First the negatives: Don’t be a martyr to what you’ve won. Don’t let your success oppress you. Don’t become a slave to the useful role you’ve earned. Don’t neglect your own needs as you serve the needs of those who admire you for what you give. Now let’s try a more positive way to frame the challenges ahead of you: Keep questioning whether the fruits of your victories are still enjoyable and fulfilling to you. Make sure the triumphs of the past don’t get in the way of the potential triumphs of the future. Find out how your success may need to evolve. Push beyond what’s good and head in the direction of what’s great.

After hanging a bunch of art and sorting those bags that were under my ritual table (heh did you like that, my “ritual table”  *squee*) I decided to go through some of the tarot decks that have been in storage to see what the spirits say I should make and give to a someone I have grown to consider a dear friend.  While I’m still working on that, I thought I’d pull a card from each of the four decks I selected, and see what they had to say to me.

I pulled the Minerva card from The Goddess Oracle.  Suddenly a few things made sense.  I should say that as an artist who works with textiles, as someone who had her childhood steeped in Greek myth, someone who has had two cars named Minerva because of all the spider webs built on them, I should know more about Minerva but I never really put  in the time.  For one thing I didn’t know that the owl was one of her animals.  I thought the owl  belonged to Athena (which is not pronounced Atheeeena but Ah-theh-na, say Athens and then see what I mean).

Owls have been turning up in various ways of late.  And I thought, owls, how cool, I love owls.  But Athena? Goddess of wisdom and warfare among other things.  It wasn’t feeling right.  And there was Minerva wearing a headdress from an owl. 

This is part of what that card said:

Minerva has come to tell you it is time to examine your beliefs and change them if they do not nuture your wholeness.  How are old, outworn, unhealthy thoughts undermining your life, your energy, your happiness?

Right before I’d taken the cards out I was had been reading a note from this same friend.  Her note was lovely, written on crinkled paper in handmade ink, I’d read it before.  This time a realization hit me with strong force and I started to cry.  I believe the long ordeal is over, at least the worst of it.  I’m home again. I’ve been burning my Frangipani incense for the first time in over a year.  My altar is built and complete again.  I have my tools and materials and belongings with me.  Miss Mitty is cozy as I haven’t seen her since our little cottage in the woods.  I’ve come back to a home that is mine and that also allows me to be close by and helpful to my parents.  I’ve learned many lessons.  It feels like a sign.  Things really crashed for me spiritually, emotionally, not to mention financially, two Samhains ago.  My sense of well-being fled when I lost my home.  Hekate had dark work for me.  And here I am, so very suddenly, with a home again.  She has led me out of the darkness and it is light again, spring again.  And now Minerva calls.  It is time to create and to look with full brightness of day.

This past year has been one of examining my beliefs, changing them if I can, looking at what is outworn and unhealthy in my life.  What is undermining my life, my energy, and my happiness, not to mention my wholeness.  Not only what but who.  It has been a period of letting go and getting very creative about how to survive, how to be happier than simple survival.  A period of asking myself what I want to bring into my life. I’ve had triumphs in my past but I no longer know if those triumphs, while of great value, are the path I am on any longer.  I am certain that there are more triumphs for me but in different ways, different places.  It has hurt like a son of a bitch.  The sting will not be forgotten.  I will be battle shy for awhile but the phoenix is rising again from the ashes.  Aaaahhhhhhhhhhhh.

I’m no longer sure what my career looks like, what a love life looks life. I’m not sure I care.  I have faith. I feel like a cleansed empty vessel, patiently waiting for the answers to come.  I feel grateful today to be validated, to be loved, and to have a safe place to come when I need to get away from the outside world.  I’m creating again.  I feel good.

P.S. My mom just found out that they won’t have to pay taxes this year, my friend who has been without work for almost 3 years and is on the brink of losing her home just got a job and an Obama BoA mortgage, and I applied for a job as a Web Specialist that is just over the hill from my home.  You never know.  Maybe it’s my turn.  I’m happy with the new home for certain but let’s not stop with good, let’s go for Grrrrrrrreat!

It’s probably true for a lot of celebrities that their public personas are not accurate reflections of their private lives. One striking example is actress Megan Fox, who’s famous for being a sex goddess. But the fact is, she told Harper’s Bazaar magazine, she has only slept with two men in her life, and it makes her ill to even contemplate having sex with someone she doesn’t love. While it may not bother her to have a reputation that’s so different from her inner world, I wouldn’t say the same about you — especially now. I urge you to do what you can to create more harmony between the version of yourself that you project outward and the version of yourself you actually live in.

I’ve been contemplating just this subject of late.  Go figure.

I am very clear that I’m in the middle of a mid-life crisis something or other.  My self-esteem is a bit damaged on the work front and the love front and the where the hell who the hell am I front?  My coven teacher, who I am so very grateful for, encourages me not to use negative language like “crisis.”  I know he is right.  We had a really great conversation today and it helped me fine tune some of the thoughts that have been bubbling around in my brain pan.

Much of it has to to do with living in fear, the desire to tap into all of the various diverse parts of me and finding ways to express those parts in healthy ways.  And much of it has to do with the deeper processing of my father issues.  After years of being in denial and stuffing my feelings from childhood and walking around blissfully talking about how lucky I am regarding my family the glasses are losing their rosey tint and starting to show some gray and some cracks.  All this combined with my fathers Alzheimers, diabetes, and the slow decline that we are now in towards his inevitable death from the two diseases have made it very clear that my heavy work with the Goddess (mother / creatrix and birth) is on the wane and my heavy work with the God (father /death and resurrection) is on the wax.  Mom and I have done a lot of work, and continue to do it, surrounding our relationship.  It feels really good.  Time to start finding my way to do with my Dad.  Because Dad is tough right now. He doesn’t want me in the house.  His ill feelings towards me are very barely hidden.  He is darned good at wearing the mask of Everything Is Fine, Just Fine but there is no more denying that it is a lie. Everything isn’t really fine. The other day I commented that I though the dishwasher was louder than I remember it. His reply was to say that I seem to have difficulty with the concept of aging and thinking there was something wrong with old things. Whoa. Heavy duty Dad and not true at all. Passive aggressive? or just aggressive? I learned how to use masks from an expert and my tongue is well acquainted with the sharpening stone.

It hurts to know that your father doesn’t want you in his home, that you are a thorn in his side, that he is having a great deal of difficulty containing his Mean.  Because my father, amongst his other qualities, is mean.  Mom can’t see it, she sees him always as very loving but she is an expert at denial, I learned that from an expert too. He can be loving, and I love him back. But the rest is also true and it is a lot of the reason behind why I struggle so much with my identity. My entire being is filled with fighting my own denial and my own masks and is all about recovering my self, my truth, and my goodness.

All of that is good news and part of the process.  It is natural.  It is not necessarily fun but it is rewarding.  I need to start thinking about the language I use to describe my life and my process.  Crisis?  Meh.  Buh bye.  How about Learning to Fly…

It is my goal that this year, as part of the early Honey Years, will be a good time to give myself permission to feel all my feelings honestly, to love despite those feelings, to free myself from the bondage of self and of fear.  To keep true to my goal of flying.

I was given a new name a couple years ago.  As I started to type it I hesitated because I think it might be a magical name that I’m now seeing will have an active use for me soon.  Suffice it to say that it is one of those “witchy” names that we love to hate.  Like Rainbow Moonshadow or hey, Silver Ravenwolf.  This name fits me well and contains a totem of mine and includes my dark and light sides.

It’s time for me to really embrace her, Her, myself as Goddess.  Today is a good day.

P.S. I forgot the most important part. Daddy G said, and I agree, that self-actualization is a myth. We are always trying to discover ourselves and digging deeper (well, those of us on this kind of path are anyway). And that who wants to figure it out, then we’d be living in a box. Yes!