Pas très assidue depuis quelques semaines...
Pourtant les jours se succèdent et ne se ressemblent pas...
C'est aujourd'hui le dernier jour du solstice d'été...

De retour hier soir du dernier long weekend faisant partie de la formation d'un an au "shamanic healing", le bilan de cette année (plus exactement 9 mois - encore!!) est riche de découvertes, d'apprentissages, de tentatives, de réussites...

- Apprendre à apprendre pour moi et non pour le "prof"
- Accepter que je suis unique et non spéciale
- Laisser la place à/faire vivre ce serpent kundalini qui se réveille dans le bas du dos
- Quand je danse, je m'honore
- Le shamanisme est (tout au moins à ce jour) un complément extrêmement important à mon développment personnel, mais n'est pas le centre, n'est pas (encore?) mon chemin
- Apprendre à travailler en groupe, faire tomber les masques et savoir être vulnérable

et maintenant il est temps que je me remette à la rédaction des "facteurs psychologiques qui me poussent à vouloir entamer la formation de psychothérapie"... c'est toute une histoire, je n'en finit pas de finir puis de redémarrer... :-)

chat-chat-chat..... chat-chat-chat......

yes, talking, blah blah blah...
serious and deep one minute, shallow and silly the next, and back again... how fantastic!

Learning to be open, expose and put on the table even (above all?) what's uncomfortable but in a a conscious way - not leaking energy by spreading oneself in bits amongst several friends, rather distillate information that one wants to share... It makes such a difference!! Not only there's no leakage of energy but instead space made free in one's life for newness to enter... unbelievable!

from being soooooo turning inward in the last couple of years, i'm opening to the world again, I'm laughing at myself for taking myself so seriously, I feel lighter and at times shallow... and that is a good feeling!!!

And I feel that I want to put my new strengths, center, femininity, discovered sexuality, sensuality to the test of a new relationship... I feel that I want (and am ready?) to be joyful and also hurt and that this won't crush me... only time will tell!

scary...

2 years that I've been filling in this pages with bits and bobs of my life, situations, crises, introspecting, analysing, observing, chasing and playing the detective, trying to discover who I am, why I act the way I do, judging yet trying to be gentle....

nearly a month that I haven't written anything... almost anything... most of time I didn't even think about it. At times I did, I didn't feel like it. No words, no wish to sit down and share, no need to be serious and evaluate where I am, how far I've gone, compare, judge...

My analyst lent me this book Narcissism and Character Transformation: Psychology of Narcissistic Character , by Nathan Schwartz-Salant a few weeks back. Fantastic book, but very complicated. Yet it shifted something inside and the one thing that had struck me is how narcissistic people can not be happy. As if it's just not on!!! It hit me hard. real hard. And yesterday I was having a wonderful chat with my friend A. and she asked me the question "can you be happy?", to which i finally answered yes!!! That brought tears of fear and relief, pride and guilt....

I am learning to be happy, lighter, frivolous, owning the right to be, with the risk that it brings other people to envy me! basically I'm seeing that it is possible to take life not as seriously, have fun, have various types of friends... and lots more!!

I am very grateful to my current and older friends who've put up with me in these last few years where I've been looking for darkness...

just a few keywords...

crisis, hurt, depression, emotions, tears, love, pain, expansion, knowing & feeling, cell memory, ir-rational, repair, tension, 3rd, openings, sociable, within & without, moon-time, compassion, compensation, empathy, food, womanhood, teenager, fun, free fall, grieving, laugh, terrifying, blessings, grateful, narcissism, oyster, divided, brick wall, ocean, boat, horses, home, justice, authority, envy, jealousy, rank, older & younger, race, spring, death, flowering....

negative energy....

I've registered for a 4-week course untitled "touching the unseen" and tonight was the second week, when we talked about meditation. We shared our personal practice and as the talking stick went around the circle i became very aware of a fact: a few people around the circle have a positive thought while meditating or call in positive energy, or say a positive mantra... and release negative energy...

I can't help thinking - where does all these negative energies go to? surely it can't be safe to just let it go, can it?

i asked this question and the teacher had some answer that didn't convince me, and rather the opposite. He said that we could release it to the Earth and that it would take care of it. How? The Earth is a living being and knowing how water cristals react to different emotions, words or peace of music (see Miraculous messages from water, Emoto's work), i can not believe that releasing negative energy into the cosmos is a good thing...

What I believe is that we've got to take responsibility for our negative thoughts and energy, too and transform them ourselves, one way or another before they can be released. Or else, other beings - humans or not - will end up picking up these energies they have not asked for...

Please, don't tell me i'm the only one thinking that way....

a new softness

another monday and another discovery on the dance floor...

tonight there was a softness about me that i do not remember having noticed in the past;
i found an acceptance within that transpired without;
i accepted to be touched by others around me and it translated by mimicking others' moves, and therefore very foreign to my usual movements;
in chaos i observed myself breathing in deeply and easily, while at other times I would have been short of breath and in need to stop for the lack of air;
i was my own spectator in Lyrical when it seemed at times that my hands and feet were synchronised via puppet-like ropes;

i was greeted by half moon as I walked out, and received a welcome into the night and its golden darkness;

last but certainly not least "i judge people and therefore believe everyone judges me. Best therefore to judge myself first, at least I know what to expect, however harsh..." yes, i had known this truth for years but tonight my eyes opened onto it in a very different way that i can not explain. all i can say is that i just KNEW it in my heart, I SAW the full impact of it on others and myself and I wondered how it will feel, eventually, to look at people not with a new eye, someday in the near or far away future...

for now, i'll just keep observing and catching myself

powerful moon time

at the time of the new moon in Taurus - pleasure, fertility, natural abundance, material security, sensuality, conservation, values, self-worth, steady creative progress, slowing down

just past Beltane - Celtic festival of fire, fertility and love, also known as May Day, when maidens with flowers in their hair dance around the phallic May pole. At Beltane, the maiden met the Horned-God or Green Man in a cave, and coupled with him anonymously. It was a sacred act, and the fruits of that meeting were considered semi-divine. Taurus embodies divine desire, because it is a creative force that sustains life

putting 2 and 2 together and matching my last week with these important and powerful symbols, cermonies and rituals gives the experiences even more weight...

welcomed anger

I am very grateful to T. as he's allowed me unearth a strong emotion - once more

A few weeks back, "he sent me" to reexperience the most painful wound, one I had been not only avoiding but ignoring for years and years.... it'd been calling for attention in recent years, and the calls had grown louder in recent months and weeks, and BANG!!! one action, one decision, one word, one situation and the trap under my feet opened large and wiiiiiiiiiide...

Yes I fell deep into darkness
No I did nothing to stop the descent
Yes it was the most painful experience
No I didn't enjoy it
Yes I watched myself falling
No I don't wish the same pain to my worst enemy
Yes i would do the same again if it was required
Yes I knew deep down that it was worth the pain
Yes I discovered a real treasure in the darkness

Tonight he cancelled a meeting at the last minute and because it wasn't the first time, I felt a surge of anger rising and rising... the good thing was that I was on the train and wouldn't have called him there and then for the whole carriage to share what I had to say. Some things are private, after all! This time though I kept this anger going until I was home.

Yes I voiced it
No I didn't want to hurt myself for it
Yes my heartbeat was going very fast with anxiety
No I didn't feel guilty
Yes I broke a real good sweat
No I wouldn't do any different
Yes it was simply anger which vanished after taking shape in words
Yes remnants of the original pain resurfaced after our phone call
Yes I felt worthy, centered and respecting myself

it came
was expressed
went

end of story
thank you

v'là l'printemps!!

premier samedi de vrai printemps!!! yeepee!!! il était temps car la pelouse poussait, poussait, poussait... les quantités d'eau tombées ces dernières semaines lui convenaient si bien...

alors
Flymo est a-rri-vé-é-ée
sans s'pressé-é-ée
et elle a bien marché-é-é

next au programme de la journée, monter une table de jardin et sortir 4 chaises de leur carton!!!


c'est pas excitant tout ça???

un soir de printemps

je suis rentrée du boulot par le chemin des écoliers ce soir.

Métro direct, traversée de Tower Bridge, profitée de la vue et d'une lumière magnifique et changeante entre le gris sombre et les rayons du soleil traversant quelques nuages et illuminant l'eau couleur argent...
et puis c'était marée basse, et je suis descendue au bord de l'eau écouter les mouvements incessants, remercier ce fleuve majestueux qui fait vivre Londres, qui lui donne des ailes... je me suis sentie adoucie, caressée, invitée à ouvrir mon coeur - jusqu'à ce que le petit vent très frais ait raison de moi et du fait que je n'étais pas assez habillée...

j'aime cette ville fourmillante 24/7 aussi parce qu'il y a ces endroits "secrets" où le silence règne et la vie va au ralenti...

little claire

yes I have found her in a dark basement, confused, hurt, not trusting, yet having made this place hers and being as comfortable as possible in there - that is in between the time she got abused...

here she is...

inner judge

oh the anguish of standing up for myself
the difficulty of finding my own voice

actually no
it's more about giving a voice to my body
letting it out
hearing it
accepting it

how hard can it be to say to a dear friend "you know last night when you said 'your dodgy website' I felt judged and it hurt"? I broke a sweat while it was not warm, tears came up to my eyes when she explained she had thought about it and not only apologised but gave me a quick hug too... and the tears were saying "i'm so sorry that i may have caused you some embarrassment, discomfort or awkwardness by saying how I feel, me who is a nobody, i'm ashamed of my boldness, please forgive me"...
Well, pretty hard it was...

But then, how liberated I felt for the rest of the evening!! I had gained a sense of self worth and no one can ever take that from me, except the judge within. Because of course that's also what happened... her words woke up my inner judge big time and he took her words for himself ans had a go at me. So the hard bit in telling her these words, really, was a mean of telling my inner judge I did not like his attitude and in some way to say that i do not accept it.

The meeting of two personalities is like the contact of two chemical substances: if there is any reaction, both are transformed

Carl Jung

good bye

Good bye my friend
ear dutiful and pleasing girl.
You have served me well
I am grateful, ever so

Your time is up though...

I can stand on my own feet
Listen to my inner voice and
Make it heard
Be truer to myself in earnest

Your time is up

My dearest mask i can take off
Worn out by all these years
No longer needed
My real face I show to the world
Without shame, with pride

Your time is up dearest
Good bye.

"My river changed face according to seasons
Frozen in 2007 is the fear of creating beauty
Flowing in 2008 is the welcoming home of masculine and feminine in my body
Dancing together for the senses"

it's just getting bigger... and bigger...

two and a half weeks and only now do I notice that the wind must have got stronger already back then... it happened far beyond the horizon and I didn't see it maybe also because I'd been falling low... but it's been building up stronger and stronger ever since, without me noticing.

the first highly formed waves have come crashing against the shore already... as an premise of a much bigger storm on its way? is my boat sea-worthy? I'm too far out to head back to safety to the harbour...

the biggest conscious test just gone seems now to have been only a few ripples on the surface compared to what is making its way toward me, as ancestral rage and hate surface from the deepest and darkest places and nothing will be stopping them this time. I'm prepared and terrified as I know it's the only way out and there's no escape. Not this time!

I can do with love, prayers, hugs, all good intentions...

an oasis in the desert

desert crossing is always a challenge

silence
long days
aloneness
vastness
humility
test
strong sun

coming closer is an oasis

shadowy
full of life
water
colours
peace
rest

i can say good bye

therapeutic tears... thank you.

I am grateful I can easily stop, cry and listen.
Two weeks ago they were begging "don't go, stay, please! my heart hurts too much!!"
Two weeks later and a quick online chat, they asked for a proper good bye, then said good bye
genuinely, meaning what it says on the tin "GOOD" bye...

Once again I have seen T. as Other and not "simply" as an image of myself in the surface of the lake... But the pain is such that I have come in contact and retreated fast again. Hopefully next time will come sooner than last and will be less painful. And the time after that sooner and less painful still...

yet however painful, after i retreat it feels like a victory for Love with a capital "L", not petty love with a small "l". This is a reason to celebrate!

ahhhhh, Spring!!

welcome to Spring, time of newness ...

yes to the flowers
yes to the tender green grass and leaves of all shapes
yes to the temperature-closer-to-summer-than-april-time
yes to the snow inviting itself for the day

i love the impredictability as it keeps reminding me to be humble

making space for the Goddesses inside

day trip to Paris.
needed to raise to the occasion.
calling on the Goddess Athena
needed her present, ambitious, clear and quick minded and rational.
present she was, pleased to be on stage and play the part again
she sent out excellent vibes
then sent in the emotional bill!

loneliness, anxiety, worthlessness, invisibility, ugliness...

"of course!" I think hitting my forehead with the palm of my hand.
dear cold, calculating, planning Athena
leaves a trail of emotional vacuum
and my inside half, three-quarter (or more?) dead!

dead!? when Paris offers
romance and sensuality
love and sex
as well as car horns
deafening underground
quiet, stunning Cour carrée du Louvre
and improvised, delightful opera soprano
in the warm early Spring evening sun.
connecting with the beauty of the site
not allowed,
'cos i'm worth it, remember?

in the end,
thanked Athena for her help
asked her to step down
til next time.
let go of emotional memories
anchored in my body
and a smile being drawn on my face.