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Sometimes your plans do not work out.

Today I had plans to go to the gym during lunch.
I clocked out, changed clothes and couldn't find: my bag, my keys, etc. By the time I found the keys, I was halfway into my lunch time which is only an hour and there wasn't time.

I missed heading out of the house today. It's spring and I really crave being outside, but I am also trying to be very good about my diet and self care. I was trying to imagine what I might make for dinner later today and the answer came up nada... so, I pulled up my big girl panties and did made lunches/dinners for the next 2 days.

When I was making lunches (Chicken Alfredo) I wanted to be very careful to not overcook the broccoli. So, I just left it out. Sauce, chicken, garlic and then fend for yourself at the time of reheating.
Normally I would just cook it all together but mushy broccoli is uber nasty.

The upside to today: I slept in... fiercely. It felt amazing.

2 nights ago was a dream about how it was with S. Of course this was compressed into an evening of dreams. I was remembering the quality that was there where he was mean. It was striking how not himself he was. Impatient, looking for fault. Exacting. We never had that dynamic pre accident. But I would be trying to reach out and help and he would look for fault in it, withdraw from me. I remember this from the era itself and realized how heartbreaking it was. It is not lost on me that I really did reach out to him. I tried to be there for him. In my dream I realize that he pushed me away, likely from having a traumatic brain injury. It helps that J-Bird told me that before he went into his final surgery that he isn't mad at me anymore. But for now, my own heart is struggling with the before person, the after person and the rawness of my heart because of it.

The dream highlighted how my inability to reach him was either entirely in his grasp and he choose not to, or it was out of his grasp and he was unable. Either way is out of my sphere of influence.

I admit, I am not certain that I am even ready for a relationship right now. I'm here with Jason and grateful for him, but my heart is smarting and sad.

Even 2 years later.

Grief certainly seems to be on no timetable to exit the scene. I actually did try to date someone, but I admit I am spoiled by Jason and Shon. Each in their own way, thoughtful, kind, considerate, and the true noble heart. Dating other people feels like a lesser world.

Shifting thoughts here:

The other person I briefly dated, while cute and interesting to talk to, was so idea oriented and there was a loss of connection. And he wouldn't respond for days at a time to text messages and then say that he was busy. If you are looking to have a relationship, that isn't a good foundation.

So while I am sad that it didn't work out, there is a strong part of myself that is relieved. I sometimes think that the emotional bids for closeness are hard for people to accept and the other sort of wanders around until they feel like connecting again. But there is not fostering of closeness that comes with the intentional cultivation.

I'm out gardening again, which had been on hold for a long time. At least 3 years. The quietness is good for me.
The focus on clearing the beds is good for my attention while I mull through the losses on my plate.

My astrologer told me it was going to be a rough couple of years. Boy did she understate that.

My dear Shon, my beloved priest and lover, I miss former you... our cuddles, our walks, the way that you would chant and I would put my head on your chest and listen.
I'm so sad about our distance that came after your accident and our inability to bridge that even up to your passing. But dear one, I tried everything I knew how to do. Sometimes certain obstacles cannot be crossed, and that is something I have to accept. Somehow. Please forgive me for not figuring it out. And please know that if I would have figured it out I would have tried it with my whole being. Our yard is beautiful and I am redoing the cairn and the grove. And I went on my first road trip by myself without you. I went to Silver Falls with the puppy you have never met but would have connected to so strongly.

I cried in the car as I passed things we passed along the way.

I miss you dear one. I don't miss the after accident difficulties, but I do miss our connection that we fostered together. I'm afraid it will never happen again, but honestly I am certain that I will figure out hope around this. There will be someone who wants to have deep conversations and study the Mesnavi with me, and will experiment with cooking and want to go on adventures to parts as yet unseen or even unknown!

I am wondering how far back this whole process goes?

This morning I woke up wondering if I still wanted to be a pastor. A PASTOR? Really?????
I find myself in love with the Abrahamic scriptures. I really do... they reach out and nurture me. Just this morning I was thinking about the section in Psalm 23 and the line, "He/She prepares a table in the presence of my enemies." What this reminds me of is that in the midst of the struggle, we should nurture ourselves and feed ourselves in the midst of crisis.

What I miss in my road in Islam is the study of the Christian scripture.

I found a few gardening shows on Netflix. I spent the afternoon watching people transform their backyards into an Oasis. This of course being my goal!

It was very interesting to hear the suggestions on how to plant the roses, on how to stuff plants into rock walls correctly or watching normal people create a water feature. These people are working so hard, but the inspiration was the fact that they actually did it. Their recreated yard was amazing.

It made me ask myself what my yard wanted to be. Some people had themes(Norwegian) or Japanese. Another guy just wanted to have something for everyone in his yard. There was the standard "battle" over keeping the shed in the yard. Of course these are all things I have had experience with myself, so I found myself giggling.

My own vision for the garden has been migrating over the years. At first I wanted it to be food on the land, growing our own vegetables, etc. But given that I cannot eat them, it did't make sense anymore.
So now the goal is beautiful oasis that is relaxing. A place you could have a garden party with your best mates. Flower beds to get cut flowers for the kitchen!

I have been enjoying working on the design for the grove in the back!

Current Mood: artistic

This week has been some changes that I have waited for, literally, for YEARS!

We have trim, flooring upstairs, doors for the closets and paint! I feel this weight just rolling off of me like giggles. My father had been working on this before, but he was retired and disabled and it got to be too much for him to finish. Not having money to pay someone else meant pretty much it sat unfinished.

I have two amazing men who are finishers coming in and fixing what needs to be fixed. They are so good at fixing these little problems all over the place. And having had them do work for me before, I trust them implicitly.

So, this weekend I can move my desk over to next to the window, which will be good for my Winter psyche. And the house should be painted next week.

THRILLED!

The anniversary of Shon's passing is coming up here in a month. Grief is a funny thing. It's like a rock in your heart that is bouncing on a river. Sometimes it's submerged, but still rolling around. Sometimes it bumps into you and you realize that you are hurting.

I decided to see a grief counselor. It is so hard for me to go to places that I love because I associate them with him. Like when I go to my spiritual circle, we just work on what we do, and we don't talk about him. Not because it's taboo but because the place is for other things. But I starkly am aware of his missing presence there. This has lead to a form of spiritual starvation for me since my religious path is what holds stability for me and keeps me from losing hope.

Same with other parts of my life that I love and cherish. I am looking for a return of true laughter. Health of my spirit and body. I always feel like I am carrying the weight of this loss in my chest and like a bag that is too heavy it affects me. Shon was an intimate part of my daily life for better and for worse for 13 years, and while I think that heaven is a better place than here, my time right now is for this world.

There are no avenues in our culture to talk about loss. Just "reclaiming" and "power" and "joy" and all that. But to quote the Mahabharata, "We live amongst death everyday, yet we live as if we are immortal." I feel like I live with death everyday, and I feel like it is invisible to people around me. It makes it hard to breathe sometimes. The anniversary of his death has been finding itself in my psyche, with all the complicated grief that comes with it. I just can't pretend like it didn't happen, or that I don't care, or that I have moved on. I realize too that no one is asking me to. It's just the status of the culture I live in.

Rush Rush, Do More. Avoid all discomfort.

I don't think I can. And frankly, maybe I shouldn't either.

Just fodder for the fire.

Today is Day 2 of my Celestial Pillar practice.

I started with the Self Massage practice.
I have this memorized for the most part, but on occasion I have to remind myself small details like if the brushing of the arms goes up the outside of the arm first or the inside of the arm! So, I look at that because I would like to practice it correctly, and, as I understand it, this is how the qi flows in the body.

Today I worked on Routine I, II, III, IV and V.
The breath is starting to resonate again. There is a quality of energy I can tangibly feel when I do Tai Chi and QiGong and the Kabbalistic energy work that Jacobus is teaching me.

So we have:

3rd eye
Top of the head
Eyebrows
Lungs
Liver
Kidneys

This is about boosting your Upright Yang Qi (or Zheng Qi). Yin Qi is the body, Yang Qi is our energetic animation. I am working on this practice because I have noticed that my body is suffering. My acupucurist told me that my kidney qi is leaking. This means that I am dipping into my pre natal qi and this is how you become sick. So this practice, which I am doing in the mornings should help bolster my energy of my body.

If I check in about my body, I have noticed depression, tiredness, regular headaches and difficult periods. My pouch and my bladder are also very sensitive.

Because of this, I have changed my diet BACK to the Taoist diet (which cleared a lot of this up) and then my idea around this is to limit my grains to whole grains, eat a small amount of poultry and fish, and to be deliberate in my walking and Qigong. If I can, I might see if I can swing a Tai Qi class at the local Shaolin Center on Powell. This would be ideal but also require me to bus it over there before work and then bus it to work after that. And, since I work such long days, sleep can be better.

First day of my 100 days of QiGong.

This morning I sat down and went through the preparatory energetic clearing and prepping.

This meant: 5 minutes of silent breathing.
Then the process of clearing the meridians and the pathways through tapping or slapping or breathing.
The Yin channel clearing felt the most deeply satisfying.

Then I started with Routine I and Routine II.
R I Activates the spirit of the Celestial Pillar and synced the 1st and 2nd brains together: AKA your stomach and your brain.

RII works with the gall bladder channel which is your decision maker. This helps my self to make quick decisions.

There there is the action with the thumbs with activates the Yang Qi. If you have too much Yang Qi in your body, you become angry and it steals energy from your heart which is hard on your body: See Heart attacks and rage.

So I am starting this process of eating seasonally, eating organically as a matter of conscious choice and doing this as a dimension of intentional self care. After my dreams, I am thinking that I need to be more deliberate in this and not wait for a good time.

My Autoimmune has kicked up in the last few months and I think this is due to me trying to lose some weight using a paleo diet. I am going to have to manage the weight some other way. Or, live with it. The colitis is far worse than the public shame of weighing 225 lbs.

Current Mood: productive

Just imported my journal from LiveJournal.
I hadn't been over there in a while and had been looking for a good blogger for me.
The Russian laws are bugging me.
So, porting over here!

Thanks friends!

My dream this morning had me thinking

Someone coming to break into the house, going to the doors and windows.
I was trying to lock him out, he had a weapon and was mean.
They were looking for someone and were fiercely angry at them.
At the same time these workers just showed up and started "fixing" things and doing them incorrectly, without my permission.
I couldn't figure out who ordered the workers and why they were trying to fix something so incompetently.
Several examples of this through the dream.
I told the workers that this guy was trying to get in the house. They looked at me like I was crazy and continued to do their job.
I was pushing doors shut while the guy was trying to force his way in.
I tried to call 911 they didn't believe me even when I said this crazy guy is here trying to hurt us loudly and with an knife!
911 blew me off and I couldn't figure it out. I thought, the one time I really tell someone that I am hurting here they seriously don't help.
The man got inside through an open door that had no latch that I wasn't strong enough to hold. I was furious that this house was so deteriorated.
The house had a basement with a lot of old stuff, Shon's things like his pants with his wallet still in it. I wasn't sure why his wallet would still be there?
I asked the guy: what he is doing here with my house. Stalker said Shon stole some of my cows.
I asked, how do you know this was him.
He said he found a note with Shon's name on it at a bar and since he was the only difference he was the only possibilty.
I was like Shon's been dead for a few years and he looked shocked.
I said, Shon was also vegan why would he steal your cows?
The man left.
The rest is inconsequential.

I think this dream is a similar dream to the last one.

I am noticing:
There is something is wrong.
There is rage and the wrong people are being disparaged.
No one is listening to me even when I am telling them.
I feel like the clutter in the basement is perhaps stuff to be dealt with that is complex and underground... evidently around Shon and other things.
The house is dilapitated which would imply that self care has not happened or there is no structures built to help me.
Previous dream related: not able to go to school - taking this as not able to attend my religious training that is needed to build structures I need to make it through this.

I have a tremendous amout of grief here. I am still working on my relationship with Shon and his death.
My heart is hurting and I don't know how to talk about this or fix it.
My thinking here is that there is no outlet to talk about a poly relationship death that was a spousal death for me.
I feel alone in this, my friends are friendly but not around. I have no practical tools to talk about it.

Likely I need to see a grief specialist to get a set of tools to help me.

Current Mood: distressed

I had a dream that a professor like character was telling me that Mohammad was an evil man. That he deserved anything he got.
He deserved to be destroyed. He said to me that he KNEW this. In a deeply emotional outburst I told him that this was frankly not true and I knew that he didn't know because he hadn't read any of the biographies otherwise he would have a different opinion.

I left feeling like I couldn't go back to school, I started missing classes and was stressed about it. This felt like the same feeling like when I was in high school and the stuff with my Dad/Abuse/Prision.

Then I went to visit my friends, they were in this house just screwing around getting stoned or just gabbing.
I was apalled that they didn't see how distressed I was.

Then I was in circle sitting next to Khadim. We were there doing our practice and working on something personal like we do. A guy who looks like a combo of 2 friends of mine (who are know it alls) was like, "here is how I do this practice". I knew what he was going to do, he was going to cast circle and call quarters, but thought he was going to use the shield of the magus. Khadim was like, "ok". I was horrified at what was getting ready to happen. It felt like he was just showing off. He *slinked* over physically and started doing the LBRP. He called the elements etc, and the mighty ones.

I felt a bolt of energy go through my body. Khadim saw this. Then we were in this circle and other people were like, "awesome job man!" and then another guy walked across and handed the circle caller a flyer handout with tarot meanings. He was like "here, here's a handout one of my students made." I felt like we were at a Con or just a social circle.

I looked at the circle caller and said, "you can't just cast the circle and wander off, you have to be present with it and hold this. This is a very real container". He got grouchy and told me he knew what he was doing. Khadim started getting sick and I said, You have to take this circle down. He did it but didn't banish ANYTHING. I went over to her and she hugged me strongly and said, you are my ilk. I said, I had him take the circle down but he didn't banish anything. I said, do you want to purify the space. She said yes. I said would you like me to grab some sage? Khadim grabbed a piece of the rubble from the collapse of the circle and said, "We can purify it with this."

Current Mood: okay

Terradon's cover photo
Posted by Terradon Iler on 24 Dec 2018, 06:12

One of my LJ friends has this as part of their bio.

How does one do that?

Today I pruned my roses along the driveway and near the Bungalow. I sat there and hacked these babies pretty hard. At first I was anxious about them.
What if they don't come back?? What if I am doing this wrong? What if I KILL THEM?!

As I remembered old rose adages, "Fortune favors the bold" and so forth, I realized that I didn't have faith that the roses were resilient. While it is true they can be difficult, truth be told, they aren't completely incompetent. They can grow new stalks, new roots, new leaves. They have systems to handle disease that we are starting to understand. So this (to me) is about my lack of trust in the world, that things can take care of themselves. That things can find their way.

I continued to hack at these roses with this in mind.

Maybe finding joy in the face of oblivion is about being willing to just do it anyway, without knowing the outcome? Allowing yourself to fail and then find out it isn't the end of the world.

I can be so focused on finding meaning... the "why".

It occurred to me too that perhaps helping other people find some sort of solace in life, even if we are here is worthwhile.
At work, everytime I have a contractor come through I make it a point to help them get the tools they need to get their work done.
It's me enabling them, a form of advocacy. I realize that it makes me feel better when I do it.
It also helps to read the stories about the work we do for people to keep them alive, to provide care etc.
It could be worthwhile for me to volunteer somewhere for a few hours a week.

Current Mood: thoughtful
Current Location: United States, New Hampshire, Concord

Terradon's cover photo
Posted by Terradon Iler on 13 Dec 2018, 08:04

Terradon Iler
Posted by Terradon Iler on 12 Dec 2018, 01:10

Rumi says,
"Today, like every other day,

we wake up empty and frightened.
Don’t open the door to the study and begin reading.
Take down a musical instrument.
Let the beauty we love be what we do.
There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground."

Does everyone experience the desire to sing to the Source when their heart is breaking?
When I feel the confusion coming in, the Ussak Ayin lyrics come to mind:

When my Beloved is far away, my senses can still smell Her because I pull her close to my side.
Even if every person were a healer on this planet, only She can heal me.
Only She can make this one's journey shorter.

Current Mood: reflective
Current Location: Portland, Oregon
Current Music: Ussak Ayin

So, likely no one is here right now, but that's ok.

Life has changed so much since my last post. Which I might actually read here to just compare.

I am shocked at how much can change in one evening.

With Shon's accident this has catapulted so many changes into orbit.

I moved back into technology for my career. True that it isn't as high of a level of work than I was doing before, but it is more social than before.
The people are good people. Not as anchored together as my former positions either, but still kind nonetheless.
It is strange to not do anything with counseling, energy work, astrology, reiki or the like. I had energy work done on me for the first time since befor his accident. It felt warm and nurturing. I had forgotten how it felt.

Shon has passed unexpectedly as was his accident of course. We all expected after the initial ICU that he would make it. I mean, you are out of the deep water right? Only strange situations have people die unexpectedly. We are not the norm it seems. I am learning to live without him. I am both in the relearning myself phase of being out of a very long term relationship and also in a mid life transition. I wouldn't call it is a crisis, unless you mean crisis of creativity.

I am finding myself stifled by beige. By boring. By safe fashions and closed off relationships.
Having him pass has blown open my sense of desiring safety and now I feel like I hunger for color, and nature and openness. I used to shy away from whimsy, but now I crave it. Like need it like in waterfall amounts.

Anyway, just rambling for now, but I want to reembrace this forum more, even if I am talking to myself.

Ciao for now!

Terradon's cover photo
Posted by Terradon Iler on 3 Dec 2018, 17:32

This is gold!
Posted by Terradon Iler on 27 Nov 2018, 23:19

Purifying this body at Common Ground. Massage and soak are just what this body needed!
Posted by Terradon Iler on 27 Nov 2018, 22:56

Circle Around like the Moth

Recent Entries

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Fie... plans are messed up!

Dreams - about S and our life - post accident

My road "into the woods"

Visions for Rookhaven Gardens

House is being updated!

The anniversary of Shon's passing is here...

Journal Entry 2 Tian Zhu "Celestial Pillar"

Journal Entry 1 Tian Zhu "Celestial Pillar"

Portling from LJ.

Second dream from today

2 dreams - both important

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To practice of joy in the face of oblivion

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Terradon Iler

Music and the spiritual path

Oh LJ how I have missed you!

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This is gold!

Purifying this body at Common Ground. Massage and soak are just what this body needed!

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