Saturday, November 17, 2012

A Perfect Reflection


Mirror, mirror, on the wall, we're just reflections after all. 

~*~

My stress level was through the roof tonight due to two jobs, several freelance projects, no sleep, and lots weighing on my mind for the weekend, plus I encountered a complete jerk on the road while driving home — like a rotten Ford cherry* sitting on top of a junkyard of frustration.

Yay.

NOT.

I was having such a hard time letting go of all that crappy emotion. I knew I needed to, I really wanted to, I was even desperate enough to flip through my mental rolodex of "tools" I've learned in various seminars, books, CDs, etc. (Aside from pure gratitude, I mostly liken those tools to glow sticks: fun in the moment while you're all playing together, but not terribly useful after twenty-four hours.)

Didn't matter - what I really wanted to do was just destroy something. It's all I could picture. It was insane - like my brain was warring with itself. The emotional side was completely flipped out while the logical side was observing and thinking how ridiculous it was that common sense and reasoning couldn't make me any less emotional.

Fortunately I can never bring myself to actual violence even if it would be let out in a constructive way (my beliefs lean too far toward Animism), but this negativity HAD to dissipate. (And I'm sorry, but punching pillows? That does NOT work. And the pillows will get you back by sticking your face with feather ends all night.)

For whatever reason, I took five minutes to check up on a few Facebook pages of people that always make me smile. Who knew that would be like a flood of Samadhi Advil for Off-the-hook Hormones?

I've met all the people I'm talking about, but some probably wouldn't know me. Just thinking about them though was like an instant hug (and only one is famous, smartypants friends who think they know who I'm talking about). People have no idea how truly far-reaching their calming, peaceful presence is. There's nothing (and everything) extraordinary about them. They just are who they are, but in their Being is this amazing gift to humanity. I am so grateful for their gifts.

As I scrolled pages and clicked on a video or pictures, this came to mind:


When I look at you, I see the part of me that is Love.


Sounded like truth, so I'm writing it down and sharing it.

Who does that for you?† Send some gratitude their way now.

No, really. I'll wait.

I hope maybe sometimes I offer that to others. (Can't say I'm confident about being that these last couple months tho. Working in an office creates a lot of stress for me. Still trying to resolve that.)

Some people's light just shines so bright it can reach through any conjured darkness and once again illuminate what's happy in yourself, bringing things back into balance. Thank goodness.


(Photo by Bill Bell)




* Yes, it was red, and I just now got the irony of the fact that it was a Ford Focus. Well played, Universe.

† In re-reading I realized how you hear that sentence in your head probably says a lot about your emotions. Did you read it "who does that for you?" or "who does that for you?" I meant it in the latter expression.



Wednesday, July 25, 2012

In For a Penny, and For Faeries

I knew it!!!

The other day I cleaned up my front patio, finally put some flowers in the planters (mostly because I know more hummingbirds will come to the feeder if there are also pretty blooms to lick :), and had the idea to place one of the small pots by the front door, not with flowers in it, but with pennies instead. The inspiration turned out amazingly more appropriate than I imagined, but honestly, I don't know why these things still surprise me. If you believe in magic and go looking for it, you will find it. Duh.

You see, I have this bit of a tree stump to the left of my entrance. It was part of a load of firewood I bought a couple years ago. It started out in a different place on the patio as a decorative thing (I had a turtle sitting on it - fake, of course, because can you imagine trying to teach a turtle to sit and stay? I don't think even Cesar Millan could do that). The wood was further spared its flaming death when I got the idea to use it as an organic door stop; I was tired of playing Beat the Clock with my lock and key while trying to avoid the loud crash of the screen slamming into the wall. (I was winning the game, but the competition was making me tense.)

Half the top of the stump is flat so a small item is easily placed upon it, but the other half is slanted, making it difficult to satisfy my desire for symmetry. Flowers seemed a logical choice as they can hang over the slanted half, but very little light reaches that area and all the flowers I bought were for full sun. I tried several small things from around the house like garden Buddhas and lizard statues, but nothing seemed right. I was trying to think of something colorful to bring light to the area when I caught sight of one of the small, empty red pots. My mind's eye saw pennies in it.

Now don't laugh, but when I placed the penny pot on the stump, there was some remnant of memory running around my neurons that told me leaving shiny pennies by the door (and they do have to be shiny) brings the faeries around, which is associated with good luck. I searched my memory banks for why that was or where I heard that, but there were zero results. I gave up, thinking surely it was Irish folklore and perhaps I was pulling info from my genetic memory. (I am both Irish and Scottish, Land of the Wee Folk.) My logical Left Brain (which dabbles in creative thinking on the rarest of occasions, mostly preferring to leave that to the Right half of the head) barreled in saying no matter; it's got to be good modern feng shui anyhow.

I washed and dried the pot and went after my change jar looking for pennies. Imagine my surprise when I dumped all the change on the bed and out from the bottom spilled two healthy handfuls of brand new copper. I'd forgotten that the last time I rolled change, I'd kept all the shiniest pennies. I believe it's always good luck to leave some change in the jar so you continue attracting more, and just as bright, shiny things are more attractive to me, it stands to reason they would attract more energy from the Universe. True to the thought, lots of silver coins had piled on top of my saved pennies, obscuring them until the opportune moment. Luck? I think not. Quantum planning perhaps.

In feng shui, red is used to stir up movement or excited activity (which is why it's hard to sleep in a bedroom decorated in red). Wood indicates growth and creativity. Metal brings power and success in finance (especially if you're using money, duh). Therefore - regardless of the Fae - putting shiny copper money in a red pot, sitting on a big piece of wood by the entry of your home has to be a pretty powerful cocktail to increase money flow, don't you think? I didn't actually know that though until five minutes ago when I looked all that up while writing this. So, like... wow!

(By the way... apparently it's working. I've had two more people book dog sitting time all the way out in Sept/Oct, my new freelance client just gave me more work, and I was contacted by Pearson asking if I had time to do some work for them! Woohoo!)

But then... THEN... being who I am, I still had to know why I thought a Penny Pot would attract faeries. I mean, there was no evolution to this idea, it just sort of showed up in my brain. Some googling turned up that Jonathan Wright in Ann Arbor, MI actually builds tiny fairy doors for the wee folk! How cool is that?! (Don't think I won't be getting one of THOSE like yesterday!) I found another page HERE about the doors... seeing that people do leave pennies as offerings just supports my theory that this has some sort of folklore background to it. Why not dimes, which are smaller and worth more? What is it about copper pennies? Why have so many people just decided that's the thing faeries like?

Oddly, I can't find a darn bit of mythology on this in Google. This brings to mind a sign I snapped a pic of just a few days ago:



Hmm.

I will update this if I find the answer. Once again it's 3:07am, and words are robbing me of sleep.

As for the "I knew it!!!" at the beginning, I've kind of written myself out and around that... oops. Originally I said that because of finding the thing about leaving pennies at the fairy doors, but the more I delved into that, the more I realized it still didn't answer my "what IS the folklore of this pennies by the door?" question. So I guess I still have research to do.

One more thing before closing though: one of the reasons I haven't posted for so long—again (Gods!)—is because a few weeks ago I received a real live, honest-to-goodness bound and printed, dead trees and ink paperback novel written by my friend Jenn Flynn-Shon. It's titled Ripple The Twine, which always makes me think of magic (I mean c'mon, doesn't it sound like some sort of magical phrase?), but actually it's about a goal-driven chick who likes hockey and has put her relationship status on hold for far too long when she meets a hot Irish guy (hey, wait a minute, weren't we just talking about the Irish?) and shenanigans ensue. It's Jenn's first publishing endeavor and the day I got it I sat down and started writing a blog about the experience of receiving a copy of a REAL book that your friend wrote as a professional author, and how that affected me and my aspirations for a writing career. I was determined I would not make another blog post until I posted about her book. However, between reading her novel, taking on a new freelance client, and Life In General, I have not made the time to put the finishing touches on that post. Therefore, consider this pre-cursor a lame attempt to placate my guilty conscience for completing this entry before the one about her book, but truly, you should go check it out RIGHT HERE and buy a copy! I am so proud that she is truly a published author, and she's out there marketing it all by herself. Yay for the Internet and the opportunity it's created to self-publish! I'm so happy for her. More on that coming soon!



Friday, June 15, 2012

The Work of the Rat


I came across a special on Walt Disney tonight when I was flipping through channels while dog sitting. It must've been made several years ago as some of the people they interviewed are dead now. At the end, it talked about The Walt Disney Family Museum in San Francisco that Walt's daughter, Diane, created as a lasting tribute to her father. A few years back, Mom and I spent several hours there but unfortunately we were in the parking lot waiting for AAA because the Jeep's battery decided it couldn't go on living. We didn't get to tour the museum because we got there just before it was closing, and the price was too high to justify going in for only a half hour. One of these days I'll make it back there though as I'm very curious to see it.

While we were waiting for AAA, we met a very nice man who ended up driving me to the nearest auto parts store to buy another battery. He gave me his card when it was all fixed... he worked for Disney Studios. I remember his license plate was "WRK4RAT"... work for The Rat. :) I still have that card and think about him every time I think of Disney Studios now. I'm so glad there are still people in this world with a sense of chivalry and old world values, and it completely makes sense that he works for Disney.

Walt Disney really was an amazing man. He accomplished such an unfathomable amount in his lifetime – and so much of his work has touched and changed SO many others' lives in a positive way. How does one get to that level of greatness? 

In the documentary they talked about Mary Poppins and how Walt went in person to England, to the lady that wrote the original story, and charmed her into letting him make the movie. The author sounded like an earlier version of JK Rowling. I've thought many times about how influential that movie was in my thinking in different ways at different ages. When I was little, I saw it more from the two kids' point of view and I remember wishing my babysitters were more like Mary. Ironically, the best babysitter I ever had was, in fact, named Mary and she's the one that taught me how to make chocolate chip cookies. (Hmmm. I really owe her a letter! We still keep in touch!) I remember distinctly that the reason I started keeping my room clean was because of Mary Poppins' view on "a place for everything and everything in its place. Spit spot!" And when I made keeping things tidy more like a game, I never minded cleaning stuff up again. ("In every job that must be done, there is an element of fun... find the fun and snap! the job's a game.") It's probably the reason I've grown into such an organized person. At another level, the mixture of animation and live action was a relatively new concept in those days, and it only fueled my imagination for things that are not commonly seen in our dimension. As an adult, I could see the story that you miss as a kid... how Mary Poppins pulls a family together and teaches them all mindfulness in different ways. And that when the wind changes, you must move on. Every time I watch that movie I get something more from it. That's really the truth for many of the original Disney movies.

Of course they talked about the theme parks as well. Both parks are yet another one of those projects that when you look at them, you wonder how he could possibly accomplish all that in one lifetime. Technically, he didn't because Epcot and Disney World weren't finished until after he was gone, but the ideas were his and were well underway when he bowed out. I wish everyone that walked through the gates of Disneyland or Disney World could be hit with a spell that would give them the ability to perceive the principles behind those parks - all the thinking and planning that went into them, and Walt's intention to build places where families could enjoy life together. I know the media and Hollywood makes the 1950-60s out to be all sunshine and rainbows and unicorns when in truth it wasn't, but it would be so nice if people would go back to being respectful and courteous like what's portrayed, with high ideals and good manners, and goals and dreams. The only man I can think of that would fit a similar bill for Generation X (albeit in a less-gentle way) is Steve Jobs. Generation Y, well... we won't even go there.

When you look at those old films from that era, it seemed like such a lighter time. We haven't even realized how much darkness has crept into our world with money and corporations and lawyers. Talk about a spell from a villain! What's funny is we already know what will break the spell too because Walt told us a thousand times... true love breaks any negative spell. It doesn't have to be romantic love, just true.

I hope we all remember in time, Walt. You surely did your part by leaving us all the reminders you could think of. I wish I could thank you in person.


Monday, June 11, 2012

Randomness

Thought I would share some of the random things I post on my Facebook page here on the blog. First off, I saw this really cool storefront in University Heights (San Diego, CA area) the other day and snapped a pic as I was sitting at the light.



I'm sure I've mentioned it, but for our new friends: Dragonfly has been my totem and unofficial second name since I first signed up for an AOL account with a free CD and a 28.8K modem in 1998. I am even called "Dragonfly" by some (which means many people give me dragonfly things as gifts so I have them on everything from coasters to jewelry to wind chimes). This kind of connection with a skeeter-eating bug makes you notice anything with the word plastered above the door. I finally remembered to search Google to find out what they sell, and it turns out they're just a hair salon. Pffftt! Disappointed! Hair salons are a dime a dozen and I don't think I've had my hair cut professionally for over a year so I really don't have much use for them. I like the colors and clip art logo, but I was hoping they sold something awesome like vintage items or metaphysical doodads. Oh well.

I tried to "check in" on Facebook from my iPhone the other day at home and had a nice little surprise - apparently Facebook has found my mostly-non-existant Reiki practice (Share The Way) and added it to their lists as a local business! I can't even imagine what database they would've retrieved that info from as the domain name is the only thing I've ever registered and I don't advertise at all. Yet there it was...


Now I just have to find out how I got there so I can be sure Scarlet Quill is also listed. Scarlet Quill is the website I'm building so I can sell my proofreading and editing services (scarletquill.com). And since I dog/house sit as well, don't think I'm not totally going to contact whomever owns Earth's Paw Mobile Pet Grooming and find out if they'll exchange referrals with me. I think I'm getting the hang of this networking thing. What a way to find local services. LOL

Last, I found out what the face of EVIL looks like. It's THIS:


I really do eat healthy most of the time, but I'm no saint when it comes to sweets. These things pry open your mouth, force themselves down your throat, laugh at the digestive acids in your stomach, then tear through your guts. And I LOVE THEM.

Sunday, June 03, 2012

Pause for Station Identification

Well that was a helluva slump, wasn't it? Haven't posted since last November. What is this? June? Let's play catchup, shall we?

November: Thanksgiving - made my own turkey for the first time. Didn't suck. Nobody died of food poisoning. Yay for me (and them).

December: Our ficus tree did a great impression of a Christmas tree and the bf gave me a new MacBook, WHICH. IS. INCREDIBLE. I heart him so much. Why won't he marry me? Oh right. He wants a blonde, porn star trophy wife. I'm so NOT that. (I'm better, but whatever.)

January: Holy shit, I'm getting no response to my resumes and no feedback about WHY I'm getting no response to my resumes. Freelance isn't covering everything. Maybe I should give it up and write that best seller already.

February: Crap, another month has gone by and still no interviews. I am AWESOME. Why isn't anyone seeing that? Maybe I need to stay in business for myself. And sell a book. And do editing and proofreading. And dog sit. And help old ladies with cooking and cleaning. And... And... And...

March: (See February)

April: Well at least I won't be homeless.

May: Shit. I might be homeless. Time to put up a proofreading/editing site and sell the shit outta that.

June: ScarletQuill.com is registered. Design is almost done. Portfolio is gathered. Just have to write the verbiage. I can't believe I still have a house, but I'm grateful the Universe is throwing income my way. Trust the process... trust the process...

Yeah, that pretty much brings it up to date. Right on the edge of OMFG, as usual.