Basking

I have absolutely, utterly lost several weeks of my life, it seems.

Right before my son's birthday, in January, I came down sick, and I cranked on my homemade Elderberry syrup and kicked it right out of me...I thought.
Then in February I got sick again. I was stupidly fatigued, and I slogged through work as best I could, but took most of my off-time to rest. Then over the weekend, I just could not shake it.

I had clogged sinuses, I had congested lungs, and the fatigue was overwhelming.
That Tuesday I called out of work and went to the doctor.
She told me I had a cold, albeit a vicious one, and to keep doing what I was doing-- you know the routine. Rest, fluids, etc. And she wrote me a note to stay out of work for the rest of the week.

For the next umpteen days, I would get up as best I could, have a coffee, check my email, and that was about as much energy as I could manage before I had to crash and go back to bed. My son was off school for a vacation, which was a double-edged sword...I didn't, thankfully, have to use the alarm, but at the same time, I couldn't entirely rest because I wasn't alone, ever. But he's 15 now and I did get lots of rest time. He's such a sweetie.

I went back to the doctor on Saturday, and that doctor still couldn't really diagnose me, I think, so she decided she was treating me for a sinus infection, and prescribed me a 5-day course of azythromycin. And an inhaler.
Both the doctors said my lungs were clear, which is weird, because I could have taken a Sharpie and drawn a line across my chest where the congestion stopped and the clear began, but whatever. They still feel cloggy.
It took 3 of the 5 days of antibiotics to even start feeling a little better.

Then, yay for things coming in threes, I have a mouth infection where I'm going to need a root canal, and I'm highly suspecting Carpal Tunnel in my dominant hand (the right, if you're curious), so I'm on penicillin now. And a butt-ton of probiotics, because no WAY am I doing a yeast infection, too.

I'm a medical mess, lately. Gah. Because I'm mostly pretty healthy.

Point being, after all that, is that I kind of lived in a dreamtime during my illness.
I've had lots of time to muse, and dream, and think, and what I came to is that I think very old people, and people on the edge of dying, the reason they sleep so much is they're getting ready for the next great adventure. It's a dreamtime.
It's not really a bad place to be.
That dreamtime...it's kind of soothing. But it's a very in-between place. It's a threshold. You know, like a door? Or a window. Between this place and the next. You know how in ritual, after the casting of the circle, the priest/ess will say "Now we are between the worlds"....it's very like that.

I've gotten very quiet, in my mind. And I'm slower and more deliberate about my daily tasks, and I've taken to basking in the sunlight that streams through my bedroom window in the afternoon. I did that during my sickness-- I lay across my bed, with my face in the sunlight, and just...basked. Only, being sick, it wasn't so much a luxury as a necessity. And now I still think it's necessary. It restoreth my soul, and all that. And it's very "in the moment", because the sun moves, as we all know, with the seasons, so the time is not exactly the same every day. I have to stop what I am doing to go bask.
It's very meditative.

Go try it. Go find your place where the sun comes in your window. If you don't have a chair, or a bed, where that window is, then make a nest on the floor. Turn your face to the sun. Say a prayer of gratitude and thanks. Go bask.

Finally, snow! Weather! Yay!

It's only a dusting, but there must have been ice, because vehicles are having trouble making it up and down my hilly street. We're near the bottom. I can see that cars are driving probably fine on the highway, but the 1/4 mile it would take for me to get to the highway would be an issue. It's slippery out there, seems like.
There's a AAA tow truck outside our driveway. I think it's for someone in the building, but not sure. The tow truck pulled backward into the driveway and had trouble getting back out, with his tires turning and not getting any traction.
Yikes.
It's finally seasonal! It's not inches and inches like NPR said it was going to be, but I'll take it.

I don't get people complaining about the weather. I have caught my ownself doing it, but I'm getting better.
Weather falls under Things We Cannot Change, and I'm a big fan of the Serenity Prayer. I'm working on getting better at following it. Super simple, but not easy! 

In case y'all are not familiar, here it is:

"God/dess, grant me the Serenity
To accept the things I cannot change,
Courage to change the things I can,
And Wisdom to know the difference."

See? Hard as the Wiccan Rede-- which, for a religion having one "rule", is not easy. Try it.

Here is the Wiccan Rede, if you're unfamiliar with that, too:

"An' it harm none, do as ye will."

Remember, "none" includes yourself. See? Because if you are not saying a simple "thank-you" to a compliment, for instance, brushing it off and saying "but...", then you are dissing yourself and that's harming. I'm trying not to go "ugh" at every photograph taken of me. Because harm.

Right now I am white-lighting the tow truck and the AAA guy and my neighbor. 
I'm practicing gratitude for those folks who go out in weather to help people, even if they do get paid for it, because they signed up for the job to begin with, so they deserve my prayers and gratitude. 

It's a day for staying in and eating soup. Drinking tea, or coffee. Being homely-- as in, doing home things. Hibernating. 

Blessed Yule!

The Winter Solstice has just passed, yesterday morn, and my boy and I are here in Virginia Beach to celebrate Christmas with my family of origin.

It's going to be eighty degrees tomorrow, Christmas Eve. EIGHTY. Eighty is not normal this time of year, even for Virginia.
I think it's to be near 70-something in Worcester, MA. 70-something for sure is not normal for this time of year in Massachusetts.
This frightens me. I know there are plenty of fluctuations in the weather over the years, but I just do not see how people can deny that humans and their machines have any influence on the planet. Any? None at all? How could that be?? We are making such a mess of our little blue world, and so many folks in charge seem to care so very little.

Anyway...in my own little world, I had so much joy and introspection and focus and BE HERE NOW with Joanna Powell Colbert's 30 Days of Hecate online course, that I decided to take the 30 Days of Yule, too. Here is a link to her page where her e-courses are, if I can do it right: http://www.gaiansoul.com/work-with-me/ecourses/

It's nice...well, more than nice, it's necessary... to take some intentional time, especially this time of year, to turn inward, to hibernate, to eat soup and bundle up on the couch, or in my bed under the covers, to watch movies or read books. We're not supposed to be doing all this glittery holiday stuff, with company and parties and buying and shopping and commercials and loudness. It's grating on the nerves, and it's no wonder people get SAD (seasonal affective disorder, not actually sad) this time of year, because I think we're going against our natural inclinations to hide. I think it very possibly has very little to do with the need for sunshine. Because there's often plenty sunshine when it's cold or snowy.

And actually, all this warmness, that's contrary too, to what this part of our world is supposed to be doing at this time of year.

I'm glad we're getting to see family, though. We're only getting to see them once a year, now, and so I make the journey South with intention, because I love them. Yay for family! Yay Yule! Yay Christmas!

Wild Life

Someone posted in my online class about her Urban Wildwood backyard, and it made me think of mine. I have an Urban Wildwood, too.

I live in a city now, and there's not much green space in my section of it. I mean...there are trees, true, but not like....I mean, in Asheville, there's so much green there I don't know how they built a city in the midst of it and still retained the greenness of it.
 
But here, it's a city, a "real" one, an ugly mess of concrete and steel and sidewalks and trains and traffic and litter. Unless you choose to focus elsewhere, and that's doable, but hard.

My back "yard" is a tiny space held in by a concrete wall. In that space is one giant pine tree and a bunch of smaller trees. There's vines and pine straw and a little bit of grass here and there, and some bare spots.
There's a ton of wildlife for such a small space!

There's gray squirrels. LOTS of them. Some of them must be getting on in years, like me, because their tails are gray. My tail is not, thank all the gods, but my head hair is starting to grow glitter out of it.
 
There's cats. I think there's only one from last year that survived the winter, but we have named her Shmoo. She's a small black cat. She had 4 kittens that are now bigger than she is. I haven't seen all of them around in awhile, but there's one that has stuck around.
 
There's a TON of birds. I am on the first floor so I am lucky enough to live right under all that tree canopy, and I also have a bird feeder right at the edge of my porch, and our kitty likes to look out the window at all those potential kitty snacks on the bird feeder. We get chickadees, which is the MA state bird, and we get blue jays, which I heard are relatives of crows, and we get I think what are nut hatches, and I have seen a cardinal or two every now and again.
 
Last year we had a skunk-- silly thing, with short legs like a dachsund, long hair, and a waddle-- what a funny guy he was!
 
My neighbor said she saw raccoons, but I have not seen any.
 
I had a neighbor's girlfriend early this summer who said I reminded her of Snow White, with all the animals around me unafraid. What a compliment! I'll take it.

My little wild space in the backyard of my city. I don't think anyone else ever notices back there but me. I'm super, super grateful to have it.

Crossroads.

I signed up for 30 Days Of Hecate with Joanna Powell Colbert. It was only $20 and I thought...why not? I really could stand to save the money, but heck, this is for ME, and it's a thoughtful way of connecting to the season.

Today's journal prompt, Day 1:
At what crossroads do you stand? How might you call on Hecate to be your guide?

I think...I had to think about this. I stand at several crossroads. I view crossroads as decision-making (Do I do this or that? What's next?) and every decision, every path has a parallel universe. A What-If path.

I have many (crossroads, decisions, pathways to choose from) at any given time, but right now I am thinking I am at a crossroads of my life. I am between Mother and Crone. On Saturday (Samhain/Halloween), if I don't spot, which I haven't yet, I am officially through menopause. Which, physically, means I'm Croned. Yet because I started so late with pregnancy (41yo), I am still very much in Mothering mode. Somehow, though, I am identifying more and more with Crone goddesses...Hecate. Baba Yaga. 

I am not afraid of death. I am not at all afraid of getting older. I look at my body with wonder and awe and abject fascination. It's wrinkly. The skin is thinner, and it hangs. I see a very different visage when I look in the mirror than when I am photographed. I'm appalled because I feel the same as my 40 year old self, yet I look (in my eyes) much, much older. My gray is starting to come in more. I have downy fuzz on my face. I have a mole that now grows four hairs out of it. It used to grow one, then two, now four. My Witch-mole. I'm getting older. It's so weird.

This is not a choice between this road or that. I can, however, choose my attitude with which to take the path. I choose acceptance, not resistance. I choose fascination. I hopefully choose wisdom. I can't wait for each day. It's an exciting journey!

I wanted to post a new picture, but I can't figure out how. Yet. I haven't changed all that much, being's I'm nearly 56 and when people are adults, I don't think they change all that much, generally. Unless they lose or gain a ton of weight (which I have-- I should figure out how to load up my fat picture) or when they grow, like....thirty years older than the last pic.
I digress. I look nearly the same. I think I'm more wrinkly, in photos, but perhaps I'm being picky about myself. As humans are wont to do.


So...Friday, two days ago, they cut down a tree across the way from me. And gave another one a massive haircut. I was very nearly sick to my stomach for the whole day. I had to shut the curtains in broad daylight so I couldn't see. I could still hear the chain saws, though. Now I have this ugly stump out there to look at-- the gaping wound of the corpse of my beautiful oakey friend. It's horrible, and devastating, and I can hardly talk about it or think about it, so mostly I don't, but I had to mention it because it just blows my mind how people-- most people-- think of trees as "just trees". Or animals, too, "It's just a dog", or "It's only a cat" or whatever.
To me, everything matters.
Trees matter.
Trees matter in a HUGE way. We breathe in, they breathe out. They breathe in, we breathe out. That is often a meditation of mine: We breathe in, they breathe out. They breathe in, we breathe out.


More later. 

Good morning, choochoo train! I can see the trains right outside my window. I love trains. I have lived near trains all my life.

Out my window, you see: first the street, then the highway, then the train tracks, all parallel, one and then the next. Some folks would hate that. I feel like I have my eye on the world. Beyond all those, is the hill, behind which is Holy Cross college. I can't see the college in the green season, except for the very tippy-tops of the buildings, so sometimes I can pretend it's mountains. It's lovely that I get up mostly before sunrise, even on the weekends, because the Sun glints over the very tops of the trees as He rises.

It's a balmy 48*F this morning, here in Worcester, Massachusetts. I am loving it. I'm sitting here in the silence, with my fuzzy green dinosaur jammie pants on, and a flannel shirt, and big knee-high fuzzy socks. And a big mug of steaming coffee, with frothed milk, in a mug that depicts pumpkins and colored oak leaves. I'm so happy.

And, it's Caturday! Today I am going to replace the screens in some of the windows with the storm windows, maybe, and take out the air conditioners.
I have about a week left of dieting, and then....crock pot! Soups! Stews! Chilis!

Have I mentioned how much I love this season?

The world is going to hell in a handbasket...sigh. I'm doing my best to keep my little corner of it clean, and kind, and bless it-- happy.