I had trouble sleeping last night. I have been reading the Golden Dawn in an effort to understand the Tarot a bit better. I went to sleep thinking about the elements and began retelling myself the story of Persephone. I was caught up in the story and the ideas of leadership and such that my mind went realling and I couldn't fall asleep.

The cards tell me today that I need to be aware of myself. Where is my spirit and how does it feel? What can I do with what's going on around me? Think before I act. Act rationally, don't react. Some aspects of my relationships could be coming to completion. I will need to ask myself and others, "what comes next?" I will need to assess my own desires. Am I hoarding what I have and staying in relationship out of fear or am I consiously choosing what is best for my self and starting a new chapter in community?

It should be a great day!

I often say that I need to experience a learning opportunity with my whole body. Otherwise, I won't learn a thing. I was speaking with Cynthea Sunday morning and she said I throw my whole self into what I'll call chaos, and then I need to swim all the way through it before I can come to a conclusion. It's really true.

At the beginning of this year, I was struggling. I felt lonely and dissatisfied with my marriage. We have had an open marriage in the past and it seemed a good solution to the situation. We both actively looked for a couple or a single person to spend time with. My husband is into it for the sex, but I really needed the relationship. I found someone in March who really fed my soul and challenged my mind.  At the same time, rather than strengthen my bond with my husband, I began to see that I was strong enough to stand on my own. In other words, I felt validated as a person, more so than I had in a very long time.

With this shift in my self-confidence came a long struggle in my primary relationship. As the secondary relationship strengthened and became more intimate, my friend worried that he was becoming a substitute rather a than a supplement. He wasn't, however. What he did was to reaffirm for me that I am in the right place right now. I love my husband. He and I are really meant to be together. It's very simple really.

One of the things I have begun to do is draw a tarot card every morning. I have found a terrific site called Raven's Tarot Site, http://www.corax.com/tarot/index.html?tree-of-life which I find very amusing. And I have been reading the Golden Dawn to learn more about the Tarot and the philosophy it's based on. I use the Thoth Deck. I find that the Minor Arcana is difficult for me. This site really helps me to understand it better.

Today, I drew the Nine of Cups. Here is what Raven says about it:

Nine of Cups - Happiness

Tree of Life: Yesod through water
Astrology: Jupiter in the 2. decan of Pisces

With Yesod - reflection and imagination - inside of the perfect harmony of the Nine, the Nine of Cups has returned to the middle column of the Tree of Life, enlightened by the beauty of Tiphareth that resides above and just one step from Malkuth as its root and origin, the completition of the journey.

Nothing serves the waters of Briah better than the seas of Yesod, so the card shows perfect harmony and fulfilment in any emotional matter.

On its shadow site, the card shows the risk of selfindulgence and complainsance, the temptation to just enjoy the happiness but forget the reflection that keeps the light upon the waters alive.

Drive: Love, optimism, trust

Light: Luck, compassion

Shadow: Selfcomplacancy, self-indulgence, vanity

Tomorrow night I get the opportunity to participate in a ritual of marriage to my self. The question has been asked, "how did I get from the last ritual to this one?" In the last ritual we did together, we created invitations to our wedding. I invited Pan and the Fey. Well, I created invitations and took them home to be placed under my statues of Pan and the Fey.

Since then I taken a lover. My husband knows about him. He is a good friend. And he says he approves. Interestingly my husband is less interested in sex with me than ever before. Perhaps he says he likes sharing me, but really doesn't.

What I have found in this journey is that I am my own true lover. I am the one I can count on to bring myself pleasure and joy. If I want or need to share that with another, it is in my power to do so. My body is mine to cherish and care for. My mind is bright and my soul creative. My spirit is full and unique and unwilling to bend to conformity. This is what I will celebrate in the ritual tomorrow night.

So Mote it be!

I was dreaming that Diana's Grove was functioning in a glass blowing studio within a larger school. My guess is that the larger school would be the universal library of knowledge. And of course DG will always function within those halls of dreams and stories and wisdoms. The glass blowing studio must be about the creation of something beautiful. Even more so, the artists were many and varied. One artist took me on a journey through robotic roads to a marketplace.
 
In the martketplace of arts and crafts I picked up a large pendant. It was a Crow wearing a many colored scarf. I said, "this is my friend, I need to buy it for him." It turned out the man with me was the artist who made it. Interesting, the creator of a man. Or the creator of the token of a man. He suggested a leather thong for it to hang upon. The new thong was decorated with crytals and beads and would hold strong to the pendant and be large and bold. I wondered if my friend would wear it and then disregared my doubts and fears. Those weren't my concern. It was my place to bring it back to him, no more.

We returned to the school and wandered a bit trying to find our own studio. Cynthea's daughter Kitty was there and I was to move her truck for her. Then I was in a kitchen, creating and cleaning and discovering seperation between something we thought was one piece and cumbersome and useless. Now that we realized it was two pieces we could use them both well. I worked in the studio/kitchen a bit and then woke.



Last night I listened to my husband tell me his experience of the Diana's Grove move. I had heard it before and became really angry with him. I have so many experiences and memories of my years there. I have stories and stories of life, learning, heartbreak and growth and no one to share any of it with. I resented hearing his experirence again, and being told to listen, don't speak.

Perhaps its good that I was able to walk through the dreamscape of the DG transformation. I enjoyed my journey's guide.

If I were to read my dream like I would read a tarot card, I would say that I am being asked to bring back a token of the work that we did there. I have been blessed with these experiences and now it is time to share. But ever and always I am to remember that it is not about me. It is about the beauty we created. This beauty can be found in all the markets of the world that have been touched by those of us who were there.

Perhaps my friend is the first person for whom my experiences will have value. Or maybe he is no more than the first safe harbor of sharing.

Wanting, waiting, needing,
Bereft and lonely, I wait,
Wanting, waiting, needing.
A friday night, posed on the hillside of a Wednesday
Following feeling,
Lead by gut and love and desire,
Leaving fear behind.
Fear has his words of wisdom. 
Yet I am lost among emotions.
Left for the wolves to feed upon.  

Insecurities are getting the best of me this week. I plan to take some advise from a friend and make everything right with my husband this weekend. John deserves to be treated well. It's been a rough time for him at work and I haven't made it any easier at home.

So, despite my fears and doubts about outside relationships, John is who matters most! And that is where I will focus my energy for the next four days. I'll check in on Tuesday and let you know how that goes.

There are many times in my life, my days, or hours, that I am positive who I am and who I can trust. Then a mistruth comes forth and I start to question. I have so many hard and fast rules or values or beliefs, if you will, that I rarely question, but sometimes forget to live by. Hmmmm, not making any sense, am I?

So, I have a new friend. I've really enjoyed getting to know him. He's interesting and I like the way he thinks. I don't always like what he thinks, but the conversation is good. And it's nice to have the attention of someone who seems to like me and find me interesting. Then something simple happens. He said this now and that then and they don't match. Now I start to doubt.

Doubt is like a poison that slips into my heart and kills hope. He's a friend, nothing more. I like having friends. I like having male friends. They are so much fun to talk with. I know a lot of women and I serve them in many ways. They are part of a community I belong to, or clients of mine. A few of them I have known for many years and can really talk freely with them. Since I've been in St. Louis, I have had very few male freinds, if any. It's a good feeling to have someone to confide in. It's great to have someone to give me the other perspective. It feels comfortable and heartening to think that I might not spend the rest of my life alone if John were to leave me. Talk about doubt! That's a whole other post. "Does my husband like me or not?"

So why do I have so much vested in this relationship? Probably because it has made me feel worthy and self-confident. It's been encouraging, to say the least, to have someone to talk with about ideas, philosophies, myself, my life. It's encouraging to have someone listen. But I don't like to be lied to. One little lie, caught and proven, can shine a light on a host of other incongruous information. I might be too picky, but I start to wonder if I am being made a fool of. Am I being led down a path that I didn't intend to go? Will I end up alone and ashamed and embarrassed and wondering what I was thinking?

If that is where I end up, will the price paid negate the joy I have felt these past few months feeling worthy of attention? And what does that say about me and my life and my psyche that one man can walk in and notice me, listen to me and seem to care about me; that I am so eager and lonely that I gloss over the obvious clues that I'm just being used and end up alone and sad in the end anyway.

I've always believed that a marriage that fails does so because of both people. There are two sides to every story and I should never take the word of one over the other. I've never been even close to leaving John. Yet, a few weeks ago I was. I had the confidence to believe that I didn't deserve the way he treated me on Mother's Day and that I could make a happy life for myself without him. And now I wonder if that was just false bravado based on false information and false intimacy with someone I thought I knew to some extent.

And, maybe I am making something of nothing. It's been a while since I stopped drinking every night. Saturday I had a few glasses of wine and it didn't lead to an uncontrollable slide down hill. That's good. Maybe I am feeling the fallout of getting that out of my system. Maybe I had too much sugar today. All in all, I'm feeling a little vulnerable. That happens. I'll call my friend and we'll talk. I'll ask if he is honest with me, and then I'll go to bed with my husband knowing who I can trust and who I should stay away from.

I wish relationships were simple. But they all start with me, and I trust myself least of all. Therein lies the rub.

I'm currently providing a service to all people who consider themselves depressed. Contact me and I will tell you about my previous 36 hours. If you are not laughing hysterically with the joy of living your own life and not mine, then I will be utterly shocked and surprised.

Yes, it has been a bad day and a half. Perhaps I have had too much sugar, or white flour, or bad luck. I don't know the cause. Maybe it's my cycle that is turning my world on end. I have been told I can't enter my son's school with a glass bottle of soy sauce, unable to pay a bill with a check, had my drivers license revoked for an unpaid speeding ticket and had my cell phone freeze up and quit working. As a reslut, I've made two trips to city hall. If South Dakota is my "happy place," City Hall is my "hell on earth".  I also had to meet a Wash U student in U City, immediately following the Wash U graduation ceremonies, to buy a cell phone. Then I had to go to Verizon Wireless, Traffic Law Center and back to Verizon Wireless. It then took at least an hour to back up and transfer all my information onto my new phone and another half hour to figure out how to use it.

The boys will be gone tonight. I'd really like to get together with a friend, if possible. Except that I am feeling wigged out and no myself. Actually, I am feeling wierd, maybe even wired. That makes be feel vulnerable because I want to check in with everyone in my life and ask, "do you still likeme?" "Are you sure?" and "Really?"

I think I might take a nap. That might help. I might also drink lots of water and eat some meat. Looking to get back to normal. If only I could reboot myself.

It's the first day since I got here on Friday that it hasn't rained. It's beautiful outside! Nick and I ate lunch on the deck. Patty and Cindy and Charles went into Salem to do some errands today. They should be bringing back Chinese food for dinner.

I worked on sorting and cleaning the kitchen again this morning. More laundry to do. This afternoon Nick, Trish and I will be taking some pictures of dogs and a few auction items.

It's sad to think this land won't be available to me next year at this time. The views are cemented in my soul. The spring blossoms will always be in my heart. But I won't be able to walk the land in any way but in my dreams.

Nick trekked through the marshy land last night. He couldn't make it to the creak, the water is that high!

This transition is a joy, a celebration and wonder. And it is also bitter-sweet and sad. A part of me will always call this land home.

So, Friday night I was to pick Charles up at the St. Louis Airport. The problem was that I couldn't find him. He wasn't in any of the places I expected him to be. So I had to go in to find him. When we met up and were heading to my car in the lot, we road up and down in the elevator a few times and wondered if the airport wanted to keep us.

We made it out and stopped for groceries. Since I was having a sandwich, Charles drove to a while. Not far past Grey Summit on 44 we ran into a major storm. The hail was huge and we finally decided to stop for gas. At our third gas station we were able to fill up, pee and finally get on our way.

Not too far outside of Bixby, on KK, while I was driving we ran into another big storm. This time we kept going, through the fog and the lightning. At one point, Charles asked if I thought a Yettie might run out in front of our car at any moment. I thought it a real possibility. It was kind of an eerie time and place.

Saturday we worked, really hard! John and Nick emptied out cabins and I started in the kitchen. I'm still working in the kitchen. John had to leave Sunday via the logging road, but Nick stayed behind with me.

I've cooked meals, groomed dogs, sorted and cleaned the kitchen and washed laundry. At this point, I'm thinking there may be no end to the items to sort or the work to do. My back hurts, I'm brain dead and...well...exhausted.

I'm glad to be here. I really am. I am being well used, and that is really good. Two more days and I'll be home to work one day and be at Petsmart on Friday.

Thought I would write more while here, but this is the first chance I have had. Missing the people at home...