Green cats eyes in midnight gloom
fly with the witch on her ragged broom
over dark hills where bonfires loom...


© Myra Cohen Livingston






October 21, 2003

Hello!  Ten days and counting, so it's time to start paying homage to my very favorite holiday, HALLOWEEN!!  I've been feeling the energy of it coming in for weeks now and I'm so excited that it's almost here! 

For me, this is the time to burn away the fields and let go of the behaviors and people and other baggage that we aren't to take into the new year.  The dark of the year is a time of quiet introspection, especially for women.  Men, in the ancient times, would go out and hunt to supplement the stored harvest, so they had an active role (as usual... men don't seem to do well passively waiting things out), but for women, it was a time of healing, of nurturing one another, for inner spirit exploration and for story telling.  It means warm hearth fires, quiet nights, long sleepy mornings, big mugs of steaming cocoa and close visits with friends and family.  It's a season of hibernation and meditation before sticking our heads out in the spring to being the growth of new things again.  I love this wonderful respite in the year, where nature has built in a vacation (before we had to go out daily and earn a paycheck for our survival) into the year when the weather was inclimate for being out and about.  Being a control freak, I live in California so that I don't have to deal with snow and ice, but I definitely still honor the spirit that comes with the crisp in the air and the frost on the window. 

I know that this is a particularly tough time for people who thrive on noise and activity and distraction in their lives and it's sometimes difficult to adjust to the quieter energy and time of deeper reflection that late Fall and Winter bring.  For me, I always appreciate the less hectic pace and the descent into quiet darkness.

This particular year, I've not been pleased with all that I'm having to release.  It's not that I'm actually losing a great deal that is vital to me, but more that things are moving around in my life and I'm having to adjust to their changes.  Other things are being reaffirmed.  It's as though suddenly every part of my life has come into question to either readjust, reaffirm or release.  The Universe seems to be saying, "OK, where do we put this?  How about this?  Mmm Hmmm.  This?"  The clarification is refreshing, but it's sometimes hard to keep up and occasionally, I've had a "What??!!" moment.  Thankfully, I've had wonderful and wise (and patient) friends who have kept me well grounded and thinking through this process.

Recently, one of the issues that has come into question is as observation by a reader of the journal who noted that my life seems to carry with it an atmosphere of  "sadness and desperation."  If anyone else is getting that impression, I want to clarify myself immediately.  My mother died this year.  That has left me with a feeling of sadness and I miss her very much, as well as missing all that we never were able to have in our relationship.  My husband (and our source of income) is unemployed and we are working hard to stay afloat and keep the faith and spirits high during this challenging time.  Overall, I consider myself to be a joyful and directed person and it was disturbing to find that someone perceived me this way.  I really hope that overall, those who read this journal do not come away feeling that I am lacking for joy, hope, faith or love in my life just because times right now are challenging.

This means, that I now must go put a cold cloth on my forehead and think deep thoughts.  It has been such an amazingly "who's on first" day that I think I need a drink with one of those little umbrellas in it and a cabana boy named Jacques to massage my back.

I'll be around soon with an entry that makes more sense.  I just needed to reassure anyone who might have the impression that I am wayfaring, desperate, rootless, suicidal, floundering or otherwise pathetic.  I'm really doing OK, this is just my place to vent about life in general and since some of that has been challenging as of late, my attention has been hanging around there a bit. 

Jacques??  Are you there?

K






 


16 August 2002.

© Lil Kitty, 2001-2003.