New Vibe On Life

Today is update post, but I'm also going to be trying something new.  Each day (I'm going to try to post everyday) I'm going to draw a card from my Tarot deck for myself.  Regardless of what I post, I am going to include the card I drew and what I feel it means for me.  Here's today's card...

The Herbal Tarot By Michael Tierra

The Six of Swords is a positive card.  It represents finding solutions to problems.  This is a good card for me today, as I have had a lot on my mind lately.  I'm thankful to know that even though I have not reached the shore yet, my journey towards solving some issues may be at hand.  It could also have something to do with the topic that is most on my mind this morning.

A note about Vervain.  Vervain has been used in the treatment of ulcers and I happen to have a bleeding ulcer that's been acting up.  No small coincidence there!  Guess I need to get a handle on that!

I have decided that it's time for me to start thinking seriously about my health.  Since the death of my Grandfather some years ago, I have not been much of a "modern medicine" kind of girl.  What happened with my Mother this year, seemed to cement that for me.  Instead, I turn to herbalism most of the time for remedies to what ails us and I know that living a healthier life-style helps those herbs (and my body) do what it's supposed to do.

With that said, I have joined up with Get Off Your Broom to do the Fall Into Fitness Challenge!

This challenge is a little different, in that it will have a Pagan twist to it.  We'll be doing Element work as we go and doing Pagan challenges as well.  I'm all excited to be joining up to do this!  Check-ins are on Sundays and it will run to November 30th.  I hope you'll come and join me in this challenge to get healthy!  At the very least, leave me some comment luv on Sundays to help cheer me on!

And, I've joined SparkPeople to help me keep track of things like calories.  If you're a member, you can find me there!

So, that's today's post.  Hopefully, tomorrow I will get this up a little earlier, but life off the computer has interfered today in the form of Mini-Me's 19th birthday and L's Mom having surgery.

Hope everyone has had a Blessed Day! )0(

Mediation and Week in Review

It seems like I've been writing all week without really publishing anything.  I have weeks like that sometimes.  It seems like every time I sit down and try to put a post together, I have to get up and run off to do something and don't make it back to the computer.

There were a few things that happened to me this week that I wanted to write about, like my experience at a UU church last Sunday, and my ride with my Dad Monday that turned out to be a family history lesson.  Some of the things Mini-Me is going through...

Now I find myself staring at the end of my week.  Draco comes home today and I can tell it's going to be a crazy weekend.  I don't know when or if I'll have another chance to write before the beginning of next week.

I hope to be able to finish the posts I started on those other topics and maybe get them up over the weekend.

Today, I have other things in mind, though.

Even though I decided to make this a Pagan blog when I opened it, I find that I don't actually write much about Pagan stuff.  This has been on my mind a good bit lately and I had to ask myself why.

There have been a few Pagan Meme's I've run across, but I just skipped over them instead of writing anything.  For a while, I couldn't put my finger on why, but after giving it some thought, I think I figured it out.

I know that although I have been Pagan for going on 20 years, I haven't always been what you'd call a "practicing Pagan".  I lived by the Rede and Rule of Three and have always had an altar set up, but that altar has largely sat and gathered dust.  I fell out of practice years ago and have only recently taken up my wand again.

I think I have feared sounding stupid, or saying something wrong.  I tend to forget that religion is a largely personal thing.  You can share the general idea with others, but what you get from it is intensely personal.  I can't say that my experiences are right or wrong, or that someone else's are either.  What I get from it, may not be what you get from it.  That's one of the reasons I left main-stream religion.  I wasn't getting the same thing from it others were, but there, you're expected to.  In Paganism, it's our differences that makes us unique and we are supposed to embrace those differences.

I admit that after so many years of being out of practice, I feel like a beginner all over again most days, so I'm going to share my journey here on my blog.

So, with that said, I'd like to discuss something new I'm learning.

The church we attend offers activities throughout the week and one of those is Meditation classes.  It caught my eye on the calendar recently and I've thought about going, but I hesitated.  I don't know if it's something they're teaching, or something they expect you to have experience with before you go, and I don't like to look silly, so when I saw a book on meditation (Living Healthy Through Meditation it's still free today, by the way) for free through the Facebook page  Pagan eBooks for Free, I decided I had to download it.

I began reading it last night and even tried one of the basic techniques.

I've tried mediation in the past, and ended up disappointed.  I don't know if I was doing it wrong or maybe if it was my ADD getting in the way, but I couldn't seem to muster the ability to focus my attention, without focusing on anything.  I have a vivid imagination and a busy thought process and the whole "empty mind" thing was hard for me.

The techniques offered in this book are much better than some of the others I tried in the past and I was actually able to achieve a meditative state for a short time.  This may not sound like much, but for someone that's been trying for almost 20 years without much in the way of results, it's huge!

I woke up this morning feeling more grounded as well.  Grounding and centering have been my go-to's for managing stress ever since I learned the techniques, but I felt grounded without the need to ground (if that makes sense).

I also found that I feel more in tune with nature this morning as well.  My stress level seems to have dropped noticeably, and my ability to focus this morning is better than normal.

If I can experience benefits like these from just a few minutes of meditation, I can't wait to see how much I can achieve by being able to hold it longer!

I will try to remember to post occasional updates on my journey with mediation, but I really wanted to share this book with you.

Don't worry about religious tones if you're not Pagan.  This book is not religious that I've seen so far, it's just good techniques for meditation that anyone can try!

Blessings!

Not happening

I spent most of my weekend and the first part of the week feeling like this...

Click for credits

I had some problems come up over the weekend where I was being harassed by someone about their problem with someone else.  I felt like I had been invaded and violated.  I set everything to private everywhere and almost deleted my blog.  Again.  I went silent on all forms of social media for a few days.  I was so frustrated and aggravated, and yes, angry.  Angry enough to want to hop on a plane and probably get myself into trouble.  I didn't do it, but for a minute, I seriously wanted to.

You see, I spent most of my life hiding for one reason or another.  When Mom got sick and everyone started to realize she wasn't going to make it, our family - which had never been close to start with- scattered to the winds.  When she passed, I felt I was finally free to just be myself and not to have to hide anymore.  In a moment of panic, I reacted on instinct and did what I'd always done.  I hid.

I was grumpy, ill, angry, stressed and just not a good person to be around in general for several days.  I felt like I did as a child, knowing that I could not be myself, could not express myself, because of the thoughts, views and opinions of someone else.

I decided to take some time to sit down and think things through.

I knew that I personally had done nothing to this person and had done nothing wrong in general.  The person was taking their anger out on me because I am the only person they have to take it out on.  When I refused to tell them what they wanted to know (because I don't have the information they were originally after), they lost it and took it out on me.

I tried to be a good, decent person.  I tried to show a little compassion, and I got attacked.  It was as simple and as complicated as that.

The truth is, I really don't have a family anymore.  Really, I don't think I ever truly had much of one anyway.

The only member of my family that appears to still even be talking to me is my sister and she's been estranged from the rest of the family for years.  Loosing Mom broke what little connection there was between me and the rest of the family.

What this person obviously doesn't know, is that I have always been the black-sheep.  I have always been the out-cast.  I was only ever tolerated by my family.  No one ever listened to anything I said, they didn't care how I felt and my opinion counted for nothing.

I have been estranged from my family more than I have ever been part of it and while I loved my family dearly, the feeling was not mutual.  They have always meant more to me than I ever did to them.  I kept trying to insinuate myself into a family that openly told me they didn't really want me around.

Even when I was asked to come and help through Mom's illness, it was made clear to me that no one wanted me there, but they needed the help and felt they had no choice.

I should have said no, and sometimes, I wish I had, but they were my family and I loved them.

Now, none of them will even speak to me.  This has been a tender subject for me and this person brought all those painful feelings to the surface.

I realize that they obviously know little of the true dynamics of our family.  I'm sure they thought that we were a "normal" family, but sadly, we aren't.  Our family is the poster-child for a dysfunctional family.

So, after giving it some thought, I decided to ignore it all from here on out and go on with my life.  I was left, yet again, in the position of someone either trying to blame me for other people's crap, or expecting me to clean up someone else's mess, and I'm just not doing it.

Honestly, I have accepted that I don't have a family anymore.  Although it hurt me for a while, I have come to terms with it and I have decided that I don't need the stress anyway.  I have my husband, my daughter and the extended family I have made for myself.  I have my sister when she chooses to be around.  That is enough.

It has taken me years to find any kind of peace with myself over the reality of my family situation, but I finally did, and I'm not going to let anyone take that away from me.

So, here I am.  I will not hide, I will not act as if I have anything to be ashamed of or as if I have done something wrong.  I am not the rest of my family and I am not responsible for the things they have done, or not done.  It is not my job to fix their lives or solve their problems, just as it is not their job to do so with mine.