I am participating in a fundraising campaign to benefit abandoned children in Nigeria who have been accused of witchcraft by their families and neighbors.
As part of this campaign, I am knitting 10 stuffed bears to be sent directly to a shelter in Nigeria that works to house, feed, clothe, and educate these kids. I also have a personal fundraising goal of $5000 to donate to Stepping Stones Nigeria, a UK-based organization that sponsors this shelter.
Please help me to make my goal in one of the following ways:
- Make a one-time donation either by check or on-line
- Sponsor my bears by donating a specific amount per bear that I complete
- Donate a set amount to the cause each pay period through the remaining months of this campaign
If you would like to donate by check, please make it out to the Chesapeake Pagan Community or CPC and send it to me at the address below. If you would like to donate online, go to http://charity.becomingdc.org. You can then donate via PayPal. Please send me an email letting me know how much you donated, so I can apply that to my fundraising goal. All monies collected will be sent via Chesapeake Pagan Community to Stepping Stones Nigeria at the end of September.
Together, we can make a difference in these children's lives.
Blessings,
Katrina
Katrina Messenger
PO Box 5223
Takoma Park, MD 20913
USA
If you would like more information about this issue, there are links to articles and the organizations at http://charity.becomingdc.org/.
Posted in
Submitted by katrina on Tue, 06/17/2008 - 1:13pm.
Reflections is reading the Artist's Way as our annual book study. We are taking two weeks for each chapter. We started on the first Sunday after Imbolc. So this week we begin chapter three. I wrote the following on our bulletin board to summarize my thoughts on chapter two.
I thought when I began Chapter 2 of The Artist's Way that it would be less painful for me now that I had removed most if not all of the crazy-makers and poisonous playmates from my life ... but alas it was not to be. There was still loads of their toxins still in my system. I dug even deeper and realized that most of my corporate career could be thought of as an abusive marriage. And the reason I kept trying harder (sound familiar) was because I was still trying to appease my number one crazy maker -- my father.
And even though he died almost 16 years ago, his toxic gift is still delivering. My healer elder named it many months ago and at the time it did not make sense to me. But as I read this chapter, it hit me. I am still trying to be validated, accepted and acknowledged by him. My entire life had been molded to fit his dream of a hard working, smart, honest, funny and respected person. This all sounds good on the surface. But despite my succeeding at levels unheard of in my family or within my neighborhood, and even breaking more than a few barriers as a "first", my father never once said, "Well done!" That is because he never intended that model for me. He thought he was inspiring his sons. And to his mind, his daughter completely failed at what he thought should have been my role as a woman.
So instead of congratulating me on winning award after award, or acknowledging all my promotions at work or even bothering to attend my graduation from high school or engineering school, he simply showed me a sink filled with dirty dishes. And I in some kind of robotic response would wash the dishes. And still he was not satisfied.
My mother on the other hand was very proud of me. She constantly encouraged me. In fact it is my greatest heartbreak that when I graduated from engineering school -- THE greatest accomplishment in my life in my book -- she was too far gone with Alzheimer's to even understand what I repeated to her over and over again for a half hour just in case she she could hear me. And so the one person who would have celebrated my successes, was inaccessible to me. While the one present was uninterested.
So what did I do, I worked even harder. And that is why I am a blocked creative. I work myself really hard, because I am trying to win my father's respect.
The truth is ... he did respect me. I found this out a few months before he died. But his revelation came so late ... I had built up a mode of living that even now is hard to change.
So right now, my biggest crazy maker ... is me.
Posted in
Submitted by katrina on Tue, 03/04/2008 - 12:59pm.
This sounds like something I need to do. I hope that I can work it out.
Connect DC is TEN?? Wow. Time flies.
Did I ever mention to you that I think the impact that working had on me was to connect me to DC? I'm so hooked in here ... just call me "swamp thang."
Speaking of which ... isn't it margarita weather? Let's get together.
Much love,
Reya
p.s. So cool to see my drawing again! Thank you for publishing!
"Such beautiful dreaming! Such clear work. You sound so much in-focus just now.
I honor this work and delight in reading your words ... and I'm moved to participate in the dreaming-work, perhaps more than is appropriate.
I think I'll take the risk, and I hope you'll tell me if you'd rather I not do it again.
In the dream group I used to work with, we would read one of our dreams aloud and then go around the room, each one beginning their remarks with "If this were my dream..." and then sharing whatever the pieces seemed to illuminate for them. And then the next person might see something quite different in the same images, the same words.
In that sense, if this were my dream just now, in my dream I am surrounded by water -- my life is filled with emotion, covering and drowning everything else, so that all I can see is my feelings.
The gathering of song and all these incredible people -- my life, friendships, the harmony we make together. And in my dream, I am beginning to see myself moving on. Does this mean a change of geography? a change of emphasis? in my life this minute this could be about gradually shifting some of the focus of my everyday spiritual community from the UUs to the Yoga studio, or it could be something quite different. If I had this dream last week sometime, it would look like the impending end of an important relationship.
And in all of those possibilities, I am so present to the sadness with which I gather up what is mine to take with me, make my farewells, and lose my ability to remember the words. In all of these possibilities, even as I'm leaving I'm rethinking the choice to leave ... do I really have to? why?
In my dream, I look for my car because I want to escape ... and I can't find my car because there's no way out. As I'm searching the beautiful dark man in the hotel uniform helps me -- the hotel uniform telling me that wherever I am is only a way station, his beauty telling me that I can enjoy and appreciate his help, his darkness telling me that sometimes I need to look closely to see what is important (other times everything is well-lighted).
I keep looking for the way out even as the hotel man would make me welcome, and eventually the welcome is withdrawn as he leaves. And then I am lost and wandering, trying to find my way home -- having ignored help and support, I find I can't find the way alone after all.
And now that my dream has ended, I see there is much here that I can use in my waking life, too. So thank you for dreaming this dream, thanks for sharing it, thanks for letting me dream it, too.
Many blessings, Dear One"
"I sit staring out the window, not lost in thought, but feeling completely and totally blank inside." I have been sitting in a similar space.
Your post reminds me to trust and to listen for the song.