I spent the morning doing a lot of little errands. I went online to order a gift for my Mother for Mother's Day and settled on a music box instead of the usual flowers or candies. At least it is something that she can have after Mother's Day. Then I got the birthday card ready to mail to Aeona. It will be her 50th birthday this year. My 50th is June 13th and I can't decide if I want to do something for it or not but since I will be on my fasting visionquest at the time it would have to wait til later anyway. And knowing me that means it won't happen.
I have this tendency to put off celebrating something and then it never happens. The first semester back at school when I got straight A's I felt really good about it and wanted to go out to dinner to celebrate with friends. I knew what I wanted to do but one of my friends is allergic to nuts so we picked a different kind of restaurant than I originally wanted to go to because it would minimize problems for her. I didn't mind that - she was more important to me. But it got put off trying to find a date we could all get together and then I was sick or they were, I don't really remember anymore and it got cancelled. Then it was on to the next semester and in the midst of that it didn't seem worth it anymore. The same type of thing happened when I graduated. We put it off and then I found out I was turned down for the grad program I applied to and it didn't seem worth celebrating the graduation. Ah well… such is life, I guess, at least around here.
Then I emailed Shaman's Garden again. I did it before I left but they never replied. I placed an order with them for Salvia Divinorum. Their website says delivery in 4-6 days and it has been close to a month now. They did, however, charge it to my credit card on the same day I ordered. I am feeling pretty ripped off about it at the moment. This email bounced because their email quota has been exceeded. I know that it could be they are having a tragedy, illness, serious problem, and are unable to do anything else so I am trying to keep that in mind at the moment. If I can't get a hold of them soon though I will have to notify my credit card company that I have not received my order. It is very disappointing though as I wanted to use it on my vision quest in about a month.
I have nestmates arriving soon to talk about doing a coven together. So I am going out to walk my Dearinth. I have a number of things I want to meditate on. Tom and I spent some time this morning squabbling a lot because it is beginning to look like our youngest son will be returning home. He has not looked for work much in the 4 months that he has been living in town at his brother's place so has not found a job. He seems unwilling to try the summer teen jobs that are available. We love him dearly but it is time for him to be on his own, independent, and out of his childhood nest.
I thought it took me about 20 minutes to walk the Dearinth. Apparently it is more like 40 minutes since they got here and it still took me another 10 minutes to finish although I speeded up when I heard their truck arrive. I started out thinking about this last week, about the Beltane trip and the relationships that were strengthened while I was there - growing closer and what it means to me. As I know I have said in these pages before growing closer and waterbrotherhood are the central mysteries, to my mind, of CAW. It gives us our unique flavor and is the underlying strength of the tribe, at least to me. I know that I can't possibly express what a deep impact Stranger in a Strange Land had on me as a teenager or how there is a very deep part of me that will always desire, perhaps always need the kind of loving, water relationships expressed in Michael Valentine Smith's nest. We don't have the Martian language to help us reach a point of joining mentally that will get up past all the stuff that blocks relationships, all the fears, all the self-esteem issues, all the pain of failures of the past. I don't know if it is possible for humans to even do and yet it is an ideal that has shaped who I am, and how I feel about such closeness. Sometimes it hurts not to have it.
Then I thought about someone I have had some conflicts with in the past and the subject of mediation. I want to make peace with it all. I had thought about this issue on the plane as well. Orion's ritual was aimed at healing conflict within the church and it motivated me to want to deal with my own piece of conflict, to try and find healing, to contribute to the energy of healing and not grow the conflict. So as I walked I let it all flow through me. I believe I am coming to a place where I don't need to defend myself or to put forth my own interpretation/ version of events, of what really happened according to Kyril, nor do I feel any need (at least at the moment) to convince the other party that their view of what happened was wrong and that my experience of it was what really happened. I think I can listen to what the other person needs to say or wants to say and not get defensive (or at least not much:) I am ready for mediation but I don't feel a need for it. I am letting the past go, releasing it in the fires of Walspurgisnacht.
I also thought about what to do about our son coming back. I am not willing to refuse to take him back. Tom thinks that somehow we have to do something to get him a job but doesn't know what we could do. I think it is out of our control and we should focus on the conditions of his return - what will we expect from him if he moves back in.
It was good to spend the evening with my visiting nestmates. We talked about quite a few things, catching up, talking about our beliefs and philosophy around various topics, and generally had a good time.
Copyright © 2001 Kyril Oakwind