some kids decide to take guns and shoot up their schools. I don’t know the answer. I do know that making AR-15s available to kids gives them an easy out. Something that powerful should never be in the hands of a civilian, or in the hands of a child. It is a weapon of war.
We have to do something about gun violence, period, in this country. I don’t want to take away anyone’s 2nd Amendment rights, but we regulate other privileges and rights in this country – driving automobiles, voting, hunting, fishing, usage of parks, etc. And yet we allow the most laxed laws for gun ownership. We need universal background checks. Strict ones. No felons, sexual/domestic abusers, or mentally ill persons should have access to guns. There should be mandatory training for usage and storage of guns. There should be a license to own and carry a gun. No license, you go to jail for a long time. There should be a buy-back policy for anyone who owns AR-15s and the like and then those guns should be publicly destroyed. If a person really wants to use a weapon of war, then let them join the military where they can use one. But for the love of our children and future children, we need to keep them off the streets and out of the hands of civilians.
Yesterday was a huge eye-opener for me. I watched future leaders leading. I saw so many young people fired up and encouraged about their futures. If we adults do not pave the way to keep them safe, they will. And I support all of them. From the Emmas and Davids to all kids everywhere who just want to be safe in school. This also means an end to bullying and making kids feel like “others”. Everyone deserves to fit in. We need to do more to encourage kids to accept others for who they are and not who we wish them to be. I pray this movement grows and we finally get some sensible gun laws in this country. I encourage all young people to get active and become our future leaders. To run for offices from local to national. They will get my votes and my encouragement.
If any of my readers participated yesterday, I would love to hear your stories. Or just your thoughts on gun control. All views are accepted, but please be polite.
Well, here it is, the end of another year. For the past three years, I have chosen words to focus on in an attempt to expand my spirit and grow. In 2014, I chose Acceptance. In 2015, my choice was Gratitude. I had great success with both of those words. My spirit grew and I overcame a lot of adversary.
For 2016, I chose Abundance. I thought, how can I go wrong with something so beautiful? Well, the Universe has a way of laughing in my face sometimes. Oh, you want abundance? Are you sure? Fine, you asked for it! And boy did I ever get it. I forgot about an important rule – be careful what you ask for, especially if you aren’t specific enough.
The year began okay. I set goals for writing projects and didn’t really foresee problems completing them. But then I took on too many side projects because well, the Universe directed people to me who wanted to push my writing skills into other directions and I accepted this because that’s what I said I would do. Then I allowed myself to get bogged down in other people’s issues, figuring that the Universe had brought these things to me in an abundant way so that I could act as a guide or peace keeper. Boy was I wrong! These people didn’t want my help, they just wanted attention. In the end, I became anxious, panicky, and depressed. The depression grew, abundantly. I became ill over and over again, abundantly. I nearly lost my mind and was hospitalized. What suffered the most? My writing projects, in great abundance. From June until late September, I withdrew from the world. I wanted nothing more to do with Abundance. And even when I made a come-back in October, I’ve still struggled with my health, mental health, and some residual abundant effects.
So what’s my take-away from a year of Abundance? It can be both beautiful and brutal. Sometimes less really is more. I am now perfectly content with as little of everything as possible.
I actually thought about not bothering with a word for this year. I had two great successes and one huge failure. I thought, do I really want to put myself through this again? I finally decided that I would go for it one more year.
So, my word for 2017 is ENGAGE. You are probably wondering why I’ve chosen such a word. Well, for the last couple of years, I’ve had long periods where I have disengaged from the world, cut myself off from people, and not interacted with others like I should. I also support a few important causes which may be under jeopardy in the next four years, and I want to become engaged in those as well. And so, as I move forward into the uncertainty of 2017, it is my desire to engage once more with the outside world, with friends at home and on the internet, to interact with writers and artists, and throw my support behind causes that are important to me. As an introvert, I am pushing myself way out of my comfort zone. May the Universe have mercy on all of us *laughs*
Once again, I turn to Rob Brezny’s Horoscope for some words of wisdom. Here is mine for the week beginning on the 18th:
GEMINI (May 21-June 20): Coloring books for adults are best-sellers.
Tightly-wound folks relieve their stress by using crayons and markers to
brighten up black-and-white drawings of butterflies, flowers, mandalas,
and pretty fishes. I highly recommend that you avoid this type of
recreation in the next three weeks, as it would send the wrong message
to your subconscious mind. You should expend as little energy as possible
working within frameworks that others have made. You need to focus on
designing and constructing your own frameworks.
I find this amusing for a couple of reasons: I never cared much for coloring books as a child because I always wanted to color outside the lines and create my own doodles to color AND a friend bought me one of these adult coloring books for Christmas and I’ve only colored one page. My friend loves her adult coloring books and has completed a couple of them. I get the concept. Great for relieving stress. Keeps you sharp and focused on one task, so also great for people with ADD or ADHD. It’s not so good for creative types with OCD because just one color outside the line and well, we go bonkers! I am more comfortable without the lines or my own lines, thank you very much!
I am encouraged by Rob’s words. To design and construct my own frameworks. I’d like to think that this is what I have been doing a lot lately with my writing. I think that the more I step outside my comfort zone and write things that frighten and scare the shit out of me, the more honed my skills are becoming. I also like that I am doing my own thing with my writing these days. For so long, I concentrated solely on one genre, believing that this was all I was cable of and not much else. Or that I needed to write mainstream fiction if I ever wanted to be published. But now I know that isn’t so. Now I don’t care about publication or mainstream. I just care about the writing. I love the characters I’ve come up with lately. And I enjoy exploring the dark side of my subconscious.
So thank you, Rob and thank you for the reminder to keep doing my own thing!
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.
1) This song is a plea for a second chance. Are you good at forgiving/forgetting?
I didn’t used to be very good at forgiving. I didn’t hold grudges long, but I wasn’t always the first to say “I’m sorry.” Then I learned about Ho’oponopono and since then it is easier for me to say those words and mean it.
2) Justin asks his girl to “forget this.” What have you done/said recently that you wish could just be forgotten?
I wish I could just forget about having that Coke Royale (Coke+Crown Royal) the other night. My brain has been mush ever since
3) Mr. Bieber says he needs just 6 hours sleep every night. How about you? How much sleep do you require to feel sharp?
On average, I get by with 4-6 hours, but require a nap later in the day.
4) Justin prefers D&G underwear, which can cost as much as $102/pair. Sam may be crazy, but there’s no way she’d spend that much on underwear. What’s something you’re willing to splurge on?
If it’s clothes, something made of leather. If it books, a first edition. Otherwise, I would only splurge on paintings or sculptures.
5) He may be picky about underwear but not cuisine. He loves Big Macs. If we were going to McDonald’s, what would you order?
Nothing, maybe bottled water.
6) When it comes to healthier fare, Bieber has told fans he enjoys snacking on bananas and grapes. What do you reach for between meals?
Avocados or almonds
7) Performing in Germany, Justin Bieber told a girl who approached the stage, “Ich liebe dich” (“I love you”) and she fainted. Have you ever fainted?
Yes, but I wouldn’t have if Bieber said that to me… Prince, maybe, but definitely not Bieber.
8) As a kid, Justin was teased for being one of the shortest in his class. What do you recall being teased about in school?
Too many things… mostly about my physical appearance and because I was a quiet bookworm.
9) Random question: Will you be watching this weekend’s Super Bowl?
It is all about words. Your words are enough to shatter someone's heart. Your words are enough to make a broken heart unbroken. Words have the power to change your life perspectives.
As the Fates Would Have It 