I agree that living in the energy of Mabon would be extremely imbalanced. Who could manage moving through the days, all of them in a row, seeing only those things that did not work? But, again, only for me, it is important to stay with this energy until Samhain. The balance that I work to create in this time is the balance between all of these opposite things within me, reconciling those things and seeing that they are cooperative parts of a whole rather than true opposites: things like male/female, mother/child, in a relationship/solitary, wise/foolish, yong/old…the list seems endless. I also know that this way of being in the energy is not healthy for everyone, nor is it producitve. I hear you saying that you love me too much to want me to be “beating up on” myself and my Self and all I can do is assure you that it is NOT the energy of what I am doing. I love you and am sending thousands of hugs.

Joel, I always love to read the pieces of your BOS. (Hehehe…I just got a picture of my inner Blue Meanie.) There is something there for me about how I would judge a student, though I cannot find that yet. At Samhain, ya’ll will probably all want to boycott this blog as I celebrate in a big way the successes of this year that is passed and begin to dream big for the year to come. Until then, I feel this huge sense of needing to see clearly, needing to dig within, needing to reread this last year of living to find all of those places that need to be reworked, not because only mistakes are there but because I cannot learn or grow from them until I find them.

THank you for your love, support and concern. I’m not stuck in yuck or bogged down or depressed by the things that I am finding.

Tehlanna, what a relief!! I tease people that someday I’m going to be a bazillionaire and I’ll hire all of my favorite people to be my minions, all of whom will be paid $150,000 a week to do the bullshit jobs that I hate…things like laundry and dishes and grocery shopping and house cleaning and stuff. I’m adding gardener to the list!!

It’s nice to see updates from you, I’ve missed reading you.

xoxo

“It is said that no one who likes sausage should ever watch it being made- it’s not an appetizing process. People are like sausages… when we look at a person, we don’t see all the disturbing things that shaped their souls. We don’t see the moments of shame and triumph, the instructional pains layered one upon the other since childhood that forged the soul we see. We see the finished sausage, and somehow imagine they were born that way.

But when we look at ourselves, we don’t see the sausage; we see all the horrible things that went into it, never dreaming that the sausages around us contain equally unsavory bits of meat and filler. What a gift it would be, the Scottish poet Burns tells us, to see ourselves as others see us. Try it once if you can: Block out all the secret knowledge of self, and look only at what the world can see… a talented, valued member of society. Accept that judgment now and then.”

I challenge you to do this… don’t compare yourself to some imagined, theoretical yardstick (which is probably the product of your inner Blue Meanie)… don’t consider things not done… look only at what you HAVE done… those you have helped… progress actually made… don’t judge yourself by your standards; judge yourself as you would judge a student… and you will see a remarkable woman.

Examine the year, yes. Examine what you were able to accomplish and what you weren’t, yes. But when you do that with the energy of only seeing one side and not the other, and furthermore seeing the side you choose to spend more time on with the energy of disappointment and failure, you create an imbalance. It’s a perpetuating cycle. When you see them as failures, how can you learn from them and grow? In my experience, the more you send out that energy, it blocks you from growing through them and from them and eventually reaching those goals you set for yourself. And don’t forget to look at the other side of things, since Mabon is also about balance: When you look back on the year, include the amazing growth you have accomplished and the wonderful things you have done and were and are now. In this situation of re-examining the year as it comes to a close, how can you find balance for yourself as you review, through your review? Will you choose to honor what you were able to do as well as honoring what you weren’t?

Sending you love…