Feeling death, celebrating life

My family back on O'ahu prepares for a celebration of life.  Jas' the youngest daughter of my first cousin and his wife died from cancer earlier this month.  She was younger than my own son.  She (her ashes, I think) will be transported in a double hulled wa'a from Kaneohe to Lanikai, and many people are involved in her celebration.  Pete and I get the emails including us in the jobs, the map of events, the additional details of pregnancy, wedding, aging aunty, and progressive computer literacy.  Pete and I will drive north on this island and go to Libby Beach which faces west toward O'ahu and join in the celebration across the ocean ... same ocean, same family, different beach.  Wish we were in Lanikai tomorrow.  Won't be, were there, but here now feeling death, celebrating life.

Crop rotation

I thought of Terri Windling on my way out the vardo door, and went to her blog to find her writing about "Writer's Block"  Among some writers' comments I found this one about "crop rotation" that really feels right for me.

Applied gardening.

Andrew Macrae: "This is what works for me: I practise crop rotation with my creative endeavours. I’ve found that when the nitrogen runs out in the soil in one field, it’s best to leave it fallow for a while and cultivate another. "


http://windling.typepad.com/blog/2011/10/on-creative-burnout.html
 
I feel that way.  Both my vegetable garden and my creative gardens are in need of crop rotation:  we won't plant beans or peas in the same place as this year's gardens though both crops were magnificent and abundant.  Other seed or a fallow plot.  Same with my writing.  From so many public blogs to blogging private, and picking up on writing that has been fallow for awhile.

Pluto working in Capricorn in my 12H

I had a large and scary panic attack last night, and could find no comfort as I felt the worst of it.  Pete lay beside me but could not 'reach' the pain or the scariness.  I finally sat up and realized it would be better to sleep electrically unplugged because there was just too much going on inside to manner.  It's been a long time since I've had a panic attack, and reliving the ones already experienced doesn't help! 

DREAM:  Standing in a cafeteria line looking for things to eat.  Noticing a boy with a large plate of iceberg lettuce and tomatoes and thinking "That's different."  The soup or chilli didn't appeal to me.  Thoughts of an old friend, Ermalinda came, and maybe she could make me a half sandwich (white bread?) and cold cuts.  Ultimately, I don't think I ate anything in the dream. 

I'm having difficulty knowing what I can eat.  Sensitive and over the top with foods that are not otherwise 'bland'.  I know that food has triggered other panics in the past. 

PLUTO transits my 12th House MOON and CAPRICORN, and will be deep and heavy for years.  That's what happening and getting deeper is the only direction Pluto goes when transiting.  Dark and deep stuff.  Rain is making things darker still here in the forest.  Isolated.  Yet, I have plans to go bowling on Tuesday, for fun, AND the new weekly Tickle Lines are posted and available to prime the writing pumps of pals who keep me company.

This link from PT about "Meaning as Medicine" was inspiring. http://planetthrive.com/2008/07/meaning-as-medicine-in-chronic-illness/.

Whew.

Targeting a Dream: Gupta on the Scorpio New Moon

Target Gupta Brain Re-training Program:  Wednesday, October 26, 2011

..." Be aware that Jupiter is exactly trine Pluto, energized by the new moon. People will make major investments under a sky like this, not just of their money but their energy in general which can take many forms. For example, one word from someone with a lot of power can change your life."

This is from Elsa, with the whole link and comments below.

http://www.elsaelsa.com/astrology/2011/10/18/new-moon-in-scorpio-october-26-2011/

"One word from someone with a lot of power can change your life."  I'm putting a lot of positive vibing with the Gupta program because I am making a change for the positive, incrementally and in leaps.  That's how I operate.  I know after lots of experience with it, that there are losses, lots of them in my life.  In one way or the other I've been working on trying to clean it up; believing I didn't do enough to clean it up; and take the spiritual highway and bi-pass to clean up what I really can.  12 Step Program has taught me to let go and let God; but the FOOTWORK, THAT is all mine.  Astrology has been awesome as a tool.  And timing is important for me.  Hina has helped by showing me through her phases.  I'm not always exactly on time, but then, I was premature, pulled out of the womb and all that.  So, with the "reality" of a life, this one, of surviving incredible losses, I step into the Abraham Groove and wait for my Gupta DVDs to show up.

Last night I had more Ma and clothes and closet and house dreams all wrapped into one night's dreamscape.  When I woke up I remembered nothing, but had a 'sick' feeling in my gut.  I stayed with it in the dark, and finally put my thumb into my mouth and sucked.  The suckling is helping me connect with feelings the way I did when I was a baby.  The baby who didn't get the suckling she needed.  It was the Ma dream, and have been the Ma dreams that give me more time with that Ma or another Ma.  The clothes, oh how I have loved clothes, and now have fewer of them; and a difficult, though doable process of getting them washed, dried and wearable.  Trying on lots of different outfits.  Saying to myself, "I didn't know I had these clothes.  Picking them up, and looking at what what coordinate with what.  (Oh how I have loved doing that!!) 

NO SPIRITUAL BY-PASSES!  That's part of the message.  Experience the material world, girl-woman:  it's a good place after all (of the losses).  But, I must physically experience the world.  MCS has done that, forcefully and very dramatically.  Now, I commit to the work of REGROOVING emotional experiences for a different physical world(mine).  The searching for a new place to live part of the dream with Pete and Ma in there somewhere, was again the compartments of my 'self' ... those HOUSE DREAMS.  This time, the two rooms with old carpet had me saying, "Old carpet.  I guess we could cover that up...(we've done it often in the past).  The old headboard and the closet of clothes ... not overly filled ... with men and women clothes. 

My North-South Node highway gives me messages that can help stay in a groove, and not in fantasy or spiritual escape.  The way home is to root, in a garden, in a real, safe, physical place.  The New Moon in Scorpio is a major positive time for investment and at least, a great time to plant a seed that will magnify my future IN A GOOD WAY. 

A South Node Experience

I wore a suit in a past life.

Amy and I were walking through town yesterday.  Two friends wearing masks, chatted and peeked into the shop windows 'like normies.'  We stopped and squealed at the puppets and the fun headbands of frivolity.  "I love that one," I said pointing at the green and blue headband that could have had two shiny eyes.  "Oh, you'd look good in that.  The colors,"  Amy said.  "I used to wear stuff like that.  I was a professional clown."  I said.  "You were?  A professional clown."  "Yeah, I went to clown college."  The conversation went on as we walked to the end of the block and before we got to the STOP sign, I had told her about my former career as corporate exec and found myself talking about a part of my life that I now describe as being re-lived as a sort of nightmare. 

"Did you wear suits?"  Amy asked.  Yup.  I did and can remember the way those suits were chosen, why, what color, the feel of the slippery silk-like lining and the shoulder pads on one suit that made my already broad shoulders line-backer like.  It was a very big leap that I took consciously and purposely welding all my 10th H power to make a career out of ... not nothing, but to make a career that was OUT THERE.  It had to be done.  (I could make money at it.  I could 'show 'em' I could BE some body.)  Over time the job took me away from home and my family (especially Christopher) and allowed me space from Roy who was not what I thought he was ... Whatever that means!  I made a public life separate from the rest of me. 

The result:  a divorce, emptying the resources that I made (401K) as I left the marriage, moved back to Hawaii; and started another relationship without having cleaned up the karma from the first.  Fourteen years later, Roy and I talk.  It's better, and I am aware of my mistakes, and see how I can easily repeat them with Pete.  I 'file that' away until something like yesterday's walk with a pal draws the puss from a wound not quite healed.  But, it is healing.  Long term (Saturn-Libra) healing and Chiron in the 10th H of public life. 

I am different.  I have a chronic illness borne of sensitivity and reactivity and worn into the grooves of my brain, my soul.  A chance to pay down the karmic debt is here ... one awareness and one new and better choice at a time.  Nearing the Season of Scorpio, the debt repayment options are more powerful.  I see them for what they are.  In the daily events of my life, a friend with a mask, walks with me past a window front with a joyfilled headband and conversation happens.  Real talk.  Unexpected avenue of healing.

Good,  this private space for this episode.

North Node in Taurus (mine)

Soul Purpose: serenity and stability, regaining a sense of the sacred in the ordinary, a sense of having earned and gained by one’s own efforts, honoring good traditions and preserving what is valuable for future generations.







Shadow: Looking to another for definition, self-confidence, or too much support. Taking things that aren’t yours. Collapsing into a felt sense of emotional pain from previous lives, and adapting an overly serious, gloomy attitude. Going to quickly into studying the occult and transpersonal realities, and thereby taking a spiritual bypass on your emotional life.

This reminder quote is from Elizabeth Spring.  I look at things (life) deeply, and can too easily slip into that "collapsing into a felt sense of emotional pain from previous lives."  Yesterday, I took myself out of the vardo and the woods after a couple days of flashing light from my right eye.  I suspected a pre-migraine ... maybe.  A Coke and a half later, I wonder still about the cause.  And, reach for a better feeling thought instead, remembering Abraham's insight and incentive to know that my feelings are the indicator of my well-being and to choose 'better' with determination.  HA~

Focusing on my needs and my feelings isn't as easy as it sounds.

But, I put my attention on it, and see how to do it.

OTHERS' influences are strong, and the pattern of being influenced a groove worn deep.  I see the strongly blossoming Aries North Node in Pete, his need to be powerful and independent.  That is so different than my need to be "serene and stable."  I worry about that, but feel how contradictory it is to worry and lose energy by being drawn by his needs.  He can be.  And, I can be.  Without drama both of us can become.  Pete needs to be freed of his pleasing all to his detriment.  I need that as well.  The difference is how we each 'get there.' 

'Ole moons working

A pile-up of negative energy, born from 'reactions and reactivity'.  Off track. 'Ole moons had already begun. Pete said this morning, "You're always a day off."  Oh, well.  I've been hiding behind my Maui Jim dark sunglasses to help me get through the pre-migraine symptoms of flashes and super sensitivity to light.

I walked over to Mary's and asked for a Coke.  She offered me one from the frig or not.  I took the not-in-the frig one.  Caffeine helps migaines.  I had my first one last winter, and didn't have another migraine or approach to one until yesterday.  Over the top with trespasses to my boundaries,  I 'knew' something else was necessary.

Private journaling is helping.  Then, finding some tools to work myself free of the reactivity I found somethings that I've gadgetted as MY PRIVATE BOAT.  Thanks Donna and Kachina.  Old 'friends' from 2008, the return to your links is divinely timed.

'Ole Moons working.

Written

This morning Pete and I lay next to each other and talked about the Gupta brain retraining program.  He is Gemini, and a talker.  I am Scorpio, and am secretive.  That's an oversimplification but it works sometimes for me to be overly simple.  Pete and I operate differently and operate at different speeds.  He likes to jump from bed and go do stuff.  I like to wake slowly and think my way into doing things.  The in bed conversation is somehow an equalizer, and like many of these conversations, we got to issues that are much more difficult when we're standing.  The fact that Pete is a foot taller than I might have a towering effect that pushes my threat button. 

Pete's reading about the Gupta program that is on its way.  I've been able to calm my anxiety about the new program and verbalized its likeness to 'travel anxiety'; too much time before the ETD.  Listening to the Abraham tapes is helping to calm me and get me closer to the right (fully okay, okay all the time me) or center.  Needing to 'over-protect' mode.  Like I said, Pete and I operate differently.  The practice of writing came up.  I said writing is a method of detaching for me:  a way to put distance between the emotions that are volatile, too hot is spoken from my throat and mouth.  It's an important awareness and I think he got it.

The thing is, blogging was a way for me to write FOR OTHERS TO SEE.  I wrote but was also always looking to see if, and who, how many, were reading my writing.  It was always still, the seeking of approval that motivated this kind of writing.  I think, it has been marvelous, and brought me to places I would otherwise have never been.  But, I feel a need to discover and heal privately, at least for a time and that is what is happening in this familiar, rooted to Akua, place that is Makua O'o.  I miss the connection of my place of birth/my culture.  But,  also the 'but' know detachment is necessary for me to evolve.  The amygdla retraining rings bells for me; exciting yet scary.  I put these thoughts here, and detach with prayer

E HO MAI, E HO MAI, E HO MAI. 

E Ho`a`o no i paukuhihewa ... Try it, and rid yourself of illusions

The four full moons of Hina and the start of La'au Moons (today) have been brilliant in their illumination.  Writing behind-the-scenes I am freed in a way that shifts my perspective.  For example, the 'Olelo No'eau 'E Ho'a'no i paukuhihewa' has been part of this blog from the start three years ago. At different times it has meant different things.  I began to blog because there were so many things that made no sense to me.  My senses were out of whack, my definitions screwed and my sense of balance and safety less than zero.  "Try it, and rid yourself of illusions."  Try what?  What illusions?

Over the days, nights, weeks, months, and years the answers to those questions have been try everything, and notice that almost everything is an illusion.  Now, as the La'au Moons of Makahiki, and by the Gregorian Calendar, October 15, 2011, I prepare to use my o'o to rid myself of more illusions.  I have purchased the interactive DVD program created by Ashtok Gupta called the Gupta Brain Retraining Program.  Linking to the Gupta site will explain the program.  To commit to this program means I must make it a priority in my life for six months, or more.  Many people on healing journeys from MCS (and other illnesses including CFS) have recovered significant well-being and even feel cured of their illness because of this brain retraining program. 

I have noticed and followed the progress of several people including several internet friends who are better and better having completed, and practice the process included in the Gupta program.  My choice to begin this program comes now when several pieces of my life have reset my foundations.  I think these things have prepared me to take this next step:

1. I have a home.  Slow and steady progress has created a place of stability.  Everything being relative, our tiny spaces life is a place where I know there is safety and comfort most of the time. More than twelve months of this new normal is a cornerstone of healing.
2. Reconnecting with Mahina.  The years of reconnecting with Hina, and the ancient lunar calendar/universe of tracking time has assured me than somethings remain constant even when the human life appears to disintegrate.  Nothing completely disappears, instead, forms change, time changes.  Becoming aware and then becoming intimate with Hina's relationship with all that is has shored me up in deep ways.  My cultural inheritance, my tap root has been affirmed.  I don't look for others to affirm my worth, I look within and can believe in somethings sight unseen.
3. We have the resources to pay.  This is a valuable lesson:  'pay your way.'  It may appear, and it has felt that way, that we have suffered immense loss.  We have.  And yet, the 'olelo "E Ho'a'o no i paukuhihewa"  beats even as I suffer/endure.  What is the illusion?  It seems the illusion is that without all our former comforts (a home, a family, a persona, our perceived entitlements, our health) we could not be happy-free-okay.  Now, our reset values has us living on two Social Security checks that total less than $2,000 a month, we have connection with a community that is knowing and including us and especially Pete in their circle.  Our priorities have changed.  We are able to live and can pay for the $199 Brain Retraining program.
4. We have the technical equipment to view this DVD program.  A laptop or computer, or DVD player have not been a constant 'given' till now.  I needed one or another of these pieces of equipment before commiting. 

With those four cornerstones in place, and some time with the practice of 'Plan Be' ... Be Positive, Be Prepared, Believe, a positive shift in my attitude has been slowing becoming mine.  I have felt the benefit of a shift in attitude and then felt the benefit shift when recent events turned me upsidedown and awful.  'Awful' can happen and feels especially bad after feeling the opposite, even for a little while.  Mahina the moon is not only watched, she watches and that is what she has been doing for me.  She watched and while the Growing Moons of Anahulu Poepoe grew into "Hoku" and "Mahealani" I felt and heard her message to grow the belief of well-being from within.  So, Makua O'o is closed publicly, but grows within, behind-the-scenes.  Sight unseen, I prepare for a new year.  Perhaps with time, my private journaling will see the light of a cybernetic day. 

Makua O'o will close

Aloha Readers,

As the new anahulu, Anahulu Poepoe begins with Hua Moon today, I prepare to close the pages of this blog. My journey of blogging has allowed me to understand what it takes to reassemble my life after the on-set of devasting illness.  I have shared the journey in many forms, and here on Makua O'o, my cultural connection to the Kanaka Universe has served as a tap root of sustenance.  Now, it is time for me to move on, close more doors on the past, and discover in private who it is I have become.

Makua O'o will be inaccessible when Hina becomes full(today is Huna, there are four full moons of Hina that begin with Hua.  CHECK THE SIDEBAR for a visual). If there are links to resources, found on the sidebar, that have been useful to you note them for your personal navigation. Makua O'o will be here for a couple days and nights, and then become part of history.  Life as an elder in training, is evolutionary, it is unique for everyone, and based on the 'wiring' with which we are born, playing out individually because humans are given free will. I will use the time of this Makahiki (October through December) to refuel my life, and attune to the nature of my new year approaching; and pray for guidance and right action.

Mahalo for visiting over the past three years. This has been a place of comfort and expression for me, and I hope there have been insights to fuel you as well.

Aloha and good journey,
Mokihana