time out

I took this weekend off from the world.

Saturday's plan to go to the flea market and the farmer's market got cancelled. I just couldn't do it. I didn't sleep Friday night. I was exhausted Saturday morning - but still unable to sleep - and I worried about the safety of driving.

Maybe I could have slept, I don't know. Every time I laid my head on my pillow, the tears came. It was too painful to let my mind wander. So I distracted it with books and games. And before I knew how late it was, the sun was rising.

My new meds came in the mail Saturday morning. I checked my mail, because I promised Archer I would. I took a dose, then took a nap.

Today is day three of the new meds. It seems to be helping. I got to sleep before 1am Saturday night, and before midnight last night. That's a huge improvement. I've been getting to sleep around 4-5am for the past several weeks. Except for the nights I stay with Archer - then I get to sleep by 11pm, usually - but those are too few and far between.

Enough of that. I'm feeling gradually better. Today I feel... like I don't want to move, but I can  move, and that's an improvement. Today I have the strength to fight back.

I'm still skipping class today. I'm not quite that  ambitious. Yet. I'll have to make myself go tomorrow. That's my statistics class, and I can't afford to miss that one.

I did still include my child in some Samhain activities this weekend. We talked about our town's local ghosts, did some baking from our "harvest" at the grocery store Friday night, and explored our family tree on ancestry.com. Which, by the way, is completely addictive.

~

I did something else Friday night. I continued the oracle reading I had started on Thursday.

Thursday, I had drawn the first three. After the reading I left the cards in order, setting them on my altar. Friday, it felt right to continue.

In shorthand, I would read this as (roughly): "Remember what's good (otter); return the loyalty of dogs, they will guide you (dog); speak kindly to yourself (fox). Healing requires transformation (adder); persistence will bring you home (ram); find the strength to lead yourself, to be ok with being alone (wolf). Connect to what matters, leave the rest behind (hawk); be open to nourishment offered by others, particularly feminine deities (cow); you will find your place in the world through this journey (horse). These are the lessons to balance destructiveness with construction, to resolve long-buried conflicts and begin a new life (raven).

Good advice. I hope I can do it.

~
I use The Druid Animal Oracle Deck by Philip & Stephanie Carr-Gomm, illustrated by Bill Worthington.

finding hope

Cloistered in my bedroom, doing my get-ready-for-bed routine - putting away the clutter of clean laundry, notebooks, and miscellany that coats my bed each day - I saw my oracle cards, had a moment of love, and realized, "duh, I should ask my oracle cards how to get myself back into balance." This deck is all about balance; every answer I've ever gotten, for anyone, from this deck, has pointed toward a more balanced [whatever the situation called for].

So I sat on my now-cleanish bed, and shuffled. And drew.

Dog.
Fox.
Otter.

Now, usually I'm looking immediately for the symbolism of each card; this time, after drawing the first card (the Dog), I thought, "huh, maybe this is literal." Maybe that's because I just got back from taking Bella for a walk, and playing with both dogs and their toys after the walk - activities which improved my mood. It wasn't a drastic improvement, but still, any improvement is good. There hasn't been any in so long. My instincts tell me to listen to that first thought, and consider the very recent improvement to be proof.

So before drawing the second and third cards, I felt there was a literal quality to this reading that I haven't seen much in previous readings. Then, the Fox - the High Priestess in my coven believes the Fox may be trying to reach me, in the sense that s/he might be a totem animal I'm meant to learn from.

And the Otter. Oh, the Otter. If I had any doubts that this was a literal reading, they disappeared with the appearance of the Otter. Remember my Otter story?

...ok, here I have to break into what I was about to say, and replace it. This is what just happened. Just now.

I went to my list of blog posts and searched for "otter" because I wanted to link the post with my otter story right where I said, "Remember my Otter story?" A quick reference for anyone who was curious and didn't know what I was talking about. The four posts I've done recently about otters came up, but so did one more, from quite a while ago: "dichotomy: survivor v. whore." That made me curious; I hadn't started working with Otter back then. Otters weren't even really on my radar at that point. I figured I must have done a reading that I logged in that post, since my oracle cards were really the only place I came into contact with otters, then. So I clicked the link, to see what I said. Sure enough, I had done a reading and gotten Otter. I read on, remembering the post. It was a highly emotional time for me - more than now, because things were more volatile then. I was still so devastated by then-recent events that my emotions and wits felt so scattered much of the time. Now, I'm just dealing with Depression - an illness, not a symptom of trying times. I got to the bottom of the post, and went on to the comments. Reading Archer's comments to me... how do I describe it? They just made me feel warm inside, loved. I smiled.

And I'm glad I followed the otter back to that post, to that time.

I know what my depression is; for the most part, I know how to combat it. Recently, I've been overwhelmed by the siege.

I need to remember to play with my dogs; exercising them, exercises me - and that's good for my health. The Dog of my oracle deck is a protector; I believe my dogs help protect me from myself.

I need to remember that Archer loves me, has always loved me, even when I didn't feel worthy. Even before I knew what to think about him, when I couldn't have seen it because I didn't believe it was possible. The Otter led me back there, and I needed that. His lesson, always pertinent, is a reminder that things are ok. I have a stuffed otter (not a real one, a toy; the silkiest stuffed toy I've ever touched). Just holding him makes me feel a little better. Juvenile, but better nonetheless.

And the Fox, I believe, is me. Surrounded by those who love me, trying to keep the words in my head from becoming weapons, used to break me down from the inside, out. I've decided - just now - that it's time for me to start trying to work with Fox. But the message in this reading from Fox seems clear (besides needing to work with her/him) - my greatest difficulty in battling my depression is in the shame I associate with certain memories. Most don't actually warrant shame on my part, some embarrassment in a few perhaps, but not shame. Nevertheless, the shame is there. And when the litany of my misdeeds begins to play through my memories, it's this that does the most damage. I cut myself with my own words; Fox counsels care with communication, so that words do not become weapons through deceit. I'm working hard, lately, to remember the good things, when the bad things try to take over my thoughts. Practice makes perfect, right? Maybe not. But I'm getting better at it.

Tonight, I found hope.

Now, I'll link you back to that Otter story. Enjoy.

my otter story

On Sunday, just a couple days ago, I took my child to the zoo. It was a ridiculously hot day, and most of the animals were napping in the shade or pools of water. A few of the more desert-inclined animals were moving around, but one animal was especially active: an African Spotted Necked Otter was playing in the water, looking for all the world as though he were having the time of his life. He had a log-shaped slide (it was actually quite a good replica of a hollowed-out log) and would climb up inside it, slide back into the water, barrel roll across his pond and come back and do it again. His companion, another otter, was dozing in a shady spot on land, but he was clearly enjoying being.

I felt a connection like a message being sent.

Life is what it is; revel in it, learn from it, don't let it get you down. Be.

Point taken.

q is for quixotic

quixotic - foolishly, impractically, idealistic

Yep, that's me.

~

I remember my mother telling me once, when I was 17 and we were in the middle of an argument, that I was an idealist. She said it as though it were a great shock to her, not necessarily a bad thing, just very surprising. I retorted that I was a realist, and not prone to cynical fantasies or damaging stereotypes. The argument was probably about one of my boyfriends. Or maybe it was about her boyfriends. I really don't remember. We both had poor taste, in very different ways.

I don't know whether I've really retained any of that certainty I had then in my own perception of reality. Some, perhaps, but not all. I doubt it would be for the best, if I had retained it all. I'd like to think that the certainty I feel is warranted. At times, I believe it is.

Just last night - or maybe it was the night before - Archer commented on my tendency to focus on the 'now' as opposed to a more broad way of thinking. I believe that 'now' is all we can really be certain of; the past is subect to interpretation and critically faulty memories, while the future isn't written. And within that narrow window of 'now' I believe we can only be truly certain of our own thoughts and perceptions, short those rare moments of complete trust, which afterall isn't truly proven. That leaves us with a rather small bit of certainty.

And yet, I'm more optimistic than not. I don't feel the need to be certain of reality, because I feel that we, as a species, are such a mixed bag - sometimes miraculously generous, sometimes horribly tragic - that it doesn't make sense to see only one side of us or the other. Truly, we cannot know any soul so well as our own, and the farther the relation the less we know. Thus we cannot truly comprehend what another soul experiences, or know whether most people are 'good' or 'bad'. But we know that if we do good things, we attract good juju, and vice versa.

So as long as I'm working on being a good person, I think my faith in a more idealistic experience of reality isn't so misplaced afterall.

It's possible that my perception of the world makes me quixotic. I'm ok with that. It's a good path to be on.

~

These are new thoughts; I don't think I've really given this aspect of myself serious thought since that argument with my mother, 14 years ago.

This line of thinking was inspired by an otter. More on that later.