The Year of the Dog

As astrology goes, it is like so many things- it has meaning and it works. Some hidden and quiet and some loud and in your face but astrology has not ever governed my life but mostly served to enhance, amuse or warn me.

This Year of the Dog however was to the core very different. I could feel it start to rev up on a cellular level and as the sun began to sink below the horizon the sensation just got stronger. By the time it was about 1 am I was practically tingling.

Something was shifting. I have no idea if anyone else felt it. I know for me it felt big, it felt like the something I had been waiting for that I didn't know I was waiting for. Another one of those spiritual moments that you can't find the words to describe or language to articulate.

So I started to call it a pivot moment because even the words that started coming out of my mouth were structured different. They made sense differently, arranged differently and were delivered with more clarity. I have found a directness, and it seems a bit monumental. So I just looked this up on Google:
A moment is the turning effect of a force around a fixed point called a pivot. For example, this could be a door opening around a fixed hinge or a spanner turning around a fixed nut. The size of a moment depends on two factors: the size of the force applied and the perpendicular distance from the pivot to the line of action of the force.


The odd thing is, I spontaneously called all this my pivot moment while I was shopping and I bought myself the one thing I had denied myself my whole adult life. The one prized and coveted item I had always wanted. I went into the store to just look at it. My intention was to see it in person, make sure it was what I wanted and come back in April to purchase it for my birthday. While standing there I realized that I had spent so much time in the last 7 years in particular saving things until later that it had gotten almost to the point of neurosis that I said, "I'll take it". It didn't stop there. I proceeded to buy a second one as well because it was time to tell myself, and the world that I have indeed sacrificed, and I am indeed not willing to wait any longer. It is time to reach out and have the ever elusive handbag.

I know, WHAT a purse. YES, damn it a purse, actually a purse and a pocket organizer. And for the first time in a very long while I sat there with a ridiculously content feeling, holding the boxes and deeply satisfied. I had waited for over 25 years and it was finally in my lap. Yeah, I cried and it takes my breath away. It was a long wait for a purse. I will always look at it and be glad I waited to get to celebrate my pivot moment purchasing something so monumental, that neither were or are taken lightly.

I've struggled so many times during my spiritual journey with materialism, and my own vanity. As I've gotten farther down the path I realize that the human experience is not to be denied or struggled against, judged or shamed. We can witness it without action or judgement and decided, inquire and feel blessed to have the free will and conscious state of mind to make an informed choice. It is part of my skin suit to be vain, it is also part of my challenge to like nice things. Those bits don't define me, they are actually things that motivate me to self care and appreciate beauty. Two sides to every coin as I say.

It is wondrous to be so moved by unseen forces. It almost felt like an uprising. An awakening. Maybe I will never know the name of it, but I will have a purse to remind me of it, whatever it is called. I am grateful to be reminded that those moments of transformation can happen to me in the most unexpected ways.

Year of the Dog.

French bread pizza and evolution

I was making french bread pizza with my Grandson today and I realized how much it symbolizes my own evolution and parenting.

I've made it throughout my time as a parent. It is one of those food items that kids love to make and eat and introduces them to cooking. You start out with the basics and it evolves over time with their individual tastes as they grow. They experiment and branch out, it encourages self care and all that good stuff.

Today, as we were making pizza I was putting all sorts of fancy stuff I had gotten from Sprouts for my pizza and I realized my own magic had worked on me as well. I was seeing my own evolution on my little creation. I am no longer the girl that just tops it with discs of pepperoni although I would still fancy it.

It was my Mom who made them with me, and I with my kids and now with my Grandson. The french bread pizza a symbol of evolution connection generations and hopefully an enduring tradition. Maybe long after I am gone when the pizza sauce goes on someone will remember the moment like I did today.

Let the Games begin...

We started marriage counseling. I don't mean to make light of it with the title of this blog, it is a considerable undertaking emotionally for my husband. It takes a good deal of personal trust for someone at the emotional point he is at.

I am at a different point in my life. My journey inward began many years ago and I have traveled through the dark stillness to meet myself. I have met many teachers along the way, my most influential and helpful at this point has been Adyashanti, although my childhood rings loudly in my ears these days. Recently I have reflected on the faces of my family, my Great Aunts and Uncles and how often they smiled. Now in my 50's I know the burdens and worries they must have carried and yet they smiled with such joy and were so present in the moments with us. I look at my Great Grandmother with such admiration, a new found respect and my heart is simply overwhelmed with gratitude and love. That is for another post, one in which I can just honor my rich lineage.

So, we go and sit with a marriage counselor once a week as he tries his hardest to unwind 7 years of complex yuck. Trigger words, and manipulation that push accountability and responsibility to the other side of the table very much like a game. I mostly sit quietly until I can't stand it anymore and I put a stop to it. My husband is very much like herding a bundle of kittens when it comes to arguing and emotional things, it's part of the strategy and I know as the counselor gets to know him it will take less time to intervene but for now it borders on the ridiculous.

Blah blah blah she she she and so on. I sit and watch this all unfold mindful of his apparent pain yet sinful blame and wonder when his perspective will crack wide.

I always wonder what it takes for someone to wake up. I remember the moment vividly for me and it had nothing to do with my spirituality, or at least it didn't seem like it directly. It had everything to do with my kids. One spilled glass of milk. I yelled at my child about it and I realized that it wasn't who I wanted to be. My impatience was the ugliest thing I had about me and to undo that I needed to undo a good many things. That was the beginning of it all. That was when the game began for me like a gun going off at the beginning of a race.

It only took one spilled glass of milk. What will it be for him?