Well that was a long period of silence!
I had meant to post so many times over the last few weeks. But life kept surprising me. And I needed to focus on maintaining my footing as it seemed that the very ground itself kept moving, shimmying and quaking.
So I am surfacing not so much because life has quieted down, but because my need for expression has bubbled up. So I offer a few quick glimpses from my life in the midst of madness, mystery and other oddities.
- Just as the emotional side effects of the prednisone significantly calmed down, my doctor had me lower the dosage due to the physical side effects. I had not realized that it was the prednisone that was making me sweat profusely and had me up four or more times a night to pee. The latest lab tests are inconclusive, so I now have a referral to see a rheumatologist. It seems that Eridanus and I will continue our game of leapfrog in our respective medical journeys.
- Apparently my life was not full enough so I have decided to go back to school. I have decided to apply to the Assisi Institute (www.assisiconferences.com) for their certification program in Archetypal Pattern Analysis. It is a two-year program, but my plan is to do it in three years so I can spread out the cost. So on average, I will spend three long weekends a year in Brattleboro, Vermont. Now I have to decide if it was actually a good idea to agree to teach at Cherry Hill this fall. Ai yi yi!
- I have been feverishly working on the issue of life balance these last few weeks. I have been participating in an experiment with one of my favorite bloggers, David Seah (http://davidseah.com). David with the help of his avid readers had been trying to find ways to model, track and maintain balance between various aspects of our lives. I was happily building little balance bots, butterflies and grids as I joined in the fun. I have come to the conclusion that what I needed was not a balance between work and life, or between creativity and conversation – what I needed was a balance between self-nurturance and giving to the world. I want to write more about this topic, so look for some ranting on this in the near future.
- I have been slowly reading a wonderfully dense book called Mysticism by Evelyn Underhill. It has been slow going partly because of the prednisone but also, Underhill packs a lot of punch into every sentence and paragraph. I also want to write more about this topic too.
- I have restarted my (almost) daily yoga practice and weekly walking. Last week, since I was missing my yoga class, I upped my practice to six sun salutations instead of the regular three. It was glorious! Apparently the first three were more like a good warm up. And going past them produced such an incredible rush of endorphins. I could feel it because of how the prednisone allowed me to feel how my muscles responded to each pose. Now I do six salutations daily and as a result I have improved several muscular skeletal issues with my shoulders and hips! Even Dr Z , my (Romulan) chiropractor, was impressed. Yay me!
- I have hit a major snag with the editing of my book. No big deal, I just have to print out another copy because my first reader misplaced hers -- y’know, the one with all her edits and feedback …sigh. Hopefully, I will finish the edit phase real soon. I promise there will be more updates about my book progress as warranted.
And that is it for now. I will try not to wait so long to post here. Although I have been writing, it has been almost entirely in my paper journal or on someone else’s web site.
I definitely want to write more blog posts. I have a lot of ideas, musings and experiences I want share. After all, writing is one of the ways I make sense of life, the universe and everything. So you can expect more wild-eyed rants from this crazed mystic.
Posted in
- katrina's blog
- Add new comment
- 540 reads
Wish I could be there. Very well spoken.
Katrina,
I wish you all the blessings and power you need on your journey. Thank you for these words. It is good to remember that returning to work (and thus returning to grace) bring a chance for us all to rest and have joy.
Wishing you joy in the Work.
David
Dear Katrina- Thorn reposted your blog and happy am I. Your passion, always so immense, comes blowing out in these words. So akin to my own heart and soul that it makes me have a bittersweet smile.
The Storm is only now coming to the edges of our universe and yet it will sweep and consume all that is. In the end, our beautiful universe will be so much...more? Different? Complete? Who knows?
All I do know is my soul came here to witness and be part in this period. I cannot shrink from the work. I am here with you, fae sister!
Thought-provoking piece, Katrina. Thanks.
I don't know what to call myself either. In Pagandom, I've taken to referring to myself as a Witch at Large. In the interfaith world where I'm active, I call myself a Pagan. Sometimes I call myself an uppity woman or a Second Wave Feminist. I've never really thought to publicly identify myself by my sexuality, het woman, which is very "white bread" and old-fashioned. Not only het, but serially monogamous for the most part. It seems almost a liability these days to say you're het, but I am proudly and happily so. I tend towards intellectualism but only have a BA, which doesn't carry much weight, at least in public and professional worlds, no matter how much you've studied, trained, and can articulate, even teach.
My biological heritage is Irish, Dutch, French Huguenot, Euro-mongrel. My social heritage is Roman Catholic on one side and conservative Methodist, temperance-crusading, women's rights and education on the other, with distinct East Coast sensibilities, now mellowed by more than half a century living on the Left Coast. My maternal political heritage is conservative Republican (altho what my relatives might think of current trends in the GOP I cannot imagine, since they did have brains and they did think and they did have a social conscience), yet I am much farther left in my outlook than any elected official I know. My paternal political heritage is blue collar Democratic, except that my dad broke with his family on politics and allied with my mother's family's conservatism.
I'm a former hippie, a home-birth advocate, a home death and green burial advocate, an opponent of capital punishment and resorting to warfare to resolve humankind's differences. I support the right to conscious self-deliverance. I rejoice in any and all consensual expressions of love and eros. I'm a lover and a mom.
I have never missed voting in an election and I disrespect those who don't avail themselves of this hard-won right. (I have ancestors who fought the Brits in the American Revolution.) I support workers' rights. I recognize our interdependence on this planet, so could be called a greenie. I'm a committed environmentalist in my day-to-day life (in terms of eating locally grown food, expanding public transit, recycling, preserving open space and wildlife, opposing exploitation of natural resources [strip mining, oil-drilling, nuclear facilities, agribusiness, monocultures, clear-cutting timber, overuse of pesticides, genetic modification, etc.]) I want to make the city streets "safe for dancing," as my old friend Tony Serra said when he ran for mayor of SF on the Platypus Party ticket.
Well, you got me going there, my friend. Thought-provoking read, as I said. ;-)
xo,
Macha
Lovely azaleas!
[cough][gag][snort][sneeze]
Just lovely...
I know what you mean.
I feel you. There is too much bs- particularly when people decide that their temperament is tantamount to truthful and ignore everyone else.
I get irked by immature extroverts or closet introverts who ignore you REPEATEDLY and then pretend you're out of line for being upset by the time they can't pretend you didn't say anything anymore. I find that the same people will ignore you if you blow up right away, too, and that it's because they just don't think that honoring what you value is important to maintaining a relationship, or even worse: that you don't know what you value at all and that it's all a mind game for their pleasure or annoyance. Then they call you passive-aggressive, aggressive, moody, touchy and temperamental. I call them "not listening".