An Eventful Month

It's late at night and I'm so tired I can barely keep my eyes open, but I thought I would post on last time before September for my BLOGUST challenge. Overall, I think I did a decent job in being active on my blog this month. There weren't a ton of posts, but I managed more than one, which is an achievement in my mind. 

Perhaps my posts were not as Pagan-centric as I would have liked, so that is going to be something that I am keeping in consideration for my posts in September. My spiritual leanings tend to flourish in the cold, windy nights of fall. Heat and sun was never my forte, to say the very least. 

Life-wise, it seems I've partially managed to improve myself. After a few job interviews I have proven myself worthy of a position, so I am following that to fruition. There are still more interviews to come, but in the meantime I've accepted something new that I hope I will like if the other prospects do not pan out. Decisions of this nature are never easy, and this time I want to be sure I'm making the best choices for myself. 

I cannot wait to see what autumn has in store for me. The leaves are a' changing, and so am I. 

Fortitude

For the last few weeks now my day-to-day life has just seemed to blend together. I would wake up early after a very late to a mish-mash of crazy routines until finally the day came to an end, only to start all over again the next day. This has continuously been the last few months of my life. Blah.

Agonizing through the days, I looked to my friend, the Tarot, for guidance. I was hoping for something, anything, to be a glimmer of insight into what was to come. Being tired, I did a single card draw of course. So tired. Perhaps my mental state and energy played into this, but the card I drew was the 9 of Wands. Not the most likely card, but right away I saw myself in that situation. As if I was looking at myself, I saw the tense, restless feeling of trying so hard to hang on to what is left and preserve strength. Fortitude is the word that best describes this time in my life and what I am trying to do with my current job, so I saw this as related to my work, not necessarily my personal life. Work has been very arduous in the last few months. To be honest, I'm only supposed to be a part-timer and I've been working to manager an entire store since the end of May, and juggling online courses as well. Sleep hasn't exactly been plentiful or restful, to say the least.

So here I am- literally trying to keep things afloat and continue to create abundance in my work for the last several months with minimal help from outside sources and no support from the higher-ups. Difficult and dejected, I've been riddled with self-doubt over moving forward and being promoted. Turns out I won't be getting that promotion, and while I'm sad about it, it's also a relief. I can finally let go of what I've been putting up with for so long and look to broaden my horizons, I just need to hear the okay to take what has been given to me and put it down to rest.

The hard work has paid off, but the price was steep at times. Soon I can leave it behind and use what I've gathered to build on for a better future. I just have to hold my ground until then, and fight with what I have left to sustain me on my journey.

Procrastination

This is not so much a blog post as it is a public service announcement. I have a problem when it comes to doing work that I absolutely hate doing, namely the inability to do it. Right now, as I type this post, I probably should be typing out a paper that is due soon. Like almost now. I just don't want to. There is an intense compulsion to find anything else to do so I can put off doing this work until the very last minute.

So why am I being so nonchalant about this? Well, probably because I'm stuck in this vicious cycle. Each time, every time really, I psych myself into doing my work, get it done for the most part early on, and finally fizzle out before I can finish everything I need to complete. For some reason this never happens to me at work, only when it comes to school. Not being able to bring myself to write papers that I frankly couldn't care less about really drives me nuts and makes me depressed about this need for procrastinating. It hurts.

How do you suggest I break this cycle? Ultimately I can't find the right motivation to stop procrastinating when it counts. If you have any suggestions, my ears are listening.

Okay, time to do the work I can't stand. Finally. In an hour. After I watch one last video on YouTube. Cool.

Reminiscing of Angels

Timing is an interesting thing for me. I've always been a bit obsessed with time, sometimes to the point where I can't stop looking at the clock. I like watching the hands move further and further through the numbers of the minutes, hours, and seconds until I realize the moment I was waiting for already came and went. It's mesmerizing to me. 

While thinking about time, I had the date on my mind as well. Yesterday was the three year mark of my grandmother's passing. Usually I never like to think of how horrible that time was for me and my family, but now, so long after the fact, remembering the events surrounding that day don't leave me as hollow as once before. I know that she is gone, but nonetheless her memory and the impression of here is still here in my mind and my heart. Perhaps she is even looking out for me in some cosmic way. I had a good cry yesterday morning about her, looking at a picture I took of her only a month or so before she passed. I love that I was able to take that photo of her when she was so happy and still vibrant, but even now I have a hard time looking at it without sadness. To my surprise, a few hours later I received a call about a job I had applied for a few weeks ago, asking me to come in for an interview. Totally unexpected. 

Maybe she heard me and thought to give me a joyous moment? Never will I know, but I will certainly make sure to keep looking out for signs of her influence or presence. 

Love you, grandma xoxox

Full Corn Moon - August

Crickets out my window, the quiet of night radiant with the light of the moon- what a great sight to meet my weary eyes on such an evening. I've had a long day with the same trials and tribulations I've faced for the last few weeks. Where am I going, and what exactly to I need to give myself to get there? I can't even begin to answer these questions, but at least I can sit quietly, peacefully even, and look at the moon with awe and gratitude. The summer has been eventful in many good ways, even with the not so good looking a lot more positive in this blue moonlight. But what of it? Well, the things that I came to believe I understood changed into the things I now realize I didn't actually understand. I see that now. That lack of understanding on my part was not intentional, it was merely a formality of not having more life experience than I ought to at my age. Of course, life is never cut and dried like that. No, life has taught me more lessons in the last year about myself in a way I never saw before. The shy, introverted girl I was is no more a wallflower of sorts. I can hold my own like the rest of them now, but I still hold back at times. Why so? To be honest it's because I'm not quite 100% comfortable with it yet. Soon, hopefully. Time is healing a part of my character and inner-strength that I thought was permanently damaged not even a year ago. I'm not damaged, not by a long shot. The ability for me to be a strong-willed person was potentially there the whole time, if only I had been aware of how to look inside myself and bring it out into the open sooner. Sadly, life hands you lots of lemons before it lets you make the lemonade.

Like the corn in the fields, bathing in the moon tonight, I'm still growing and maturing into what I want to be. Although I'm not sure what I want to be, I know, deep down, that it's close to being realized. Good thoughts on a good night, for sure.

Prioritizing My Self

Every year the times seems to slip away a little faster on me, and I get more tired and prone to procrastinating. You might even say I'm a Grand Master of procrastination I do it so well. Too well, in fact. Recently I've felt the need to wean myself off of late nights and zombie mornings' after, so a remedy was called for- time management skills to the rescue (or not)!

Good old time management, the bane of procrastinators everywhere. Here's my chance to really get in gear and make sure I follow through instead of wallowing in preventing myself from getting anything done. Okay, step one, setting goals. Check. Making sure I keep things written down and on lists. Check. Get a planner! CHECK! And now you can get everything done and never procrastinate again! Check? No. There is never a simple solution to an old problem. At least I've made a commitment to working on it.

I want to make myself be more proactive when it comes to making sure I'm getting the most out of my time. Is it feasible, yes it is, in theory. The hardest part is the practical, like the first time you turn on the engine of a car and take your foot off the brake. You've seen it done thousands of times, yet when you do it for the first time it's as if the car is going to speed out of control and drag you away with it. Fun stuff, I'm sure.

So how am I going to fix this, you ask? I'm working on it. My ultimate goal is to ensure that I have enough time in my day to do three things of importance. (As a side note, work is not in these three things because it's not optional). Right. Number one on my list is having time set aside included for meditation. I used to meditate all the time! Not so much anymore. I tried doing a chakra balancing video a week ago for Lammas and fell asleep in my chair, sitting up. I was quite the sad sight at that moment. Since I stopped meditating I haven't been as carefree or as calm as I used to be most of the time. That is another blog post in itself, so I'll reserve talking about that later in my BLOGUST series.

Secondly, I would like to make time for reading. I read a lot, every day really. However I do not read anything I actually would enjoy reading. There is a pile of books I hauled off of back in February that I haven't even touched as I have no time to even skim through them. This saddens me greatly, ergo reading books in on my list of things I absolutely need to make time for. What good is having a load of witchy books if I can't even read the damn things? Sheesh.

Lastly, I want to make time to nurture my soul back to health. Since I came back home and got a job, started planning my career path, went back to school, I've lost some of the witch in me. It's there of course, buried underneath it all, sparkling through every so often when little things cross my path or I see a glimmer of the Craft in something. Like a little bird perched near my window looking in on me, or a look at the moon to see what phase its currently in and secretly wishing I could celebrate a little. Sigh. I'm going to make sure that I incorporate making time for my inner self a priority at the moment, which I'm glad to say is happening at this moment as I take some quiet time to write in my blog for the day. Tomorrow will be something new, something fun maybe, and I can keep on writing with myself in mind.

BLOGUST!

This new month has just begun, so I've taken up the challenge of making myself blog on a daily basis for the rest of the entire month. I'm not sure if all the posts will be Witchcraft, Paganism, or Wicca related, they might be about something that I've had on my mind for some time that I felt like writing about, Tarot readings and reflections, or it may be a review of a certain item I like or love (probably one of the numerous teas I collect), or even just a small quote or thought that popped into my head. The posts are not going to be specific length- just whatever I fancy at the time. My goal is to be consistent so that I can get into keeping my thoughts down for posterity again. I missed doing that. 

Keep checking in to make sure I'm posting like I should be!

And if you would like more of me, you can check out my Twitter as well. 

Lessons In Letting Go

This is something I should have posted last fall in October that I never did. I didn't post it because I honestly think I wasn't ready to. My life has changed in so many ways in the last few years, and I feel like it took me this long to get myself in a place of relative peace because I needed time and space to heal my emotional wounds. A year on and I'm now a stronger person with much less baggage than I used to have. So here it is, plain and simple. This is what I felt like returning home after a long journey, like a depleted and crestfallen Odysseus coming back to my own Ithaca. 

I want to preface this post by saying that life is strange, but sometimes you see it coming.

I saw it coming. Now it's here, and that's okay. I get it now. This is another lesson I have to learn.

As of this moment in time I've just returned home after 2 years of being away, and it's like I was never here at all. Yes, of course there are those few memories that I recall from long ago that bring a small smile to my face, but really those occasions where few and far between even in the good times. Being in a home where one never actually feels at home makes coming back awkward and, in many ways, sad. Seeing things you remember not with fondness but with a heartache and a tear attached to them is not comforting. That is why I am choosing now to let go. This my new mantra/coping mechanism/lifestyle/what have you. I am removing all that does not serve me in my life, or things with negative attachments (or both), and sending them out into the world. Some things are material and I hope they will be enjoyed by others, and some are not. Some things are emotional attachments, long-lived, that I really need to be rid of once and for all. I'm sure those of you that read my blog understand what I mean; we all go through hardships at some point in time. 

Since I've been home, which is about 2 weeks, I've gone through many of my material possessions and have begun preparing for the garage sales, and getting eBay set up, started donating to clothing drives and donation-based charities and the like. I feel good giving to others and making space for more freedom in my life; the act of giving and releasing myself from these objects should have been an activity I started many years ago. At least I have begun to do this now instead of waiting again for another opportunity to come along, because I do feel that right now it really has come down to the proverbial "now or never". *

*Reflecting on that time last year when I wrote this, I do not wish to alter it now. It does seem to have an unfinished quality to it, but that was me at that time- unfinished, in limbo if you will. I still have no regrets about my decision, and I'm found peace for the most part when it comes to that time in my life. Hope you've enjoyed the read. 

The First Harvest

It's been so long since I last came to write in my blog. My last post was nearly from one year ago now, and I was talking about change. I was, at the time, adamant about leaving my bad situation and beginning anew, which I happily announce to you all, my dear readers, that I have done just that. My life has changed dramatically since I become detached from my family. I now have a job, so now I've come to feel independent and confident again. I've also returned to school once again, working hard to finish off my bachelor's degree for good. I'm ready to enter the world of the working, capable adult, so any step in the right direction is going to take me closer to that goal regardless of how long it's taken me to make that step. So yes, I can certainly say that my life is better. It's not absolutely fabulous yet, but who can say that anything in life is perfect? Not anyone I know of. Which brings me to my main reason for returning to my blog. I know I've done this many times since the start of my blog, but the lean times seem behind me now, and I which to take stock and start fresh. Hence my reasoning for posting tonight.

Today was Lammas, the time of bringing the grain of the summer fields to our tables at the beginning of the harvest season. For those of us that live by the Old Ways, agricultural parallels to the seasons of life is our vehicle of harvest. The fall is once again going to be upon us for the year 2014, and it seems hard to believe even now that so much has come to pass so quickly. Reflecting upon my last year, I see how much I've changed, grown, as a person and as an individual. For someone like myself that has never had much of a presence or voice amongst my peers, I now feel like my aura has increased- that I have gained strength in who I am and where I need to be. I have become more leader than follower, in a position to nurture and help those looking to find their own place of confidence and positivity as well. This is me taking stock so far of my new journey, and the goddess helped in so many ways. As much as I was strong, this last year She gave me more strength to hold my ground. For all my shortcomings, She helped me find out what I was really capable of doing. 

This harvest is the beginning of what is to come, and I'm already preparing for what the autumn and winter may bring into my heart. 

Brightest blessings to you all this Lammas or Lughnasadh, and may we all be granted bountiful harvests of in our mind, bodies, and souls in the next Sabbats and months to come.