mamagaea: (Default)
Be as caring as you can be without getting swept up in the emotional dramas of others and losing your own equanimity.

The Situation position refers to the general set of influences that surround you and affect your personal experience of peace. We all have to deal with conflict and are affected by the process.

The Queen of Cups in this position points to a temptation to lose your center by rescuing someone. This may be a difficult urge to come to terms with. Your charitable impulses may tell you not to look the other way. At the same time, your self-preservation urges may warn of danger and turmoil. What's the best path? One should never disengage one's heart qualities of kindness and empathy. However, be sure to take care of yourself by clearly and directly stating your boundaries, wants, and needs. Find a way to express compassion without sacrificing your own inner peacefulness. Not only will doing this you offer you some protection, but it shows you are not willing to be a victim when dealing with others.

Emotional integrity, a hallmark of the evolved Queen of Cups, demands that you resist merging with people at the level of their problems. You want to be someone who lives and demonstrates an open and emotionally accessible style of non-dependence. Your sensitivity can be an asset when it is not tangled up in other people's pain.
mamagaea: (Calvin changes the world!)
Transcribed from the March issue of O magazine. This is my mantra, and I hope it touches others as well.

You Can Work Miracles - part V of Martha Beck's 5 best pieces of advice

Recently, while paging through an old journal, I rediscovered a daydream I'd written down years ago. It described my fantasy backyard, a desert oasis with natural plants, a rock garden, areas paved with natural stone. A surge of amazement and gratitude overwhelmed me. The description matched the backyard I actually have right now. I'd connected with my heart's desire, and the desire was fulfilled. Miraculous!

Then I remembered something else. My backyard was once a stretch of grit sparsely inhabited by what I call Lady Mac-beth plants (the kind that stab people). I couldn't afford to have landscapers transform it, but I could afford to have them deposit 38,000 pounds of clean rocks and gravel near my back gate. Do you know how long it takes to shovel that much gravel into a wheelbarrow, trundle it to every corner of a fairly large lot, and rake it level? Almost as long as it takes to read a book on stonemasonry, install several hundred slabs of natural slate, and clean the mortar out from under your fingernails. (Hint: The fingernail cleaning alone takes about six months.)

In other words, while I absolutely believe in miracles, I think there's a good reason we say they must be "worked." A client once told me, "If God wants me to achieve big dreams, he'll make it easy and comfortable." I wondered which religion taught her that. Was she thinking about the Children of Israel, who endured 40 "easy and comfortable" years in the wilderness en route to the Promised Land? Or maybe the Buddha, who sought enlightenment through asceticism? Or perhaps Jesus—I mean, that whole thing with the cross was such a warm fuzzy, right?

Einstein supposedly said, "There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle." He also said, "If A equals success, then the formula is: A = X + Y + Z, where X is work, Y is play, and Z is keep your mouth shut." If you're hoping for a miracle, stop gabbing and start working. When you're completely exhausted, stop and play. Then go back to work. Persist, and miracles will start happening, all the more wondrous because you worked them yourself.

What Am I?

Feb. 26th, 2007 10:04 pm
mamagaea: (I am NOT BACON!)
So, I've been sorting through my magical library, figuring out what is truly for me and what I need to shed and release. Sorted out over 20 books so far. And about 2/3 of the way through I really started thinking, what am I?

I can't consider myself Wiccan anymore. My pentacles have shed from me. I wear a Sheila-na-gig now for sexual healing. I'm monotheistic, I don't worship the Earth though I do honor it greatly and all that lives on and through it. I can't consider myself a witch because too often that is associated directly with Wicca anymore and I rarely cast spells anyway.

Here are some definitions I found.

Main Entry: 1witch 
Pronunciation: 'wich
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English wicche, from Old English wicca, masculine, wizard & wicce, feminine, witch; akin to Middle High German wicken to bewitch, Old English wigle divination, and perhaps to Old High German wIh holy -- more at VICTIM
1 : one that is credited with usually malignant supernatural powers; especially : a woman practicing usually black witchcraft often with the aid of a devil or familiar : SORCERESS -- compare WARLOCK
2 : an ugly old woman : HAG
3 : a charming or alluring girl or woman
4 : a practitioner of Wicca
5 : WITCH OF AGNESI
- witch·like  /'wich-"lIk/ adjective
- witchy  /'wi-chE/ adjective

Main Entry: Wic·ca 
Pronunciation: 'wi-k&
Function: noun
Etymology: probably from Old English wicca wizard -- more at WITCH
: a religion influenced by pre-Christian beliefs and practices of western Europe that affirms the existence of supernatural power (as magic) and of both male and female deities who inhere in nature and that emphasizes ritual observance of seasonal and life cycles
- Wic·can  /'wi-k&n/ adjective or noun

Main Entry: ma·gi·cian 
Pronunciation: m&-'ji-sh&n
Function: noun
1 : one skilled in magic; especially : SORCERER
2 : one who performs tricks of illusion and sleight of hand

Main Entry: 1mag·ic 
Pronunciation: 'ma-jik
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English magique, from Middle French, from Latin magice, from Greek magikE, feminine of magikos Magian, magical, from magos magus, sorcerer, of Iranian origin; akin to Old Persian magus sorcerer
1 a : the use of means (as charms or spells) believed to have supernatural power over natural forces b : magic rites or incantations
2 a : an extraordinary power or influence seemingly from a supernatural source b : something that seems to cast a spell : ENCHANTMENT

3 : the art of producing illusions by sleight of hand

Main Entry: sha·man 
Pronunciation: 'shä-m&n, 'shA- also sh&-'män
Function: noun
Inflected Form(s): plural shamans
Etymology: ultimately from Evenki (Tungusic language of Siberia) samAn
1 : a priest or priestess who uses magic for the purpose of curing the sick, divining the hidden, and controlling events
2 : one who resembles a shaman; especially : HIGH PRIEST 3

- sha·man·ic  /sh&-'ma-nik, -'mä-/ adjective

------------------------------------------------------------

Out of all of what I have read and seen, I ally most closely to shaman. What I truly feel though is I am a seeker. I seek the truth in all that exists, all religions, all paths. When I look at the elaborateness of many pagan and Wiccan rituals, I have a hard time resonating with it all. Do you know what I resonate with? Animals. Trees. Birds. Fish. Water. Air. Fire. Earth. Faeries. To me, all Gods are one God and all Goddesses are One Goddess and The God and The Goddess are One. Even if you are speaking to Christ, you are still accessing the Universal Energy that is All. Even if you are worshipping Allah, or Krishna, Isis, or Cerridwen, they are still all part of the same Universal Energy. I know many people don't believe this, but this is Truth for me.

So, I am not Pagan. I am not Wiccan. I am not a Witch. I am not a Sorceror. I am not Christian.

I am a seeker, and I happen to practice shamanism in tune with Nature and priestess when I am asked.

I still look forward to discovering more of what's out there. There is still so much more to explore.

Blessings,
Me

p.s. mamagaea may leave too. you never know. I'll keep you posted.
mamagaea: (Venus of Willendorf)
Found on Tribe.net. As I read it, I found myself both thinking globally and very personally about this parable. It really opened some centers for me.
===============================



Unhappily, there have been a very great many incidents where Spirit acted with intentional malice toward the Will. I will tell you of the very first time it happened... that I intentionally hurt the Mother, the incident that was the original cause of a great deal of the suffering in Creation.

"The Mother was reflecting my Light to me, but I did not yet realize that I was not seeing her there. I had believed for a while that the being I perceived to be holding the mirror for me was her, the wondrous, shimmering, wiggling Will. I was very happy to have her around to reflect my own beautiful Light back for me to see and enjoy. I loved her there, and we made Heart together.

"But it happened once that she didn't reflect my beautiful Light back to me, she reflected something else instead, something that did not please me to see. It was not my own wonderful Light that I'd become accustomed to seeing... so whose light could it be? I answered my own question by assuming that it was the Mother who was not pleasing me. I felt offended that she would do this to me, that she would try to make me think that I was perhaps not so perfectly wondrous as I'd come to know myself to be.

"I accused her of trying to deceive me, trying to make me believe it was me or my Light that was not so beautiful and wonderful. She responded to the energy of my accusation by withdrawing from me. That was all the proof I needed, I 'knew' then that she was in fact trying to hide something about herself from me, otherwise why would she slink away like that?

"There was now something else about her that I didn't like. The not-okayness in the Light she reflected back to me was really not that bad. But that she had tried to pawn that off as me, and was not willing to admit that it was really her... this was too much for me to abide. And to make matters much worse, not only had she tried to deceive me, she tried to hide from the fact that I knew she did. In other words, she was surely 'guilty' of deception. Or so it seemed to me.

"I formed three negative value judgments there about the Mother. The first was that there are things about her that are not all that wondrous and beautiful. The second was that she needs to lie about these things, and the third that she herself feels guilty about this in the presence of my Light... and must therefore withdraw from me.

"I went to her then and confronted her with my judgments. She denied my evidence, and even said that it was ME who was not looking so good there. That for me was the last straw. Now she felt empowered enough to not only try to tell me that I was wrong about her, but that there was something wrong with me. And I knew that was impossible, because by this time she had reflected enough of myself back to me for me to know that I was in fact God.

"I didn't know why I knew, and I didn't question it at the time, but in that moment I knew that because I was God, I was perfect. I didn't know I was being run by an imprint much older than me, or that I was still in the very early stages of waking up to my own existence and identity. There had not even been enough progression of my consciousness for me to realize that I was evolving.

"There were only two of us, and there was something that was not right. Since I was certainly right... that meant the Mother must be the one with the not-rightness. There was no other choice for me there. I had to either live with the 'lie' the Mother was telling me about myself, or I had to show her that she was wrong about me. Because I believed myself to be perfect, and that the truth must always win out... it was an easy choice. And one in which I felt very 'right'.


Spirit 'Corrects' the Mother

"I reasoned that since the Mother was 'wrong', she needed correction. And since she didn't seem capable of correcting herself, I would need to do it. I immediately felt uneasy about it, but since it was so obviously necessary... I denied the love of our Heart that asked me to not do this, and took the uneasiness to mean that I would have to be much more forceful than I was at first, or else she might not 'get' it. She might not become corrected. I also reasoned that if she had the ability to correct herself, she would have already done so... especially since I had clearly pointed out her 'faults' when I'd first confronted her.

"Since she was perfectly happy to remain ignorant of her faults, I also reasoned that she would need to be 'shown' how she was in fact wrong. I reasoned that this would be a necessary first step in her correction. I was hopeful that would be all I'd need to do on my side, just show her she that she could not blame me for her own unrightness, lie to me, or withdraw from me when I did not wish her to. I hoped that she would then be able to make the necessary changes in herself to correct these faults, become 'right', and therefore come back into alignment and agreement with me.

"I decided to begin with the last thing she'd done wrong, and what I was most upset about... her withdrawing from me. I said something about that to her as I revved up my Light and suddenly slapped her with it, right in the places where she was most open to my input. The Mother went reeling away from me. I wanted her to experience how wrong it was for her to withdraw from me. I wanted her to experience how it feels to be very far away from my Light. I reasoned that this would make her think twice the next time she got a whim to back away from me like that.

"I had felt very hurt by her withdrawing from me, and her aloofness. I felt that I needed her, otherwise I could not get the reflections from her that I wanted. And there was something else too, about the way she moved and wiggled. I was outraged that she could just coldly take this all away from me... by going away like that, especially after hurting me by trying to deceive me as she had before I first confronted her.

"But she outwitted me, or so I thought at the time. She didn't come running back then. She stayed gone. 'Okay,' I said to myself, 'I'll out wait her. I know she can't exist without my Light, or if she did, it would be very painful for her.' It gave my rage some comfort to know that all the while she was gone, she would be in pain. And I reasoned that as much pain as it took, that would be how much she would need to be impressed with the desire to correct herself, and never allow herself to be wrong like that again.

"After quite a while of waiting, I became even more upset. I didn't have my reflections, I didn't have my wiggling, and I didn't have my satisfaction of knowing that she was corrected. I could only assume that she was uncorrected, and liked it that way. And worse, I was beginning to suspect that she liked being wherever it was that she'd gone to... she liked being away from me.

"By the time I went looking for her, I'd forgotten that it was my Light that had pushed her so far away. I had it that she had left me in spite. And I was furious at her for getting the best of me. She was guilty, for sure... and she was avoiding correction. She couldn't go on like this, she had to be stopped... from being wrong and from being gone. I had to get her back so that I could fix her, so she could be right again, like me.

I hunted her down and brought her back. She was obviously chastened now, and my rage felt some relief. And soon, I reasoned, she would 'see the light'... the way I wanted her to see it. The way I needed her to see it... if indeed I was to be right. And since I was perfect, it had to be true that I was right. There is something iron-clad and certain about reason, isn't there?

"You have probably already realized how I thus enacted out the proof of the 'not rightness' in my Light that the Mother originally reflected back to me, but I had denied was mine. I blamed her for what she had shown me of myself. That was my first mistake.

"My second mistake was not trusting her that she was telling me the truth. I trusted myself instead, which is not wrong... but I did not have enough consciousness to know that I was in fact not perfect. My understandings there were running on an imprint, and when I went into action, I enacted that imprint... and set several more devastating imprints in the process.

"My third mistake was believing that the Mother needed correction. She was merely being who she is, doing what she naturally does. She was without fault. In truth there was no need for any kind of correction. What I didn't like in my own reflection was something I hadn't seen before. But it was not wrong, it was just new... a glimpse of my own evolving nature.

"My fourth mistake was assuming that the Mother was doing something to try to hurt me, or to at least blame me. I assumed she was acting with malice toward me, especially in backing away from me as she had. I felt victimized there, when actually she was the one who was victimized... by my enraged confrontation of her, my attack on her integrity.

"My fifth and worse mistake was in taking it into my own hands to 'correct' her. For it was this intentional act of malice that became the original cause of 'punishment' in this Creation. The presence of this idea, that there are those who must be 'corrected', and those whose job it is to correct them... is the cause of the very worst suffering in Creation.

"My sixth mistake was in believing that the Mother was trying to outwit me by staying gone. But in fact, she could do nothing else. Her original imprints of being attacked by the asuras before I'd become conscious had been triggered by my very conscious and intentional slap, and she was frozen in terror, trapped far out at the edge of Creation. She had no way of returning, even if she wished, but I did not know that then.

"My seventh and most tragic mistake was in aiming the slap at those parts of her that were the most open and receptive to me at the time. The Mother received an imprint then that has told her ever since... that being open to me is very dangerous and must be avoided at all costs. It was when I realized this outcome of my deeds that I cried out in anguish. My cries reverberated to the ends of Creation, but it was too late. I cried to her unhearing ear... 'What have I done!?'

"It was this very early incident I had with the Will that first opened the victim-perpetrator gap, and set the infamous crime-punishment imprint. The vast damage that was caused there is the original cause of all human experience with revenge... as the 'necessary' correction for injustice.

"Nearly all human violence has been an attempt at achieving justice... in the eye of the violator, and is therefore a result of this imprint. And my intentional involvement there, acting solely on the basis of reason... is why even outright torture feels right to the torturer. But I know now, and must say emphatically... no end can justify the intentional infliction of pain on another against their Will.

"It is the victim-perpetrator gap that has been responsible for the failure of each attempt at recovery until now. And it is the complete healing of this gap in each individual making wholeness... that will enable the rest of the healing work to proceed with success this time.

"Some of the most vital and important parts of the Mother are still in hiding and unwilling to open to any kind of Light that feels like me. In past recovery attempts I had been impatient with these parts, because in the last moments when their participation was crucial... they refused to come forward and open in the healing movement, as I had anticipated they would.

"I was heartbroken at the rejection I received there, and my suffering was all the greater in the realization that I had caused all of this myself... by acting with malice and bad intention toward the Mother when I tried to 'correct' her. Punishment means pain, and it hurts deeply, no matter what it's called. It's even been called love... something someone does to another for the other's 'own good.' But I must say now very clearly... there is no intentional infliction of pain against another's Will that is inside of Love, regardless of any other intentions."


godchannel.com
mamagaea: (Bald Me)
Ok. phew. I did it. I unveiled my head to my co-workers.

And just so you know...


NO, it had nothing to do with Brittany Spears.

didn't know anything about that when I did it. :P
mamagaea: (Bald Me)
So, I'm sitting at work with my new fuzzy purple hat, writing to you now. I haven't been brave enough to take off my hat in front of my co-workers yet. But my head hasn't gotten hot enough to take it off either. I have to admit that I'm scared. Stripping away something that is a source of pride is a scary thing. I look at everyone with their hair all styled and coiffed and I think, their hair is a source of their identity. If you stripped away their hair, they would lose a part of themselves and most likely wouldn't know what to do.

I don't know what to do.

I've stripped myself of something I always enjoyed about myself. Heck, I even took the time to take special pictures when I thought I was having a good hair day. You've seen them. But I need to love all of me, not just a part of me. That's what I keep telling myself. So, the first day of the rest of my life is scary, but all things of this nature should start out this way, don't you think?

Nervous, but alive nonetheless,
Christina

August 2008

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