When I was a teenager I had a friend. She was about 5 foot 11 and quite overweight. She had gorgeous thick brown hair and sparkly brown eyes. She was kind and gregarious. And I liked her a lot.
One winter she invited me to her cottage. We drove ourselves there because we must have been 17 or 18, maybe 16. It was sweet first independence from parents and the emotional manipulation of my home. Her cottage was nestled next to a lake. It was the dead of winter in Canada, pure pure white glistening snow. Deathly quiet. And cold.
I remember when we got there on a Friday afternoon, it was already getting dark but the fire was lit and the place was warm and inviting. When we walked in, my friend introduced me to her father, who got up walked to us at the door and gave her a warm hug. He seemed very happy to see her and his eyes twinkled.
I remember being shocked. But this was an abomination! How could this man love her!!! She had committed the same sin I had - being fat. I was incredulous. She was not only fat but also very tall. Another sin. Unsightly for a girl.
I continued to be amazed throughout the entire weekend and even through my later teenage years. Her father seemed to genuinely be interested in her life, thoughts and feelings and wanted to spend time with us but also gave us space. He seemed to accept her and encourage her. He loved her even though she was fat.
I had never seen such a thing in my life.
Monday, November 24, 2014
Tuesday, November 11, 2014
The Dark Queen
Tonight I was the dark queen with a little bit of the queen of hearts thrown in. As her, I wanted to control everyone and everything. All she wanted was to make everyone love her. All she wanted was sincere remorse for the pain that was caused to her. But sincere remorse is like sincere love. You cannot fabricate either one. And if you have wisdom you will see that you can no more make someone regret their wrongs than you can make them love you. It is something that can only come from one's own free will.
Speaking of free will, we all have a right to it. No one was born without it. So to take it away by trying to control them really is ripping out their heart. It really is a form of dark magic. The dark queen has to control because she doesn't believe in her own goodness. She doesn't believe in her own capacity to be worthy of love and so she must take instead of receive. But you cannot take love just as you cannot take mercy. No, love and mercy are the gifts grace bestows upon us and we may only receive.
The dark queen is an aspect of the shadow feminine within all of us. Some other aspects of the shadow feminine are the void of unexpressed love or the void turned vacuum instead of sacred creative space and the warrior who protects the little girl's heart, hardened and impenetrable.
Which aspects of the shadow feminine have you noticed in your life?
Speaking of free will, we all have a right to it. No one was born without it. So to take it away by trying to control them really is ripping out their heart. It really is a form of dark magic. The dark queen has to control because she doesn't believe in her own goodness. She doesn't believe in her own capacity to be worthy of love and so she must take instead of receive. But you cannot take love just as you cannot take mercy. No, love and mercy are the gifts grace bestows upon us and we may only receive.
The dark queen is an aspect of the shadow feminine within all of us. Some other aspects of the shadow feminine are the void of unexpressed love or the void turned vacuum instead of sacred creative space and the warrior who protects the little girl's heart, hardened and impenetrable.
Which aspects of the shadow feminine have you noticed in your life?
Thursday, November 6, 2014
Octopus Story
She is so beautiful, stealthily gliding through the water. She is intelligent, intuitive and inventive. Octopus brings back the lost children from the depths of the ocean. She can bring many up at a time with her many long, strong and hug-able arms. She feels smooth and soft to the touch and she smells like seaweed. She is very tender and her gentle caresses and soft touches with the tips of her arms calm the lost children as she carries them home. Her arms can reach all parts of the world at the same time. She can also go into imaginary worlds
and bring children who get lost there too.
and bring children who get lost there too.
Wednesday, October 29, 2014
Song
The
nurturing love of the Goddess never ceases
Her
bountiful gifts never come to an end
They are new
every morning, new every evening
Great is
your faithfulness, Goddess
Great is your
faithfulness
Thursday, October 23, 2014
Miracle in San Diego
This seems like it might be a really long post but here I go anyway (took 18 minutes).
About two years ago I signed up to host international students. The lists kept getting e-mailed of all the students that needed a place and for some reason I rarely felt attracted to any of the names.
My husband and I had gotten married a few months earlier and were enjoying some honeymoon time as well. We were talking about possibly having a child soon and although I wanted very much to be the mother of his child, I had some very serious doubts about being a mother.
I had done tons of therapy to work through the way my "daughterhood" went. It just seemed to work out pretty traumatic, especially the ages 6-17 or so. I felt very alone in those years and even though I know my mother loved me she also had some pretty serious depression and anxiety that was undealt with and that made her emotionally unavailable, critical, angry, spiteful and volatile. She also seemed to compete with me in my teenage years and unable to respond to my emotional needs. She felt the need to constantly be right, prove and reprove it and set up situations where she could prove that once again. Offering to help me with homework was a trap to create an opportunity for her to flex her academic muscles while belittling my relatively unformed ones.
Needless to say there was a sense of self-confidence I very much lacked as a woman. It took me many years in therapy, self-reflection and prayer to get to a place of being able to hear and nurture my own emotional needs. I felt insecure as a female and also as an adult female. I was afraid that I would be a bad wife and never form a healthy relationship (which I overcame partly with my supportive and loving husband's help). I was particularly afraid that I would be a bad mother if I were to have a girl.
That summer the list was sent out and on it was one name that stood out to me, Alessandra. Without thinking twice, for the first time ever, I sent an e-mail to the foreign student organizers saying that we would host Alessandra.
A few days after I found out that my beloved dog Mimi was dying of cancer and I would need to put her down to relieve some of her suffering. Plagued by thoughts of self-doubt I tried to cancel hosting Alessandra, thinking that I needed to devote time to caring for my dog of 8 years and not knowing how much of a host mom I would be while mourning her death.
But the reply came from the organizers that, alas, they had no one else available to host and anyway Alessandra's friend was going to be living nearby and they wanted to be close to each other. I felt like I could not back out now.
But I was so filled with insecurity that I could not sleep that night. Alessandra's mom had sent me an e-mail saying hello with picture of their family and they all looked like movie stars and very happy. Looking at that picture I felt that our little home and my insecure life would be inadequate.
Bravely I wrote again to the organisers, particularly because that night I couldn't sleep until 3 am saying that I could not take Alessandra. But I also prayed. I told God all my worries and fears but I kept hearing The Voice that I should host her anyway. Despite this guidance I sent the 3 am e-mail but did ask upon sending it that God's will not mine be done.
Alessandra did come to stay with us. She was wonderful and darling and we loved her and cared for her and picked her up at the trolley station and walked her to the bus stop. In the mornings I would walk to the bakery and buy her favorite sweets and sometimes I would make her dinner so that she could eat when she came home after a full day of exploring San Diego with her friends. I would check in on her when she did her homework and drive her to the beach fro walks together.
Several times she said I was a good mom and a perfect mom. I could not believe it because she had nothing but good things to say about her Italian family and her own mother so I know she knew GOOD MOM!!!
Mimi did die while Alessandra was here but she walked through that part of it together as one would with any family member.
When Alessandra left we both cried and a week later I found out that I was pregnant! This was a miracle, especially when we found out that it was going to be a baby girl. We decided to name her Alessandra and I felt that I was ready and capable of being her mother. I was also willing.
My friend Talia suggested I write a song for her and we did. Here is the song and HOW the song came into being is the subject of my next miracle post.
Miracles HAPPEN EVERY SINGLE DAY!!!! WOHOOO! PRAISE GOD!
About two years ago I signed up to host international students. The lists kept getting e-mailed of all the students that needed a place and for some reason I rarely felt attracted to any of the names.
My husband and I had gotten married a few months earlier and were enjoying some honeymoon time as well. We were talking about possibly having a child soon and although I wanted very much to be the mother of his child, I had some very serious doubts about being a mother.
I had done tons of therapy to work through the way my "daughterhood" went. It just seemed to work out pretty traumatic, especially the ages 6-17 or so. I felt very alone in those years and even though I know my mother loved me she also had some pretty serious depression and anxiety that was undealt with and that made her emotionally unavailable, critical, angry, spiteful and volatile. She also seemed to compete with me in my teenage years and unable to respond to my emotional needs. She felt the need to constantly be right, prove and reprove it and set up situations where she could prove that once again. Offering to help me with homework was a trap to create an opportunity for her to flex her academic muscles while belittling my relatively unformed ones.
Needless to say there was a sense of self-confidence I very much lacked as a woman. It took me many years in therapy, self-reflection and prayer to get to a place of being able to hear and nurture my own emotional needs. I felt insecure as a female and also as an adult female. I was afraid that I would be a bad wife and never form a healthy relationship (which I overcame partly with my supportive and loving husband's help). I was particularly afraid that I would be a bad mother if I were to have a girl.
That summer the list was sent out and on it was one name that stood out to me, Alessandra. Without thinking twice, for the first time ever, I sent an e-mail to the foreign student organizers saying that we would host Alessandra.
A few days after I found out that my beloved dog Mimi was dying of cancer and I would need to put her down to relieve some of her suffering. Plagued by thoughts of self-doubt I tried to cancel hosting Alessandra, thinking that I needed to devote time to caring for my dog of 8 years and not knowing how much of a host mom I would be while mourning her death.
But the reply came from the organizers that, alas, they had no one else available to host and anyway Alessandra's friend was going to be living nearby and they wanted to be close to each other. I felt like I could not back out now.
But I was so filled with insecurity that I could not sleep that night. Alessandra's mom had sent me an e-mail saying hello with picture of their family and they all looked like movie stars and very happy. Looking at that picture I felt that our little home and my insecure life would be inadequate.
Bravely I wrote again to the organisers, particularly because that night I couldn't sleep until 3 am saying that I could not take Alessandra. But I also prayed. I told God all my worries and fears but I kept hearing The Voice that I should host her anyway. Despite this guidance I sent the 3 am e-mail but did ask upon sending it that God's will not mine be done.
Alessandra did come to stay with us. She was wonderful and darling and we loved her and cared for her and picked her up at the trolley station and walked her to the bus stop. In the mornings I would walk to the bakery and buy her favorite sweets and sometimes I would make her dinner so that she could eat when she came home after a full day of exploring San Diego with her friends. I would check in on her when she did her homework and drive her to the beach fro walks together.
Several times she said I was a good mom and a perfect mom. I could not believe it because she had nothing but good things to say about her Italian family and her own mother so I know she knew GOOD MOM!!!
Mimi did die while Alessandra was here but she walked through that part of it together as one would with any family member.
When Alessandra left we both cried and a week later I found out that I was pregnant! This was a miracle, especially when we found out that it was going to be a baby girl. We decided to name her Alessandra and I felt that I was ready and capable of being her mother. I was also willing.
My friend Talia suggested I write a song for her and we did. Here is the song and HOW the song came into being is the subject of my next miracle post.
Miracles HAPPEN EVERY SINGLE DAY!!!! WOHOOO! PRAISE GOD!
Wednesday, October 22, 2014
Miracle in Sofia
When I was 22 I went to visit Bulgaria, where I was born, with my boyfriend at the time. We traveled to Sofia, stayed at a hostel, went to the black sea where we got an awful digestive infection and then made it home to Gabrovo, the city of my parents' birth and where much of mu childhood took place.
We stayed with my paternal grandmother who raised me when my parents emigrated and I was left behind. I have a special connection with this grandmother. In a sense she rescued me and she was also capable of giving me a quality of love and nurturing and understanding that I never quite could get from my parents.
My boyfriend of those years was my second ever love but he was somewhat mentally ill, depressive and abusing marijuana.
When it was time for our flight back about a week later, I wasn't ready to leave but I was very conflicted because he was putting a lot of pressure on me to go back with him, taking it personally that I wanted to stay (he felt he needed to go back for the start of his school trimester) and pulling his manipulative withdrawal tricks when I mentioned it.
But my grandmother was in her 70s. She lived with my parents in the USA and she was only very rarely in Bulgaria. It felt like if I didn't take this chance to be with her and revisit some very special moments in my favorite city Gabrovo, the home of my entire blood line, then I may never get the chance.
Thus conflicted, my boyfriend and I left for Sofia to catch the scheduled flight back to London where we would stay with a friend for a few days before flying on to New York. I felt responsible about having made these arrangements for us to drop in on her and didn't want to change them now or back out or make my boyfriend half to change his flights or have him stay with strangers. I prayed for a sign that I would do the right thing, that I would know what to do. Looking back now it seems it was a matter for the heart versus a matter of the mind but at the time it seemed a very hard decision to make and I felt if I left my boyfriend and went back, he might break up with me. But while we were in Sofia walking around foraging for breakfast in the capital that morning, I stepped away from my boyfriend to go to a store and I ran into my mother's best friend from child hood, right there on the street. And I was alone. I thought she was an angel. I knew she must be the sign I had been praying for. In our greeting hellos - she hadn't seen me since I was a child - I described my situation. Her response was that having the freedom to travel as we please was one of the reasons herself and my parents had worked so hard to leave communist Bulgaria. So that the children would have a better life and the freedom to do what they want.
I knew that was my answer. We said goodbye and I went with my boyfriend to the airport. In line I was so tense I actually had an orgasm when I told him that I will accompany him to London and stay there with him at my friend's house but four days later when it was his flight for New York, I would return to Bulgaria.
He sulked but I did just that. Returning was a life-changing decision. Not only did I get to enjoy some deep and special alone time with my beloved grandmother in her home and the home of my refuge when my parents, as I thought then, had abandoned me, but I also got to spend time with some friends from childhood and make a very special friend who to this day guides loves and supports me on my artistic and personal journey as I do her.
All in all it was a miracle and I am very grateful.
We stayed with my paternal grandmother who raised me when my parents emigrated and I was left behind. I have a special connection with this grandmother. In a sense she rescued me and she was also capable of giving me a quality of love and nurturing and understanding that I never quite could get from my parents.
My boyfriend of those years was my second ever love but he was somewhat mentally ill, depressive and abusing marijuana.
When it was time for our flight back about a week later, I wasn't ready to leave but I was very conflicted because he was putting a lot of pressure on me to go back with him, taking it personally that I wanted to stay (he felt he needed to go back for the start of his school trimester) and pulling his manipulative withdrawal tricks when I mentioned it.
But my grandmother was in her 70s. She lived with my parents in the USA and she was only very rarely in Bulgaria. It felt like if I didn't take this chance to be with her and revisit some very special moments in my favorite city Gabrovo, the home of my entire blood line, then I may never get the chance.
Thus conflicted, my boyfriend and I left for Sofia to catch the scheduled flight back to London where we would stay with a friend for a few days before flying on to New York. I felt responsible about having made these arrangements for us to drop in on her and didn't want to change them now or back out or make my boyfriend half to change his flights or have him stay with strangers. I prayed for a sign that I would do the right thing, that I would know what to do. Looking back now it seems it was a matter for the heart versus a matter of the mind but at the time it seemed a very hard decision to make and I felt if I left my boyfriend and went back, he might break up with me. But while we were in Sofia walking around foraging for breakfast in the capital that morning, I stepped away from my boyfriend to go to a store and I ran into my mother's best friend from child hood, right there on the street. And I was alone. I thought she was an angel. I knew she must be the sign I had been praying for. In our greeting hellos - she hadn't seen me since I was a child - I described my situation. Her response was that having the freedom to travel as we please was one of the reasons herself and my parents had worked so hard to leave communist Bulgaria. So that the children would have a better life and the freedom to do what they want.
I knew that was my answer. We said goodbye and I went with my boyfriend to the airport. In line I was so tense I actually had an orgasm when I told him that I will accompany him to London and stay there with him at my friend's house but four days later when it was his flight for New York, I would return to Bulgaria.
He sulked but I did just that. Returning was a life-changing decision. Not only did I get to enjoy some deep and special alone time with my beloved grandmother in her home and the home of my refuge when my parents, as I thought then, had abandoned me, but I also got to spend time with some friends from childhood and make a very special friend who to this day guides loves and supports me on my artistic and personal journey as I do her.
All in all it was a miracle and I am very grateful.
Friday, October 17, 2014
Magic Report 2014
Last week I woke up with rage. I think it was a Wednesday. I went to my usual yoga class and I felt it. Two young girls were chattering loudly in our studio of about 15 silent people. Imagining a less-than tranquil shavassana I grumbleb furiously to myself. After waiting a few minutes for them to settle in and they continued, I took a few deep breaths I walked to the door, opened it and said audibly but calmly, “there is a sign here that says, ‘thank you for not talking.’” One of the girls stared at me in disbelief and the other one said. “Oh, OK.” They were quiet the rest of class and left me to a peaceful shavassana.
Throughout the yoga class I had mind chatter about this. Was I too mean? Nah, I was in the right. When did I get my backbone back? I used to be stand –up-in-your-face confrontational for many years and then I turned into a pushover. I would try to “be Ok with it” when something bothered me to “stay calm” when it gnawed at me inside for days. But today, this seemed a truly assertive move, while being polite. I hate that word assertive. It has ass in it. Anything with ass in it can’t be good, makes one feel foolish. Assertive can mean self-confident or forceful or aggressive. I would much rather the word imply the inherent nobility and courage required to honor self and others rather than the insinuation of being pushy and that respecting and protecting your own needs and those of others in a pre-agreed upon space is somehow undesirable.
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