Maritzia’s Thoughts

So, as I’ve said before, I’m reading the Twelve Wild Swans.  I started it before surgery with my Pagan Book Discussion group, but had to quit while I was so sick.  I’m back to it now and working through it on my own, since the group decided to close membership while I was gone.  The book is essentially an exercise book for a spiritual/internal journey, but also for learning to use magic as pagans understand it (which essentially is the manipulation of energy, as I understand it).  The book starts off with the myth of the 12 Wild Swans, and each chapter focuses on some aspect of the myth.  After the discussion in the chapter, there are exercises for the beginner, intermediate, and advanced journeyer.  I’ll be going through the beginner exercises since I am, of course, a beginner.

The myth is about a queen who has 12 sons but no daughters.  One day she says she’d give all her sons for just one daughter.  An old woman appears before her and tells her she is going to grant the wish to punish the queen for voicing such a desire.  The queen has a daughter and the 12 sons turn into swans and fly away.  The daughter, named Rose, learns of this when she approaches adulthood, and goes out into the world to find a way to reverse the spell, which, after much hardship, she does.

The first chapter, aptly enough, deals with the beginning of the journey.  Although Rose did not cause what happened to her brothers, she feels a responsibility for it.  “An initiation journey often begins with the perception that something is wrong.  We undertake a process of transformation because we want more than what is given.  We sense that some loss requires restitution; some balance must be restored.”

This chapter talks about the fact that we often inherit ills in the world that we did not create.  However, that does not alleve us of responsibility in the healing of those ills.  Each person must learn what it is in the world that they are called to heal.  Central to my belief system is that all of us are here for a purpose.  That purpose may be huge like defining and driving a movement healing multitudes and large ills.  Or it may be found in small things, healing those around us in our day to day living.  Whatever that purpose is, it is our job in life to understand it and to follow the path set before us.  And a big part of understanding that path is to know and understand ourselves.  That is truly what the journey is about.  When we understand ourselves, we will find the path that leads to fulfillment;  we will heal ourselves and others.

The first exercises on the Elemental Path (the beginner’s path) are about creating sacred space.  The first step in that is grounding.  So, this first week, I will work on that.  I’ve done some work with grounding before, but have not done it regularly enough to do it easily.  My goal in working through this first chapter will be to do this daily so I can become adept at doing it at will.

Woohoo…my hemoglobin is in the normal range for the first time in my adult life (and I’m 44 *rolls eyes*). Just barely in the normal range, so it’s still got a little ways to go. I’ve got 4 more infusions scheduled, and then I should finally be done. The doc said that I might require a yearly infusion if I don’t get enough iron from food, since I seem incapable of taking even tiny amounts of oral iron. I tried to go back to the multi-vitamins with iron, and within a week my stomach was eaten out again. I eat a pretty high iron diet, though. We love pinto beans, and we eat red meat at least a couple of times a week. All in all, I don’t anticipate it being a problem. I guess that shows all those ob/gyns who didn’t want to do a hysterectomy. I should have had it done 10 years ago!

The weather has been really nice here the last few weeks. A couple of rainy days, but overall just gorgeous. The highs are hitting the 60s (we had on day at 70 last week), and Mark and I are back to taking the dogs to the off-leash park most evenings after work. I’ve lost about 15 pounds since the surgery, which is really good. Another 5 or 10 pounds and I’ll be able to go off of the CPAP again, which I’m looking forward to. And, my PCP happily agreed to HRT, which means the hot flashes should soon be a thing of the past (woohoo!). I had about 5 hot flashes last night, and every time the puppy was just plastered up against me. Every time I’d pull away from her, she’d just snuggle closer *laughs*. Poor thing is always so cold, she just loves my hot flashes. Hopefully the estrogen will also help my sleep quality, which has been quite poor for the last month or so.

Mark is working hard on a project that might actually bring some money into the house. He has a friend at Canadian National that he’s working on a project for (something about tracking the trains going in and out of their yard). He’s hoping to be able to sell the project to the different rail yards at CN when it’s done. He’s happy to be working on something, and whether or not he sells it to them, it’s a good project to put on his resume using .net and xml.

I’ve really had a hankering for potato soup recently. I need to find a really good recipe and make a big batch for the freezer. That way I can have it whenever I want. Oh, and cornbread! I really need to make some cornbread. Maybe I’ll pick up some buttermilk on the way home this evening. I could make some this weekend. I even brought some cornmeal from back home when I was there in November. I don’t like the cornmeal you get up here. The grind is way too fine. The cornbread has kind of a cakey texture. I like it a bit coarser.

I’ve been reading The Twelve Wild Swans again.  I’ve got a bit to say about that, but I need to think on it some more before I post.  Maybe I’ll do that this weekend if I’m not too tired.

I just realized that the antispam plugin that required you to enter a security code wasn’t working.  I’ve disabled it for now.  I’ll look for another solution if I start getting a lot of spam.  Sorry for the problems for those of you who wanted to comment on anything.

Well, it seems my grades (or lack there of) when I was younger is not going to stop me from going back to college.  I just got word this morning that I’ve been accepted to study at the university where I work.  So in the fall, I can start taking courses towards finishing my degree.  Of course, I’ll be 60 before I’m finished, but still, at least the possibility is there.  What can I say, I just can’t pass up the chance to take classes for $30.

But he came home sick *frowns*.  Poor baby has a nasty cold, so he’s sleeping in the living room for the duration.  We can’t risk me getting sick because I have just enough leave time to cover my weekly infusions.  If I get sick, we’re royally screwed.  The only reason we warn’t already screwed is that his mom gave us $100 for Easter.  That bought groceries these last couple of weeks since I was short on my last paycheck due to the surgery.  We can’t afford to have another paycheck go short.

But, at least he’s home.  I’m so happy! *glee*  It was very, very lonely here without him.  And needless to say the puppies were ecstatic.  All three wanted to sleep with him last night, and I had to make Jordan come to bed with me, because there wasn’t enough room for all three of them in bed with him in the living room.  *laughs* Tonight I’ll let Jordan sleep with him and take Bluebell in with me.  There’s no way Amber will sleep with me instead of him.  She’s a real daddie’s girl.

That reminds me, I really should post a page with puppy and kitty pics on my new website.

This week’s Weekly Anamnesis - Illustration.

It’s funny, but I never really thought of myself as unhappy or lonely before I met my husband.  I mean, I did have some sense of dissatisfaction, of wanting something more out of life, but I never really thought of myself as lonely.  And then I met Mark.

He went to Victoria to spend the long weekend with his family.  He left Friday morning and will be back later today.  When I got home Friday, the first few minutes were too busy to really feel the difference in the house.  I had to let the dogs out, since they were cooped up all day while he was gone, and I had to start dinner.  But then I sat down to eat dinner and I was struck by how quiet the house was…quiet, empty, boring…and lonely!

It’s funny that when you live with someone day in and day out that you don’t even think about what it is you do together and talk about all during those days.  If someone asked me what it was we did and talked about, the answer would seem pretty boring, to most people, anyway.  You would think that when the life you spend with someone isn’t that remarkable that you wouldn’t miss them so much when they are gone.

This weekend was an illustration of my life before I met Mark.  I never thought of myself as unhappy or lonely, but now I know I was.  I finally understand just how lonely I was, and just how much joy he’s brought into my life.  Our lives together may not be remarkable or exciting.  What they are, though, is happy.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m incredibly grateful to have good insurance.  I’d have been on the county dole if I’d had to pay for all of this stuff myself.  But why do the insurance companies have to be so difficult to deal with?

I’m still getting weekly infusions of iron.  I have about 7 more weeks to go on that.  But for some reason, on about a third of the infustion bills, they are charging me a copay.  Now, my understanding is that chemotherapy is paid at 100%, and I’m pretty sure this is supposed to be classed as chemotherapy.  The problem is that they have some set as provider visits (which they aren’t) and some are set as surgery (which they aren’t).  I talked to someone at customer service, and even they are confused.  Said they’d check into it and call me back.  If they are going to charge me a copay for every infusion, I’m looking at another couple of hundred dollars I’m going to end up owing for all of this.  That’s on top of the $400 copay for the surgery and approximately $100 worth of copays for all of the doctors visits in all of this.

Which reminds me, I need to talk to them about the post-op visits.  I’m pretty sure those are supposed to be included in what they pay the surgeon for the surgery.  They charged me co-pays for those as well.  *sighs*

I started back this morning on reading The Twelve Wild Swans.  Since it’s been a good 6 months since I last worked on this book, I decided to start over from the beginning.

It’s always interesting when I start reading about anything regarding the Goddess.  Obviously, anything by Starhawk is going to include discussions of the Goddess.  But it also seems like everwhere I look today, I’m seeing mention of the Goddess.  At least two other blogs talked about it today (granted they are pagan blogs, but still, so much mention of the Goddess in one day makes me wonder what the Divine is saying to me).  And all of this made me wonder again why I have so much ambivalence to the idea of Goddess worship.

I’ve thought about this alot off and on over the years.  When I was in the Convent, we were always having these talks about Mary and how she is our spiritual mother.  They used to drive me crazy, and the Sisters could never understand my feeling about that.  They really wouldn’t have understood if I explained that people abused by their mothers tended not to appreciate mother images in anything.  As sweet and holy as Sr. Kathleen was, I just don’t know that she could understand about things like that.

So I continued through the years, avoiding all talk of the feminine aspects of God, at least in any other context than purely philosophical/feminist contexts.  And being the feminist that I am with a strong interest in paganism, you can imagine how hard it is to avoid such talk.  I’ve always relied on a very masculine image of God (what can I say, I like masculine men).  For me, a loving God is always a male image.  A nurturing God is always a male image.  But then, in our household, the male parent was the one who we knew loved us unconditionally.  He may have been an alcoholic, but we knew he was the one who really loved us.  With my mom, you always sort of had the feeling that if you did the wrong thing, she’d not only beat the shit out of you, but she’d stop loving you, too, which is much the worse punishment for a child.

So, years later, I find myself among people who have passionate views of a feminine God.  I’ve gotten better over the years.  I have more female friends than I used to have.  That took me a long time.  I usually stayed among men in my life.  I think being in the convent helped there.  I met loving, compassionate women who helped me to get over some of my antipathy towards the female in my life.  I accept more of the feminine in myself than I ever did.  But I still have this one area that I feel I’m lacking.  I just can’t warm up to a feminine aspect of God.  I feel like the Divine is challenging me.  Challenging me that I must accept all aspects of the Divine if I truly wish to achieve the communion that I seek .

So, this will probably be a big part of my seeking in the coming days/weeks/months.  To seek and to embrace the feminine in God.  To seek that which make me uncomfortable, rather than just basking in that which gives me comfort.  To reach out, grow, and change.  That’s always a challenge.

This is a direct copy from my livejournal page, which will still be active.:

My Journal

Livejournal doesn’t let me do some of the things I wanted to do, so I went out and created a subdomain off of my website, installed WordPress, and voila…a blog *laughs*.  I’m still figuring out the intricacies of WordPress, but I’m learning oh so slowly to be able to take a theme and change it to something I like.  It’s mostly a still-out-of-the-box theme, but I’ve tweaked it a bit here and there.  It’s a work in progress.

Anyway, I’ll still be posting here, I’ll just copy the posts over to there.  It’ll pretty much be a mirror of this site.  It’s mostly for folks who read my journal who don’t come to livejournal.  I know…people actually read what I write…blows your mind, doesn’t it?

Anyway, I might be building some more pages for the journal site to highlight some of my interests.  Not just yet, but probably soon.

Anyway, check it out.  Tell me what you think.

The rest of the entries here are a file dump of my most recent posts from livejournal.  If you want to see older archives (which I might copy over here at some point, but it might be a while) go to my livejournal account at http://maritzia.livejournal.com.   Note that none of the comments from these older posts were copied over in the page dump, so if you want to see the comments to the following posts, you’ll have to visit the livejournal site.