Weekend with Tlakaelel, part 1

Where do I even start? I have something like 40 pages of notes in chicken-scrawl which I have to type up. Some of them I might post; some of them are just for me. He is an amazing man. He's in his late 80's, and looks maybe 60, and that's taking into account how someone who's lived a harsh life is aged by the sun & wind. I have a couple of pictures of him, and after I suck them out of my camera I'll post them.
He's a tiny little guy, way shorter than me. Maybe 4'10? I'm 5'4 and I had to bend over to hug him. His Spanish is mostly pretty clear, and I could understand some of it. My goal is to improve my Spanish enough to talk to him next year without needing every word interperted.
I'll just do an overview of the weekend now, and flesh it out over the next few days as I come back to earth.
Friday night we had talk #1. First he talked a lot, and then we passed the talking stick, and everyone got to make a comment or ask a question. I asked about how we can help the new Sun come in more smoothly. He said I was already doing it.
Saturday morning we had another talk, with the talking stick. Some repitition because some people hadn't been there the night before. Then lunch, and then we started on the sweat lodge--the Temaskal (sp?). Spent all afternoon buiding the Temaskal, and then from around 7:30 or 8:00 to almost midnight cooking in it. Maestro Tlakaelel came out for a few minutes and sat with us while we were building, but he had high blood pressure and he was coughing a lot and he didn't want to lead the sweat, so he wasn't in there with us.
Sunday morning we had another talk, followed by an extended lunch break (about 2 1/2 hours) and then a cooking lesson by Tlakaelel--Spanish rice, Chiles Rellenos, guacomole, & green mole. The cooking lesson was outside in a tent in the rain, and lasted several hours. Then we ate the cooking and stayed up until 1 a.m. talking. Maestro retired to his room to do whatever it is he does in there (he said he spends a lot of time doing manual calculations on the calendar).
Monday morning we had talk #4, which wrapped up around noon. In response to my question of late Sunday, he spoke for an extended amount of time on the Aztec calendar--I didn't have a watch but I'd say it was close to an hour!! That made it worth the money I paid to go there!
I had a private session with Tlakaelel (the only one he did all weekend! I'm honored!) and headed home, utterly exhausted. It took me almost 90 minutes to get there on Friday and less than an hour to get home. Isn't time warping great?

happy 12 Cauac!

12.19.12.5.19 12 Cauac 17 Zip

Getting to the end now...tomorrow's the last day of this Tzolkin.

Cauac is the rain, the storm, the gathering clouds, the energy of the Source.This weekend we called upon Omeoteotl (which is pronounced something like "Oh-Ma-Tay-oh") for everything. Omeoteotl is the dual-sexed creator deity of the Atztecs. Luckily I already knew that, and I knew the spelling. This wasn't explained--everyone was just Omeoteotl-ing all over the place. Omeoteotl is one name for the Source. I also associate Cauac with Reiki and other types of energy healing which channel Universal Life Energy for healing & manifestation.

Cauac is the blessings of the gods. May you be blessed today & every day.

Happy 11 Etznab

12.19.12.5.18 11 Etznab 16 Zip

Today I will talk about the Dreamspell version of Etznab (I don't like it, but I must acknowledge it). They call Etznab the hall of mirrors. It's a place where nothing is as it seems-tall people are fat, fat people are thin, normal people are hideously ugly and the deformed are restored to wholeness.
This relates to the concept that we create our own reality. (if you haven't seen "What the Bleep Do We Know" yet, see it. Or come to my screening on June 8th in Meriden.) When we don't recognize that we create our own reality, we live in a hall of mirrors where everything is distorted and warped. We think we are powerless. We think we are victims. We have no idea how to change our world.

11 is of course a master number. A day to become master of your own destiny, and change your reality. For the last 2 days, you cleaned your environment and changed your life. Do it consciously.

(picture) Sun Stone with Ollin (Caban)

Here is the picture of the Aztec Calendar stone, or Sun stone. It's HUGE--12' across. This is a 100% sized reproduction which you can visit anytime you happen to be on the island of Cozumel (like I was when this photo was taken!). I have outlined the glyph of Ollin in a pink-ish color to show how important this daysign was to the Aztecs.

Happy 10 Caban!

12.19.12.5.17 10 Caban 15 Zip

Caban-Earthquakes and Incense. And how exactly do those two images relate?

To the Aztecs, it's Ollin, movement (earthquake). Ollin is so important that the shape of it frames the center of the Sun stone. (In fact, I am going to post a picture of me at the sun stone 100% sized replica in Cozumel so you can see that.) The Aztecs think this Sun (world age) will end with earthquakes. This is the 5th world, I think. I always get confused. We've been destroyed by fire, flood, jaguars....sometimes my memory sucks. Anyway, movement=earthquake=change

Incense is the medium by which prayers are carried up to the gods. The incense is itza and feeds the gods. Feeding the gods means they will be more disposed to grant the prayers. And what are prayers about? Change. "Dear gods, make me thinner, richer, healthier"...CHANGE ME.

And that's how they link.

10 is high energy. Continue what you started yesterday with Cib and keep going with your changes!

Happy 9 Cib

12.19.12.5.16 9 Cib 14 Zip

This is the first of the ones I'm doing in advance, since I'll be away all weekend. I find it really hard to connect and write these on off-days. When I was writing my book, Jaguar Nights, I wrote the 13 of each day sign on the day signs themselves--for 20 days I locked myself in my office each morning and didn't emerge until I had written 13 horoscopes, 13 natal scopes, and 13 energetic profiles (such as what I'm doing here) for each day sign. Sometimes I did it by lunch, and sometimes I went hungry.

Cib, the vulture, cleans up the dirt in the world and makes it shiny and clean and new. An ugly creature with a beautiful purpose. Just goes to show you that you can't judge by appearances. Icky, ugly, bald, stinking vultures--who needs them? We do.

Up here in New England, crows & seagulls fulfill the vulture's role. I guess we have vultures. I saw one once. I was on my way to a ritual and it flew right in front of my car. And it was a Cib day. He was saying hello!

9: energy is getting high. Cut your ties. Clean your house. Take a walk, carry a bag with you and pick up all the trash on your route.

Happy 8 Men

12.19.12.5.15 8 Men 13 Zip

Men: Eagle, Wise one. I always think of Men as the person who's really, really good at Trivial Pursuit (which I never played until a couple of years ago; turns out I'm not bad at it. And I kick ass at Lord of the Rings trivial pursuit, which I actually even own.) Lots of knowledge on lots of topics. Eclectic. Knows a little about a lot and also a lot about a little. Maybe even what used to be called a Renaisance Man.

8 is the number that some honor as the ultimate energy. 1 step above perfect balance (7), just a hint of extra energy. So celebrate knowledge today!

happy 7 ix!!

12.19.12.5.14 7 Ix 12 Zip
day 254/260

Ah, Ix, the Jaguar--the most beautiful card in the Mayan Oracle deck and one of the most beautiful energies. My beloved friend and High Priestess Lady Hawke, who was also lucky enough to be born in the Year of the Dragon in the Chinese pantheon, has an Ix birthday as well-some people have all the luck!
Ix is the natural Earth Shaman who knows how and when to ride the natural waves of energy, allowing himself (or herself) to be squarely in the flow of abundance.
Today, of course, being number 7, is a great day! 7 is balance and magic. For all of us non-Ix people, enjoy the ride!

Since I am going to be away all weekend, I am going to pre-post the Tzolkin for those days.

windstorm

Yesterday we had terrible weather, high winds and rain, and when I got home at around 5:00 my plants had been blown off the porch and all the pots were smashed, the dirt blown away, the plants sad and dying...except my purple cactus!

I brought the damaged plants to my mom's and we repotted them. My dad was happy to see me. The plants are in my car--if I put them out again, I think they will blow away again. Maybe I'll put them on the floor of the porch in the corner, where the cactus ended up.

Another dream

Another dream--2 days in a row! My mind will explode.

In this dream, for some reason my first boyfriend got in contact with me. I haven't seen him for 11 1/2 years (I ran into him at Stop & Shop at Christmas time the year I got married). I could find him easily if I wanted to--his mother owns a shop downtown. And he could find me too, since my parents live at the same address and have the same phone numbers as all those years ago (too many to think about--shudders). I will call him B.

So B calls me, and I go to this house where he's living, not far from where his parents lived (live?) in real life. It's in a total state of disarray, being remodeled in every aspect. But there's some furniture in the living room and it's obvious someone has been living there, sleeping on the couch. Even in the dream I really didn't understand why he'd called me after so many years. He seems unwilling to be alone with me, like I'm some kind of rapist. (Just a side note: I was 14 when we were first together, and although the relationship lasted on and off until I was in college, I never slept with him--not for lack of trying on his part.) There's a grumpy kind of overweight biker guy doing the contruction, and he's looking at me funny too, more like "what is SHE doing here?" then thinking I'm some kind of pervert.

Some other people come over, none of whom I know, and they are tramping through the house like they go there all the time, and from conversational clues I find out that B was living in an apartment with some woman (I want to say girl, but after all we're both in our mid-30's so it would have to be a woman wouldn't it?) and for whatever reason she threw him out. He already owned the house and was remodeling it in his spare time, but this forced him to go live there and pick up the pace, and he wasn't happy about it.

We all go upstairs, and there's a large common room up there with some bedrooms leading off of it. The common room is filled with boxes, and B starts taking stuff out and showing it to these people (not to me) and some of it was memorbilia from when he was in a band. He seemed resentful that he hadn't hit the big time, and was talking about how on the local scene he was hailed as the next Ace Frehely (except the picture showed him in Paul Stanley's makeup). I said, "yeah I remember all that," and a few of the women were kind of in awe that I knew B "when". And then one of the woman looked at me again, closer, and said, "B, isn't this your stalker? What's she doing here?" And immediately I defended myself--I never stalked him! What the fuck? And he was like, "yeah you did" and started detailing all this stuff I supposedly did, but I didn't. Some of it was during the 11 years since I last saw him, and other stuff I just wasn't even around for. I got kind of mad. Why invite me over after a DECADE and then accuse me falsely of doing shit I didn't do? And the other people are nodding, saying "yeah, yeah, I remember that," and I was dumbfounded.
Then B says, "That's why I wasn't sure about calling you, because of the stalking. I didn't want you to know where I lived." So why call me? I don't see him or think about him except very rarely (if I drive by his mom's antique store, for example, or his grandfather's trucking business)--I have no burning yearning yearning feeling inside me to see him again. (that's a soft cell quote, for those of you who missed it-and listening to Tainted Love is another time I think about him!)
And then he decided I was probably safe now, and he showed me into his real bedroom (not the blankets on the couch) and we were in there alone and I was thinking he'd try to seduce me or something, but he didn't. He wanted me to go somewhere with him and I agreed.
Where we were going was stealing things, but I didn't find that out until we were on the way. And the first place we went was at the end of my parent's street, and of course my dad saw me and came over to talk to me, and we're there in the dark trying to be inconspicous and here's my dad in full Alzheimer's glory not able to get out two words together anyone can understand, standing there like a beacon.
I don't remember what we were stealing. Expensive plants? Mushrooms? Buried treasure? But we got away from my dad (who recognized B in spite of not having ever seen him, funny huh?) and continued our run of thieving. We were in a pick-up truck.
And that's pretty much it.

happy 6 ben

12.19.12.5.13 6 Ben 11 Zip day 253

Ah, Ben. Was it twenty days ago when I was quoting Led Zeppelin? "I am a traveller of both time and space, to be where I have been?"
The Tzolkin is winding down, my friends. 7 days to go. Do you feel the change?
Did anyone read Stephen King's novella The Langoliers? (It was in 4 Past Midnight). Basically some people get stuck in the immediate past, which is like a discarded shell of the world with no life, just empty buildings and blowing wind, and these creatures called the Langoliers come and eat it all up. The past had no shine, no life, no resonance. Lighters and matches didn't work, soda and beer were flat straight from the can/tap, musical instruments sounded hollow and flat. It was a world that had moved on. (Although I think that description is actually from the Dark Tower books)
And so it is now. This world is moving on. Finish up your projects, tie up your lose ends, and wait for the shiny new world to arrive next week.

pond dream

wow a dream!
Can't remember much of it--by the time I get down here to the computer they've faded away. Or I try to keep them in my head, fall asleep, and lose them.

I was at some kind of healing center, and it vaguely had something to do with Tlakelel's visit this weekend to Kapulli Chaplin (which I am going to), but Tlakelel wasn't there. There was an article in the paper, which someone had with them, saying he was thinking of converting to some kind of extreme right-wing Christianity, had attended a meeting and been thrown out.
There were two ponds, linked together, in this healing center. Not little garden pools which hold fifty or so gallons, these were PONDS, like you'd bring a cow to drink at. And like I said, two of them, on two different levels. The ponds had a bunch of web cams on them, and a monitor flicked through the cams every few cycles, cycling through them all. And ALL of them had living things on them: baby alligators, frogs, turtles, fish. Not one showed empty water or an empty rock.
I thought it was so cool and for some reason I decided to get into the pond and play with all these friendly creatures. So I did, I slipped through the bushes and over the edge. The water was about waist-deep. (I was in the upper pond.)
But of course when I did so, the creatures fled. Or so I thought. In reality I had managed to get between the edge of the pool and its liner, trapping myself, and somehow letting out all the water in BOTH ponds AND all the creatures escaped. By the time I realized the water level was going down, I couldn't pull myself back out (no buoyancy) and I had to call for help.
The person, Robert, who came to my aid used to be my Healing Tao teacher. He got me out of the pond but he was sad because all the creatures were gone, and all the water, and they had paid money for the critters and tamed them. Another lady went around picking up the web cams and shutting them off. I felt terrible. I could see where all the water had drained out the door and through the sloping yard to some kind of culvert.
I said I would go outside and try to catch some of the creatures and bring them back. People were already repairing the pond liner and starting to refill it with water. It was 1:30 and I was supposed to be staying for some kind of ritual at 2:00 involving a pregnant woman because I was going to give the information to my best friend (who is no longer pregnant; she has a 7 month old baby). And somehow I was going to get home, change, gather up my stuff, and drive back to Chaplin for 3 p.m. even though Chaplin is over an hour away and so was home from whereever I was. In fact people were talking about carpooling to the Kapulli, and when I offered my set of directions they all looked at me funny; from whereever we were the directions weren't valid.
I went outside with some kind of net and container and started looking for critters. The first critter I found was a huge cottonmouth (water moccasin--snake). (Really I don't even know what a cotton mouth looks like, but in the dream I knew.) I went back to Robert and asked if there had been cottonmouths in the water (they are poisonous) and said that I would pick up a black snake or garden but not a poisonous one. He said there were not poisonous snakes in the water and the cottonmouth must have eaten all the tame critters. (I have no idea what cottonmouths eat.) One of the ladies was outside doing something with a hose in the mud where the ponds had drained, and I thought there was a hose behind her, and it was a huge (6'/7' foot) copperhead (which I DO know what they look like, having seen many in my life), which was squished flat in the mud and just starting to stir. I warned her and she got away, and was grateful.
Then the ritual for the pregnant woman was starting. They were carrying her in a bier like she was dead, with flowers and dried herbs strewn on her. She was wearing a dark blue full length dress which might have been embroidered with flowers or that might have just been the flowers thrown onto her body. Everyone stopped dealing with the pond and went to this ritual. I looked at the clock and it was after 2:00 and I panicked, realizing I could not go home, change, get my stuff and get back to Kapulli Chaplin by 3:00 (in real life, I don't have to be there until 7:00 p.m.). But if I went to KC right away, I'd be muddy, wet and not have my sleeping gear or change of clothes.
I don't know what I decided. Don't remember anything else.
Not surprising I dreamed of snakes when I spent two days scouring the net for pictures of serpents and snakes for my Queztalcoatl/Kukulkan portrait.

(picture) Quetzalcoatl-Kukulkan FEATHERED SERPENT

Dragon of the New World's portrait--see below entry on what it is for.
Done entirely in PS7 (PC). 70+ Layers, 6 sources PLUS many scans of actual feathers from my parrots. No feather has been recolored; these are all natural feather colors from my six birds.

Dragon magic & feathered serpents

I went to a lovely class on Dragon Magic last night, led by my good friend Lady Hawke, and I did a meet-the-dragons meditation that I am going to write down and post on my web site eventually.
There wasn't much in the class I hadn't heard before...I'm a veteran at this. I told my own dragon story (someday I'll put it here) and helped guide the class through questions. However, one thing really jumped out at me.
If your life isn't going the way you need it to, and you're lost and don't know where to turn, you can call upon the dragons. You choose an element of time: day, week, month, year, decade and at the end of that time, the changes are set into motion.
Here's how you do it.
You sculpt, draw or otherwise fashion an image of the dragon you want to help you. Put all your energy and intent for change into the creation process. Do this at the beginning of your chosen cycle. For the duration of the cycle, honor the created dragon with incense, prayer, energy, flowers, whatever. At the end of the cycle, destroy the image and release all that energy.
I have heard this over and over, every year during this class, and thought "hm, that would be cool" and never done it.
Lately I've been thinking a lot of making a portrait of Queztalcoatl/Kukulkan as the feathered serpent. And the next Tzolkin is due to start at the beginging of June.
It all came together, and last night at 9:30 when I got home, I started searching for images to use to create my Q. I scanned it a bunch of feathers from my parrots. My portrait has begun.
The feathered serpents of the new world are our dragons. As a follower of this path, what better way to honor them then by this ceremony?

happy 5 Eb & Huna's "aka" strands, Indra's Net, and the Web of Love

12.19.12.5.12 5 Eb 10 Zip
day 252 of 260

Eb is the road/the path/the life journey, and it's also the grass which grows beside the road. The Aztec glyph is a jawbone with grass growing from it. Dreamspell calls Eb the grail, for reasons no one can explain (but it's one of the many reasons I dislike Dreamspell). After doing hundreds of readings based on these archetypes, I have come to realize that Eb's grass often symbolizes a web of Karma binding us.
This goes back to my Huna training, where every interaction we have with another person binds us to that person with a gossamer strand of aka. If you just smile at someone in the supermarket and never see them again, you have that single strand only, and eventually it will dissipate and go away. But those you see frequently-family, friends, coworkers-you are constantly building up more aka (karma). If you've ever seen inside a large cable, you've seen that it's make of medium sized cables twisted together, and inside those cables are strands of twisted wire, and those strands are made of very thin filiments of copper. And such it is with karma. Hundreds and thousands of strands of aka twist together and tie us all together. This is also Indra's net and what my friend Steve Rother of Lightworker.com calls the Web of Love.

Wow, I'm really off topic today. Or maybe not. Just proof of how everything is connected by aka & Eb!

feeling powerless

Yesterday, before I found the happy purple flowers on my cactus, I was washing a birdcage in the rain. If you've never had a parrot, you can't imagine the amount of poop one small bird can generate, and how much can build up over the winter in the cage when it can't be taken outside and hosed. And I have SIX parrots. Luckily my cleaning lady cleans their room--I only have to do the cages themselves, not the floor or walls anymore.

So I'm scrubbing away, and my leg is hurting so bad that I'm trembling, but I want to finish at least one of the 3 cages because frankly, they stink, and I can't deal with it anymore. And it starts raining, not nice warm soft summer rain, but cold pointy spring rain, and here I am barefoot in capris and a t-shirt. And of course the cage parts won't dry in the rain, so they have to be dragged inside while still wet, wetting the carpet, and put together wet and therefore will rust.

And it occurs to me: this is part of my "feeling powerless" story. I am powerless over the weather. I am powerless over the pain in my leg. I am powerless over the amount of poop my birds generate.

I mentioned this to my therapist today, and she said it's a breakthrough. I could have been a victim of the rain and the poop and the cold. Instead I looked at it a different way, didn't take it personally, analyzed it and moved on.

Apparently there is yet another step beyond acknowledging that it's got nothing to do with me, but I'm not ready for that yet.

(picture) Purple cactus flowers

Purple cactus flowers! Finally, it blooms after FIVE YEARS of being plain green!

purple cactus

At my last job, when I first started, a woman gave me a cactus (the kind called "Christmas Cactus") and some African violets. The violets didn't like me (actually they didn't like my cubicle, which was right under a ventilation duct) so I gave them away to someone else there, whose cube was sans duct, and they bloomed right away. One was purple and I think the other was white or maybe pink.
The cactus grew fat and I decided to take it home and put it outside for a while in the sun.
The damn fat squirrel decided it was a salad bar and decimated it. (I use that word as its true meaning from m-w.com dec·i·mate to select by lot and kill every tenth man of; to reduce drastically especially in number). My friend Jen, she of the green thumb, repotted it and cared for it, but it was a sad remnant of its former glory. But it wasn't dead, so I didn't throw it out. I kept caring for it for all these years (5), and yesterday I went into the bird room (where it lives in the winter) to take it outside to be in the sun (the fat squirrel was hit by a car last year, and I miss her antics and her staring in the windows and her voracious plant-eating), and guess what? The cactus is covered with PURPLE flowers. Not pink, or white, or orange, or red like everyone else's Christmas cactus. But PURPLE.
I will put pictures up later.
What did I do differently? Hmm. I've been watering all my succulents/cacti with water from my fish tank (when i do a water change) and not watering them as often, but watering more when I do water. Could that be it? Some catfish and betta poop was all it needed, & a bit of neglect? Last year I repotted it in cactus/succulent potting soil too.
Someone had told me to make it bloom I had to starve it and lock it in a closet with no sun. Well, I didn't do either, and it bloomed anyway.
Yay.

happy 4 Chuen & full moon

12.19.12.5.11 4 Chuen 9 Zip

It's Monday, moon day, and a full moon shines down on us. I always say hello when I see the moon; I always have, even when I was a "Christian" (I got better), especially when I was a little pagan child talking to fairies (then the Christianity thing kicked in and taught me how the fairies weren't there and I was a liar, and it took me 20 years to get over it.)

Chuen is the trickster monkey, the patron of artists and writers. Honor the monkey with laughter and silliness. Do things with your inner child. Fingerpaint a portrait of the moon.

happy 3 Oc & burner day

12.19.12.5.10 3 Oc 8 Zip
Last burner day of this Tzolkin!

Oc is the dog, the loyal servant, the spirit guide or spirit animal, the guardian angel.
It's a burner day, so expect global happenings, things which affect a large number of people.
3 would be a low energy day, but it's modified today by the burner energy.
Talk to your angels.

Happy 2 Muluc

12.19.12.5.9 2 Muluc 7 Zip

Muluc- water, the moon, emotions (especially trust).
2- Low energy.

Don't enter into new relationships today--the level of trust between parties is not what it needs to be. Emotions are blunted--a good thing if you've been grieving and need a break, but if you're depressed you could feel worse today.

Happy 1 Lamat

12.19.12.5.8 1 Lamat 6 Zip

The energy's back down to 1, take a breather, start something new. Since it's a Lamat day, self-indulgence, why not make some affirmations about how you will care for YOURSELF for the next 13 or 20 days?

Happy 13 Manik

12.19.12.5.7 13 Manik 5 Zip

People freak out when I mention Manik. They hear "manic" as in manic-depressive.
In this case, since the number is 13, mania can certainly apply. But Manik is the deer (high strung creatures, certainly, but not manic) and the Hand of God. Let God work through you today. You can surrender without giving yourself up.

The Tzolkin is winding down. The next 13 will be 13 Ahau, the end, and the final sowing portal day.

Nin-aversary

It was 14 years ago today that I heard Nine Inch Nails for the first time. Yesterday was Trent Reznor's 40th birthday. 40! I hate it when my gods age. But I can watch the videos from Broken any time I want and see him in his prime.
Obviously I've been listening to NIN a lot lately, because With Teeth came out a few weeks ago. Not NIN's best work. Not crap either, although a few of the songs have crappy moments. Some decent lyrics, introspective, and even multidimensional.

Sunspots:
And nothing can stop me now
There is nothing to fear
And everything that ever was
Is inside us here

Right Where It Belongs:
What if everything around you
Isn't quite as it seems?
What if all the world you think you know
Is an elaborate dream?
And if you look at your reflection
Is it all you want it to be?
What if you could look right through the cracks
Would you find yourself, find yourself afraid to see?

What if all the world's inside of your head?
Just creations of your own
Your devils and your gods all the living and the dead
And you're really all alone

my personal transformation

So lately people have been saying to me how different I look. I feel different, I feel better. My leg looks better, and I can walk more easily. I went for a colonic yesterday, and as usual I did excellent (how nice to be good at something!) and lots of that horrible orange bile came out. I think I waited too long in between--the last one I had was in April, when I had the liver flush. The colonic guy insisted that I am much thinner and I've clearly lost weight. I know my stomach, while still large, is extremely soft and deflated. I feel like if I got a proper type of girdle I could squeeze it almost flat. It's just lots of loose skin, hardly any fat, basically like an "apron" (which you get after weight loss surgery). But last time I had a great colonic & I weighed myself I didn't lose any weight.
I dutifully weighed myself this morning before my morning cup o' tea (which still makes me sick--it's the milk--I need to find something else to have for breakfast)...and I gained weight. I had lost about 20 lbs and I've gained 10 lbs back. How fucking discouraging.

Happy 12 Cimi!

12.19.12.5.6 12 Cimi 4 Zip

Cimi is transformation, changing from one state to another--something I've been doing a lot lately. This is the penultimate Cimi day...13 Cimi will be in 40 days, in the next Tzolkin, so this is the last high-energy Cimi day of this one.

new fish

I got another albino corydoras, and a regular green one, to replace stumpy the dead Whiskers fish. The new albino is whiter than the old one (who's kinda pink) so I can tell them apart. The three of them are racing around the tank together, totally happy, crashing into the betta and annoying him. Hopefully he won't try to eat any of these. I am also hoping with one more fish, so much food won't be wasted. I give them half a sinking catfish food pellet twice a day (so one pellet a day) and it doesn't all get eaten, and it clouds the tank. But I can't figure out how to cut the pellet even smaller. It's like a large flat pill. (The betta eats that food too-he doesn't like his floating betta food, and when that sinks it makes this icky film that really mucks up the tank.)
Each Whiskers is less than an inch (maybe 1/2 an inch--measure from the eye to base of the tail) and the betta is about an inch, and you can put 1" per gallon, and I've got 5 gallons of water. I'm thinking about getting a female betta and/or a pleco. That would pretty much max out the tank.

Happy 11 Chicchan, Burner Day

12.19.12.5.5 11 Chicchan 3 Zip

Today's the Tzolkin anniversary of the capture of Saddam Hussein. There are 16 burner days in each Tzolkin (the 3, 4, 10 & 11 of Chicchan, Oc, Men & Ahau). I was watching a show on cannibalism (Discovery? Learning Channel? National Geographic?) recently, & they said in passing that human sacrifice was so important to the Aztecs that they had sixteen days in their calendar devoted to it. Did they mean the burner days? According to Bruce Scofield, they are days of festivals and celebrations.

Chicchan is serpent energy, kundalini energy, sex & enlightment. 11 is over-the-top energy. Combined with the burner rhythm today, expect stuff to happen!

Happy 10 Kan

12.19.12.5.4 10 Kan 2 Zip

Kan: the muse, the seed, the corn, the lizard. Kan generates ideas--it's a great day for brainstorming, taking notes, having random creative chats.

10 is pretty high energy. You can become overwhelmed with ideas.

Tomorrow is a burner day!

...and then there were 2..... :(

Stumpy the tailless Whiskers fish died yesterday. When I came home from the Astrological Society of Connecticut's New Age Fair, he was on his side at the bottom of the tank. Alas, he was not playing dead this time. :( I feel terrible.

Happy 9 Akbal

12.19.12.5.3 9 Akbal 1 Zip

Akbal: darkness, secrets, the cave of transformations, the safe space.

9: energy's getting higher, getting ready to go over the edge.

Happy 8 Ik & Zip takes the throne

12.19.12.5.2 8 Ik 0 Zip

19 days to go!

Ik is a day of communication. Think of air signs in regular astrology-talking, writing, speaking. Being an air head. Ik is also the Breath of the Divine--speaking God's words, speaking from the heart-truth. It's also the Tree of Life.

Some communities celebrate the "8" days as the perfect incarnation of that energy. If you subscribe to that, go ahead & celebrate Ik today.

happy 7 Imix portal day!

12.19.12.5.1 7 Imix 19 Uo

We are in the last 20 days of this Tzolkin! Today is the 2nd to last "sowing" portal day--set your intent.

Imix is the "water monster", the crocodile or alligator. In the legends of North America, the world is carried on the back of a giant turtle--some tribes call the continent "Turtle Island." In Meso-America, the world is carried on the back of the crocodile. So the water monster is literally Mother Earth. The Dreamspell people call this daysign "Dragon" and impart to it the mythology of the dragon from Europe, and to me it doesn't really fit. (Then again, I don't like the Dreamspell stuff very much.)

7 is of course the perfectly balanced center between 1 & 13, a day of magic & harmony.

In the Haab, today is the last day of Uo.

hmm....fish-toe connection?

Last night, about an hour after I noticed my poor fishie's lack of a tail, I was watching South Park (the evil parallel universe episode--about a killer fish!) and putting lotion on the cracks in my feet (I wear sandals constantly) and I noticed that one of my toenails was kind of sticking out weirdly. I was looking for the clippers and in the meantime I poked at it, and it fell off.
No pain, no sensation at all. Just came off.
On the way to work, I saw the connection: my fish lost a tail, I lost a toenail. Certainly Whiskers got the bad end of the deal, but I know fish often die for their owners, taking on diseases which kill them instead of their owners getting sick.
And it's on my LEFT foot, the same leg that swells.
Something to think about.

My poor fishie!

For the past week or so, one of my albino cory-catfish has been acting kind of strange. Several times I've been convinced he was dead, but when I went to get him with the net he'd swim away.
When he sits on the bottom of the tank, resting, he lists to the side (redundant, but some don't know what "lists" means). For a day or so his gills looked red and inflamed. Now he's taking to napping VERTICALLY in the plants--he totally looks deceased when he does this.
Last night I was doing a water change and I saw why.
He has no tail.
He had a tail when I bought him. They both had all their parts.
I feel really bad. The betta must have attacked him.
Is he suffering? Will his tail grow back? Should I flush him alive or is that more cruel than just letting him die? Should I take him out and let him aspirate? But I can't kill him. He's my cute little Whiskers fish.
:(

Happy 6 Ahau

12.19.12.5.0 6 Ahau 18 Uo

Only 20 days to go in this Tzolkin cycle! Ahau is the Lord Flower, the highest and best anyone or anything can aspire to be. It's a day for wrapping things up, for saying goodbye and moving on. You've done what you came for. It's a great day and at the same time a sad day, for all endings are sad, even happy ones.

Six is balanced energy. Your mind is clear and your decisions sound.

Happy 5 Cauac --portal day

12.19.12.4.19 5 Cauac 17 Uo

Cauac is the rainstorm. I see it as energy poised to be hurled down on us mortals by the gods. It can help or harm, be called down or be ignored. It's also the energy of Reiki, Mana, Prana, Orgone--I used to have a big list of all those words but I can't find it--natural energies we can tap into and use for healing.

Today's an OUTGOING portal day--only 2 more left this Tzolkin cycle! Set your intentions with what you want to happen in the next 130 or so days.

5 is still kinda low energy, but getting to the balanced stage.

dream

I had a dream last night. (And no, I don't dream every night-I have a sleep disorder.)
I was in the dream, but I'd rather I wasn't!
In it, one of my best friends died. I don't remember her death so I don't think I was there. I will call this friend H. H died under strange circumstances and was autopsied. For some reason they kept one of her legs. The disease she died of was genetically altered or man-made or something. At one point in the dream we were some place where they had an electron microscope and were looking at a sample of this disease and it was made in England at some place beginning with a "Ma" but it wasn't Manchester. (The "We" is me and another person, but I don't know who that other person was. She's not someone I know in real life.)
We went to some kind of pagan/witch/seer person, an older woman who had pretty much retired. She had been a writer, and a friend of H's. She was a very crabby old lady who didn't like to see people. Her back yard was full of all these little huts, like one-person sweat lodges, and they were connected by flexible clear plastic tubing, so her yard looked like a Habitrail for humans. (Habitrail has a really cool web-site, design wise. Check it out.) I took one look and said "I'm not going in there."
The lady's books were about the underworld and the other world and all kinds of ways to bridge the veil. Evidently her Habitrail yard was designed as a series of entrances to different places in the underworld, and the Habitrail format was to keep animals and strangers from entering any of the huts, which were over the entrance sites. Although the plastic seemed very flimsy, not like the rigid plastic of a gerbil-home, apparently it was not easily moved. Magic maybe?
Around the side of her yard she had a bunch of weird-looking animals, and now I can't remember anything about their appareance. They were the size of large dogs, or maybe goats, or maybe a combination. And they talked, and were intelligent. They functioned as security guards and friends.
I've lost the rest.

Happy 4 Etznab

12.19.12.4.18 4 Etznab 16 Uo

Etznab is the Flint Knife. It's the knife of sacrifice. It's the edge you hover on when making a decision. It's energy exchange, and fairness, and balance. Are you cheating? Are you being cheated?

4 is a low number. Not a lot of energy going on today. Don't expect business dealings to go your way. I just went out to lunch, and a guy in front of me had 2 mistakes in his order--wrong soda, wrong size fries. I was given a burger with all the trimmings instead of a plain chicken sandwich. The guy whose burger I got had to wait for a new one because I had unwrapped it. (duh-how else was I to know it was wrong?)

Happy 3 Caban

12.19.12.4.17 3 Caban 15 Uo

Caban is the energy of earthquakes (earth movement) & prayer. This World (or Sun) is called 4 Caban (which is in 40 days), according to the Aztec Calendar Stone, which has the caban shape as the central portion of the stone. This Sun is of Earth, and Earth will destroy it.
The Maya predicted the exact day for this event: 12-21-2012, although their calendar lists the day as 4 Ahau, not 4 Caban.

The ancient Aztecs (and perhaps the Maya also) did not pray as modern people do (on knees, hands folded--not that I pray that way anymore). They would use their intent to put their prayer into incense, and then light it. The smoke would then carry their prayer request up to the gods, and at the same time the smoke (which is a form of itza) would nourish the gods and hopefully predispose them to granting the request. Copal incense (which is like amber, but from a different tree) makes copious amount of smoke to feed the gods with. I know people who burn it inside, but I don't--it makes the smoke alarm go off! It's great for outside though. It perfumes the whole yard.

Three isn't a lot of energy. It's a day to put changes into motion (shake things up) and make requests of the gods--but small changes, small requests.

Happy 2 Cib

12.19.12.4.16 2 Cib 14 Uo

Cib is the Vulture. People in our culture look at vultures as nasty things, horrible stinky ugly birds who eat carrion. But imagine if there weren't Vultures (or whatever animal serves their purpose in your area--around here it's crows & seagulls who eat roadkill) to dispose of the dead things no one else wants? How gross would the world be? Vultures have a purpose--they clean. Think of them as a wonderful maid service. Isn't that a lot nicer? The symbolic meaning of Cib is also the concept of Karmic Cleansing. Vulture can also eat your karma and your ties to the past. This brings in my 2nd favorite goddess,Tlazolteotl "filth eater"--she eats your sins and makes your soul clean. (That appeals to the part of me that used to be Catholic.) A statue of her lives in my Circle and is always available for ritual.

2, obviously, is a low numbered day. Get rid of minor karma. Do a little spring cleaning--one bookcase, or a cabinet, or your car trunk. (If you car trunk looks like the back of my Pathfinder, you might want to wait until the next Cib day, which will be 9 Cib and much better for larger projects!)

Happy 1 Men

12.19.12.4.15 1 Men 13 Uo

Men is the daysign that throws everyone off. They think "men=man" in English. That's not the case. Men is the Eagle, the wise old seer of the tribe, who may be male or female. The Eagle keeps the knowledge, all knowledge, without judging it to be good or bad, useful or junk. (The Eagle is very good at Trivial Pursuit!) Some of the knowledge may be used, but mostly it's just stored there, waiting for someone to ask about it.

1 is a low energy day, obviously, but it's also ONE, the first day, the initating energy. A great day to start a research project, make some notes, maybe request a list of books from the library or do some minor searching on the internet. (Try Google's new Scholar search.)

happy 13 Ix

12.19.12.4.14 13 Ix 12 Uo

I love Ix. It's one of my favorite day-signs. It's the jaguar shaman. It's the natural wizard/witch--the person who connects to natural earth energies. Elemental energies, solar/lunar energies, plants, animals. Today's 13 Ix, the biggest fattest dose of this energy possible. Hug a tree! Plant a flower! Kiss a dog! Talk to the moon!

The magical name I was given when I become a Mayan Reiki master is Ix Mahel. Ix is not only the Jaguar Shaman, but it's also a term of respect given to female shamans. (A person did not give it to me, I channeled it.) I don't know much about Mahel except that it's angelic: hence "Angelic Jaguar Shaman"

For those who don't know, Ix is not pronounced to rhyme with "nicks", but with "leash". X=SH.

happy 12 Ben & 05/05/05 gate

12.19.12.4.13 12 Ben 11 Uo

Ben is a fun day. The book for the Mayan Oracle cards calls Ben "the skywalker" which is just way too Star Wars for me! I always think of a line from a Led Zeppelin song..."I am a traveler of both time & space, to be where I have been" ("Kashmir") to remind me of the movement that Ben implies. Ben is star wisdom, wisdom from non-ordinary sources, extra-dimensional places...BUT...it's not the wisdom of a person sitting in a chair channeling. It's the wisdom of someone who is on a vision quest. And it's APPLIED wisdom. Not just to climb the mountain cuz it's there...but to come back and tell everyone not only what's on top (or on the other side!)...but how to get there.

12 is high, high energy. Vision quest energy if you can handle it. In 40 days it will be 13 Ben--a day to go out into the forest with a bottle of water and a compass and see what the gods tell you.

It's also Cinco De Mayo and 05/05/05.

Cinco de Mayo, of course, is a Mexican holiday which Americans celebrate by drinking lots and lots of Corona and Dos XX beer.

Today is the 05/05/05 gate, the 5th gate in a series of 12. The first four, obviously, were 01/01/01, 02/02/02, etc. Perhaps all the drama in my life in the last few days was in prepation for this new energy coming through. These gates are opening to let us access more of our essential selves. Remember that we are atoms in the body of god--these gates let us sense more of what we're a part of, and how we work together. Multi-dimensional energies are coming in, new abilities, new children.

The last gate is 12/12/12 and then 9 days later, of course, is the grand galactic alignment of 12/21/12--13.00.00.00.00 on the long count.

We are given 13 months (one per moon!) between each gate to assimilate the new energies. Use it wisely & enjoy!

happy 11 Eb

12.19.12.4.12 11 Eb 10 Uo

I only missed one day, yesterday (10 Chuen), so not as neglectful as I thought. And I have an excuse: a challenging life.

Eb is the path, and the grass that grows beside it. It's the journey of life. It's karma. It's weaving baskets in the nuthouse. (One of those things doesn't belong. Which one?)

11's a pretty high energy day. Don't get too entangled with anyone or anything.

11 is also a master number in numerology (11, 22, 33--and the Tzolkin is 20 daysigns plus 13 numbers 20+13=33 imagine that!)

labyrinth walk

I decided to stop by the labyrinth tonight to take a walk. Yes, there is an actual labyrinth made of bricks within a mile of my house. Imagine that. I was walking down the Quinnipiac Linear Trail (yes, it follows the Quinnipiac River--my pool of souls--slightly upstream from the photos below) toward the labyrinth when a man who was sitting on a bench with his daughter called to me.
I went over to them and the man said, "Sorry to call you over like that, but you have to make a wish" and gave me a dandelion. I thought it was sweet, if a little strange, and blew away the seeds and made a wish. Then he said, "I know this isn't the usual way, but you have to tell what your wish was." I told them the truth: health, wealth and peace. The daughter, who was maybe 8, said, "I don't know what that means" and her father explained it nicely--not exactly what I meant, but close enough. That you have nothing if you don't have your health, and that in itself health is a form of wealth, and wealth doesn't mean money but having enough to be happy, and peace is no fighting and calmness. He was a guy around my age, shaved head, but not scary looking. I said, "Thank you for giving me a wish" and both of them were astonished. He tried to get her to say "you're welcome" but she was suddenly shy, and I tucked the empty stalk into my pocket and kept going. When I got to the first trickle of water, I tossed it in and said my usual "Thank you for yesterday, thank you for today, thank you for tomorrow."
The labyrinth is right around the corner. It's a 7 circuit labyrinth. (I found some pictures of it being constructed.) I walked it, mediated for a few minutes in the center while dogs barked madly at me from the path, and then walked out. The man & his daughter were gone.
No where along the path did I see any dandelions gone to seed, only yellow ones.

(picture) Beltane Offerings

Betane Offerings at the base of the Tree: 2 bouquets of flowers and a bowl of copal /sage mixture . The turtle, shells and gargoyle live there all the time. You can barely see the end of the strand of tobacco ties in the upper right corner of the picture.

(picture) After the Ritual 2

Us again--you can see who swapped out being in the picture for taking the picture.

(picture) After the Ritual 1

After the ritual. Aren't we cuddly?

(picture) Burnt Offerings

After the ritual, we burned a few tobacco ties and tried to burn the old may pole ribbons.

(picture) Energy Web

Energy web (sisal string against sand)--it looked a lot cooler when we were holding it, but there was no one to take the picture! My original intent was to use some red yard I thought had been left over from making the tobacco ties, but the person must have taken the skein home. So we had to make do with what we could find in a hurry-plain sisal.
That statue is Tlazolteotl, "Filth Eater," an Aztec Goddess. The statue is really green; it's covered in beach sand. The plaque is a stepping stone with the directions on it, properly aligned.

the gods think I'm strong

Yesterday my AD-afflicted dad got into a car accident. My mom really didn't give me a lot of details. He hit someone (car, not person) and didn't know it, kept going. The guy chased him. The cops chased him. The cops wanted to take his license. My mom somehow got called to the scene and she convinced the cops not to take his license. She told my dad he can only drive in town now, close to home. (He was one town over.) He was so sad and quiet when I was over there. He wouldn't even talk to me, or look at me.

I have been doing some major changes in my life. Cleansing, herb work, body work, thought work. Energy is moving in me and around me. That whirlwind has produced all this crap. It's getting stirred up. I'm not bowing under the weight. I could have lain on my couch and cried all day yesterday (and that was BEFORE I knew about my dad) but I didn't. I bought Nine Inch Nails' With Teeth and went to work. I took a bath, scrubbed myself with a sea salt mixture which my Florida-friend made me, read a book on Mandalas, thought about why I am allowing all this DRAMA to happen to me.

I also just realized I haven't been doing the daykeeper thing. It fell right out of my head. I will resume tomorrow.

The Bear under the Porch

I have a guardian bear under my porch. He goes with the land; when I move, he will stay behind. He is a spirit.

Here is the story of how I acquired a guardian bear spirit.

In the spring of 2000, our front "porch" (more like a mudroom; we used it as a closet) became infested with carpenter ants, who destroyed it. We called in a local pest control service, who was excellent, and traced the source of the ants back to an old stump in the yard. They sprayed, but we had to take down the porch (mudroom). We wanted a "real" porch, and my best friend's brother is a carpenter so he agreed to build it for us.

A month or so earlier, my best friend had a tag sale. She was selling a cool pair of black boots, snow/hiking boots. Her feet are bigger than mine, but I can wear lots of socks, and I liked the boots, so she gave them to me. They had an embroidered bear on the tongues; I forget the brand name but it was a bear breed, like Kodiak or something.

It was gem-show season. I wore the boots to the gem show in Orange, which I went to with my best friend (of course). We paid and walked about five-ten feet; they called the raffle and I had won--they must not have mixed up the tickets at all. I "won" a mineral specimen I didn't care much about. The guy who presented it to me must have seen how underwhelmed I was at my "prize." We had gotten a few tables into the show when he found me and offered me a gift certificate instead. The table we were at had a lot of fluorite scupltures. I've always wanted one. And, imagine this, there was one that looked a little like a Zuni bear fetish.

I immediately used my gift certificate to purchase the Zuni bear (which I will photograph later and post here). I was very happy.

So fast forward now. My husband and my friend's brother have taken down the rotten ant-infested walls and floor of the mudroom. My husband is cleaning up all the small pieces. I was inside doing something else, and my husband comes inside with a weird look on his face and says "honey, you have to come look at this."

Flippant me, I say, "What did you find, an Indian burial ground?"

And my honey is not amused. He does not laugh. He gets all flustered. And I realize he did, indeed, find an Indian burial ground in our front yard.

Cool, but not good.

I follow him down the driveway and into the front yard and there's a femur in the dirt.

Just the top part, where it connects into the hip bone.

A million thoughts go through my head. (I won't record them all here. You're welcome.)

Just rebury it.
Call the police.
The police will knock down the house loooking for more parts and clues.
What if someone still waits and hopes for this person to come home?
Call the police.
Who will pay for the excavation of our yard? Who will fix it? Does insurance handle this? Wil they let us live here while all this is going on? Where will we go? What will we do?
Just rebury it. Forget it. Tell no one.
Call.
Bury.
Call.
Bury.

I ask my husband what to do. He's the man, it's his job to know what to do. He says, "you decide."

Fuck.

We take the bone out of the hole. Forensics? What's that?

It's a leg, all right.

I go inside and look for my anatomy book from my reflexology class, but I can't find it. My neighbor, who is a nurse, inspects the bone over the fence and confirms it's a leg.

One leg, unidenified. Maybe it's a dog or something.

But it's awful big. This leg could be mine.

And if your loved one was missing, wouldn't you want to know if someone dug him up in their front yard?

But then again, the bone was SO OLD. I am not a scientist or doctor, but this bone was feather-light, totally dried out, clearly ancient. Probably a native, like my first joke.

I leave the bone on top of the grill's lid and call the police.

Meanwhile my husband finds a few more small pieces of bone in the hole.

I should backtrack again. The year before, a woodchuck (groundhog) had taken up residence under the mudroom. He was very cute and fat, like a giant guinea pig. We would come home from work and he'd be sitting up on the front steps, watching the sun set. I like ground hogs. We called him Chuckie. But Chuckie was getting destructive, and my husband blocked up his holes and he moved away. When they took down the porch, they revealed Chuckie's lair. He had dug deep next to the foundation to make himself a nest.

Chuckie had found the bones, not us.

I go inside and find the cordless phone and call the police.

I don't call 911. It's too late for our guest to get any help.

I wish I had the transcript. Five years later, this is what I remember.

"Hi, um, we were digging up our yard" another thought flashes through my mind: thank the gods we got a building permit! "and we, um, found some bones. A leg. And, um, some other little pieces. Um, my neighbor is a nurse and she says The Leg looks human." Its taken on a life of its own in my mind. It's The Leg, with initial caps.

The dispatcher doesn't seem quite sure what to do. She dispatches the nearest patrol unit.

The officer is about 18 years old, and clueless. He stands beside the gas grill and looks at The Leg. He agrees that it is, um, leg-like. He pokes at it and finally puts it into a bag and then calls it in, "Yeah, it's a leg..." (Like they didn't trust me?!) Since a COP agrees now that The Leg is indeed A Leg, the dispatcher sends over some dectectives.

They aren't in uniform--I guess that's a perk of detecting. They are in business suits, and it's rather warm. They get out of the Crime Scene unit (an ordinary unmarked police car). From the trunk they take the official Crime Scene Rake. It's missing a tine or two, and held together with black electrical tape. They also poke at The Leg and the other fragments, and put them in paper bags.

Now there is a cop car with its lights flashing in front of my house, and an unmarked police car illegally parked across the street. The detectives start detecting...with me. Apparently, I'm rather shady looking. "How long have you lived here?" "Seven years." Because I've never known when to shut up, I helpfully point out that The Leg is clearly MUCH OLDER than seven years, AND if I killed the person why the HELL would I call the cops?

The detectives are not amused with me. They don't find me cute or adorable like many people do. I guess I'm lucky I wasn't facedown over the car with my hands cuffed behind me. Probably afraid my giant boobs would have dented the trunk.

I decide NOT to tell the nice police officers that I debated not calling them at all.

My husband explains about Chuckie and the carpenter ants and the rotten porch. Conspiciously displayed in the birdroom window is our nice little building permit making it all legal to be tearing up the front yard. The detectives do not look happy to be visiting with us.

They take The Leg & its fragmented friends, and put them somewhere far away from me. They take The Crime Scene Rake and desultorily poke around Chuckie's lair, finding nothing. I want to ask if they'd like to borrow our rake, which has tines and does not have tape. Clearly the Wallingford Police Department is underfunded. It's not even a hoe-type rake, it's a leaf rake.

They decide that The Leg belongs to a very large dog, but they tell me they'll send it up to UConn just to be sure. Five minutes after they leave, my husband finds another piece of bone, right on the surface. They weren't looking very hard. We set it aside just in case.

I spend Sunday and Monday in a fog of worry that The Leg will be human. It's Jimmy Hoffa. They will tear up my yard, knock down my house, I'll be homeless. Why am I so STUPID, why did I call the police?

Tuesday I come back from lunch to a voice mail: The Leg belongs to a bear.

A bear? How totally cool is THAT? All the excellence of a Native American burial without the bad juju.

I call the station back and demand that they return The Leg to me, since there was no crime committed. They refuse.

Well, we still have the small piece of bone we found later. We put it back into the ground.

And that's how we got a guardian Bear spirit.

frustrations

Well, we didn't come through the break-in as unscathed as I thought. Some jewelry is missing, and also the "good" change jar (the one with no pennies).
Today I went to deposit my paycheck and a check for some consulting work and found that my business account has been wiped out and closed. My bills last month got paid through the business account instead of my personal account. Hundreds of dollars in overdraft fees ($25, $27 & $30, not sure what the difference is). Plus chargebacks from all the places that didn't get paid.
Then I went next door to the post office and found that my PO box was closed because the fee was due 04/30 (on Saturday; it's TUESDAY).
I'm having a shitty fucking day.

powerful house guardians!!

We have some powerful house guardians.

Tonight, while my husband was at school & I was at Curious Goods (doing a ritual which included asking the gods to watch over my home!), someone smashed in the front window (on the porch) and tossed our house. They did not take ANYTHING. Not one thing--not the digital camera lying on the couch, nor the laptop next to the bed, not VCRs or DVD players or computers or PDAs, or my friend's $6,000 microcurrent body sculpting machine which I am borrowing.

The housebreaker even CLOSED THE SCREEN so the cats didn't get out.

The only fatality, beside the window, was a beautiful lizard made of Legos which my best friend gave me last year. I have all the pieces and I hope she can fix it. The stained-glass lamp she made me was knocked over and the bulb broke but the lamp itself was not broken.

I feel horrible that someone was in our house, going through our drawers. They touched my altar. They went through everything. The police don't understand why nothing was taken or broken. It's like they were looking for something specific. Either they found it (and we haven't figured out what that thing is) or they got scared away.

I am saddened that our house was chosen when my neighbors weren't home either (the police knocked on doors) but I am GRATEFUL that nothing was taken (so far that we've found) and that all our possessions, except the Lego Lizard, were spared.
We have the Bear spirit which protects our land, and the tree spirits in the back yard, and of course the Circle.
Thank you.

Beltane/Maypole ritual notes

I do have pictures, but I won't be able to post until Wednesday afternoon. My friend's here until 6 p.m. tonight, I have another ritual at 7:00 and tomorrow night we're supposed to go see Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. I'll be listening to the new Nine Inch Nails CD With Teeth while I do it, no doubt--the CD comes out tomorrow.

I think the ritual went well. We had 6 for the Maypole (an even number winds better). My friend contributed beautiful cloth ribbons. (I'll have to photograph the pole now that it's wound). We could not burn the old ribbons, they were too synthetic and just melted into a big mess, so we buried them with a couple of the tobacco ties not far from the Maypole. (I didn't get pictures of the burial, sorry). Another person showed up just as we were about to start smudging for the ritual, so we had seven for that. We smudged with copal and sage and a feather/crystal fan. I passed out my 5 Tibetan singing bowls, a string of bells, tingshas, and my authentic Mexican chicken maraceras (from Cozumel) for joyous noise during the ceremony. We called the Mayan daysigns for the quarters, as is my practice, did the Tree of Life standing meditation, called in the god and goddess, did some manifestation toning, and then did the 'string thing' which came out so cool that I left it on the ground and took a picture. We all gave each other affirmations, thanks and positive energy while weaving a physical string web and then sent energy up and down the strands. It was not as powerful as I had hoped, but it was still pretty fun.

Afterward we burned a few of the tobacco ties. The problem was that it's been raining for days, and the tobacco ties were soaked, the old ribbons were soaked, the sand in the Circle was soaked, the incense bowl and censor were filled with water. It rained in the morning, but we held off the rain for the afternoon ritual (and right at the beginning of the ritual, the sun even came out for a few minutes).

I don't do a lot of traditional things in my rituals. I don't use a knife or wand to "cast" the circle. (It's permanently cast, although I do walk around it with my hand out as part of the invocation of the gods). I don't have salt and water, or a pentacle, or even an altar. (There's benches in the circle where we place things while we're not using them, like singing bowls and balls of string and bowls of incense.) The base of the Tree of Life holds the flowers and candles. This is NOT Wiccan ritual, even if it does take a few elements (calling quarters) from that. We also don't have "cakes and ale" during the ritual, but we do eat afterward.

happy 9 Oc.....Happy Beltane....what is Beltane?

12.19.12.4.10 9 Oc 8 Uo

Oc is the dog, loyal friend, guide & protecter. Metaphysically Oc can also refer to spirit guides, guardian angels & the like (even your higher self).

I once had a friend whose birthday was 9 Oc. He was not loyal or faithful, nor a protector, and not even a very good friend. Astrology is not infalliable; it is just an archetype (maybe to others, he was all those Oc things that he wasn't with me!)--he was also a Gemini, and he was a very good Gemini!

Beltane, May 2nd, is today. You were supposed to go out and wash your face in the morning dew, and dream of your lover tonight. Sorry I forgot to warn you. Beltane was also a time to start a trial marriage (when did living together without being married become a "trial marriage" --the media is so funny)--called a Handfasting (confusing because now many people who are pagan get handfasted as a marriage ceremony). The couple handfasted at Beltane would stay together for a year and a day. (Which I suspect was so that the next Beltane they couldn't go hopping off with another person-that extra day prevented that!) If they got along, they could get married on the Summer Solstice (in June). If not, they went on their merry way, and children resulting from the union were legitimate. (That might be another reason for the "and a day" --to know a child's paternity).
I am not sure if during the 364 days until the next Beltane if people were celibate if they weren't handfasted/married or not. And I can't remember at the moment if Beltane was the holiday where married people could sleep with those they weren't married to for fertility reasons--a woman who got pregnant on this night from someone other than her husband was considered to be carrying the god's child (no, not Jesus, these are pagans we're talking about). All I can think of is, these villages must have been FULL of idiots with all the mixed parentages going on. Actually, I am pretty sure Beltane is the festival of sleeping around (my name for it).

ritual is today

It rained and poured yesterday, but it's nice out today. ;) imagine that.
We've got new ribbons, cloth ones, for the maypole--not plain colors but all kinds of designs and colors and even gold and silver for sun & moon. I've got a big bag of copal & a large sage wand. We're good to go. I have to make some snackies and print out the ritual. It's in 2 1/2 hours.

fractured dream

I can't wait until I get rid of my sleep apnea so I can dream again!

In this extremely fractured dream, I was on some kind of quest. Every night I had to visit this cornfield on a hill, which was by a river, and take care of these cactus. One night I was sitting on the bank of the river with my bags and a blanket wrapped around me, talking on the phone to my hsuband, using a hands-free earpiece. In the reflected light from some where else (where? don't know!) I could see that there was a crocodile (or alligator, I don't understand the difference, and when one's about to eat me frankly I don't care to distinquish!). I remarked on it, "Wow, honey, there's a crocodile" and kept on with the conversation. It hung out in the water about six feet from me and then slipped under. "It's gone now." I kept talking and all of a sudden (you guessed it) the crocodile was RIGHT THERE. I realized my blanket was dragging in the water, and he was at the blanket's edge. I started yelling, gathered up the blanket, my bags, my phone and ran. The gator did not chase me and I felt foolish. My husband was freaking out and he wanted to come get me right away, but I wouldn't let him. Whatever it was I had to do there in the cornfield, I had to do it alone.

Then I had to go to the cactus patch. I was feeding them and caring for them but it was also like a game, with levels. The cactus got bigger, needed more elaborate care, etc. This night I got to a level where one of the cactus turned into a siphon and was sucking up all the nutrients and also the other smaller cactus. I didn't know what to do, how to stop it from doing that. Every level the siphon got bigger, the number of cactus fewer, no new babies. The person who'd sent me on this task was also upset. It was a man, but I don't know who he was. He wanted me to destroy the siphon but I explained that it was one of the cactuses (Cacti) not an intruder.

I called home again and got the answering machine. My husband's friend MFJ had recorded a new outgoing message while drunk. It was kinda funny, but annoying too, as both my husband and I have been going for job interviews and what if we got a call-back? And I was also jealous that my husband and his friend were obviously getting plastered while I was alone in this cornfield with a killer cactus siphon and a ravenous gator.

The next part is where it really starts to break down, and where my presence in the dream fades (except as an observer). Something was going on in a different part of the cornfield. I don't really understand but it seemed like there was a bunch of sentient vegatable OR freaks from a carnival (or some combination thereof) hiding in the corn. And someone else was moving things into the corn, and threatening them. One of the creatures was a frankenstein-type monster and there was a poster of him as a circus freak, and I guess one of the people moving stuff into his area turned out to be his son, and he recognised that it was his son. And that's all I remember.

Happy 8 Muluc

12.19.12.4.9 8 Muluc 7 Uo

I know, I missed yesterday. My friend from Florida is here. She's still asleep so I'm taking a minute to write...

Muluc is water and the moon. Eight is strong energy, but not too strong--just above balanced (7 is perfect balance). Energies of emotion, changing tides. Young Yin-> old Yin -> young Yang -> old Yang -> young Yin (that's an I-Ching thing, but it works here).