Kyril's Journal -- July 15, 2005

Vision Quest: 5

Friday July 15, 2005

I did manage a second meditation session after it cooled and I did the values homework, which turned out to be very interesting. And I managed a brief ritual as well. It turned out to be not only a productive day in terms of doing the tasks I set for myself, a little physical work, meditation, ritual, and the self-actualization homework but it also led to Tom and I discussing the results of my values hierarchy and his creation of his own. We had a good talk and it continued this morning as I went in to make tea and found him awake and my tea made. He had been up since 6:30!

My dream life turned out to be too complex to put into words for the most part. One dream involved ritual and I saw a page written in a dense cross-hatched style that reminds me now of bathroom graffiti in that there were also cartoon drawings with captions and lines of text that went every which way. There was so much there that I couldn’t begin to remember it all.

Another dream had Faol arriving unexpectedly for the weekend, talking to Tom on a voice link through the computer like a speaker phone while Tom was at work with another man/boss?

The dream that seemed to hold the most energy though is one in which I stepped off a cliff that I didn’t realize was a cliff until too late. It was a deep, reddish brown like some of the mesas out west, or the sandstone on our land in places, though it is more orange and less red here. And it was a very very long way down. I had an immediate understanding that I was dead, nothing I could do, just splat. My next thought was “God, help me. Goddess take me.” And I relaxed because it was all over and I didn’t expect it to hurt. I would be dead too quickly for that. I thought of my loved ones with some regret since I wouldn’t be seeing them again, and had a sense of missing them but not intensely. I thought of Faol in particular. Then everything went black.

The scene shifted to a room with a green curtain. The curtain didn’t have an opening so after trying to find one I ended up lifting it and going under. I think there was a window in the room I was in first but don’t remember the view. There was something about people with children taking care of extra children half the week so parents could be child-free the other half, a kind of vacation.

When I told Tom about the dream he pointed out that stepping off the cliff was like the Tarot card, The Fool. (Duh, me hits forehead in classic move. I should have seen that for myself.) I feel like it was a direct result of the ritual I did yesterday involving Jupiter and amongst other things, opening to the realm of possibility.

Our discussion of values also led to discussing my decision to purchase the next two levels of Holosync, which finishes the Awakening section of the program. There are 2 more sections after that but I am not convinced yet that the results warrant it. Change and growth take time and I am willing to give it another year. Sometimes it is easier to look back and see changes than to recognize it while it is happening. Anyway Tom said he didn’t want to discuss money, which made me thing there is a problem.

I began to think about the income issue, my not having any, my commuting between partners and what I could do. I have a nebulous idea, a possibility. I don’t know that I will do it. Right now it’s just an idea. Not sure what to call it really – Spirit Coaching? I don’t know whether there is much of a market but bringing in enough to cover our share of my flights and the extra money I spend on ecourses and Holosync would be an improvement, though I could hope to do better than that.

My thought is it combines my interests in psychology, astrology, tarot, and ritual with my expertise and experience as a Priestess. My participation in several minority communities, such as, poly, pagan, bisexual, etc. should be a plus as well, I would think.

However, as I said this is a very tentative thought right now. Before I can have face-to- face clients I have to make the place. “Build it and they will come.” :) So my first step, which does not commit me to anything, is to clear out the storage room. There are about 25 boxes of stuff from the kid’s room. Tom thinks we could still have room to store, something like 6 boxes when we give me half that room and the rest is his workshop.

I need to discuss it with my children and see if they have any idea of what they want to keep, then go through the boxes and separate out the crap(of which there is quite a bit because we largely shoveled out their room into boxes to get it done when we wanted to use their vacated bedroom for an office for Tom), from the papers they might like to look at again for nostalgia sake, action figures, and toys that might be worth something, and useable donations to Goodwill/Saint Vinnie’s. My time frame at the moment is by next spring as it seems very unlikely that it will get done sooner as I still have other projects like making the drapes to finish as well.

Once that is cleared out Tom and I can rearrange the space and set it up as previously described for a space I can use when juice-fasting, for meditation, for writing, and for short-term visitors (I wouldn’t want to tie it up long term then not have it available for my use.) and for my potential future clients. Making it multiple use doesn’t commit me to anything in particular yet.

During the next 5 to 6 months I can continue looking into it, reading the books I have on coaching, completing my self-actualization ecourse, collecting tools that work to help people, discussing it with people that do counseling and coaching etc. The time won’t be wasted, necessarily. And if I follow through on the preparation, if it has energy and juice as a goal/life path over that length of time, then I can take the next step and try marketing my service.

But right now it feels like it has potential, lie it has possibility.

I did a tarot reading on the General Circumstances of the idea for a Spirit Coaching Service and office in the barn for face-to-face meetings.

1. The question – The Star
This suggests to me the giving and receiving of guidance, following one’s own star, which is the essence of the idea of Spirit Coaching, I think.

2. The questioner – The Moon
This could be indicating that there is something deceptive, such as it being only a fantasy, a dream, night thoughts. But it could also be speaking of following one’s intuition and night wisdom, as in follow your dreams. This card showed up in the earlier reading I did, which was to lay a one card spread, asking what the one most important thing I could get out of this vision quest would be.

3. Crossing, obstacle to get past – 2 of Swords
The obstacle to get past is making a choice or committing rather than sitting in the horns of a dilemma. I just had an image of the card and the woman sits, not on ruins of a building, but on a seat built with intention for an oracle. She sits blindfolded to focus on the inner eye. The waxing crescent moon sits between the two swords that she is holding in an upright position something like horns and is reflecting an illuminating light from the deep feminine/yin. The swords are the task of discrimination in choosing.

4. Past/Foundation – Temperance
Experience in life tempered me and provide the training that led to this possibility? The angel has one foot on land and one foot in the water, which speaks to being neither here nor there, neither on water or on land much like a Celtic riddle relating to the Death of Lugh. The yellow wings are a solar image and Lugh is a Sun God. The angel is juggling three reflective balls, perhaps various identities like astrologer, priestess, mother/partner.

5. Passing Influence – 4 of Wands
I generally see this as a handfasting ceremony or something similar. Right now I am seeing the couple dancing together on a decorated stage, a performance, a celebration, the manifesting 4 putting energy to use pleasurably. Perhaps the dance of Tom being a part of my retreat through our conversation, sharing the values exercise, the fire. Perhaps my own dance with myself during this time.

6. Best that could happen – Death
Death points the way in this card. A butterfly wings its way along. These are symbols of great transformation and the impact of change. If it refers to my transformation I believe that is good. But it may also refer to the service that I am thinking about offering, that of helping people in the process of transforming/birthing themselves. Either way it seems like a very good possibility.

7. Something that will happen – 8 of Pentacles
This is working at a craft and learning from doing. It is also an apprenticeship card and could indicate my getting help, mentoring, or training is some way.

8. Environment surrounding the idea – 9 of Pentacles
This is the card that I shorthand as the Lady of the Manor. She seems to be at leisure, which might even be my vision quest. I see her enjoying the fertility of the land, grazing on ripe grapes, taking pleasure in her roses, flying her hawk (ideas perhaps). While at leisure now these are things, which have required work to develop and maintain to bring them to this point. I feel very much like that at the moment as I lay in the tent on the air mattress doing this reading and writing it down.

9. What I am not seeing – 9 of Wands
This card has a battle weary person holding a staff and standing in front of other staves that are forming a line, each has a different colored crystal on the top. This speaks to my own defensiveness perhaps. But also to a level of energy, activity, and work required to make it happen. There may be something about carving out a territory or niche, and establishing boundaries. But I am not sure what I am not seeing because I am not seeing it :)

10. Hopes and Fears – 5 of Pentacles
Fear that I won’t make any money, fears that I can’t do it, will be a failure, fear of change. Hope that I can help people and provide illumination so that they can help themselves, hope of receiving help myself? I have never had a good handle on this card and find it difficult to interpret in readings for myself.

11. Ultimate Result -- Judgement
A woman rising from a fiery cauldron, a phoenix rising from and above her is the image on this card. Spirit awakening, the call to arise and begin anew, to face what must be faced and let go of the past and move on.

Tom came by to see about taking a walk to get the mail but I wasn’t sure about doing it in the heat so we drove down the drive to the mailbox. Then we walked down a trail and I showed him where I was fantasizing about putting 5-6 double space cabins, in other words 12 rooms, and one with a kitchen, dining room, and lounge. The fantasy was having a community with Faol and a few others here on this land with the cabin space as one of the community businesses, a kind of bed and breakfast place, as well as space for small retreats and seminars. There is also tent space so 50-70 people would work easily. Anyway I made it clear to him it was just a fantasy so Tom wouldn’t find himself obligated to point out all the obstacles or reasons why it would never work.

We continued down to the cauldron and walked around. We spotted some poison ivy so next week I would like to go back and spray it. If we are vigilant for a bit I think we can make it a better place for our rituals.

I also listened to the next lesson on values, which included the timeline process to remove the negative emotional charge from past experiences that shaped values around moving away from rather than toward. I tried and it was interesting though not sure it worked yet.

But I also have a downloaded mp3 of just the process without the lesson, which I am going to try today on another issue, one which get triggered more often and limits my life, kind of the acid test:) In any case I have been interested in getting the book, Timeline Therapy, in the past and this has rekindled my interest. It seems like a good coaching tool so fits in with my decision to explore that possibility.

We looked at the Evening Star, Venus, as She set, and admired Jupiter near the quarter Moon. We watched the stars come out, seeing the Summer Triangle first. Tom tells me the Moon is going to occult Antares soon. We saw 3 satellites, only one of which Tom had looked up so knew the time it would pass overhead. I believe he did that because he tried to point it out yesterday but I missed it.