This meme tile reads: “Needless to say, church isn’t the only place where the holy happens. Sacramental moments can occur at any moment, at any place, and to anybody. Watching something get born. Making love. A walk on the beach. Somebody coming to see you when you’re sick. A meal with people you love. Looking […]
This past Saturday, the area where I live experienced some pretty crazy weather.
First, it rained.
Then it hailed.
Then the wind picked up.
The combination of these three weather phenomena caused a lot of damage in my neighborhood and the surrounding area.
Though the NOAA refers to Saturday’s weather as simply a ‘wind event,’ my husband V and I watched as this ‘wind event’ uproot a 15-year old tree in our backyard, which then twisted and smashed through two panels of the wooden fence behind it:
The only reason that the tree didn’t hit the back of the neighbor’s house is that the lower branches snagged on one of the broken fence posts.
The wind also tore shingles off the roof, cracked the rain- gutters, tore off several of the gutter pipes, and two more fence panels further down the fence-line.
As you can see, the rain flooded the backyard and that white stuff in the foreground is… the accumulation of hailstones.
The hail ranged in size from peas to navy-beans:
Hail pelted the storm windows for about 40 minutes, tore holes in many of the window screens, cracked the glazing, and scratched and/or pockmarked the glass of several windows.
This ‘wind event’ also blew off most of the foliage on our hedges, and destroyed a good portion of the smaller plants in our front garden.
The rest of our neighborhood didn’t do so well, either, between all the flooding, wind-damage, and debris that battered pretty much all of the houses in our neighborhood. Shingles, deadfall/debris, and broken fence panels are strewn throughout everyone’s yard. It would seem that nearly everyone in the immediate three-mile radius suffered some sort of damage during Saturday’s storm 😦
~~~
The adjuster from the insurance company and a roof inspector came today to discuss the replacement of the roof of both our house and our patio, as well as the repair of the fence.
My biggest concern was the water damage to the interior ceilings, as there is now a single crack in the plaster of the ceiling in the kitchen that now requires a bucket to catch the thin but steady leak of water when it rains.
But we are grateful.
Things could have been so much worse, and we are grateful that only the roof and the fence were the only damages.
Thankfully, insurance has offered to cover most, if not all, of the required repairs. Anything that was damaged is certainly replaceable.
We were shaken, but we are OK.
I saw this post in my media feed this morning and it got me thinking that I have this issue:
How often I almost reflexively blurt out ‘I’m sorry’ when I mean to say ‘Thank you.’
I hadn’t really thought out the issue, except that I have been made aware of my habit of apologizing for everything – even for qualities, occurrences, and behavior that require no apology.
A friend of mine -who oddly enough, has a degree in psychology even though she now works as an insurance adjuster for a corporate law firm – was the most recent person in my life to make me aware of my ‘sorry habit.’ She was always pointing out how much it concerned her that I would say ‘I’m sorry’ for the most mundane reasons, and she would often challenge me to attempt to go a whole day without saying ‘I’m sorry.’
And as much as I tried, I couldn’t do it.
She encouraged me to be mindful of my responses to various situations, and even though she tried hard to convey all the reasons why I should do it, she never put it quite as powerfully or as succinctly as this simple set of comic strips does:
If you want to say ‘Thank you’, don’t say ‘I’m Sorry’ (From the folks at Mental Floss)
This is just what I needed, and I found this article quite helpful.
Thank you for reading!
I’ve been meaning to post about some lovely things that have been happening in my life.
I’ve been collecting up these bits of joy, and out of a habitual fear of jinxing things, I’ve been keeping these things to myself.
But I am getting the impression that my cautious optimism will no longer do:
“…and the world shall open up to receive your joy.”
~~~
Recently, I ordered this Loki mini- mala from Beth and I received it in the mail the other day.
Since my family and I were hosting guests from out of town the day that package arrived, I put it aside to open later, perhaps the next day.
Well, things got busy, and our guests lingered for a few days.
However, my thoughts kept straying to the package.
I’ve never had a mala before, to be honest, I was looking forward to having some time to myself to fully immerse myself in the use of this one.
And finally, almost a week later, I finally got my chance to open the package, hold them and pray with them.
*squeee*
This mala is truly a pleasure to work with.
(But then again, I think that could be said about every ‘touch bead’ item that I’ve ever purchased from Beth, as this mala joins a small collection of prayer beads – two of which she has also made – that reside on my Loki altars.)
But this mala has the addition of a black silk tassel that I absolutely love to touch – and the beads!
The beads just slide effortlessly through my fingers.
I am continually impressed with how Beth’s choice of bead (size, weight, and texture) always seems to be spot-on energy-wise in every prayer item that she has made that I have purchased.
As well, Beth enclosed a beautifully handwritten(!) prayer card with the mala:
While I admit that I referred to it the first few times I prayed, the words and imagery of this suggested prayer served as a lovely jumping-off point for creating my own personal prayer as I moved through the beads during later sessions.
That alone was pretty powerful…and things got even more interesting when I began praying with my own words.
~~~
There was a personal prayer that I would offer back when I was just beginning my devotional practice with Loki in 2011. I was transitioning from the mindset of a skeptical agnostic to making my first attempts at opening up to being a devotional polytheist.
It was at that time in my life that a specific prayer had nearly become a daily mantra that I would return to whenever I was full of doubt.
It was a prayer about letting go of anger, pain, and fear… and opening up to trust, to joy, and to love.
So, fast forward to last night.
I’d gone through several cycles of prayer.
Perhaps my brain was casting about for something else, but I found myself returning to the beginning of things, and when I began speaking the words–
May I let go of my pain and open to joy….
I inexplicably felt the need to pause
Because suddenly I just knew!
There had always been a response:
…and the world shall open up to receive your joy.
~~~
These beads are full of such warmth.
They feel as if they are bursting with a bright expansive energy.
Loki is just so present in them.
I am in love all over again.
❤
~~~
Thanks Beth!
I have no use for divine patience –
My lips are now burning and everywhere.
I am running from every corner of this earth and sky
Wanting to kiss you.
― حافظ
(Hafiz)
❤
~~~
I am not the first person you loved.
You are not the first person I looked at
with a mouthful of forevers. We
have both known loss like the sharp edge
of a knife. We have both lived with lips
more scar tissue than skin. Our love came
unannounced in the middle of the night.
Our love came when we’d given up
on asking love to come. I think
that has to be part
of its miracle.
This is how we heal.
I will kiss you like forgiveness. You
will hold me like I’m hope. Our arms
will bandage and we will press promises
between us like flowers in a book.
I will write sonnets to the salt of sweat
on your skin. I will write novels to the scar
on your nose. I will write a dictionary
of all the words I have used trying
to describe the way it feels to have finally,
finally found you.
And I will not be afraid
of your scars.
I know sometimes
it’s still hard to let me see you
in all your cracked perfection,
but please know:
whether it’s the days you burn
more brilliant than the sun
or the nights you collapse into my lap
your body broken into a thousand questions,
you are the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.
I will love you when you are a still day.
I will love you when you are a hurricane. ॐ
– Clementine von Radics
~~~
Happy Anniversary to
my sweetest friend
and
my most Beloved
Loki
❤
I know that this may come a little late, as it is nearly mid-February, but this is my second year of doing My One Word.
While last year’s word was definitely Allow, my realization of this year’s word proved to be more subtle… but no less profound than Allow had been.
Though, unlike Allow, I didn’t grasp my One Word as quickly this year.
Actually, this year’s word is actually a compound word:
Self-Love
I have come to realize that I have been avoiding working on the concepts associated with Self-Love for a rather long time.
Though, in late January, it became quite clear to me that as much as I thought that I’d done pretty well learning how to Allow myself to feel and to act (rather than react) and to build upon other shadow work I’d done over the last year, there was definitely an aspect of that Allow shadow-work that I’d been avoiding.
And I got the impression from Them that I could not afford to ignore that aspect anymore.
Thus, I discovered that Self-Love was the missing piece.
~~~
Or, as They have often impressed upon me:
No one is going to love you exactly the way that you need to be loved, so you may as well learn to love yourself.
~~~
Tom Hiddleston reads Derek Walcott’s lovely poem, Love after Love:
The time will come
when, with elation
you will greet yourself arriving
at your own door, in your own mirror
and each will smile at the other’s welcome,
and say, sit here. Eat.
You will love again the stranger who was your self.
Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart
to itself, to the stranger who has loved you
all your life, whom you ignored
for another, who knows you by heart.
Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,
the photographs, the desperate notes,
peel your own image from the mirror.
Sit. Feast on your life.
~~~
Though there are other versions of this song – namely that the song was originally written by Keane – this version by Lily Allen is my favorite version because of the sweet animation that is this video.
~~~
I can be in the shittiest, saddest mood
– as I have been lately –
but I find it comforting, if not downright soothing to watch this amazing ‘animation process’ video.
Perhaps it is the combination of that lovely process animation along with Lily’s lilting voice.
The words, the melody, the forest/nature imagery – both within the lyrics and through the animation – resonate deeply with something in my soul:
I walked across an empty land
I knew the pathway like the back of my hand
I felt the earth beneath my feet
Sat by the river and it made me complete
Oh simple thing where have you gone?
I’m getting old and I need something to rely on
So tell me when you’re gonna let me in
I’m getting tired and I need somewhere to begin
I came across a fallen tree
I felt the branches of it looking at me
Is this the place we used to love?
Is this the place that I’ve been dreaming of?
Oh simple thing where have you gone?
I’m getting old and I need something to rely on
So tell me when you’re gonna let me in
I’m getting tired and I need somewhere to begin
And if you have a minute why don’t we go
Talk about it somewhere only we know?
This could be the end of everything
So why don’t we go
Somewhere only we know?
Somewhere only we know?
Oh simple thing where have you gone?
I’m getting old and I need something to rely on
So tell me when you’re gonna let me in
I’m getting tired and I need somewhere to begin
And if you have a minute why don’t we go
Talk about it somewhere only we know?
This could be the end of everything
So why don’t we go?
So why don’t we go?
This could be the end of everything
So why don’t we go
Somewhere only we know?
Somewhere only we know?
Somewhere only we know?
I don’t know, but every time I need a little lift to my spirits, I listen/watch this video.
It makes me think of Freyr.
Here’s another subtle nudge from the Universe that came across my Facebook feed yesterday:
Sometimes the words that I need to hear (to read!) find their way to me
and for that
I am grateful.
~~~
I especially love those final six words:
And nothing will
ever exhaust me.
Hail to my Beloved!
❤
So I realize that I have not written in a while.
I feel badly about this, despite the reality that I am beholden to no one, and yet, I have been meaning to write something. There is a folder on my laptop that is contains at least a dozen half-finished posts- and several completed ones- and yet I still haven’t posted anything in a while.
*sigh*
~~~
But what I do end up wanting write about is this rather simple concept that my friend Stormwise mentioned to me over six months ago, regarding how the Gods can act as mirrors, and this premise is found in the Bhagavadgita, of all places, Chapter 4, verse 11:
In whatever way people surrender unto me, I reciprocate with them accordingly. Everyone follows my path, knowingly or unknowingly, O son of Pritha.
Another translation:
With whatever motive people worship Me, I fulfill their desires accordingly. People worship Me with different motives. (4.11)
And this little bit of Chapter 4 stands out to me in that this is the very thing that I am trying to accept.
That the Gods will come to you in the manner that you have come to Them. If you approach Them full of fear, then They shall come to you in a manner that inspires fear. Many years ago, I struggled to repress the fear and uncertainty that I felt towards the facets of Them that I felt that I was experiencing.
And Their response -which was often visual at that time – was rather cryptic:
If you are looking for monsters, you will certainly find Us.
It seems such a basic aspect of manifestation that I found myself feeling rather foolish, especially in regards to Odin.
Of course, He was a monster, because I was expecting a monster. If I learned anything, it was that it scarcely concerned Him if I was afraid of Him or disliked Him. He had some business to do, and I had some things to learn.
Well, I learned.
~~~~
* Yes. I can’t get these images out of my head. I feel compelled to draw them out…and yet, my artistic skills aren’t as well-developed as I would hope. At first, I thought the story was a rather simple rendition of the lore…until the storyline took on an unexpected turn that featured some rather adult-themes during several meditations later. 
