How do you spell "Breath?"

I slept until 11:30am yesterday. Me. Until 11:30. Unreal. I was exhausted. I am still quite a bit drained. I had no idea it was 11:30 cause my clocks were still blinking from the power going out and I was too tired to re-set it. It made me think about what time I would eat and sleep and wake and play if I didn't know what time it was.


I don't think it would be 11:30. But I didn't get to bed til after 3. Or 2? Or maybe 4? Don't know, clocks weren't working. Why the late hour? Well, most of my readers know--cause they were there....at my daughter's graduation party. (At least the ones who live in Maryland) There were over 4 million people there. All at once. Just in my kitchen.


Now, don't get me wrong. It was a wonderful, lovely, amazing time. I am blown away by the generosity and kindness people showed toward my daughter. She was blown away. We put the cards that she received on our piano last night and she was looking at them and said,


"they make me sad"


ME: "why?!"


"cause look at all the people I will be leaving who love me..."


"the people who love you are thrilled that you are leaving"


To which my son starts chortling "YEAH, They can't wait for you to leave!!!! ahahahahaha" cause he's 5 years old. And perhaps that didn't come out exactly as I planned. I'm a little tired.


So now the party (and all the planning and cleaning and cooking and serving and cleaning up) is over. Now what? It's like we're on a roller coaster just about to the top of that first really huge hill.... and even though you know it's going to be a great ride and everything will be just fine, there's that slight moment of panic and anticipation just before it starts careening down completely out of your control and into the hands of God and the roller coaster operator which is probably just a computer anyway but I guess that's just a digression designed to take my mind off of that little butterfly in my stomach saying, "your life is about to change humongously and even your next door neighbor is moving which really isn't all that much of an impact except that it magnifies the whole everything you've known for the last 21 years is going to be very, very different and that will be a bit of an adjustment to say the least...."


Do I seem hysterical to you? I think I'm just tired. Brain and heart are at odds. It will be just fine. The roller coaster excitement has been building and building and just like when you experience labor for the first time and you have that brief "WAIT, I CHANGED MY MIND!!!!!" moment when you think you may not be able to bear the pain cause it's unlike anything you've ever known but you just start to breath deep..... and trust.... and then they put the most beautiful gift you've ever received in your arms.....


It's just like that.


Time for the butterfly to get ready to fly.

Journey

My horror-scope keeps telling me I'm going on a journey. Well, last night I did but I hope that wasn't it. Not that it was a bad one, just anti-climatic. I don't know why I need it to be climatic other than all the heat but what ever. (sorry, I am just not funny when it's hot.)

So, J, my Reiki Master invited me to a Practitioner's meeting in Arnold. They were going to discuss crystals and drumming and since I like crystals and drumming, it seemed like a good idea. I had a friend who was going with me and since it was at night, I wasn't worried about driving but of course, she backed out at the last minute so I had a bit of a to do on how to get there but I made it all right. (3 guesses)

So I meet up with J, and we get there very early. Sit in the car chatting and catching up. It's 3 million degrees out so I am drenched by the time we get in--and she had the a/c on but it wasn't working well. I'm a bit shy so the combination of meeting 20 new people, feeling self conscious about sweating and the overwhelminess of walking into a group of 20 Reiki healers and being hit with all that energy kind of made me a bit dizzy. There was also a large table filled with crystals so that really added to the whoa-ness. Went and threw some cold water on my face and breathed deep.

Take my place in the circle and right away we get broken into smaller groups. (Have I ever mentioned how much I'm not fond of that?) Fortunately, the girl sitting next to me who had very kind eyes and a warm smile ended up in my group. The others? Let's just say they were a bit perplexing....although a couple of them had nice auras about them. I have grown up enough to understand that most people are a bit shy at first too, so they sometimes come across gruffer than they are. That was a huge revelation by the way, if you are a young person, re-read it.

Turns out that we are actually there to go on a Shamanic journey with our crystal while a Shaman drums. Now, this has crossed my path quite a few times and I've been reluctant to do so. It's not that I don't believe in it or feel that it's not useful, being part Native American I have spent a lot of time studying the culture and am drawn to quite a few of their practices. But journeying always seemed a bit much. And even a bit scary. And I sort of like to do one thing at a time so as to not complicate energy. You know? Like people who are trying to buy spirituality instead of live it? I like to live something for a good while before I try something else on.

But.. there it was. No way out. Well, no graceful physical way out. The idea of climbing out of the circle with my sweaty self....

So I just took it as a sign that this was something God wanted me to do. I've been kinda off, really down lately so I embraced the new-ness, opened my mind and said, "Lead on, MacDuff!" So the Shaman goes over what we're supposed to do and then starts drumming. Well, first she called up the spirits by shaking rattles over us. (This is where redneck Linda battles with spiritual Linda) I just close my eyes and consider it a science experiment. We were supposed to pick a spirit guide to go with us but since I don't have one (that I know of) I decide to take one of my chakra animals with me. I pick my polar bear but when she shakes her rattle at me I get a flash of a flying eagle so I decide the eagle wants to go, so I'm like, "ok, come along if you want, who am I to argue?"

You are supposed to go to a sacred place and although I usually have a forest circle in my head when I do guided visualizations, the image of the beach with Northern Lights pops in so I go there. And wait. And wait. She just keeps drumming. For some reason I thought she was gonna walk us through it... so I eventually ask the questions of my crystal that I was told to ask.

I think my crystal had a sense of humor. Or was just coy. It just kept burning in my hand. And I kept seeing stars and flashing and purple bubbles and then an image of swirling light and dancing. The other people had these elaborate journeys and answers and jewel encrusted leopards. Sigh. At least it was a nice crystal. That we found out later we had to buy if we wanted to keep. For $10. I have some very nice ones just like it at home that were just $2 but I decided that if that crystal took me to that lovely beach with the Northern Lights I guess it was worth $10. So, oh well, it was a pleasant enough adventure, maybe not a mountain top experience but who has the energy with all this heat?

Hot enough for ya? Ai yi yi....

June Newsletter

To Do List

1. Blog

2. Clean the House for Rhia's party.

3. Fritter away time playing Mario Kart

4. Go to work.

5. Rubber band herbs for drying.

6. Exercise.

7. Come up with lame excuses why I can't do #2 & 6.

8. Copy my newsletter and take to #4.

9. Find places to advertise events.

10. Get overwhelmed at the idea of #9 and go back to #3.

11. Ugh. Finish #1. Goodbye!

The Past

Let's take a small trip down memory lane...

2 years ago my daughter was depressed. Seriously depressed. She begged us each day to not have to go back to school. In fact, at this time 2 years ago she probably didn't even go this last week. I was exhausted from trying to help her navigate her unhappiness and she was overweight and miserable, self medicating with food. I had spent an entire year calling, emailing, fighting the school trying to get her into the right classes since they had mistakenly put her into the wrong classes. Her English teacher, who I had written notes and called for a whole year finally got in touch with me. So she could accuse my daughter of cheating and lying.

Anyone who knows my daughter knows how ludicrous an accusation that was.

She graduated on Saturday. From The Learning Community International, a home schooling, consultant based program. She stood up on the podium, confident and beautiful, giving a speech that showed her appreciation for TLCI; her wonderful consultant, Astrid; and her wonderful parents who supported and helped her :). She showed her amazement and excitement about being accepted into college, which she never thought would happen based on her grades 2 years ago. She stood with her diploma and just grinned from ear to ear.

No matter what your opinion is of home schooling, I'm here to tell you: For some kids, it's a life saver. Taking all that stress off of her made all the difference in the world. We were blessed to have this program drop into our laps and blessed to have the sense to take the 'road less traveled'. I was amazed at the eloquence and wisdom of the graduates. They were not just a bunch of weirdo, geeky, religious freaks....which I am ashamed to say I occasionally labeled home schoolers as..... They were funny, and very well spoken and extremely confident. One is an Olympic skater, another a national archery champion, yet another gave his speech in Japanese since he got to spend 4 years there, another had just gotten back from Bolivia... it went on and on. Just amazing stories. Just brilliant kids. Wow.

Congratulations Rhia! And thank you for showing us the way.... and to Astrid, thank you from the bottom of our hearts for helping Rhia show us the way. You are amazing.