Yep, I'm a Giver :)

Happy Happy Everyone!

Happy Solstice!

Yawn!
I stayed up last night to harold the sun's return this morning. A coworker and I went up to Red Rocks in Denver to participate in the Drumming Up of the Sun (DUTS). It was a fairly nice morning but a bit windy... Next year I think I'll bring a handwarmer :)

Anyway, I went today because I wanted to be part of the "community." I think next year we should schedule a DUTS in Denver one day and the Springs the other day of the two. (the 21st and 22nd in 2010 are on Tuesday and Wednesday) I went to see omens for the new year that's starting up. And I got one.

As the sun started to peek over the horizon, inflaming the clouds the color of glowing embers, we all cheered. It was a beautiful site. Then the clouds rushed in hiding the sun behind a band of thick black clouds.15 minutes later or so, the sun peeked above the band of clouds on the horizon and entered into the mostly cloud-free sky, smooth sailing for the rest of the morning.

I took that to mean that things are starting to look promising in the world today but there are rough spots ahead and that things may take longer than expected to come to fruition. But once they do, it'll be smooth sailing for us.

So Mote It Be
So Say We All

Blessed Be!

It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas

This morning I woke up from fitful sleep, dreaming of impending doom much like my earlier radio station dream. I 'm taking it to mean that I've got too many balls in the air and that I need to corral some of my projects and finish them. My fortune cookie yesterday said as much ("To Accomplish Big Things You Must Start With Small Victories")

By time I actually got out of bed, the song "It's Beginning to Look alot Like Christmas" was repeating in my head. Then I went to the window to say "good morning" to the day and was surprised to see big fluffy snowflakes outside my window. (Admittedly not as surprised as I would have been to find them *inside* my window but you know what I mean.)

I went outside and quickly shoveled the sidewalk on our block and by time I was done, I was in a great mood. I had completed one task off my list for the day and it wasn't even breakfast time yet.

I brought my breakfast down to the computer and dashed off one of my class assignments then read the news feeds I get. And it occured to me I hadn't downloaded a feed from JazzTrax in ages. I downloaded the two December episodes so far and have been listening to them all day as I work on projects around the house. I feel *wonderful*! and ready to take on the next projects tomorrow at work.

In the meantime, I've got more projects to work on here in the basement so back to work. Hope your season is uplifting to you and allows you to get some much needed and deserved rest and perspective on how your year is going.

Title Reference:

We Are Searching For (a) Clue

Wow, this morning's dream was a long one. It seemed like it went on for hours. In it, I was volunteering at the local college radio/NPR station. I had shown up for my shift a few minutes late and found the NPR programing I usually played wasn't available for the day. Which meant I had to play music. The person on the shift before me had started a *record* for me in a genre I didn't really know.

So my task, which seemed like it happened in real time, was to fill my two (?) hours with music. And stay in the genre I had been started in. Ack! There were frequent stretches of dead air. Someone else was at the station and would periodically help me by throwing *something* on. It took me nearly the whole shift before I got on-air and even did the weather forecast.

Since the song in my head this morning is the opening sting from Blue's Clues, I assume that something important happened here. I'll need to write down my observations in my handy-dandy noteblog! So what does this all mean? Basically, I hate going into situations where I am just filling time with no plan. I hate just adlibbing. But I can do it. In fact, I believe I'm pretty good at it--*if* I have background in the material that I'm to use.

I hate reading scripts cold because I always feel like it sounds like I'm reading. Yet if I know the material, a few words is all I need to fill the time I have. This is how I lecture for example. A couple words on the slide to keep me on track (because I do like the structure and like to be able to confirm I got where I wanted to go)

So what's the message here? Why have I received the dream? Part of it was in response to last night's meeting where I muffed the speaker's intro. I apologized to him afterwards and he said he didn't mind, but I did.

What can I do to move forward? I had brought his intro written in a big font so I could see it easier. A good start. I need to practice more with the intros so I don't flub them. Helen suggested I memorize the gist of the intro and just adlib it. I think I'll try both. I want to appear to be as professional as I believe I am.

Title Reference:

Colorado Springs, 20 and 9

This morning's song is another in a set of depressing songs :) Who knew I knew so many?

The song is based on a series of letters found in an attic between an Irish immigrant and his family back home in Kilkelly in the late 1800's. They're "newsy" and filled with hope and longing, waiting for the immigrant son to return home. But they're conscious of the fact that the son is making money in the West and is helping to save the family.

I woke with the song going round in my head and opened a browser to look up the lyrics since I do not have this song in my collection. While doing that I opened my email box and this image was on the first email I opened.



It's from a very interesting article on the Art of Manliness website, but it troubled me. I do not have a structure like this. My sister and I are the end of the line for our family. While my Dad is still alive and an aunt and uncle, that's about it. And being gay, I'm unlikely to have a child to continue this progression. When my Dad came to visit a couple months ago he reminded me that he wasn't getting any younger and that I needed to get on with it; that he wanted grandkids soon.

I told him that wasn't likely if current trends continued and that my sister was probably a better candidate for this talk. :) She said, "Well, the name goes with you..." I had asked my buddy Joe to borrow one of his kids for the weekend with my dad but figured Dad wouldn't go for it since my sister wouldn't have told him I had kids already. Joe was willing to loan me all three of his kids for the weekend.

So where does this leave me? I'm not sure. I'm certainly not following the paths of my ancestors. And I don't know what to do about it. Part of me, a large part, is very OK with that. And part of me feels like I let down the system and my Dad.

A couple years ago I joined a Fraternity. These men are like Brothers to me on the whole. And many of them are following the man's path as expected more or less. A lot of them have remarried at least once but they all have kids and come to the Lodge to commiserate and explore their accomplishments as men together. I come because I want to commiserate that I don't have these same accomplishments and talk about the ones I have made. My Brothers seem to take me in stride. No one has chastised me for not having gone down the family route and none have praised me for it either. I'm not really sure where I am.

Maybe it's time to call up the family and set up a visit, as soon as I can.

Title Reference Jim Brannigan Kilkelly">

Waking T'Chris Devine

Well that's odd. There have been no songs the last couple mornings. Or maybe it's not odd, I've never tracked them seriously before.

It may be that it's Finals week at school and my brain is occupied with Engineering tasks or the overflow of work. But this morning driving into work, I noticed a quiet song playing in my head. It doesn't have words so I wasn't sure what to do with it. I looked up the album. The song is called "Beyond Spirits and Dreams" and is the lead in to the second most depressing yet romantic song I know, "Hear Me." (the single most depressing song I know is "Hallelujah" by Rufus Wainwright--the first time I heard it on the radio I had to pull over and pull myself together) I had never really noticed that they were seperate songs before. The line in "Hear Me" that gets to me every time I hear it is

like a house deserted I'm roofless and alone... where is your voice? where is your touch? (...) where is the light I miss so much?

I suppose this is a response to this weekend's reading that I took to say that I would be *alone* for this year. But talking to my "guru" yesterday it suddenly gelled to me that the question I had asked was about the four "wierd people" that had shown up in my life again. Maybe the cards were just warning me to clear them out (one card surely said that) and get on with my life.

Another thought hits as I write this is that it's not a lover that's missing (though he is) but the Creator (it)self. Lately I've been pulled to do more in my Spiritual life. This weekend, after Finals are over, I should explore this...

Stay tuned...

Title Reference: Waking Ned Devine: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack"

Do You Believe In Life After Love?

Today's song is just the refrain repeating over and over. I take it to be a reality check making sure that I have agreed with the Universe and am ready to move on. For the next year, I am not to pursue a lover. I have other tasks to do before I can get on with that.

I think I can do that. Though the card reader at the Renaissance Festival said I'd meet someone "interesting" (relationship wise) by the Fall, that does not seem to have happened. I'm not sure what form this hiatus will take but I am sure that it will be interesting. Perhaps I'll finally get some of my creative juices flowing--and to be fair, that's what I think this is all about: giving me some time to get some work done that I haven't yet. Not that I've spent a lot of time relationship-hunting but I need to pull some of my resources away from worrying about it.

The Universe knows what it's doing, even if I don't :)

Title Reference: Cher: Believe">

We're On a Road to Nowhere

At tonight's Samhain ritual, a woman was reading cards if anyone wanted to look into the coming year. I asked why 4 estranged "friends" had shown up back in my life this week: one owes a lot of money, one was a "stalker" of mine who's now in prison, one who often cuts himself and is now pre-op to become a female. Hmm, I can't recall the fourth. But you get the idea.

Anyway, the Reader's spread was an interesting mix of male and female energy, exactly balanced. Nearly every card had fertility meanings and nearly every one was in opposition. I can't help but feel that means I need to put my dating goals on hold. Or at least not center stage. The only fertility card that was not in opposition was the first card which was said to represent the coming decision I need to make about the "friends" coming/returning into my life. She said, like the wolf, I need others around me but they need to be equals not dogs who are subordinate. Without these others I was flounder looking to fill their places in my life, bringing "less worthy but available" induhviduals into my space. The Boar card was inverted which showed baby boars suckling against their mother or rooting through refuse. She suggested that the card might mean either nourishment from things others consider waste or bringing toxins into my life. I felt strongly that it was a warning to not let myself be depleted by all the people in my life who "want something." The opening card said I was starting a journey, the final card showed the end of the journey by next Samhain or so.

So what is the journey, what am I going to do this year? I think the fertility that was in the cards was a sign of the writing I'm supposed to be doing this year. Last Yule I got a project thrust upon me. And it's been chewing at me for awhile while I ignored it--or rather got too busy to devote appropriate time to. I'm going to start devoting at least an hour every other day to writing and see where it takes me.

Wish Me Luck!

Title Reference: Talking Heads Road To Nowhere

Tonight, I Dedicate My Love...

Happy Samhain everyone!

I just came in from placing a lantern outside to light the way for my Honored Dead. It's warm enough that I did it in my silk ritual gear even though it snowed two days ago. Snowed hard enough to functionally close the town for several hours.



But tonight, right now, I'm here to honor my dead. There are six tonight:

1) My Mom. Gone now for must be a decade. I still think of her every time I see/hear a wolf whether it's real or a toy or a picture. It seems odd still not to be able to talk with you about how my days are going.

2) Her Mom, Grandma. She died last year. She was an amazing artist and adventurer in her time. I hope that creative spirit still lives in me.

3) Tumbles, my Familiar. She died a few months ago. I hope that I didn't hasten her demise but she came to be petted one day, I petted her kinda absently as I was getting settled in for the day and she went outside. And never came back. It's still weird not to sleep with her.

4) Scott Cunningham, Mentor. Though we never met, we talked alot through my journals and his books. He made magick accessible to me and many others. He lives on through his books.

5) Carl Sagan, Mentor. Again, we never met, but he filled my brain and heart with the joy of learning. And made me want to spread the joy to others.

6) Gene Roddenbury, Mentor. Again, a remote mentor, but his worlds helped me to settle thoughts in my own head and gave me a pantheon (or two) to give me courage and strength to face the battles that happen so often in this life.

And for them, I place this light outside to help to light their way on this night of the thinnest veil between the worlds.

May you never Hunger. Blessed Be.

Title Reference: Peabo Bryson Tonight I Celebrate My Love

You Can Never Go Home...

The ending credits song from The Two Towers was stuck in my head this morning. This has been happening alot of late. When I suddenly realized what these songs were doing, the news theme from the Daily Show started in my head. I'm taking that to mean that I'm finally understanding a message I've been given. So I've decided to write down the songs each morning and see if I can see a trend with them.

Usually the song is just a fragment of the song but it's enough to get me to go listen to it and get the message. Or the song that follows it on the radio/ipod/whatever is the message I really needed to hear and the one in my head is just a prompt to go looking for the other.

Today however, the song is playing over and over a whole (disjointed) section.

Don't say goodbye, don't say I didn't try...and we will weep to be so alone, we are lost and can never go home...No loyal friend was ever there for me... And you will weep when you face the end alone: You are lost and can never go home

I admit to feeling that way some days but I know intellectually that it's not true. But some days it seems really hard to keep fighting the good fight when it's just you fighting. Some days it seems like it would be really nice to be one of the lemmings in this world and just go to work and come home again. I'll get over this feeling soon enough but I don't know that I want the Universe telling me I'm going to be alone. Though maybe that's the thing. To misquote Vanyel Askevon, "just because I don't have my own hearthfire doesn't mean that I can't warm myself at my friends' hearths periodically." Being alone can be a benefit that will allow me to accomplish my Universal goal for this life in a way I couldn't if I was married/involved. I just need to make sure I don't let being alone rob me of my understanding of what it means to be human.

Title Reference: Howard Shore, Emiliana Torrini: Gollum's Song from The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers