The last week has gone in a bit of a blur of sleeping and feeling ill and eating nutrtious soups (oh and playing on the DS Rob gave me as well if I’m being honest).

I do feel caught up in that familiar slightly ungrounded shaking up feeling that happens when your life is shifting. Underneath it all though, deep within myself, I feel this connection to something very old and very powerful. I am scared but at the same time kind of..enthralled by it. I am starting to find my voice. I have started speaking out in meetings, asking questions without my voice shaking, stating my mind.

I am reading around old literature regarding osteopathy – texts written back in 1939 encouraging and warning. After looking into the history of medicine and this field, my sense of time and context has expanded outwards and I am suddenly aware of being at this point in time and what has gone before and what can happen. I feel like getting on this degree has hooked me not just into “my groove” but into something deeper and more connected up with the whole of human history. Yep, that sounds grandiose but that is exactly the right word for how this feels. It’s going to be important to keep a sense of humour with all this…glad for the coyote tattoo not just the crow at this point.
dreams

….everything is being shaken up at the moment in my life as change kicks in full force. (that and an irritating head-cold). Possibilities are endless and frightening. I don’t know where or what will happen come Decemember and my uni job finishes. I was hoping to build on the massage but I also feel apathetic and low about it at the moment because I’m just not getting any clients really and not sure what to do next…I’m thinking of cutting out the Tuesday evening for now if the owner will let me do ad-hoc if I need it, meanwhile Neals Yard goes well but I’m away 3 weekends out of 4 next month so it seems a bit pointless. But I’m thinking maybe regroup and try again perhaps. Try and get ideas together for christmas promotions.

Maybe I’ll have to move from Exeter. Maybe it would be better if I did, and was closer to London. But I do like it here, and I think maybe I’d like to try and exhaust possibilites before giving up. Also I’m realising how much I like my room at Liz’s house, and I feel sad thinking that I’ll have to go because I can’t afford it once I have no job etc.

I had my ‘you’re going to be made redundant’ meeting today. Quite glad I did, because I found out I will get a small redunancy payment at the end. Not much relatively speaking, only about £500, but enough on top of my regular pay to maybe allow me to at least live unemployed for a month here if I’m really frugal. We may even get another £100 worth of christmas bonus depending on how well the uni has done.

What was really nice as well was hearing what a good impression I’ve made here. Apparently I work hard and am dedicated, and in a way I can be if I set my mind to it, but I know that this is not the total truth. What DID surprise me though was Stephen saying how I have shown really amazing people-team skills, and that the project team has been happy and worked well together, and that I have been the backbone of that. wow! 🙂 this makes me smile. quite a lot actually.

I feel so much better today.

I’m on a website called Couchsurfing, basically a travellers network so you can meet up with people in different cities, perhaps for a coffee, perhaps to stay on their couch. I’m really getting into it, meeting up with women who live in Exeter that I found on the webpage. So far they have all been really cool! Liz and I have also now ‘hosted’ a guy called Hisham… I was a bit unsure about it as the house is still in a state and I’d never met him, but when he phoned up and we chatted I felt fine about it. He is an egyptian muslim who lives in London but travels around a lot. I’ve really enjoyed having him about for a few days! He is very relaxed and generous (insisting on paying for everything, driving me about etc) and more than that a good laugh.

Last night I had a massage…oh god it was so good I really needed it! regular massage is going to be a must. Then I went out, met Hisham and went to this great little tapas-Moroccan restaurant in Exeter. While it has tables upstairs, downstairs is all low couches and cushions round little tables. Another perrson from Couchsurfing, a teacher called Daisy turned up as well — never met her before but she was amazing as well! Lots of great stories and I had some really good laughs. Good company, good food, good laughs. And good massage.

Very surreal experience of watching some egyptian TV with Hisham when we got back, and laughing my head off at a football commentator, being really sarcastic about his favourite team which keep loosing, I couldn’t understand the language but his face and gesticulating said it all.

Couchsurfing is brill. I’m finding it’s a good way to get that “traveller” fix of meeting new peeps and expanding your world, without actually having to go anywhere 🙂 Also the openess and trust is amazingly refreshing.

so now I am ready, I think, for London, though I’m sure I’m forgetting something important and will need to go home and lunch to pick it up.

Coming up to the start of my degree and the enormity of what I am taking on is starting to sink in… this combined with effort in getting massage going, and complications over Mike and I. Last night I lay in bed feeling stressed in a way that I’ve never felt before. Not depressed-stress, but “argh so much to do panic” stres :). My body shaking with it, breathing irregular, my gut going crazy. I’ve had a good relaxed and fun year, all in all, and to be honest haven’t really worked hard at anything over a protracted period for about 6 years (excluding the massage diploma). Instead I’ve gotten used to rushing around, filling my life with frankly an exhausting social life, trying to jump in at the chance to assist anyone I can etc. This has slowly been getting better as I realise I like having time to myself. But there is still a lot that I have to change about basic tennants and habits I live by if I’m going to get through all this.

I’ve realised a few big things about myself lately. One is that I am actually quite a control freak, which seems paradoxical given how much I enjoy spontanetioty and doing random slightly dangerous things. The second is that the reason, partly, I suspect I am a control freak is that it is a coping mechanism I have acquired to deal with a deep rooted irrational but nonetheless real panic over letting myself trust in others. Trust enough to make myself vulnerable. To ask for help. To allow myself to be supported. It is really good that all this is coming up now, difficult though it is, because it will be nice to heal this aspect of myself before the degree takes a huge grip on my life.

At the moment though I still feel that if I really let go and trust everything will fall apart and I will be stabbed in the back. The moments that I do trust, and can feel loved, fill me with such joy though that I want to move into this new way of being. I’m proud of myself for having the courage to face something which seems so terrifying to me, but so obvious to everyone else 🙂

My dreams are filled with death symbols. Burying people alive to keep them safe. Last night I dreamt of Pandora, who was caught up inside her box, and who went mad when we opened it. There was a lot inside the box, and it wasn’t all bad, just emotion. Although she went mad, she also became alive.

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Boar-Sow

I’ve been using Medicine Cards for a long time now, and something I’ve noticed is a tendency to see the same cards turn up for a period with other cards/animals never making an appearance. In the last few months, a few intially surprsing animals having been becoming more prominant. One is Owl. The other is Boar/Sow. Boar turned up recently when I asked for animals that helped show me the truth of my real self. The three that turned up were Humming Bird (joy), Owl(mystery,darkness,witchiness I guess) and Boar. And then this morning when I asked for something to help guide me in this period of my life, I found Sow. The two are male-female aspects about the same thing. I find both Boar and Sow intially repulsive and boring and unpretty, not something I want to associate with myself, but as I learn about them I feel more honor and respect. Boar is warrior spirit, pushing ahead, self-reliance, and I guess a kind of pig-headedness. Sow though is more about nourishment and trusting in being nourished by others and the world. They both dig for roots (wisdom?) in the earth.

this dichotomy-tension between forging ahead and being self reliant but ALSO being able to be nourished and trusting in support from others is definitely an issue I am grappling with at the moment. The Sow card reminded me
“Muc, with her large litters, symbolizes abundance and fertility. Feeling connected to the love of the Goddess for all her creatures, you are able to give freely, knowing that you, in turn, are nourished and sustained by her. Choosing this card, you can open yourself to the abundance that exists throughout nature. You can allow yourself to accept this abundance, knowing that life perpetually renews itself, and that you need not worry about ever being disconnected from it. Allow yourself to feast on life–to enjoy its beauties and its sensual delights. The Goddess is generous, giving to all and renewing all.”

The line which really stands out is the “you need not worry about ever being disconnected from it”. Since that is precisely what I have been worrying and panicing about.

So – I want to keep a balance over the next few years which will allow me to push ahead and study, but at the same time not loose the sensual joy and delight I’ve only recently discovered in the world. I want to learn how to let my friends help and support me, as I know they will want to as much as I want to with them. Bear with me though as it may take some practice!

I would like to honour and thank boar-sow for working with me on this, and I am finding already that looking at them again, I actually kind of like them, they remind of wolf-pigs, the fur and wildness and the dogged stability in them. They have a herd of boar at a wildlife place nearby and I have found them really cool to watch for a while.
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The autumn equinox cooincides with all this, and the start of my degree. Also I’m going to get to celebrate with a lot of my old and dear friends on saturday which I’m looking forward to a lot. Interestingly the symbolism matches up perfectly with how I feel at the moment, and this time of year. Going into the darkness is strangely appealing/comforting 🙂

” Autumn is the time of harvest. It is a time to gather up the fruits of our labors, to give thanks for our bounty, and to prepare for the winter to come. The Autumnal Equinox is also the time of balance between light and dark. It is when the Sun passes our equator. It is a time to prepare for the descent into the darkness.

The ancient Celts interpreted this transfer of light to dark, as they did all dramatic changes in the Earth and Sky, both literally and figuratively. They celebrated the universal story of Mabon. Mabon ap Modron means son of the mother, Modron being the great Mother Earth. Mabon is the Divine Youth, or Son of Light.

Three days after being born to Modron, Mabon disappears. Modron is distraught, the Son of Light is gone. Mabon is finally set free through learning the wisdom of the most ancient of animals, even though he has been safe all along in Modron’s Otherworld, her womb. There, he is nurtured. He has brought the Light into Mother Earth until he can emerge powerful enough to take over the darkness once again. The Light now has enough wisdom and strength to plant the new seed.

The September Equinox is a time to prepare for the new life and light that eternally begins. We go into the darkness to gather strength and wisdom. We gather with friends and loved ones to renew our reserves. We feast on the gifts of the harvest. We know that sometimes there is sorrow, sometimes joy. We know that the light will win again, but we must enter the darkness to get there. “