me me me
We are all in this together — by ourselves.
~Lily Tomlin
A small (ok, maybe it’s not so small) personal history:
I was born in Ecuador SA, where my parents were missionaries. (more about that can be seen here if you are interested). When I was 17 I ran away from home (Cali, Colombia) and ended up in Kansas City, where I lived on the wild side in communes and flop houses, practicing “free love” and pretty much embracing the “flower child” lifestyle. Eventually I settled for less, and got married, raised children and ended up living a rather mediocre and unsatisfactory life.
To stay sane, I practiced transcendental meditation and spent a lot of time taking care of chickens, dogs, ducks, flowers, children,cats, rabbits, and whatever else came my way to take care of. I took care of everyone except for myself. Then, I had a series of miscarriages, planned a number of suicide scenarios, had a dream that I saw God, and then woke up realizing that I was done with life as I had been doing it.
I enrolled in the toughest dog training school in the midwest, and learned how to confront my fears under the strong arm and eagle eye of former army marine drill sargeant Frank Catania. It was the most terrifying 6 weeks of my entire life, worse even than being sent away to boarding school at the age of 5. But I got through it, and for several years, worked as a full time dog trainer. I trained a lot of dogs. It was very hard work, and almost very satisfying. Key word being “almost”.
Being self employed allowed me to explore all sorts of different things, and during this period of being financially secure (still married – albeit unhappily)I delved into Native American Spirituality, studied Reiki became a Reiki Master, and a hypnotherapist, walked on fire, dug up crystals, visited shamans, had visions, worked in the dream time, read a gagillion books, and discovered that I was an artist.
And then I got divorced, my financial security immediatly disappeared, and so I got scared, and went out and got a “real” job and embarked once again on a life of not quite doing what I really wanted to do, and not quite being who I really wanted to be. I did continue to practice the native american spirituality, and I did continue to pursue shamanic training, but I rarely found time for art, and I spent most of my time trying hard to convince myself that I could be “good enough” and looking for that reassurance in the eyes of other people.
I hated my job.
I hated it so much that I wanted to throw up, literally, whenever I thought about going to work. I made elaborate suicide plans. I went to counseling. I hated myself almost as much as I hated my job. The therapist wanted to put me on medication. I refused. She said, “but Shirley, if you had cancer, wouldn’t you take medication for that?” and I said, “no, if I had cancer I would be happy, and I would die.” That’s how bad it got.
A number of interesting things happened after that conversation. I quit my job. Found a job I really loved. Lost that job when business took a nose dive. Was unemployed for almost a year. Got into very bad financial situation. Realized that I was getting old. Fell into a terrible depression. Was immobilized for months. Finally, I found a job doing the worst possible thing with the worst possible schedule for the least amount of money. It occured to me that the job was going to actually kill me. It occured to me that I didn’t care.
To satisfy my sister, who was worrying about me, I started an art project. Middle of the Night Art. Every night at work, I would draw and color a “mandala” of what the inside of my heart looked like. It was the most intense spiritual work I have ever done. I decided that I didn’t care if the pictures were stupid. I decided that I didn’t care if I was stupid. I decided that I didn’t care what other people thought of me. I quit looking into other people’s eyes for validation.
Life sucked. I sucked. And that was OK.
One day, I watched The Lord of the Rings and decided to change my life altogether. I decided to pick out who I wanted to be, and just act as if I was that. I decided to recreate me in the image and likeness of my best me, which would have to (of course) also include the image and likeness of the worst me. And that’s what I am working at right now. Finding out how to be at peace with the best and the worst of myself, the best and the worst of life on earth as a human woman.
From other facts we may run away, but after every consciously or unconsciously maneuvered escape, we find ourselves back where we started, with ourselves on our hands.
~Harry Emerson Fosdick
Here’s a very old post from shirleytwofeathers.blogspot.com, one of my first blog posts on my personal blog. Interestingly, I posted it nine years ago to the day!! Some of the websites mentioned are no longer applicable (and I removed their links), and some of the links are to blogs and projects that will be moved to this site hopefully sometime soon. So… here it is!
Hmmm.. what shall I say about myself? Well, I am an intensely creative person. I love working on big impossible projects. And I get insanely bored with routines and stuff that happens every day – like dishes, and laundry, and full time employment.
Writing about myself is always just.. well intimidating. Let me see…. I am an artist currently exploring gypsy magic. I am also a Reiki master, a shaman, a mother, and a grandmother. I am currently working on a number of seemingly totally unrelated internet projects.
My art can be found at Green Dolphin Studio.com (oops, not any more) and also at Mandala Madness at Etsy (another shop that has since closed). I also have a store front at Cafe Press where you can find a lot of cool stuff with my art on it.
I have been working with some friends of mine, exploring various approaches to prosperity. We blog about it at The Prosperity Project and if you are interested in joining us, we would be delighted to have you. So far we have tried prayer, acts of kindness, feng shui and decluttering, Steve Pavlina’s million dollar experiment, a Ganesh mantra to remove obstacles, and putting God First. We are just finishing up 30 days of “Gratitude”, and have not yet decided for sure on what’s coming up next. It has been a life changing and awesome experience.
I have been exploring and practicing Gypsy Magic and made a little blog site to share the spells I have been using and my experiences with them. It’s been a lot of fun.. and works really well for me, although I do not update there very often. Come see it, and try a spell or two.
My parents were missionaries in Ecuador South America. And I grew up there, and in an effort to assimilate and make sense out of that experience I collected my dad’s photos (he is an awesome photographer) and made a line of greeting cards from them. I am now working on getting a little website made and in the mean time, when I have time, I am blogging the images and other stuff from my childhood at The Gospel Missionary Message, while at the same time creating cool stuff at yet another cafe press shop. This one is the Gospel Message at Cafe Press.
You might wonder how it is that gospel missionary and gypsy magic are both projects that I am deeply immersed in.. I wonder that too. One of the things that I constantly struggle with is that my core beliefs are often seemingly in direct conflict with one another.
This has been a big struggle for me until recently. And I have been able to resolve it in a way that really surprised me. I happened to take an online test just for fun, to see what my religion was. When the answer came up that I am a Buddhist, something delightful happened. I decided to be a Buddhist! And now, whenever life gets troublesome, or stuff happens, I just remember that – Oh yes, I’m a Buddhist. Life is suffering! But it’s an illusion, so it doesn’t matter. And then I smile, and breathe, and laugh at myself, and the troublesome stuff just dissapates. It’s been like a miracle for me.
My sister has been adding some really awesome poetry to my series of mandalas, and I have uploaded some them here for you all to enjoy on my blog here at Zaadz (not any more). I have also made a small website them, and for all things mandala that interest me. It can be found at Mandala Madness the blog. And I have been blogging my favorite quotes at Way Cool Quotes, and tons of really neat pictures at Way Cool Pictures.
So, I don’t know what else to say except. Hello and Goodbye..
And that reminds me of an old Gypsy saying, the english translation goes something like this:
Go with God!
Stay with God!
Go, for God’s sake!
Stay, for God’s sake!
By God!
LOL
Here I am with a new blog, only this time it’s also an old one because I am planning to move the shirleytwofeathers blogger blog content over here to my website (along with everything else). So. Enjoy!
Did you ever have a dream that was so cool, so real, and so vivid that not only do you know it “means” something, you’d also like to figure out a way to get back into it and make it come true in your real waking life?
About 2 weeks ago, I had one of those. And then a series of events have happened to underscore it, and tonight I’m taking steps to say to the Universe, to tell the powers that be, “Hey – I’m up for it!”
So, here’s the dream:
In the dream, I hooked up with Opie, one of the bikers on the Sons of Anarchy. We had great sex, we had real love, and it was so so good! Now, interestingly, my ex-husband (now deceased) and Opie look really a lot alike. Here’s something else that’s interesting. When Mike (my ex) really began to slide towards the other side, I started to see him in my dreams more and more.
After he died, I began to see him every where I went. On the way to the viewing I saw him about 6 different times. I thought that the viewing would make his passing seem more real to me, but just the opposite happened. Now he doesn’t seem dead at all. Often he comes to me in dreams… that feeling of closure I had when the divorce was finalized is gone and it feels to me like we are connected in some deep irredeemable way.
But, back to the dream… no… wait… here are some pictures. The first one is Opie, the second one is my ex.
That being said, back to the dream. Opie and I hooked up, fell in love, had great sex, and then he had some business to take care of and I had to go to work. We decided to go someplace cool over the weekend, and I drove to work. When I parked the car, I saw that there were ripe black blackberries growing just beyond the parking lot. They looked so ripe and so good that I decided to go into “Heavenly Pets” (that’s where I was working) and get a bowl to put them in.
This is how good they looked:
So, I go into the shop, and the place is a mess, dog hair everywhere. One of my daughters was there and I said, “We better get this place cleaned up!” But first, I wanted to find a bowl for the blackberries.
So, I went outside with the bowl, all ready to have some yummy fruit, and this woman comes charging up to the door with her dog (Heavenly Pets is a dog grooming salon), all pissy and wanting to come in. I said to her, “We don’t open until 8 o’clock.”
She says, “It’s ten after nine!”
And I’m like… Fuck Me! And then, people with dogs started pouring out of cars and mobbing the front door. I gave up on the collecting the fruit idea and went back into the shop only to find that it was now a really horrible mess in there. Dog shit everywhere – piles and piles of it. Dogs running around loose. Dog hair. Dirt. It’s chaos and really really gross.
My other daughter has decided to pull all the cages out and clean under them. And I’m running around cleaning up shit, and shit, and even more shit! Then, we pull out a cage and underneath it is a dead cow. A whole cow, dessicated and flat, but a cow nonetheless… I’m like… what a bunch of crap! Literally! 10 times worse than this!
Suddenly, I remembered about Opie… and how we were in love, and going to do something cool. So I told everyone (my coworkers) that I was “no longer a virgin” and that I had a cool biker dude…
Next thing you know, he shows up. Looking all cute, wearing his “cut,” and ready to go. In the picture, (it’s really hard to find a good Opie pic) he looks kind of intense, in the dream, he was all smiling and cute.
And I’m thinking… “Damn! How can I leave now, with all this shit to clean up?” I could feel myself beginning to make the decision to stay and clean the never ending piles of shit and death, when I suddenly woke up. Wide awake. Dream so vivid in my mind! And right then and there, I decided that given a choice love vs shit, freedom vs work, cute biker vs dead cow, I’m going for love, freedom, and cute…
I told my daughter about it, and she was sure that I’d never find a biker or a biker type that was anywhere near anyone I’d have anything in common with. But then, I found Shaman Hawk’s post about being a Shaman and I’m thinking he has that “biker” look and that “biker” attitude. Not only that, but (like Opie) he had a thing with a porn star… and one of the girls at work who encouraged me that maybe I should go looking for a biker… well, her name is Donna. Which is the name of Opie’s dead wife. Coincidences… maybe… signs and portents… also maybe… I dunno.
Anyway, tonight I’m hanging out at bonafide biker bars with my friend Sequoia. (Another interesting coincidence since Shaman Hawk’s girlfriend’s name is also Sequoia.) This is my way of making it clear to “the powers that be” that I absolutely choose freedom, love, fun, and cute over work, death, and shit. As Shaman Hawk would say, you “gotta do the pictures.”
Postscript:
I’m revisiting this post in 2023, and realizing that I did actually make the decision to stay and deal with the shitstorm that I am apparently needed for. Moral of the story? When you are IN the dream, that’s when the decisions are made… not after the fact when you have had time to think about it and maybe a little more common sense!
If an image has posted without permission please leave a comment and I will happily remove it, replace it, give credit, link love ~ whatever you prefer.
I think it's time to go shopping... maybe even buy some really cool stuff at my online shops!!
