All That I Om

Remember a few blogs back when I mentioned wanting to make a “grateful list” every morning? Well, I’ve been doing it at night, because it works better in my schedule. I’d rather do it then than none at all.
I had made a list Friday night, and did notice a difference the following morning. Even with a night in between, some of the things just stuck in there… so that is good.

Wednesday, a fellow apprentice at the herb shop will be doing a reiki treatment on me. I’ve never had it done, (though it was offered once. I ended up turning it down.) I think in hindsight, it really is good I waited. I had a lot of gunk to even get to this point… it’ll be interesting. Sometimes I wonder if I’m overly sensitive to energy… but my friend assures me that it’ll come out as it needs.

Things are getting under way for a trip we’re going to take at the end of the month. There have been a lot of “set ups” with the dogs, getting everything prepared. Just about there. I can’t wait to have a mini get away. As my last blog revealed, I’m getting a little tense. I’ve been looking at tarot cards a little more, and the cards I keep getting suggest letting go of pipe dreams, in a sense. To let go of the immaterial dreams I have floating in my head and above my head, and just ground myself. To be honest, it makes sense, because recently I’ve been finding it difficult to keep my balance for some reason.

It annoys me how difficult this all is… how hard life is, because I fully understand what would make it more enjoyable and easier. But I can’t help but make it so much more difficult for myself than it needs to be. I’m fully aware that laying my pride aside and letting go of petty arguments will make everyday life go a lot more smoothly. I know that I should meditate and focus on the good things. The blessings. But I guess I keep fearing that “positivity” will just be one big lie. That it won’t actually help.

I know I’m really close. I can almost taste my goal… I keep beating around the bush, but I know that I just need to step back and not focus on it. It’ll come. In it’s perfect time. And at that point, when I let go of the anger and frustration I have with my job, that’ll be the point when I’m ready for it.

Things will get better. I know they will. *deep breath* I just need to come up with a good visualization of me stepping back and letting go. I need to break through my two week blitz. (I always go gun-ho at the beginning of a project or decision, then it seems it’s always about two weeks when I just say, “this isn’t working.” But I really need to remind myself that that’ll be the point of no return. There is more after that.)

I can do it.
Love.

A quick update to start this off. Tomorrow is the last day of our 21 day cleanse. After the dry patches cleared up, I noticed a ton of mucous exiting my body. Which, I don’t care if you don’t like bodily updates, I find them exciting and encouraging. This cleanse was totally worth it.

Also, it’s been like clockwork that every Friday night and Saturday morning has been terribly depressing. If you’ll remember, I have Sunday morning, and Monday and Tuesday evening with Joel. And that’s it. When Friday comes around, while I realize I have a day not at my job, it’s one of my two days off that I work at the herb shop. Thus another day not with Joel. (The herb shop being my only grasp at some new direction. I feel like I can’t let it go.)
I was talking to a friend last Friday about my unhappiness. And as I let it all out, all signs pointed to one thing. I’m not going to mention that one thing on here, but it really made me aware of something I have to deal with.

Related though:
My job is really freaking me out. I keep trying to do what everyone is telling me to do… stay there and appreciate the gift of a job. My husband looks at me with pathetic eyes while I’m bawling mine out, and he tells me he wishes I didn’t have to go through this. When I mention another job, he says that’s fine, but the money won’t be as good. Friends tell me that the market is hard and I should be grateful. I should just tough it out because this job will help lead me to where I need to go… it’s a precursor to my future job. I need this trial, in other words. I tell myself that I need to learn to appreciate this before any other job will open up. I’m over reacting, I say to myself.

Because even with all the terrible things I think of my place, it is a job that I’m being paid well with. And it’s not ‘that’ bad when it’s put on paper. I can only imagine another job where there isn’t a flexible schedule and I can’t leave early because I have some errands to run. And I’m not given a relaxed work environment.
But then I think of how I’m treated with such a low respect. How I’m not allowed to voice my opinion. Being spied on. How my boss has used me as a scapegoat, gone through my work area to “clean” it, (when he had no business there), and neglected to include me in repair shop events. How my dad took it upon himself to throw a whole whirlwind of rude and obnoxious comments in front of the coworkers I was trying desperately not to hate, only to leave the state with me looking like the one that fed him the words…
How for an indefinite amount of time, we get laid off in the summer. We get our hours reduced literally with a day’s notice. How my schedule is no longer a draw to want to be there. Because I don’t get to spend a day with my husband and it’s making me utterly depressed every evening. That I see him for less than an hour, waking up to get ready for work, then a 5 minute car ride to drop me off back home, and that’s it. I see my husband for just over an hour for most days of the week. I have to take off work to see him.

Then I play with the tarot. Just out of curiosity to see when it says. And any time I ask about that God forsaken job, I get cards implying depressing stagnancy and lack of pretty much anything good if I were to leave it. That by staying there, I’ll have a great fortune to pay off the student loans with.
Every time.

And every time I think, well, maybe I need to give it a second chance. But I’m sick of giving it a second chance. Because every chance I give it is one more day staring at flutes and working in such a robotic way and I don’t see sunlight. I’m in such an automatic repair mode, and every time I go downstairs to buff and clean a flute, I fear what the people downstairs are thinking. “Wow, still working on flutes?” (I can’t believe how many times I’ve had this said to me.) It’s a walk of shame every time I do a complete repad. I get no enjoyment out of my job. And our management sucks.

I feel completely and utterly drained emotionally, mentally, and spiritually. There is no spark of creativity. There is no emotional involvement (save not wanting to get yelled at.) And I am mocked for every spiritual aspect I believe in.

So why don’t I get a new job? Because I have no encouragement. And I’m so petrified my next job is going to be that much worse because I didn’t deal with the issues I had in this one. Because if I take a lower paying job again, we’ll be that much more set back to pay off my loans, which I see as an encapsulated version of all my bitterness and anger and guilt and everything.
I have it in my head that when that loan is gone, I’ll finally be able to let go. I won’t see my job as a means to pay it off. I won’t have anger at the procuring of it. We will have that much extra flexibility in our finances. My bitter root will be gone. And I make enough extra at this job, that my silly little mind finds it to be the difference.

I started this career two years ago with the hope that I’d learn and master a new skill. I’m 26, 27 in August, and I don’t want to have to start over. I wish I knew my passion so I could get on with what will make me happy. What I could do that will make the money for me, cause I’ll just be loving my job. So I can finally have a kid without fear that we won’t be able to support it. So that for once, I could have a job where people are (gasp) encouraging! And people work together. And they aren’t afraid to talk about spiritual things, or metaphysical things. Or heaven forbid, religious things. New age. Crystals. Natural healing. Positive thinking. Every single thing I get mocked at for thinking at my current job.

I tell my husband, I am afraid to go to work because I don’t know if this will be the day that something happens, and I snap. That I just shout, “I Quit!” And walk out. I was so close to it today. I want to not only be prepared with another job, but actually quit in a genial way. I want to keep my mind in all this and be conscious of the energy I’m giving out. I try to write “grateful lists” to try to reverse how I feel about work and money. My job. But the instant I walk into work, I am putty in the angry employee mold.

I think I’m done. I should get to sleep, but my schedule has been botched with not wanting to sleep… because I don’t want to wake up.

My next break is the end of the month where my hubbie and I are visiting my aunt for a few days. That’s what I have to hold on to right now.

Love.

There’s been a lot of things going on lately. We just moved into a smaller apartment. (Which has surprisingly more space than we were anticipating.) We finally got our new (used) car situated. Just waiting for our title in the mail. We managed to get a really inexpensive, but very nice new couch and rug for our living room. And so on and so on.

Hubs and I are doing another cleanse. This is a pretty quick one. I’m reading 10 Essential Herbs by Lalitha Thomas. I finished through the Chaparral chapter and am finally starting to realize how incredible an herb it is! So many of the sections in it suggested a 21 day cleanse. So hubby is doing it to cleanse himself of the toxins he picks up at work. And I’m doing it for my toe nail issue. We’ve been doing it since last Friday, and a few days into I noticed the area around my lips to be getting dry. As well as a patch of eczema I thought was cleared up… suddenly reappeared.
I looked up those specific things and saw “skin fungus” dropped on some forums. And it makes perfect sense! Needless to say, I am beyond excited about the cleanse. To finally rid myself of some issues I just couldn’t find a natural cure for. Updates will be coming aplenty.

The move really took so much out of us… it’s taking a bit to recognize a nice return to life. I have so many hobbies and things to be spending my time with, but I’ve been staring at netflix tv shows. This is very much the reason I don’t like the tv. It’s so easy to just give up hours and hours of your time to a show you could easily forget about if you stopped watching. Honestly, I’ve been fantasizing about finding a good fiction story and reading in a nice quiet room. I’ve been so bombarded with herb books and mendhi interests. And body and health books. Then I bought a freaking mandolin. Which, I very much want to study. I also have my flute, desire to mediate more, and two puppies and a bunny that need my attention.

I would love to have a free life, away from a job to spend all my time working on interests. Or I need to make a schedule. Or something. We’ll see.

Just so long as I’m in a more peaceful state of mind, I don’t care.

Love.

I think I mentioned a bit ago that I bought a deck of tarot cards. The sun and moon tarot by Vanessa Decort. I decided to do an impromptu reading this evening and felt it worthwhile to share my answers.
A little background is necessary though.

We have just signed a lease at an inexpensive and somewhat shoddy apartment complex in an attempt to save money and pay off some debt. This was the expressed purpose. Our last month here is at a really high rate, so we have to suffer a bit at the start of this month. We were not given a position in another state that we were really hoping for. And on top of that, my husband was in a car accident yesterday which it seems more than likely totaled the car. It was not his fault and he is doing very well… no injuries. But now we have to look for a new car within the week. (This occurring just after another not at fault accident January 26th of this year, where we bought the car that just got wrecked.) I was feeling a bit frustrated with how things were working out, with the car and spending yet another long amount of time in Arizona.
All this while, I still extremely dislike my job. And am still stuck in it.

The first three questions were in relation to the car accident(s). Since we’ve been having such bad luck with it, I asked:
1. What we need to work on in ourselves. ~Universe
2. What our lesson is. ~Judgement
3. What does this promise for the future. ~Wheel of Fortune

I almost laughed by the last one. The thought that I’d get three major arcana cards in relation to the car accidents was pretty comical. But to have our promise for the future be the wheel of fortune? Oh Goodness. Heh.

I took the Universe card to mean an understanding that life will work with us. To quote the book that’s helping me interpret, “Happiness that does not spring from having or doing but from being.” Luckily, this is one thing I have been working on. So I’m in the right direction.
The Judgement card. Accepting the past and moving on into what we created for ourselves. This isn’t a bad thing. We may have sown some anger and depression, but we can pull those weeds out as they come to create a brighter future. I kind of see it as each day is the point where we realize what we’ve created for ourselves. Therefore, it is our judgement. But at the same time, it is our decision making time.
As for what this all promises or our future, the wheel of fortune basically ties all of them together. That everything that occurs in our lives is change. Change is not good or bad, as we don’t know what the future holds, but it’s just what it is. “Who knows what’s good or what’s bad?” It’s coming to terms with this and accepting it as part of life.

In all, I think the three questions I asked have the inevitable answer to “flow with life.”

I went in a different direction after that. I asked specifically what the car crashes were a result of… what we need to change.
I got the temperance card. Which is another major arcana. I got from this… balance. Taking the good with the bad… and also learning to recognize that there has to be balance between our spiritual selves and our physical selves. Working with the gap between “your vision of what is possible and the limitations inherent in being human.” This made sense to me.

I then asked questions in relation to our immediate future.
Should we spend the money and take out a loan to get a decent car this time? And I got the queen of pentacles. I was getting pretty confident at this point with the cards I was receiving. This card mentioned a woman who knew how to be frugal and worked more in reliable and non-showy ways. Practical application. So, I think we’re gonna get another solid reliable and inexpensive car rather than looking for something more new and expensive.
I asked if we should set our sites on paying down my loan in the next 6 months. Ten of Wands. “If you want the job done properly, do it yourself.” It’s hard. And sometimes my loans are directly in my vision where I can’t see opportunities or good things. I feel like the loans are not our responsibility, yet we have them in our way. And delegation is out of the question. But I need to find a way to provide an income which can take care of the loans. Hence my next questions.

What could I do to make paying off the loans more efficient?
Princess of wands.

I felt this inspires one to start a new project. Or a new outlook on life. Gain enthusiasm and attempt to master something. I keep looking at my workplace, and though I hate it, I feel like I’m wasting my time hating it. If I were to harness my energy into furthering my knowledge, then I’d be more likely to succeed at a quick and beneficial pace. Which is exactly what I feel this card is describing.
Before I thought to look at my job in a new light though, I was wondering if this was still a “look elsewhere” kind of card.
This is when I asked what I should look for in my new endeavor.

I hated the next two cards because it’s exactly what I’m feeling at my workplace. Five of wands and three of swords. Strife and despair.
My workplace is filled with strife. It’s filled with despair. The three of swords encourages one to feel it and not repress the feelings of grief or disappointment, but to experience it, and let it go. Live and move through this time of depressing annoyance and move on to…

Do I need to go through this moment of strife and despair to achieve financial and emotional success…
Seven of pentacles!
You get to a point where you reap enough that you can decide what you want to do. You take a small portion for your immediate needs… and the rest you can watch it grow and blossom. Planting a money seed, in a sense. It’ll take a little less effort because the crop is already growing, it just needs energy to help it flourish… and at a point, you can use the crop to invest it in other enterprises. So, yes. It technically will be worth the strife and despair currently.

To conclude it all, I asked a flat out question as to whether or not I should stay at my current employment. If it would be the best direction at this time.
Six of wands.
This is essentially telling me that I will have success and personal victory, when moving with self-confidence and the proper harnessing of energy. It was a resounding yes! to stay the course even with all the anguish and pain I receive there.

Honestly, I’ve been toying with the idea of giving the clarinet another shot. Trying to look at it in a positive and go-get-’em attitude. I think that’s what I’m going to do for now. As much as my boss pisses me off. As much as the constant reduction or change in hours screws up my time with Joel. I’m going to accept the pain in exchange for a financial reward that will inevitably make it easier for me in the future.

Thus was my most recent reading.
I’m going to go eat now.

Love.

After a long period of anger. After a long period of regret. Bitterness. Feelings of worthlessness. Then, will you feel amazing love.

I was reading Anatomy of the Spirit by Caroline Myss. It wasn’t any one thing she said. Heck, through a lot of it, I found myself bored with the redundancy of what I already knew… but it kind of hit me.

The allowance of life to flow. Seeing what happens in your life as neither good nor bad, but as just being. For me, I think it helped that i believe in reincarnation. Belief in spiritual guides helped me as well. I also don’t view God as this supreme being that watches over us, but rather as everything. As the manifestation of creation. God is every one of us. God is life and experience. And thinking of God/Universe that way changes the whole paradigm of how life should be lived and what we should expect from it. What is the use of spending oodles of time moping. Or why constantly pick at ourselves thinking we’re worthless. Finding every reason to judge ourselves because we can’t see the point in loving ourselves.

The trick is to look at actions and thoughts as energy. My parents move somewhere else. I look at my life, chose not to be resentful, and am rewarded by the knowledge that I can live on my own just fine. Life is still going on wonderfully. And it will continue to if we learn to be present in the moment. If we are only ever in the past or hung up on things that need to change, when are we realizing our power in the present moment? At this moment right now, I am realizing myself to be a healthy, wonderful, beautiful woman. I imagine myself to be content with what I have. Grateful for my husband. I imagine my heart chakra to be open, and for me to be in a state of mind where I am always trying to help, while not disrespecting myself.

I am creating my own world right there. I am deciding that at this moment, the past holds no grasp on me. Because right now, the elements of time and reason are so different than in the past. I am a different person than I was. All the people involved in my past are different people. Even split seconds, because each of us are learning on our own pace, and with our own situation. So how can I hold onto that old view of how the world is, when so much has changed?

It’s so freeing thinking of everything this way. Granted, I’ll still have thoughts that pop in there, but you know? It’s getting easier to look at those thoughts and say, “you are no longer relevant.” Pass by; in this moment, I am love.

I was at the herb shop a week ago, and one of the women there had dowsing rods. She stood a distance away and asked if she could come into my energy field. Almost immediately the rods pushed away because they were influenced by my energy aura. She had me center myself… “call our spirits back” so to speak. She asked again if she could enter my energy field and made her way to being only a foot away from me before the dowsing rods pushed away. It was such an incredible visible show of how “out there” our energy can get in general thinking.
We need to be mindful of our thoughts.

Love.

We’re on the verge of a major life change again.
It gets me thinking about my college career… ending as it did. How we now have debt for college years we didn’t even want. I just spent some time reading a couple blogs on “alternatives to college” and the reoccurring topics there were starting your own business, or traveling. For people who have the unnecessary debt and are now tied to responsibilities, what are your alternatives to the life you have?

How I’d love to travel. I’ve mentioned to the hubbie that I just want to see the world and have it teach me. I don’t even know if I could handle it, but I hear so many stories of people traveling to obscure lands and having those natives teach them the ways of the earth and changing their lives forever.

I have the option of returning to college. Finding scholarships for “non traditional students.” What kind of a mockery is that? “Non traditional.” I can’t see myself entrusting my time and money to such a scam as college. Even with scholarships, I feel weak when looking at my teacher in herbs… She, who has never gone to college nor taken “traditional” classes for herbs. She learned from friends. From her own experiences. Probably the strongest woman I’ve ever seen. The most beautiful in her way of forgiving others and herself. I am so blessed to have such a teacher.

So do I stay here and pay off my debt before starting my journey? Or work with it in an incredibly confined way while having a tiny taste of life here and there?

I really wish I knew what I wanted. I thought very courageously about starting a non profit organization. Something where we could take kids to other countries. Let them see there’s more to this life than what’s in their own backyard. Vicarious, no? Is that something someone who’s never been out of the country could do?

I feel like the events in my life had made a mockery of my burning desire to explode all expectations. That because I didn’t refuse the choices I didn’t want in the first place, I’m to bear the burden till I’m old and feeble.

Do I sound so immature when I say this truly haunts me?

College isn’t the waste. My inability to decide and care is the waste. I feel such bitter anger at people who worked their way out of these situations. Because, while my husband admires my passion… I absolutely hate it. Because my passion is fully directionless.

I have all the power and strength and drive as anyone could imagine, but I have absolutely no direction or specific. I cut off ties with people who were trying to control my opinion. Who would not let me be me.

Maybe that’s all I need at this point. I think every once in a while to what Philo said to me. “If you don’t expect too much, you won’t be disappointed.” I expect the world at my fingertips. Because I expect my mind to be this amazing tool at changing the world. I expect every desire I yearn for to come true. I expect what I work on to be a masterpiece in it’s own right. And I expect myself to have one hell of an amazing course in life.
What if I should merely be expecting to be happy with my personal freedom from those who expect me to be something? Is that enough for me?

Love.

Awakening and Death. These were the last two cards in my first tarot reading. It was interesting, to say the least. Going into it, I did not think it would be fortune telling, and coming out I still stand by that. It’s a set of options. It’s a way to look at yourself in a very different way.

And it was pretty spot on with me. We will be moving soon. And my question was what my directed goal for 2012 should be geared towards. (Some variant of that.)

Through it all it seemed like, (this being year 8 in my 9 year cycle), this would be the year where I start to move. Pretty quickly, and with my intuition. I have the opportunity to help a lot of people to let go of their old selves. There would be an awakening of myself and other people, and a passing away of the old way of doing things. The awakening was my caution card. “If I don’t expect too much, I won’t be disappointed.” Even my husband has told me this numerous times.

I’ve looked into being a Life Coach. I have had numerous dreams and feelings that herbs or herbal healers will be my foundation. I’m very excited for this year. I’m anxious to see what will come of it. To have a fresh start and a new direction in life. I need to be patient and take it all with a level head.

Bring it on, year. I’m excited.

Love.

Really, it’s just something I’ve been trying to let go of for the longest time. It was reignited today with the jealousy I haven’t quite gotten past.

I’m pretty bitter at the way I got married. Not really any surprises there. I was a christian, and I was dead set on getting married a virgin. Based on my upbringing and my parents, I was willing to emotionally abuse myself in the process. I didn’t know I was doing it at the time. I thought I was just being a good christian by keeping myself from the temptation… but I was beating the all-holy hell out of myself in the process. I’ve combed the internet for people in the same boat, but I can’t find any forums of people who used to be christian and had it ruin their first night with their new spouses.

A bit too much information here, my wedding night was the night that I lost all sexual feeling. I lost the desire to try, and through the shock treatment that was my mind and religion, I set myself up to be afraid to be vulnerable, afraid to feel sexy, and afraid to make love.

I am so bitter. I’m four years into my marriage, and I can’t let go of the anger I have for that sexual frustration. For all the manipulation I went through to think a certain way, despite what I wanted to do. I’m so incredibly angry.

Has anyone been through this? Can anyone give me any inspiration to move past this? Any time I hear of anyone having sex before marriage now, I get so jealous. Because if I could do it all over again, I’D HAVE SEX BEFORE MARRIAGE! And I wouldn’t be a terrible person. I’d still have married that same person, (my husband,) I’d have been more in love with him, and I probably wouldn’t have gone through a two year depression. And I’d STILL GET TURNED ON!
Please! Any encouragement would be wonderful.

Love.

I have now officially completed “Herbal Studies I.” Successfully completing 20 hours of study in traditional uses of medicinal botanicals.
I am more proud of this than I was of completing my power study week in flute repair. Oh no. I want to frame this one. Hahah.

The week after next, I start my apprenticeship, where I will work once a week in the herb shop – assisting customers and mixing blends and all that good stuff.

And I am so incredibly freaked out. I know after a few weeks of it, I’ll get the hang of it, but initially looking at it all, I feel like I need to spend all my excess time studying to just be mildly prepared. My main fear I think, stems from not knowing where to start with a person. Should I give them something to help overall? Or for their symptoms. Should I try to make some blend? Or just give one or two herbs to start off. How do I recommend them using each kind? So much. There is so much to learn and know and take into consideration. I feel I’m no where near ready, but I know I need to throw myself in to get a handle on it.

I think quitting facebook was one of the greatest things I could’ve done. It removed me from an environment where I felt the need to keep up with the Jones’s. I feel life more on my pace now… (save my work environment…) and I’m allowed to be myself and take a breath.

One thing I need to make more time for is meditation. I keep harping on myself with how much that’ll help. What, with renewing knowledge in me, gaining insight in the herbs and the Earth, feeling more at peace and aware. I don’t want to be so heavily reliant on the internet to show me things. I spend so much time on Google searching random questions. Youtube videos all over the place asking existential questions and taking little bits and pieces from this and that to formulate things that I end up believing. Not that it’s bad… but I really think meditation would end up speeding all that up. I wouldn’t need the internet because I already know.

This past week I spent a lot of time crying for no reason. While I’m sure some of it’s hormonal, and some it has to do with my job, I really just feel so overwhelmed. I want to have a place in this world where I’m helping people, and I think recognizing that I’m starting yet another trade from the ground up… one that takes infinitely more knowledge and trust in myself… not to mention the wisdom of the Earth. And I don’t even know if this is my place. (Though that won’t keep me from it.)

Whatever the case. I know I can do this.
A year or two down the road, I’ll be amazed at what I’ve learned. And progressing at such a rate that it’ll flow through me from Creation itself.

I can and will do this.

Love.

I can’t believe how enjoyable I find this class. I love the content, the feel of it, the intuition involved… it’s totally different than what I imagined it would be. And I guess it’s even more exciting because in the herbal industry alone, there are so many directions to go!

There’s the general “medicine woman” which is admirable in it’s own right. If I could be half of what my teacher is, I’d consider my life full. I could go in the consultation direction, which is just as amazing. To help people on such a base level, which is exactly what I want! I could go into product making. I know how to make essential oils, salves, tinctures; as soon as I get more familiar with the herbs, I can make my own blends. I can have my focus be on actually harvesting in the wild. Familiarizing myself with all the plants, giving nature walks. I could technically do all of it! It’s mind blowing just how much I can do with this. And I enjoy it!!

I cleared out a space in a cabinet where I have some tinctures soaking. Of the batch, one is ready for straining and two will be ready in a couple days. WOO!!

I ordered a few books. Waiting with bated breath for them to arrive. And tomorrow the hubbie and I are going to go out to a state park. This Saturday is the last of the course, so I’ll get my certification. Then I can start my apprenticeship. Next Saturday, (November 11-13), we’ll have another weekend class on the Kidney and Adrenals and then an HERB WALK! I’m so excited to get out and start learning to identify them.

I’m still very much in the overwhelmed stage, but for only having a five week course, I can’t believe how much I picked up. So that gives me a lot of confidence. I just need to remember to listen to my heart with them. I need to calm down and drop out of my head and into my heart.

So Patience is a great thing right now. In a year, I’ll be amazed at what I’ve learned.

Love.