Leap of Faith - Part Deux

The last entry I made in this blog was a long, long time ago. I spoke of all the changes that were happening in my life, the biggest, hardest change of all was the letting go of my relationship with my Honey. A very challenging time in my life.

Well as the old adage goes "If you love something set it free, if it returns it is yours, if does not then it never was yours to begin with...."

I set my Honey free, I also set myself free, freedom from agreeing to things that are not healthy for me and at that time things were not healthy for me. But time apart, time to re-evaluate, re-adjust brought my Honey back to me in MUCH healthier frame of mind, attitude towards the plans we had for our life together.....and my heart leaped at this and once again I took a Leap of Faith, back into his arms, sensing, knowing that a definite change had occured and finally, we were on the path that we had envisioned for our relationship and we are still going on that path, stronger than ever, more together than we have ever been.

I set him free and he came back to me and I came back to him and life is all the more beautiful because of it....I know with every ounce of my being that had I not taken this step and just let things stay the way they were we would not have survived and our relationship would have been irrevocably broken.

Since that moment Life has been very, very full for the both of us. My youngest graduated from high school, my oldest got married, my soon-to-be-bro-in-law got married, and my Honey and I are getting married, on Oct 3rd, 2009......between our time apart, then reuniting, the weddings in our families, we have really, really learned that what he and I have is extra extraordinary and we have both become manically committed to keeping what we have a cherishing the beauty of it....we've learned from our mistakes and are trying our best to take those lessons to heart and to keep moving forward. Love like ours does not come along every day and we've seen that up close and personal, too many people we know are either struggling or just "making do" and that is not for us.....we treasure every day together, every gift of ourselves to each other...

All of this was made even more valuable to us in the last two weeks as I discovered that I had a tumor in my bladder, which I had removed yesterday. Next Monday we will be meeting with the oncologist to see what the pathology report has to say about all of this.....there is nothing on earth like the word "cancer" to bring your life, your stresses, your worries, your petty greivances to blinding halt! Your entire life goes into a massive reprioritizing mode and some things become so much more valuable and other things lose their weight completely and utterly.

These are the times in your life where the chafe is blown away and the reality of your life, your loves, your goals comes into sharp focus.

I will laugh a lot more, I will play a lot more, I will love more deeply, I will treasure my family and friends and all the blessings and gifts that I have. I know this much as well, I will be getting rid of the negative things in my life that are sucking the happiness, the contentment from my days.

Life IS too short and some of these things are taking up too much of my precious time on Earth.

Leap of Faith

In my last post I spoke of the many changes, challenges that I foresaw in my future, changes that were absolutely necessary for my life to go in the direction it was fated to go. Besides cutting my hair, to embrace my approaching Cronehood, and cutting sugar and carbs from my diet, to help me live a long and healthy life, it seems that cutting My Honey from my life was part of it as well. I am no longer engaged to be married and he is no longer a part of my life. Part of embracing myself, my true nature, included being true enough to myself to realize, acknowledge and then finally have the courage to act on something that was not right for me. On most fronts life was fun, romantic and sweet, but underneath, in the shadows lay the truth, that all was not perfect, for me and what I needed in life, and it could not be ignored, covered or glossed over anymore. Asking him to leave, to accept that this wouldn't work, no matter how hard I tried, was the absolute hardest thing I ever had to do, this quote from one of my most treasured inspirations kept rolling through my mind:

"It doesn’t interest me if the story you are telling me is true.

I want to know if you can disappoint another to be true to yourself.

If you can bear the accusation of betrayal and not betray your own soul.

If you can be faithless and therefore trustworthy."

(from the Invitation by Oriah Mountain Dreamer)

I had to betray another's trust to be faithful to my own soul and it was without a doubt the hardest thing I've ever had to do....

I trusted my soul, my instincts, I took a Leap of Faith and am already better for it.....here's to landing in the sweetness and satisfaction of staying true to myself and my soul.....

Namaste and Blessed Be.

On becoming an Onion.......

This is Bea who is 95yrs old!

(photograph courtesy of Rosanne Olsen from her book "This is Who I Am: Our Beauty, in all shapes and sizes.")

I was looking for photograph to epitomize what I have been going through, growing towards in the last few weeks and I came across an article of this beautiful book and this stunning photograph of this lovely woman. As soon as I saw her I knew it was the one, it says, perfectly, exactly where my new path is going....Aging Gracefully....and I could not have a more exquisite example of trying to explain where my new energy is headed towards. My intentions for this New Moon, for this new path, this new lifestyle is to capture and live, day to day, the same beauty, joy, inner peace, confident fierceness that Miss Bea has....see that look on her face, that bodacious pose, THAT'S how I'm going to live....today, tomorrow and every day until the day it's time for me to leave this body.....

My new journey I have liken to the story of the Goddess Inanna, the Queen of Heaven. The Cliff Notes version is this: her beloved was taken to the Underworld and in order to save him she had to descend into the Underworld. She girded herself with all the trappings of her power and started her journey, however, at each gate (of which the were seven) she was required to give up one of her power objects, each time it was something more dear and when she reached the final gate she passed through completely naked and vulnerable, but it was that power, the power of her true self that helped her complete her quest. She discovered that the greatest power of all was loving yourself, that you have all you need is inside of you.....you don't need all the trappings of the world to get what you want, which is love, because the greatest love of all is being yourself, completely and in return being loved, unconditionally, for who you truly, deeply, nakedly are.....

and that's what this picture of Miss Bea makes me think of, she loves herself and her life and doesn't apologize to ANYONE for it....that's the new corner I am turning in my life now. I have had a certain lifestyle that I have been drawn to my whole life and have been pulled off that path for various reasons (mostly my own reluctance to "go against the flow") and now the pull back to that path is as inevitable, as destiny driven, as the salmon going upstream every year, I cannot NOT do it......

This new lifestyle, this new path entails me letting go of all the many objects of armor I have used throughout my life to shield myself, my trappings of power, as it were......the first to go will be my hair, as in I have made the conscious decision to no longer color my hair. Right now it is shoulder length dark brown mass of curls that needs the roots touched up every two to three weeks. As of today those roots are about 1/2 inch long with 40% sandy brown and 60% silver and as soon as those roots are about 4 inches long I'm going to get ALL my colored ends cut off and get a gorgeous pixie haircut and celebrate being free from societies choke hold that I keep trying to look younger than I am. I am going to wear my new look with the same fierceness and pride that Bea has! I am shedding my first shield, which has been my glorious curly mane for years, I may decided to grow it long again, but I am not going to keep dumping chemicals on my head in the name of public opinion.
I am fully aware that this new turn will be greeted with a lot of gasps and consternation, but the only person who's opinion I am worried about is My Honey's and he and I have talked and he is completely supportive of me doing this. He is completely supportive of the whole new corner I am turning and I am very pleased and grateful, not for his blessing or permission, I would do this anyway, but for the fact that many of these changes will affect him in some way or another and it is nice to know that he has my back and he will help me any way he can to keep me on this path to becoming more comfortable in my own skin....

The next shield to go is my eating lifestyle and my weight, my whole life I have used food as a emotional crutch and now am 140 pounds overweight, now I am not one to get stuck on numbers but I am well aware that I am very much over the weight I need to be healthy and most of it is due to the fact that I am an emotional eater as well as reactive hypoglycemic, (in a nutshell that means any sugar or carb that passes my lips converts straight to body fat, does not pass go, does not get processed as energy) and what do emotional eaters want when they are feeling blue, stressed, unhappy, happy, celebratory or any other excuse to eat!....CARBS & SUGAR......so after about 27 years of eating all the wrong foods and after 5 years of KNOWING it, it's time to grow up and do what's right and so now I am a quasi-Vegetarian/SouthBeach/Mediterranean lifestyle convert.......a HUGE change to my lifestyle, especially since my Honey and I are complete Foodies, however our obsession with great food usually ran towards pub grub, diner food, the perfect cheeseburger and fries or the who has the best doughnuts, so my decision needed to be discussed so that he would understand that my new choices with food would greatly impact how and where we go out to eat from now on and happily, he is fully supportive and that makes life and moving ahead so much easier.......

There are more layers that will be shed, like an onion, they will be exposed, examined and dealt with as they reveal themselves, for now the most important ones are the thick, top layers that must be removed so I can access the inner layers that lie within, shedding each unecessary one until I reach the rich, beautiful, true inner core that is ME......

So Mote it Be.....
Blessed Be.....

For Vanessa.......

My Darling Daughter, words will never be enough, hugs cannot be enough, our love and support won't feel enough or help enough, right now....but let this thought float around the back of your mind, for now.....that some day the sea will be calm again, the storm will pass and some day, some day the pain will go away and you will enjoy the little things again.
And some day, some sweet day that dream will really, truly come to fruition..........some day.

Happy Imbolc......

Imbolc, wiccan sabbat of fire, of light. First day of spring, if you look to the natural world. Winter seems to still have a cold, hard grasp on our world, but below, seeds are stirring, hibernating creatures sleep is lightening. Spring is a mere two months away, and the earth is making ready for the next cycle to begin, soon snow drops and crocuses will bravely poke through the snow. The earth is getting ready to shake off it's heavy mantle of snow, sleep, hibernation, getting ready to breathe, expand, blossom and bloom.

Imbolc is the season of promise, it is the inhale before the next exhale, it is the certainty that the sun will return in our lives, literally and figuratively. It is a time to reconsider, reconfigure, plot out and plan out goal, intentions and dreams. Time to get start cultivating, nurturing, coxing the seeds we planted at Samhain for the next year. What intentions we sent out into the Universe at that time needs now to be tended, weeded, coddle, encouraged to grow, thrive and bloom.

It's time to tend the Garden of our Life, time to focus the Light of Life towards those intentions so that they will blossom to fruition.

What seeds have you planted, what dreams would you like to see become a reality, what tools do you need to tend your Garden?

Spring is coming, what would do you want growing in your Garden of Life?

Adrift.......

Snow falls,
blanketing my world,
cold and quiet,
hidden things wait to be born, reborn, renewed, revealed.
Adrift in the ponderous silence,
I wait, weigh, wonder
at what will be revealed
once the storm is over,
inside and out.

Because it's fun.....and it's true!

Pondering.....

Pondering..........on why things always have to be so complicated, why Life seems to be so unfair, at times, and why it's so hard to do what is the right thing to do for ourselves. Why do there have to be so many variables, so many reasons, so many pros & cons, so many factors to consider. Of course, it's always easiest just to keep the status quo, but if the status quo is working anymore then you have find out why and figure out which is the best new direction for you to move towards and yet, there's all those other factors to be considered, weighted, measured......the only right answer is to do what is best for me and here's hoping that's what I'll be able to do.

25 Random Things about me........

Some one else started this, but I had an interesting time doing it for myself. I have included all of you for different reasons, but I would love to know more about you. If you think its dumb, ignore.
rules:
Once you've been tagged, you are supposed to write a note with 25 random things, facts, habits, or goals about you. At the end, choose 25 people to be tagged. You have to tag the person who tagged you. If I tagged you, it's because I want to know more about you.

(To do this, go to "notes" under tabs on your profile page, paste these instructions in the body of the note, type your 25 random things, tag 25 people (in the right hand corner of the app) then click publish.)


1. I was born in Wiesbaden Germany and spoke only German until I was three years old...but now I couldn't carry on a conversation in German if my life depended on it.

2. The secret to my amazing cooking skills is that I have the uncanny ability to think of different ingredients and combine them in my mind and know what it will taste like and 99% of the time I am right on.

3. I am insanely fast reader, I will be done with the entire two pages before you finish the second paragraph, wish I could type that fast!

4. One of my secret addictions is antique linens....I am not allowed to search Ebay for antique linens anymore, it's like crack to me.

5. NEVER, EVER let me near a bookstore if you're in a hurry. The only lie I will ever, willingly, utter is to enter a bookstore and say "I'll be right back".....it is cosmically impossible for me to spend less than 30 minutes in a bookstore.

6. I am a great dancer.

7. I am also a secret lipstick/lipgloss addict. One time my girlfriend emptied out my purse and we counted 25 lipsticks, just in my purse! I need help.

8. I am a good writer. I want to write books and someday, soon, will resume that part of my life.

9. I am a witch, and it is the most important part of my life that makes me who I am as a person, and I am proud of that.

10. One my absolute favorite things in life is sleeping on cotton sheets that have been washed in lavender and dried out in the sun all day.

11. I could not live without my sense of smell and hearing. If I had to chose a ability to give up it would be speech. I would have no problem conveying myself, but not to hear my loved ones voices or music or spring peepers in the night or to be able to smell, that would devastate me.

12. As much as I use and enjoy our modern technology, I yearn for a simpler life, except for washing clothes, never want to have to do a whole load of laundry by hand!

13. I am a multitasking Goddess.

14. I am the Picnic Queen. Give me an hour and a half's notice and I will arrive with a fully loaded picnic in tow, complete with every nicety you could imagine.

15. I was a Girl Scout until I was a Junior in high school, which explains #14.

16. I originally wanted to be an interior decorator when I graduated from high school. I am a closet decorator, put me into an empty room and my mind immediately goes into designer mode.

17. I would rather have a Viking or Wolf commercial grade cook stove than a diamond bracelet. Gourmet cookware makes me swoon.

18. If I could chose a celebrity to hang out with for a day it would be Robin Williams. A mind that fast, that creative, that fresh and open to universe is a million times more fascinating than beauty.

19. Ditto for Anthony Bourdain, except you get the looks as an added bonus! and he cooks too!

20. Speaking of Anthony Bourdain, he is the only famous person that could walk across my path and make me forget I was engaged to Jeff.

21. I highly suspect that I am personally responsible for turning most of the pagan community of Northeast Ohio onto Johnson Estate's Red Ipocras....and I think Johnson Estate owes me a few hundred cases as a commission.

22. I cry when I am being reprimanded or critiqued, even at the ripe old age of 46. It's the perfectionist in me, I HATE letting people down.

23. I have an absolutely GORGEOUS tattoo of the Goddess on my back. I had it done for my 45th birthday and the only regret I have is that I have never been able to look at it straight on. I am immensely proud of it.

my tattoo

24. The only part of dying that I am afraid of is leaving unfinished business for my children to clean up and more importantly leaving my children before I've finished teaching them all they need to know. I am afraid of them being out there, alone, without me to turn to...but no worries I hope to live a long time.

25. I believe that: Knowledge brings Truth, Truth brings Wisdom, Wisdom brings Grace. and I hope to get those four words (knowledge, truth, wisdom, grace) tattooed around my right wrist sometime soon, so I can carry my power words with me at all times.

waves of affirmations.....

As we enter the new year a few thoughts, a few yearnings have been rolling to the forefront of my mind from the back of back cupboard that they have been relegated to.
I've wanted, no, make that needed, to find more time to spend in Sacred Space. First, though, I need to find my new Sacred Space.
I love My Honey with all my heart, but all that man energy, all those football/basketball/baseball games blaring in the background makes it extremely hard to get into sacred mind space. We did re-do my sunroom and all my "stuff" is out there, however, at the present it is 18 degrees outside and my beautiful little room has no insulation, so as you can imagine it a tad cold out there. Right now it is my giant 9 x12 freezer, VERY convenient over the holidays, every appetizer, every giant turkey or ham, any left over goes very nicely out there, have to say I LOVE that about my sunroom.....but I digress.....

My second wish on my personal growth list is to also get re-involved in the wonderful Goddess Temple that is near me. I really believe in the vision that the wonderful people who have created have for it and I have felt, for quite some time, that I am meant to be a teacher, a mentor, a keeper of the truths and to make sure that those truths and traditions get passed on to the next generation. Which brings me to my third wave in my wish list....as these thoughts have been rolling around my mind, louder and more persistent with each passing day I came across a blog entry on Friday that presented the very questions I have been pondering out to her readers. "where are our Elders?" the blogger askes her readers, the gist of her piece is that she fears the elderly pagan community has become too arrogant, too full of their own importance to see that there are future generations waiting for compassionate, loving, patient teachers to lead them. As I read her words I knew that this was to be my role, that this is the mantel I need to accept.

As I let these thoughts process, I went about my day. I got to work and opened my email there only to find two emails, one from DailyOm, titled The Fullfilling Road: Finding your next step in life....,
then my horoscope from the same site was thus: SEARCHING BEYOND YOUR NICHE, then I saw that my friends at the Goddess Temple were have a magickal workings day at the Goddess Blessed store, a day to come and use the store as sacred space and do whatever magickal workings you'd like.

Wave after wave of affirmations......

I will do my best to honor them.

Blessed Be.

Snowy Saturday........

If any of you saw the news today, you saw our poor little corner of the world get pounded by a snow storm....they have been crying "dire" since yesterday morning, predicting a total of approximately 20 inches by this evening.....so we hardy Northeastern Ohioians do what we do best, hurry to the grocery store, stock up, make soup, wear our warmest fleece jammies and snuggle in for the weekend. This is a picture of our backyard in it's snowy beauty....It was a lovely, cuddly, quiet day spent with my Lovely's. The TallOne had to work, but now he's home, warm and toasty and safe. We're watching "Pride and Prejudice" (love that movie)...much to My Honey's dismay, but as I reminded him, he gets to watch football all the time, every Sunday....today is girly-movie day!....he just smiles at me when I tell him that.....
Here's hoping that all of you had a safe, warm, snuggly day........warmest wishes, SunshineGirl

Snuggling in.......

We woke up today to the news of 3-5" of snow today then 8-12" more by 6pm tomorrow night! Welcome to Northeast Ohio!.....going to stock up tonight on the way home from work and just snuggle in for the weekend with my family. I'm seeing this as a great excuse to slow down, rest, reconnect after all the holiday festivities. going to do some baking, some cooking, some playing and a whole lot of relaxing.......

Wishing you and yours a safe, warm, stress-free weekend.

Just call me Oma........

Wow, it has been a long time since I have posted! The holidays were wonderful yet crazy! I promise to try harder to post on a more regular basis. I hope everyone's holidays were wonderful and filled with lots of blessings.
My Honey and I and all our collective children (7, all together) and our families had a lovely time over the holidays. We were extra blessed this past weekend to find out that we are going to be grandparents, again!...The first time for me!!!! Yeah!......our first grandbaby is Anthony, My Honey's oldest dtr's son, now my oldest daughter is pregnan! I am so happy for her and her man! I wish only happiness, health and a FUN pregnancy for her.
I've decided to accept the grandmotherly title of "Oma" (german for "grandma") for myself. My own Oma is deceased and my mother is Omi (german version of "granny" or "nana") so I'm going to carry on the tradition of my family and take Oma as my grandma name.........it is a tribute to my own Oma.....
You will notice the babyticker I placed on the left, now we can all watch my grandbaby as he grows (yes, I said "he", that's what my Oma-witchy-sense is telling me), that's my story and I'm sticking to it, until the baby is born and proves otherwise....lol.
Thank you Kelli Lincoln for posting this babyticker on your own blog, I loved it when I first saw your baby and now I have passed this on to Vanessa and she is so excited!

May everyone's day be filled with laughter and love!