Weather is damn near perfect today.

We just got up a few hours ago.  Slept in terribly late because we were out all night partying across the street with our best friends, Tina & Jon.  It was Tina’s birthday, and she had a little party.  There were five couples, I think… and the ladies sat around and talked while the guys played pool, threw darts, and played air hockey.  I made a new friend!!  It’s beautiful to find kindred spirits… and I found a good one!  I love it when that happens.

Isn’t it funny?

Landon’s in the kitchen, whistling along with his new Raconteurs CD, making chile rellenos for his Grammy.  I’m getting ready to throw another load of laundry in…  For a minute I thought of everything to do today, and I was THRILLED when I realized that I could scratch homework off of my list.  Hooray!!!

When I’m actually done with school, I’m probably going to be bored out of my mind.  I mean, how could one possibly get along with no homework after 15 years of schooling POST-high school!?

It’ll be crazy, and I’m going to love every minute of it.

Today I focus on my beautiful, warm, happy, healthy, loving, calm and safe home.  I focus my energy on learning a smooth and focused ability to play my piano.  I focus my energy on being able to paint you a picture with my words.  I focus my energy on achieving my goals, allowing for challenges and continuing to plow through them with ease and delight.  I create a clean environment, free of clutter and easy on the eyes.  I focus my energy on my warm and affectionate partner in this life.  I focus my energy on raising two brilliant and amazing children.  I focus my energy on attracting people cut from the same cloth as we are.  I focus my energy on the comfort of sleep, and the entertainment from the fellow little creatures we provide for in this home.  I focus my energy on blessings and ritual.  I focus my energy on my reliable car that gets me from here to my job easily.

My life is beautiful.  It is easy, and energetic. It’s fruitful and aware. And there is plenty of time to get everything done that I desire.

I believe in the magical.

Not because these things necessarily have special powers, but because I believe in the power of belief in something.

To quote my man, “What you believe works for you, to the extent that you believe it.”

I’ve known a Christian who was healed of a terrible bone cancer through the power of prayer.

I’ve seen vicious prayer-encloaked gossip sessions turn terrifying, as the room filled with demons.

I’ve been caught up in shared visions with a close girlfriend.

I’ve heard people speaking in tongues, possessed by their Lord.

I’ve met angels who’ve brought news of comfort and then disappeared without a trace.

I’ve found comfort in Jesus, when I could only see him in my bedroom mirror.

I’ve watched inanimate things move on their own accord.

I’ve had intuitions that were positively psychic.  Lots of them.

I’ve seen people in trances, I’ve cast my own spells.

I’ve read tarot and had a solid answer to my question after I’ve read it.

The same basic thread?  Belief.  Belief will bring you to your knees.  It will make a grown man cry.  It can cause miracles and provide explanation for the unexplainable.  Spirituality is a desire that runs so deeply within most of us– so deeply that at its peak, most of us would burst with explosive energy just to feel that way again.  It’s a desire, a need, a part of the human psyche that can only be left unquenched when you refuse to allow yourself to move towards the natural state of ethereality, regardless of what shape or color your own personal belief system looks like.

It’s a human condition to be possessed by spirituality. Apparently it’s a very regularly occurring condition also to believe that what you believe is the only possible right belief system. Which, to me, is a sad form of ignorance because the various forms of spirituality are as vast and as beautiful as every individual in their own right.  To deny the utter perfection in every frame of belief system is to deny the perfection that is the beauty and difference found in each of us.  It’s beautiful because it’s personal.  And ultimately, it’s perfect because spirituality is not something that’s a one size fits all sort of passion.  Instead, it is something that blankets everyone in their own flavor, bringing forth an entire rainbow’s spectrum of shapes and sizes of spirituality.

My form of spirituality is magic.  I believe in magic, just like those Disneyland commercials try to capture in their theme song.  (Is that their theme song still?)  I believe in energy and that every thing has its own level of energy.

Science is able to paint for me a clearer picture of this magic, and humanity and psychology push the canvas further and further out from the center point of my belief system, covering a vast expanse of area that just fits right for me.   The great part about this is that my form doesn’t have to look appealing or appeasing to you because my spirituality is not designed for anyone besides myself.

There are so many herbs to become familiar with!

I just purchased a new (used) book for myself.  I’m very excited to immerse myself in it completely.

I also purchased a second gift for myself, the Witches Calendar for 2009!

This is such a beautiful calendar, and it has SO many interesting bits of information for every month.  It has daily colors, astrological information such as when the moon enters different signs, the moon phases, and when Mercury goes into retrograde, etc.  I’m SO excited to begin my new year with such a rad work of art!!

There were a few other gifts, such as my citronite pendant, a number of sage smudge sticks, and a few other gifts for some very special ladies in my life… The bookstore I went to was having a moving sale, and everything was 70% off… I never go shopping like that, and I guess I was saving up for this very date.  I just didn’t realize it until today!

The tree in Landon’s dad’s backyard

More of this beautiful tree

Candle on the mantle

Christmas Cheer

Landon’s Dad’s tree

Landon’s Dad’s fish pond

Four beautiful candles

My aunt’s mantle

Grammy in the mirror

Santa’s little elf

Snow globes at my Grandmother’s

Click on the link for pictures of actual people, including me & Landon!!!

(more…)

There are eight pots of paint arranged before me, in a circle.  A circle is for protection.  Blue is for childhood memories and yellow is for memories of the future.  Green is for my career, and red is for my past lives.  Gold is for my friendships, and white is for my mind.  Black is for my fears, and also for my gods.  Pink is for my lovers, and orange is for my true love.

I pick up the paintbrush.  Its tip is made of straw, like an old fashioned broom.  It has deep dark bristles and a maple handle. When I roll the brush between my palms, I can feel its energy.  I dip the tip of my bristles into the pot of gold.  Flecks of gold dust jump into the air, swirling and sparkling.  Gold flecks smell like waxy vanilla and lavender.

The candles flicker and sound evacuates from my circle.

Shhhhh.

My canvas is blank.  With nostalgic memories of those before now, and eagerness for those after now, I slowly and intentionally begin to paint my picture.

I am the artist.  What this canvas will look like is up to me in the end.  The colors I choose will paint a scene that is exactly as I desire as long as I am intentional in what I want them to look like.

I bite my lip and glance at my past canvases.

To my surprise, they are as white as the sun, glowing with a full spectrum rainbow of colors, glistening in the past.

I thought maybe they’d be a conglomeration of all of the past colors, forming a dark black, maybe a deviant brown.  Mix the colors up in a way that is unbecoming of your desires, and you will get a dark, ugly painting.

At least, that’s what they were before I began my new canvas.  Dark, ugly patterns, mazes with only dead ends, missing maps, and chaotic lessons.  Now the paint has dried, though, and there is no dark, ugly picture.  Instead, it is the perfect balance of every color, leading up to pure white, the color of a complete spectrum, a rainbow with the intensity you can only observe if you were to look back on your own past canvases with utter contentment.

I smile because I realize that this perfect complement of colors on past canvases only reiterates my sentiment that there is no such thing as regret– only lessons one has not yet learned.  And with a nod, I acknowledge my understanding of the past lessons well learned, and redirect my attention to my new canvas.  Beautifully etched in gold, I see companionship, intelligence, understanding, open-mindedness, and pure love.  I have painted it beautifully.  I didn’t even notice the movement in my hands.  Alas, painting a canvas has no condition that requires a steady hand, only a steady heart.  A steady mind, and a list of desires.  It is that simple.  And difficult.

I’m an earth-loving, tree-huggin, hippie pagan.  I’m a life tasting, beauty appreciating, sensory-oriented human being.  I’m a kitteh cooing, animal appreciating, green-livin, lover of life.  I believe in psychic energy, the power of your thoughts over your experiences, and the ability to communicate via the mind.  I am a piano playing, homework doin, studious student.  I’m a science geek, am literature literate, and a math competent genius.  I’m a writer, and a poet.  I’m a garden growing, houseplant talking, conscientiously cautious driver.  I believe in the limits of the human body but still think you can heal yourself through prayer.  I’m a spell-casting, candle lighting, incense burning, rationalist. I’m a democratic, liberal-minded, fiscally responsible voting woman.  I value psychology, spirtuality, and chemistry equally.  I love anatomy and physiology and english.  I can read a book written in German.  I can tie friendship braclets that are both colorful and ornate.  I am convinced that eventually, after much empowerment and coercion, my pets will go get jobs.  My hands and feet are always cold.  I’m easily annoyed.  I’m a control freak when it comes to laundry.  And a lot of other things, too. I’m happy with me, comfortable in my own skin.  I would be happy to never have to brush my hair again.  As long as I have hair.

I have had very little time to myself to sit and think.  Let alone to sit and write.

There’s a constant buzz and I’m concerned that I’ve temporarily lost myself.  How can I be that sexy beautiful creature I pride myself to being when I cannot think?  Ha ha ha.

Step-parenting is a lot of work.  I think it may be even more of a challenge when you go from having no children to having someone else’s children, because if you are a parent and you have your own children, you at least go through the process of carrying the child, getting used to the idea of having a baby, then the birth and infancy and all those crazy things I’m just as happy about skipping.

The thing is that this is the perfect avenue for me to be along.  I didn’t want to be pregnant or give birth to my own.  I get all the benefits of parenting without having to have gone through all of the hard parts.

Except that I’m still trying to figure it out.  I s’pose parents don’t know everything, and they, TOO, are only trying to figure things out.  And maybe I have more patience than parents because I’m fresh meat.  I don’t know where my lines or limits necessarily are, though,  except for those I’ve intended prior to placing myself into a parenting role.  Those that I had observed in others and either confirmed or denied my agreement with them… But those mean nothing until you have children.

I’m working on figuring out a few key behavioral problems.  Like how to make a child listen or do what you tell them to within a few minutes of you telling them to.

I know, it’s a big chunk to swallow.

I guess the key is consistency.  It’s sort of difficult to be consistent when you are unsure of yourself.

It’s sort of difficult to be sure of yourself if you have no clue what you’re doing.

But I *do* sort of have a clue.  I have a clue in that I’m text-book educated.  I’ve got the experience in that I’m around kids quite a bit, and I helped raise my ten-year younger brother…  I am very good with the kids, and that’s gotta be some sort of indication of having a clue, isn’t it?!

Whether or not I have a clue is probably a subjective question.  What I do know is this: I love these kids and love parenting them.  At the same time, and with the equal quality of passion, I miss my own time and the ability to think.

It gets easier to think after a few years, doesn’t it?

I’m just thrilled that we have such a great relationship with the kids’ mom and that we play the switch every week plan.  Because a week on/week off is a very beneficial arrangement for those of us who need a break once a week.

It’s not about gifts.  It’s not about making sure you buy everyone something.

It’s about being with people you care about.  It’s about expressing love for the people you surround yourself with.

It’s about saying thank you and expressing gratitude.  It’s about family and friends.

It’s about my grandmother not having breast cancer.

It’s about health.

It’s about having a steady and reliable job and a car that gets you there.

It’s about having a roof over your head.  And heat coming from your furnace.  And lights and electricity so I can read and write.

It’s about getting through a semester and knowing you did exactly what you needed to do.

It’s about having food to eat and clean clothes to wear.

It’s about luxuries like showers and bubble baths.

It’s about free time to play the piano and the ability to learn Christmas songs.

It’s not about fighting the crowds in order to get the gifts you’re obligated to buy.

It’s not about making a list and checking it twice.

It’s not about the prettiest gift wrap or Christmas lights.

It’s about knowing that every day before you has hope to be the best day ever, and putting forth the effort to make that happen.

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