Saturday, November 26, 2011

The Baby and the Bathwater

A friend of mine once told me that I never change. My grandfather, God rest his soul, theorized that people don't change - they just become more who they are. I'm not sure what's going on astrologically (despite being a Tarot reader and a rather adept psychic, I prefer to be completely surprised - I only look for hints when I feel it is necessary), but since about last August, I've been caught up in some sort of strange turnabout where I keep looking at my life backward instead of forward.

I'm a soldier through it kind of girl. Forward, always forward. I regret little because I realize at every point of the path, I was who I was and made my choices based on where I was and what I valued at the time. I don't often wistfully look back with starry-eyed "what if." I simply take what I learned from success or failure and apply it to future situations.

This new perspective of looking backward to see what I may have left behind is therefore both bizarre and disturbing to me. I'm not sure if this is happening because I am two years overdue for my two-and-a-half-year escape and reinvention cycle that has occupied the last decade of my life or what exactly is going on, but whatever it is feels large and important and is progressing at an annoying crawl. I do know I've had the itch to leave Minnesota for the last two years, and that this time for reasons unknown I've been compelled to stay.

And now this strange, sucking vortex of the past has hold of me. In my forward march, I keep telling myself that what is left behind is not important. Obviously, if it isn't part of my life anymore, it isn't meant to fit in my life, and the Universe has dropped it that I might make room for something else. Usually, if I'm having a fit of nostalgia, one half hour at the piano where I remind myself just how unskilled I really was is enough to cure me of backward thinking. This time, it won't let go.

I keep running into situations where I need to question what I value. Where I not only need to remember the bad structures I'd built in my life that required demolition every time I left "home," but the good structures I'd also had in place that went down with the rest of the building. It seems some things I'm meant to relive and revive - the good and the bad. To what purpose, I do not yet know.

I do know my inner soldier is tapping her foot, checking her watch, and wondering when the next flight leaves.

Saturday, November 19, 2011

Work

Last night we had the Women's Gathering in Hastings (3rd Friday of every month) and the theme was Remembering and Synchronicity. I made Macaroni and Cheese for the occasion (we try to coordinate the food) and didn't burn it! I also led a Synchronicity activity involving Tarot.

Using the Tarot of the Crone, I spread out all the cards in a line and told the gathered to choose one that would provide insight into something you once had or were that would help your current life if you could incorporate it back in.

I didn't just officiate, I chose a card, too. Mine shocked me. Then pissed me off.

The others got messages about power and connection and reclaiming. What did I get? The Five of Disks - WORK.

I swear, if you could have but heard the SCREAMING in my brain at that one. But for those who couldn't, it went something like this: "Work?! WORK?!! I swear to the SWEET JESUS if I work any harder it is going to KILL me! Remember that night off I had this week - oh wait, I don't because I didn't HAVE one. And you, Universe, DARE to imply I am not working HARD enough?! SCREW YOU!!"

Today, I'm going to get a massage. I might see a movie in the theatre for the first time in months. I might even go shopping just for the hell of it.

And... after making all these plans... it occurs to me the Universe is not above a little reverse psychology.....