Happy Walpurgis Night

Walpurgis Night

https://rhapsodyboho.wordpress.com/2018/05/02/walpurgis-night/
— Read on rhapsodyboho.wordpress.com/2018/05/02/walpurgis-night/

You beautiful, brave soul

Picture taken from Pinterest

Dear brave one,

Your heart has been broken a thousands of times. You carry the scars of the past on your beautiful body, but many are often visible only to yourself. It is your love and passion that holds you together like sticky glue and prevents you from falling apart completely. You are unique, unapologetic, a beautiful mess of perfectly imperfect perfection, a warrior and a wild child, searching for a place to breathe, a sanctuary where you can just be.

Are you asking too much you wonder? Are your dreams fueled with the desires of your passion unrealistic and too far fetched? Is it all just wishful thinking, made up of the stories that only exist in fairytales?

Let me tell you that you are perfect in every way. You are not too emotional and you are not too sensitive. The strings of your emotions are pulled by bittersweet memories. A past that has taught you many lessons, but a past that is not your future, and a past that has definitely not defined you.

I know your heart is constantly at war with all of your emotions, each one fighting to be dominant. In confusion it distorts your reality to the point where everything becomes questionable. You put forward your best foot in a fight between the ego that rules your thoughts, and the heart that begs you to take a leap of faith and just trust the process. But you are stuck on repeat in this vicious cycle that never seems to have any answers, a hamster wheel that has you coming back over and over, to peddle faster and faster to not fall off. Time passes, perhaps even years go by as you grow weary and tired. What you would give for the noise to stop, to make it all go away, but still you haven’t managed to stop feeling. You find yourself amidst the never ending circle of an empath, ruled by so many feelings and outside influences.

You know the pains of such when you pick up on the energies of others. You feel when they’re happy, sad, angry, fake, and truthful. Without a spoken word, you know when they are using you and when they are being genuine.

You are not weak. You’re gifted with the ability of heightened intuition. It is said that it can be a blessing and a curse until you learn to protect yourself and surround yourself with those that bring out the best in you and not the stress in you.

Your anxiety is nothing to be ashamed of, and you carry a load much heavier than most. It’s a reminder that you have the gift of empathy. Not many possess this rare treat because it takes a special kind of individual to be as genuinely compassionate as you are. Your kindness is your strengths, not your weakness. Your open heart is love incarnate, and one of the most beautiful things in this world. Accept your blessings and own who you are. You have a beautiful, brave soul.

Pluto Retrograde

During this months full moon, I was lucky to join a local group of amazing people and participate in the pink full moon ceremony. One purpose was to release anything that no longer serves us, while giving back the old self to the creator to make room for your new self.

I also pulled this card pictured above and had to smile. I found it as confirmation for everything that has been going on lately. I am just now getting back into the process of posting regularly and getting back in touch with you. Of course health permitting, as it was due to that, and being unable to type at times. What hasn’t changed are the big dreams I have for myself and my ever growing future. This Pluto retrograde may just be my window of opportunity to make it all happen.

The retrograde begun on April 24th and will last until October 3rd. Pluto is all about intensity and digging deep into your life. You might also feel a little more angst around that time as Pluto brings up a lot of deep stuff within. You might wonder what you are doing with your life, what you feel passionate about, and the deeper meaning of things. It could be a scary time but also a time for transition. For most of us, it is those very times that scare us, while things as we know them change, and we don’t know what to expect. I guess it will depend on your own beliefs and whether you view your glass as half empty or as half full. The deep stuff may scare the wits out of you, but may also help you to come to terms. It will be the deciding factor of how you experience the next five month, so keep it as positive and easy going as possible for yourself.

I found a nice little compilation from Alex Myles highlighting the Pluto retrograde and here it is.

Pluto retrograde

April 24-October 3

Time for a major life transition

This retrograde illuminates the need to release anything harmful and out of alignment and brings in harmony, inner peace, health and transformation.

What to expect:

• Emotional, mental and spiritual renewal and regeneration
• Incredible opportunities replacing every disappointment
• The elimination of whatever has been holding you back
• Easily letting go of whatever has already let go of you
• Dissipation of anything superficial, outdated and unfulfilling
• Meaningful and soulful connections and amazing possibilities

Not all that bad is it? Carpe Diem 💙

Finding your voice

It can take years to find your voice and your true authenticity, where you belong. I can’t help but wonder if some may never make it, because I know that the path is steep, and not for the faint of hearts. You may have heard the call to follow your true heart, but the timing was not right and something held you back. “It will pass” you told yourself, unsure of what you were feeling. But it didn’t pass, did it, and instead it grew only stronger, so strong in fact that you could no longer ignore it.

You had no clue how your new found feelings could fit into a modern day society with certain behavioral expectations that don’t always embrace “The different”. How your taught values, morales, and guidelines could align, while you were still repressing your own calling. You didn’t know how to forget everything you’ve learned in order to be reborn into your own purposeful, self fulfilling, soul being. The process was long and hard, you stood out like a sore thumb (you thought), different but unique, beautiful and strong in the eyes of your own tribe. You couldn’t see it, you just weren’t “there” yet. Unable to recognize your worth and beauty, you only saw it as a hindrance, as if something was wrong with you. You faced confusing times where you questioned everything and where you felt lost and alone. It caused sleepless nights, loneliness, many tears, wishing to be different, to be accepted, and a heaping load of anxiety that threatened to crush you. You yearned to fit in, without realizing that it would cost you your uniqueness, your own special blueprint in order to do so. A price so high that it could never bring you happiness, nor bring you closer to who you really are. You were caught in a vicious cycle that was suffocating the pretending “You” without room for the true “You”. It all became an act, losing yourself a little more with each day, to the point of anxiety and depression. But if you are reading this, then you haven’t given up and I celebrate the true warrior spirit within you, because I know it hasn’t been easy.

My wish for you is to get there, to find your true voice and to embrace it. To stay the course and never falter, to realize that you have chased the wrong ideals, and that you are beautiful in every way. You are complete. I wish you the courage to stand by your dreams, to reach for the stars when others abandon you, when the path seems lonely and hard, and to cheer on the true desires within your heart. I wish you to never forget to listen to that voice deep inside of you and that the days have passed when you ignored it. To make a conscious choice to no longer dismiss the call out of fear of what others might think, and to recognize it as your true soul path. My wish for you is to find the strength to get up more times than you have fallen and to always view your glass as half full. To remember the silver lining in every adverse situation and to see the lessons for growth instead of the bitterness that is caused by pain.

Your voice will be loud and clear when you decide to embrace the weird, the wild, the non conformist side of your heart that has so many traits, values, and gifts. And believe it or not, there are others just like you, gorgeous, wild, and beautiful who have walked the path before you. The choice is yours and in the end our most treasured memories always have something a little wild about them, don’t they? Remember that everything you need is already deep inside of you.

~Namaste

You’re beginning to understand, aren’t you?

That the whole world is inside of you: in your perspectives and in your heart. That to be able to find peace, you must be at peace with yourself first; and to truly enjoy life, you must enjoy who you are; and once you learn how to master this, you will be protected from everything that makes you feel like you can not go on, that with this gift of recognizing yourself, even when you are alone, you will never be alone.

Earth Day

Just yesterday we celebrated Easter and I hope everybody got to spend time with friends and family.

I feel that I have been MIA lately, and there simply isn’t enough time for everything. It’s hard to grasp and it appears that I have less time now vs the time I had while I was working. Perhaps it is because there is so much important work to do now, because I am changing my stars, focused on healing both physical and emotionally, and it’s been a rollercoaster of a ride. But then again I did predict it would be, besides the health issues, those I did not forecast.

Today we celebrate Earth Day, and our Mother Earth is beautiful and abundant. I am going to do something a little different this year and decided to plant some wildflowers and food for bees on my hike today. I also want to plant a tree in the near future, a gift back to Mother Nature for her blessings, and something I should have done already.

Life is changing fast for me right now and I am in the middle of transformation and transitioning. But today I will take a break from the pressures and wish you all much love and abundance. The weather is finally warming up, maybe enough to take your shoes off and feel the heartbeat of the earth while grounding yourself.

Body, mind, and spirit (A confession to my body)

(painting by me)

Out of the blue this feels right to do as I realize that “you” and I did not always have a loving and accepting relationship. Today I acknowledge that the fault is all mine and that most of the time I couldn’t appreciate you the way you are, wishing you’d be different. I gave little attention, never realizing all the hard work you do for me in an effort to get me around and taking care of my daily business. We have been together for a long time and I should know you better than anyone. I should hear your words and warnings when you talk to me about your own struggles, but in most instances, I am selfish, making it all about “me” while finding little compassion for what you face on a daily basis. Today this changes and these words are dedicated to you, my body, because in the end it is you and me who are in this together. There is no separation and equal amounts of attention need to be given as we are a part of each other, body, mind and spirit. One can’t be healthy without the other and together we stand.

I’ve thought long and hard about what I wanted to say to you and there is so much. I could recount numerous occasions, and it is easy to see that I never gave you the credit you so much deserved. From little on, in my teens I had to go to physical therapy because a physical part of me wasn’t developing as it should. I was too young to understand and therefore didn’t blame you, but I do remember some of the excruciating exercises I had to perform to correct the issue. It was no fun to say the least and perhaps it was the beginning of us not being closes. Maybe in a silly not knowing way, through the eyes of a child that didn’t know any better, indirectly I did blame you and thought something was wrong with me. Funny how this feeling and false interpretation somehow became a theme song for me in many other instances of my life always looking for the fault within.

Years later while hitting puberty, I was a late bloomer and the pure pressures of school and classmates who were already visible further ahead of me, caused me to not be patient with you. I couldn’t understand your beautiful works, your process that couldn’t be rushed, that was turning me into a beautiful young woman. I put you under pressure and didn’t appreciate you for all the wonders you were doing for me. As long as I remember there was always something wrong with you in my eyes, although I should have always loved you. Even at my skinniest times, (which looks sick and anorexic to me now), I still found things not meeting my expectations, things wrong with you, whatever they might have been at that time.

I even went as far as evasively changing your appearance in a far cry to save my marriage. What was I thinking? I’ve fed you with junk food because I struggled to make ends meet in today’s middle class. Living healthy was not affordable and convenient. I did the best I could, but never realized how hard this must been on you, nourishing you with junk instead of the right fuel. I expected performance from you, but didn’t create the right conditions for you to support me. Still, you stayed strong for many years while I worked very hard. My jobs were demanding and physical, barely giving me enough time to eat a decent meal. Often there was no time for breaks and the junk had to be devoured with barely taking a breather. Unhealthy eating habits were formed and I still to this day I eat fast, swallowing big chunks without chewing properly. I constantly stop to remember myself to eat slowly, to chew well and give you bitesize little chunks to process. I know I create so much extra work for you having to break down a meal that must be lying in my stomach like a rock before it can be passed own through my system.

Stress and anxiety has been a constant companion in my life and we have fought more battles than we know to count together. You’ve always been a warrior and supported me for the longest, but time was taking its toll and I didn’t notice. You kept it all hidden for me and fought on to face another day. As a way to cope with it all, I fed you with smoke for many years during my smoking days. It couldn’t have been fun for you. I treated you like an ashtray, engulfing you in clouds of smoke instead of letting you breathe clean air, choking the breath right out of you. Luckily the day came when I felt ready and quit cold turkey after buying two full packs of cigarettes.

The damage was done and this all happened right around the time when I became sick with the RA. Everything went haywire and you were showing me what a life could look like, unable to perform the most basic tasks. I surely deserved it, never appreciating anything you did for me before. There were many painful lessons that crippled me over the next month and everything spiraled out of control. The once thought chubby woman (in my perception) was gaining weight I couldn’t get rid of. I found myself stuck in a vicious cycle of being in too much pain to exercise and no way of losing it. After month and month of suffering the RA finally went into remission, something I never thought possible, and still I could not claim a fully healthy lifestyle, balanced with my work and in line with body, mind and spirit. I had to continue doing what I had to and I needed you to support me and perform. I didn’t ask for your help and I didn’t thank you for allowing me to feel better, it just became the expectation. Surely I’ve been healthier by not smoking anymore, but now it was my weight that became my new struggle, leaving me feeling out of shape and challenged to get fit. I simply didn’t feel comfortable on many levels and once again it caused me to look at you negatively. How could I get better, I was still working physically demanding jobs with too little time in between to care for myself properly. But perhaps this just sounds like another poor excuse because where there is a will, there is also a way.

Looking back, it is clear that something was missing. I never fully learned my lesson during my first RA struggles. I failed to see how hard you work for me every day to accomplish all my tasks big and small. It should have been so easy to see, but I chalked it up to other things, such as the willpower to quit smoking, which ultimately you supported as well, through a state of body and mind. I thought it was all me doing it, but who am I? What makes me me? I am a combination of you and I never fully gave you any credit and thanks. It is now and many years later that I finally arrive at this realization. There is a sense of remorse for all the time that has passed, but there is also a sense of relief, of finally having come to that conclusion and seeing clearly. I am grateful for these lessons and the ability to learn them. I fear some others might never will and become bitter in the process of it, feeling like victims and life dealings of the short end of the stick. I say better late than never, and you have my word that positive chances are just around the corner.

What brought me to this point was you and a second reminder. It’s been months and months of struggling with physical pain. Physically I am at the heaviest weight I have ever been, regardless of what I try to lose it. Just thinking and worrying about it seems to do the exact opposite, and I only gain more. It’s quite unusual for someone who has always been thin, and yes as a by product and result of such, I haven’t been very happy with you. This experience has caused me to be very harsh and unforgiving to myself and to you. I see a picture I don’t like in the mirror, but I don’t see the weight you have to carry each day. I don’t acknowledge how hard you, my heart, and all of my self has to work each day, just to make me see another sunrise. I have been ungrateful and don’t give you the credit to make all those things possible for me, despite of thinking that I am a person that doesn’t take things for granted. I know that I have taken for granted some of the most important things in our life’s, not intentionally, but I have. Poor choices, or being stuck in a rut and routine, having to make a living, included.

It was on Monday where all this realization came into focus after a nightmare I had. A significant dream, dreamt by me who hardly ever dreams with my eyes closed. It took a second time around to learn a lesson I should have learned the first time, but I also know the circumstances were not right to fully execute the tools I had at the time. Again you spoke to me through pain, a pain that would force me to listen. You knew I wouldn’t otherwise and I would continue to go ahead on that same destructive path. Once again you rendered me helpless, with pains that took me to the very edge. Along the way you gave me enough glimpses and signs to figure it out, and one such sign was Germany and seeing the nice doctor that helped me. I was so sure that my pains were caused from an RA flare up, but according to him and a blood test he disagreed and said it wasn’t so. That never fully registered with me as the only intense pain like this could only be related to my prior struggles. I never put it together until now that there is such a thing as feeling physical pain through your emotional state of being. The good doctor gave me two shots, one cortisone and another to calm me down, allowing me to get some distance from the emotional dramas that were unfolding in my life.

It was Monday that it became clear to me that my pains are caused from an emotional state of being. From stress, from anxiety about issues in my life that remain unresolved. I don’t know how but I just know. It was then, that I finally stopped blaming you, and realized that I have some tools to make these changes. Your message was loud and clear and you showed me what it feels like to lose the things I never appreciated from you. To feel helpless and crippled, unable to perform basic tasks. Today I am here to say that I am sorry and it’s not nearly enough. I still want you to help me lose wait, but it is so we can have a healthier partnership together. I will never again underestimate everything you do for me, and I hope that through body, mind and spirit we regain full range of motion, without everything being such a struggle.

I still have a tough path ahead of me and the future will require some work, but it looks positive and peaceful, and you will definitely like it there. I will never rush like I needed to before feeding you with junk and not listening to you by pushing on in an unhealthy manner. Together we will work as a team and resolve all issues to put our best life forward. I need you help and support, and I ask you to please invest in me and forgive me. I give thanks to the days with reduced pain, the days you give me another chance to move with more freedom, while I make conscious choices to support our mission. Water included and you shall not run dehydrated again. I’ve long learned my lesson that it is not too expensive or impossible to live healthier. You either pay for it now or you do later, and sometimes it’s just a matter of preplanning and execution.

Tonight as we enter the pink full moon, I will celebrate these new beginnings and give my old self back to the creator. To let the past stand where it belongs and to set the intentions for manifesting a new future. 2019 remains a year of preparation and change. To get situated to where body, mind, and spirit can exist in peace and as one. Tonight this shall be sealed and sent to the universe as I shed the things that no longer serve my purpose and emerge in a clear path, united as one.

Volcanic activity

There is something about this rock shaped by volcanic activity and I always look for it when in the area. The area I live in is so rich in variety, filled with so much beautiful landscapes that are completely different from each other, from one direction to another, no matter where the wind carries you. It’s beautiful if you love Mother Nature and can appreciate her many faces. Or you might simply enjoy the variety and the the impacts that volcanos, glaciers and the desert had on the landscape.

Sierra Nevada Splendor

The granite Sierra Nevada mountains, and the limestone Buttermilk’s make this an area of extreme beauty and a favorite place to explore. But beware, this place gets hot and crowded in the summer month with people bouldering and climbing. However, if you can tolerate the heat, then there is plenty of space to get away and find your own little corner of bliss. We found an awesome place a few weeks ago as all the monarch butterflies passed by with a little seasonal waterhole to cool off in. Surely it will evaporate in the summer heat which will bring another blessing and make way to an awesome camp spot under the full moon.

Yolo….🦋

Life-Guard

This recent picture of a life guard chair at Sand Harbour / Lake Tahoe, brought a little extra to me. It reminded me of some special people in my life, people that touch my heart, and sometimes even save us from drowning when we struggle.

We all struggle from time to time, and it has been no secret that my health really played a number on me since Germany. I am still fighting and this picture with the still waters reminded me to stay cool, to remain calm and keep the faith. To wait for a new dawn and to never let go of hope. The heart shaped snow tells me to keep love within my heart, it’s the beginning and the end to everything. The chair itself brings the message to rise above, and get up no matter how many times we fall. To stand tall and know that your own life guards always have your back.

Wishing you a beautiful Sunday. In light and love. ❤️🦋