Dealing with Depression and Suicide

I am by no means an expert in this area.  A friend of mine asked me to discuss this.  These are merely my thoughts on the subject.

Music-  Buddha Lounge: Hotel Tara

Inter-connectedness: A Journey of Discovery

We all have a desire to connect to another individual on some level or other.  Today I talk about that journey, and what it means to me.  The book that I reference is "Longing for Darkness: Tara and the Black Madonna" by China Galland.

Celebrate Earth Day Every Day

This is my take on what it means to celebrate Earth Day every day.  With music by John Denver, as I believe he had a true appreciation, understanding, and respect for nature.

Embrace the Dark Side

Our Deepest Passions

The Sacrifices We Make

Dealing With Change

Watching the Blue Angels

Keep It Fun!!!

From Road Rage to Love

"All These Worlds....."

"All these worlds are yours, except Europa.  Attempt no landings there."  That is actually a quote from Arthur C. Clarke's "2010: Odyssey Two".  In the video, I believe I may have misspoken, and said it was from the original "2001: A Space Odyssey".

Our Four-legged Friends

Detach from Drama

How Do People Treat You?

Who Would You Spend a Day With?

Transmuting Karma

Weight vs. Health

Movie Marathon

Go With the Flow or Take a Stand

I'm on a Soapbox Now

Is This Real?

The Coming of Spring

So today is the day that so many have been waiting for: the first day of Spring.  Does it feel any different?  I guess that depends on where you are.  For all of you that are a little farther north than I am, I'm sure it feels as though Spring may still be a ways off yet.  Being in central Florida, it almost feels like we went from Fall straight into Spring, with maybe only a few short days of winter thrown in for good measure.  For some, I'm sure that sounds wonderful.  For me, not so much.  As much as I love Fall and Spring, I actually love Winter, too.  I love the snow and the cold: going outside and building snowmen and snow forts, then coming in and cuddling next to a nice, warm fire.  Maybe it's because I was born in Colorado, and that's where my heart remains to this day.  Maybe it's a past life thing.  I've had several lifetimes in cold climates.  Either way, today marks the official first day of Spring.  How will you celebrate?  I'll be spending the day planting seeds, transplanting young seedlings into the garden, and of course, doing some spring cleaning here in the house.  The cleaning part isn't generally something that I enjoy, but it is necessary.  And I'm learning to make it as enjoyable experience as I can.  I try to make it magical, clearing out the old to make way for the new.  This year is a little different for me, too.  As I clean, I'm also purging, simplifying, and packing.  I am planning on moving back to Colorado just as soon as I can.  I fully realize that this move may still be a year or more away.  But I'm already starting to box things up and label them.  Why?  Because I believe that if I truly want something to happen, then the best way to draw it in is to begin living as if it has already happened, and to not just sit and wait for it to come.  Ergo, I'm packing as if I already have a place to go, and will be moving soon.  Now, this could be viewed as if I'm living in the future and not truly enjoying the present moment.  I can see that.  And yes, that's possible.  But I think it depends on how you look at it.  While I am packing for a future moment in time, I believe it is actually helping me to live more fully in the moment of the here and now.  There isn't as much "stuff" to distract me, not too many things that need to get done.  Only those things that are the most important for living in the here and now remain.  Is it possible to live both in the present and in the future?  I think so, absolutely!  We do it every time we plant a garden, every time we make plans with friends, every time we pay a bill that gives us another month of electricity or a place to live.  Enjoy the moment, take pleasure in the "now", but at the same time, work for a better tomorrow.  When tomorrow comes, it will then be the now.  Why not make it as wonderful as possible?  It seems like it would be such a waste to have so many "now" moments without working to make each one better than the last.

The Joy of Irony

It's funny sometimes, how the Universe works.  Yesterday, I posted on changing your physical being by your thought patterns, right?  Then last night, the Universe hits me- hard- and puts everything I said yesterday to the test.  Somehow, I manage to get a slight case of food poisoning.  The night was not pleasant, to say the least.  And now I sit here writing, as you would not want to see my face.  My eyes are beautifully swollen, and severely blood shot.  Last night, as I sat there hugging the porcelain throne, I will say that I did my best to put the thoughts into action.  I did manage to control my breathing, and kept the severe cramping in my stomach to a minimum.  It helped greatly that I had a few of my four-legged fur babies around me purring, trying to help keep me calm.  However, as with everything else, it's all a process.  One day, I do hope to have that ultimate control, as the monks do.  With practice, I believe it will happen.  They didn't learn it all overnight, after all.  It took them years of practice.  But that's one of the things I actually love about the Universe.  When you put yourself out there, for good or for bad, you will be tested.  You will experience things that you don't expect.  It may not be instantaneous, as it was with me last night.  But it will happen.  Will you live up to your talk?  Will you put your words into action?  It's so easy to say the words, whatever they may be.  But when the time comes for action, what's truly inside will come flooding to the surface.  Me?  I'm human (in part, anyway).  I make mistakes, and I'm definitely not perfect.  But I try. I work very hard and diligently towards putting my beliefs into action.  I may not always be entirely successful.  But I keep pushing forward and refuse to give up.  For me, only giving up would be a failure. And a line from a rather funny movie pops into my head:  "Never give up!  Never surrender!"  Funny movie, great line,  my personal motto?  Maybe.  My family motto (according to those "origins of your last name" thingies) is Dum Spira Spera:  While I breathe, I hope.  That's how I live my life.  Always hoping.  Always striving to be a better version of myself than I was yesterday.  Now, if I can just get rid of this swelling.....

Mind Over Matter

Soul Mates and Twin Flames

Rambling About Music

I must make a correction.  In the video, I reference a song as being by Patsy Cline when it's actually by Nancy Sinatra.  That was a slip up.  My bad.

Random Escapades

Building Green

Free To Be Me

Let's Talk Cryptids

Naturally Healthy

Personalize Your Meditation

What Dreams May Come

My Take on Ukraine

Living Frugally

Things That Make You Go Hmmm.....

Mi Amour

Purge, Baby, Purge

I need to make a correction here.  In the video, I made the comment that Jupiter was getting ready to go retrograde.  That was incorrect.  It is Saturn that is turning retrograde, in addition to Mars.  Jupiter is currently retrograde, and will be going direct later this week.  Sorry for the mistake.

The Way of the Wasp

Wow!  I really like the sound of that!  Almost sounds like the title of one of those films like "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon", or "Curse of the Golden Flower".  I love those movies!  Really allows the mind to run wild and free with imagination and possibilities, don't you think?  Sorry, I digress.  So yesterday, I posted something on my Facebook wall about an ongoing encounter I've been having with wasps.  Let me start by saying that I do not like wasps!  At all!  There was one I ran into once that I swear followed me, just to land on my head, crawl down my back, under my shirt, to sting me multiple times.  I really do not like them!  Well, ok.  The tiny little paper wasps, I can handle.  They don't bother me so much.  So, for several days, I've had wasps flying into my car.  Pretty common, I suppose.  I'm used to the occasional, random wasp mistakingly flying in and being relatively frantic about trying to get back out.  And yeah, I actually do feel kind of bad for them as I watch them banging their tiny little heads into the glass.  So I pull over and help them get out, hopefully, with neither of us getting hurt in the process.  But here's the weird part:  these recent encounters are different.  I would be stopped at a light or whatever, they would fly in a window, land on my steering wheel, stare at me for a few minutes, and then fly out another window.  It was intentional.  No random fluttering about, no glass banging heads.  A direct, straight line from window, to steering wheel, to window.  Now, I am a big believer in the idea that nature has it's own language if you know how to listen.  I believe that even the trees, plants, and waters of the earth speak to and guide us.  Yes, I regularly talk to, and even literally hug my trees.  It feels good.  If you've never tried it, you should.  And I believe in animal totems and spirit guides.  I've had many over the years that have shown themselves, helped me through whatever I was dealing with at the time, and then move on.  And I have my constant guide, the owl.  The one who has been with me as long as I can remember, and, I believe, will be with me for life.  So when I see a random event from a creature of any kind that seems well thought out and intelligent, I take note.  What does the wasp mean?  It's present in many different cultures, and has just about as many different meanings.  However, there are a few commonalities:  female warrior, feminine energy, healer, community, hard work, and communication.  When I think of those things in relation to my life, I take it as a very good sign.  You see, I've been working very hard on myself lately, putting a lot of thoughts and ideas into productive action.  I've done things in the last week alone that stretched me way beyond the limits of my comfort zone.  I take it as a sign from the Universe that I am on the right track, and to keep going, keep working, and keep getting a little uncomfortable.  Had I gotten this message not too long ago, then it would have been telling me that those are the things in my life that I need to focus and work on.  Nature gives us all that we need to live our lives on all levels.  It provides food, shelter, medicine, and yes, even guidance and reassurance.  Even in the middle of a city, where natural places may be hard to come by, it's there, speaking to us.  Trying to help us if we will listen and take note.  Nature survived before humans, and it will continue to survive long after we're gone.  To me, it is the wisest of teachers.  Take a walk, and take note.  They are willing to speak, if we are willing to listen.

Hardbound

We've all heard the saying that we shouldn't judge a book by it's cover, right? It's easy to assume or pass judgement on someone based on appearances.  I think we've all been on both the giving and receiving ends at one time of another. I get it a lot for a lot of different reasons.  Most recently, in having a conversation with my best friend, I was reminded that quite often, people have a tendency to think of me as flighty, or air-headed, or flaky. I've had people make that assumption about me for as long as I can remember.  I can see how that assumption could be made.  Naturally, my hair is blonde.  When I was little, it was REALLY blonde.  It gradually started getting darker as I got older.  Then in college, I started coloring it.  It's been just about every color under the rainbow since then, and I honestly can't tell you what the natural color of my hair is at this exact moment.  I really don't know why blonde hair automatically leads to an assumption of lower IQ.  But we all know it does.  On top of that, there's the fact that I'm really into crystals, incense, herbs, meditation, spirituality, alternative healing techniques, etc.  And while those (I don't think) imply any kind of stupidity, for some reason, society in general seems to take that to mean that someone just isn't quite right in the head... has a few screws loose, bats in the bellfry, lights on but nobody's home, yada yada yada).  I'd like to think that's changing as time goes by, but it could easily just be that I have more accepting and like-minded people in my close circle.  But what my friend mentioned to me was that people see that, because often, it looks outwardly like I don't take things very seriously, and don't think too deeply about things.  The truth of the matter, and she can attest to this, the reason it appears that way is because I have SO much going on in my head all the time. I'm always trying to see things from different angles, and I'm constantly so lost in deep thought that it's extremely hard for me to articulate it.  In fact, if I do get really involved in a conversation, I have a tendency to yawn.... a LOT.  People generally take this as I'm bored or don't care about the conversation, when it's actually the exact opposite.  My brain is just going so fast, it need more oxygen, I suppose.  I absolutely adore math and science, and had always planned on making that my life's work.  But things happened and I never followed that path.  History (ancient, not so much modern history), archaeology, geology, art, music...... all very deep passions of mine.  I'm constantly studying and researching.  I don't know how anyone can not want to learn new things.  It's almost like an insatiable hunger for me.  Several years ago, I was diagnosed as having ADHD.  They tried putting me on drugs, but all it did was depress me.  So I quit taking them.  This is why traditional meditation is so difficult for me.  I have a very hard time quieting my mind down enough to be able to relax.  But I've found other was to meditate that work beautifully for me.  I've lost out on some of what I think could have been absolutely amazing friendships over the years, because someone couldn't see past the outer cover.  If only they would have taken the time to get to know me, ask me questions, REALLY talk to me..... I wonder.  At the same time, I do not like superficiality.  It feels like acid to my soul.  So if someone can't or won't take the time to see the real me, who's loss is it really?  Maybe both.  I'm no better than they are.  We're all human.  Maybe they have a hard time connecting to people, too.  Or maybe they connect in a different way.  My point is this:  move past the outer layers of appearance.  Go deeper.  You never know.  You may just find gold under that hardcover.

Tulips or Eggshells?

Have you ever noticed that there are times in your life that you can look at another person, what they're doing, a situation they're involved in, and just think to yourself, "Oh my god!  They're being deceived!"  Or taken advantage of, or any number of other things that may be going on that aren't necessarily good.  Now, keep in mind, I'm not talking life or death here, like running into heavy traffic, or anything like that.  I'm talking personal, emotional, kind of things.  What do you do?  I think most people would just keep to themselves and not worry about it too much, especially if it's someone who is a complete stranger to you.  But what if it's someone you care about?  Well, that's when it gets tricky.  You're faced with a choice of whether or not to warn them, and hope they'll take evasive action.  But is that really our job?  I know personally, I have a couple of very close friends..... they've seen me heading towards disaster a few times.  That couldn't have been easy for them to watch.  But they chose the path of tough love.  They let me go ahead and do what I was doing, knowing full well what the outcome would be.  Almost sounds horrible, doesn't it?  How could they possibly let me do that?  Well, honestly, I'm glad they did.  If they would have told me, then more than likely, being the stubborn Taurus that I am, I would have just kept on any way with the intention of trying to prove them wrong.  But them letting me follow my own path, allowed me to get hurt, yes.  But it also allowed me to learn something that I probably wouldn't have, otherwise.  And after it was all said and done, they told me they saw it coming.  I couldn't get mad at them, though, because I knew exactly why they did what they did.  I understood that.  They were right.  Now, I ask for their advice, and take heed of what they say. They're pretty smart people.  Me, on the other hand, for some reason, I feel the need to protect everybody.  Don't know why.  I've always been that way.  I see something coming, and I have to open my big yap.  Well, when I can prove it, anyway.  When it's just a feeling, I've always second-guessed myself.  I shouldn't do that, because I have learned over the years that my intuition is pretty dead on.  But the ones I can prove.... let me give you an example.  Several years ago, there was a woman that was trying to break up my (now ex) husband and myself.  She was ruthless.  One evening, I was in a public restroom when she walked in.  She didn't know I was in there.  She was talking to someone on the phone, telling them exactly what she was doing and how she was going about it.  So I went and talked to my husband.  Well, that didn't go too well.  He was convinced that I was just being jealous and controlling, and trying to tell him who he could and could not talk to.  Even though, in the long run, I was proven correct, he never let go of that, and still to this day, brings it up from time to time.  Now, I am, once again, being faced with watching someone I care deeply about heading towards a very dangerous emotional cliff.  I'm watching as this person is getting sucked into something that seems to be wonderful, and yet something inside me can clearly see where trouble is brewing.  I could say something.  I could drop hints here and there.  But as hard as it is for me,  I have to let go and trust that my friend will be ok.  I'll be there, waiting to help pick up the pieces, and help him through it when it all goes down.  I love him dearly, and don't want to see him get hurt.  But sometimes, people have to learn for themselves, no matter how painful it is to watch.  I just hope that when that time comes, as I am positive that it will, he will understand my current silence on the matter.  It's a delicate dance.  Do we tiptoe through the tulips?  Or do we walk on eggshells?  Sometimes, it may be a little bit of both.

Passion and Obsession

Passions.  Desires.  Those things that drive us.  They keep us motivated; keep us moving forward.  They are the beautiful and amazing things we learn along the path of life.  So when does passion go wrong?  When it becomes obsession.  To devote your life to one thing or another can be one of noblest persuits, especially when it comes in the name of helping others.  However, when it becomes your sole purpose, when all other parts of your life fade so far into the background that they become almost non-existent, then, there is a problem.  When I was in college, I had a professor whom I dearly loved.  While he taught full time at the university, he also had his own private practice as a psychologist.  He was a brilliant and amazing man.  He said something that has stuck with me over the years.  He would always start his class by saying "All extremes are dysfunctional."  Proper psychologist language, you know.  The reason he would say this, aside from the obvious, is quite interesting, actually.  You see, this was a Christian university, and he was talking to students who would come in all zealous about God to the point that they ate, drank and slept God to the extreme.  To the point that they had no friends, they had no close ties with anyone, nor did they want to. Each and every conversation was about God, only God and nothing but God.  If the topic ever slightly strayed, they would try to turn it back to God, or else get all huffy and walk away claiming to be holier than whomever they were talking to.  Most of these students didn't like this professor too much, and some even tried to claim he wasn't even a "real" Christian.  You know the type.  They are always right and everyone else is always wrong.  This doesn't just apply to Chrisianity, by any means.  Its applies across the spectrum into every aspect of life and society.  I left Christianity shortly after college.  I found the same thing happening in all sorts of circles.  It happens a lot at jobs when you have a young newcomer thinking they know better than the boss.  We see it all the time in politics with one party thinking they know better than the other, or the government of this country thinking they know better than the government of that country.  And I think most, if not all of us, have dealt with (or even been one ourselves) a teenager at some point who thinks they know everything.  When I first started studying paganism, I found it there, too.  If you're not this particular "brand" of pagan, then you're not doing it right.  Now I'm seeing it in a relatively new circle.  The growing movement that believes in an ascension of earth and human consciousness.  What I find the most ironic, however, is what all of these spiritual paths have in common.  All of them claim to tout universal love and acceptance.  Different terminology, different names for their higher power.  But they all promise love.  Love is great!  Love is awesome!  Love is the most beautiful part of life!  WHEN IT IS TRULY UNCONDITIONAL.  As soon as human ego steps in, though, it takes an extremely ugly turn.  "I'm more spiritually advanced than you are."  "I'm more connected to the universal life force."  "I'm more in touch with who I am" (that's a big one).  At the first incling of a thought that you are better than someone else in any way, it becomes conditional.  The thing is, it's not a competition.  Or at least it shouldn't be.  That's the whole idea of uncondotional love.  Each of us have our own strengths, and we each have our weaknesses.  What we should be doing is truly helping each other, not looking down our noses at someone because in one tiny little aspect, they haven't learned what you have.  I can absolutely guarantee you that there are some things that person has learned that you have not.  Nor should we have such a high opinion of someone else that everything we do revolves around trying to earn that person's/group's approval or acceptance.  They are in no better a place to judge you than you are to judge them.  We should be helping each other, building each other up, offering our assitance to those who need it, and NEVER expect anything in return.  Yes, a thank you is nice from time to time.  It is such a beautiful expression of gratitude coming from a heart that earnestly means it. But is it truly necessary for the one who receives it to feel somehow more complete?  It shouldn't be.  The concept is simple:  stay humble, remain true to yourself, accept others how and where they are, keep learning and growing and moving forward.  There is always something new to learn.  We each have our own paths to walk.  No two journeys are the same. And yet there is one constant that I believe we all share.  Do you want to know the meaning of life?  Do you want to know your purpose here?  Love.  Pure, unadulterated, unconditional love.  It's the same for all of us.  Yes, we each have our own ways of spreading and showing that love, sometimes even utilizing "tough love".  We each have our own lessons to learn to be able to love.  It doesn't mean we're not going to have bad days, or get along with everyone, or meet people we would like to whop upside the head with a 2 x 4.  But we are all here to love.  One God, many Gods/Goddesses, no God.... doesn't matter.  Love.  Love of yourself, love of others, love of life.  LOVE. <3 Namaste <3