If I breathe out kindness, will I inhale kindness?
If I speak kind words to others (do I?), I need to be sure I do the same for myself.
My Outdoors
I have been part of this view for over 60 years. Since we bought it from my father, technically it’s only had two owners. This tree was a peanut to the queen that stood where the red building is now. I sit here now and wonder why I don’t spend more time out here.
Thoughts on Writing
blank pages
My best ideas come to me when I’m in the shower. I know I’m not the only one who feels that way. I think they are so amazing and I cannot wait to get them out of my head and on to paper. But when I get to that paper with pen in hand – I question why ANYONE would be interested in what I have to say.
I have notebook upon notebook of ancestral information. Names, dates, and places of people I have been researching and discovering for over 20 years – not too easy when paternal grandparents have been dead since 1927 and 1935 – all ready to be written about. Yet I spend weekend organizing instead of writing.
I do what I do in every situation, I spend more time reading about something than doing it! It’s time to just put one foot in front of the other and see what comes out.
Saturday Thoughts
You think your words are just teasing but they feel like pebbles hitting my heart, a little pointy knife poking, poking, poking. They connect when I least expect it. They chip away at my being and I can’t be near you.
Maybe I’m too nice. I want love and kind words whether we’re alone or in a crowd. I want you to feel love and hear kind words.
Sometimes I feel like I don’t even know you.
Later….. there’s something about being outside. I feel so confined inside. On weekends when I was a teenager and dateless, I would take a walk at night and just walk and think. It was so peaceful. These days I just sit on our porch or out by the garden reading or I just close my eyes and drift off.
My Spirit Guides
Do you believe your family members that have passed watch over you? I do! Do you know you also have guides you’ve never met before? Well, you do, and I found out about mine a few years ago….
I was at a Psychic Fair at Locket’s Meadow in Bethany in August of 2019. I found myself in front of a woman, Risa Rodgers. She started talking about the spirits with me and I’m glad she wrote as she talked.
My first guide’s name is Danny – he’s my fun guide. That is one re-occuring theme in my life – the need to have fun! He says to just tell him what kind of sign you want to see. He’s been in some other life times and he wants me to laugh. He says that laughter is my best weapon.
Danny and my next guide both talk about something that comes up repeatedly — stand up for yourself and don’t let anyone “shit on our parade”. I find this interesting because who are they referring to?
Matilda is on my left side. I can’t find any significance to that anywhere, but maybe Danny is on my right side. Angel/devil? I didn’t know her and get this – she ran a saloon in the old west! THAT is something I could imagine myself doing! She has a heart of gold and is mouthy! She told me (again, this theme) – “you don’t give them enough shit when people try to hurt you”. She wants me to – be a broad; be tough.
And now – here’s someone I knew and loved – my grandmother Julia Ingram Posluszny! Now she was a fierce, independent woman! My Aunt Judy said Gram wore the pants in the family (actually I think she said Gram had the balls in the family). Again, “Give it to them”. She also said I needed to bring color into my life, that there were too many neutrals! Start with some pillow she said – so I did!
Last but not least, this is the spirit I look to at night, to calm my mind and take away the “late night thinking” – a very old spirit who is manning a boat. He says to call him Fiji. He’ll take me away on inner journeys, I just need to ask him and he can take me all over the multiverse, he can take the boat (more like a pontoon!) anywhere.
Someday I will unpack the who in the “don’t put up with anyone’s shit”, but in the meantime, I will look to my guides for a laugh, for some guidance, and for a late night trip on a spirit’s pontoon boat.
Troubling Thoughts
I’ve spent the last 2 years reading a daily bible verse or two accompanied by the author’s thoughts in “God’s Wisdom for Women” (or something similar). It usually sets me straight for my day.
Friday, June 24th, I read the verse from 1 Corinthians 14:33 that says, “God is not a God of disorder but of peace – -as in all the congregations of the Lord’s people.” This is the wording from the New International Version. Pretty simple, makes you feel good right?
Well, there are times I like to go to my bible and read more of the chapter and I was kind of shocked to read what followed in Verse 34-35: “Women should remain silent in the churches. They are not allowed to speak, but must be in submission, as the law says. If they want to inquire about something, they should ask their own husbands at home; for it is disgraceful for a woman to speak in the church.”
I think any type of good feeling disappeared at that moment! Such bullshit! This isn’t God’s word, these are words strung together by men to keep women then and now in their places. I believe in God, and I pray to God regularly, but that really shook me. I believe God wants all of us to have a voice and for those voices to be heard. But you know, people conveniently point to the bible when it suits them to say “see, right here in the bible” to their wives, children, friends, and congregations.
And then, ironically, Roe v. Wade was overturned that same afternoon. But that’s a story for another day.
Past, Present, Future
I believe we are being guided by someone(s), and that when we were born, and our bodies can tell so much about ourselves.
My sister gave me a diary for Christmas when I was 10. I think it was the first time I saw astrology listings and descriptions. I’m a Taurus (4/22) born in the cusp of Aries. One is a homebody, and the other very social. Two very different personalities and I used to say “I’m a loner who likes to go out and meet people” or “I’m a partier who’d rather be home!” 2 different lives.
In my late 20s, shortly after my mother died, and after I met my future husband (and they were linked spiritually), I had a palm reading done. It was my first experience with this and it was very enlightening in that it saw an inner turmoil inside me. Although I was working on the belief of “don’t reveal too much because they’ll jump on that”, in hindsight it’s what has followed me for almost 35 years.
She talked about my “closed throat” and asked questions as to why I thought that was. Of course, I had no idea. I’d never been a talker of emotions until I had a few beers in me and then watch out!, you’d be looking for your exit moment. I really thought it just all related to my leaving and I guess thoughts left unsaid with that and with my mother’s passing.
Since then I’ve met with mediums who have brought forth my parents along with other ancestors. For my first reading I was told to bring questions for them, but I had no idea what type of questions! I really didn’t want a prediction of the future! But even without questions, the multitude of people who said “hello” was astonishing, and comforting.
Subsequent readings have brought forth my parents and my mother in law. My father has given business advice “yes daddy, you did know what you were talking about”; my mother to let me know “you have always been like this honey – taking everything on and holding everything in, and just caring too much about everyone else.”
My palm reading showed two life lines. I interpreted that at the time to mean my life with my family and my life with friends, or maybe my new life ahead when in 2 weeks I was moving from Connecticut to California to live with my future husband whom I met on vacation! Not so fast….
Years later I bought an astrology book that took the date, location, and time you were born and you map out your charts. Based on that, there is a section on the self you show to the world and your inner self. Mine are absolute opposites. It would make you wonder how can that be? They’d have to be a Jekyll and Hyde! Remember those 2 life lines?
Yesterday I had a tarot card reading at an event in Southington. I had never met Joanne before but I liked her face in her picture and the time worked! When I walked in, she said a red Fox came in with me. And not a little one, it was big! A quick search shows it signifies “you take your time and are cautious about your approach to life” – very true, very intriguing!
She immediately saw conflict within me. She sensed in my professional life that I’m “a force” but in my personal life I was to retreat and be a wallflower “don’t look at me”. I need to work to find balance between the two. Remember those 2 life lines?
After picking my favorite number and color (which was numerology and which deck to use), she shuffled the deck 7 times and each time read what she saw in the shuffle before she neatened them. Each was very enlightening and never once did I think “nah, you got that wrong”.
Then it was on to three card reading – past, present, future. I gave her to them in the order I pulled them. What did they reveal?
My present card revealed excitement “eat, drink, and be merry” while my future card revealed my need to carry everything bottled up inside of me. 2 lives. The forceful professional me, and the retreating personal me. Which is even the “real” me? The problem is, I can’t do that to myself anymore. I’ve got to open up that “closed throat” and share my pain as well as my excitement. Through conversations, through writing, through meditation, and I think (and Joanne said it would be wise to), through therapy.
I’m hoping this is a new beginning for me. I already know there are no accidental meetings! I was meant to go yesterday, I was meant to have this reading to put the pieces together and know I have to follow the signs to being those 2 lives into 1 strong life.
Life and Death
I’m spending the early part of this day grocery shopping, paying bills, and puttering around as I wait for 3pm to get changed to head on over to a wake and funeral service for a friend who died on Monday from heart-related complications from Covid. She was 48 years old, wife, mother of a 17 year old and 12 year old.
I met her in 1997 when she came to work at the insurance brokerage I worked at and it was maybe her second job after graduating college. She sat right across the small aisle from me and was always asking questions, sometimes the same over and over. I know that annoyed me but I also know we talked and laughed a lot! She was 14 years younger than me and would come with me to my son’s second and third-grade concerts that were held during the school day.
After I left, we lost touch. I then discovered she and her husband bought a house in the same town I was in less than a 1/2 mile from mine! We reconnected again and after her youngest child was in pre-school, she came to work for us. It was another case of a lot of talking, and not always a lot of work getting done! But I really enjoyed her company and I felt like I was the older voice she sometimes needed to hear (not that she ever took my advice!).
But eventually, we needed full-time help and she couldn’t give me that so we had to part ways. It was probably best for her because she got a job in the school system and was able to have summers and vacation time off to be with her kids.
We didn’t stay in touch very much. We were Facebook friends but that is pretty superficial. I know she was happy at the school as a paraprofessional for kindergarten and she was planning on getting her masters in special education. She loved her family so much and would do anything for her kids.
I was alerted to her death on Monday evening because a few of my friends are also in the school system. When the system-wide email went out, one friend checked and saw I was friends with her and messaged me. I haven’t been able to get her out of my mind since.
It’s not that I haven’t had friends or relatives die at a young age, but I don’t think I’ve experienced this suddenness before and it’s unsettling. It seems ridiculous to even think “oh she’s looking over them now” because she should be HERE with them. I have no words for comfort. I just keep praying for her husband and children, her mother and brother, and her best friend who has been a constant presence in her and her family’s lives. That’s all I can do.
What We Keep
I found this somewhere sometime in late 1986 or early 1987. I was in my “calligraphy phase” and I spent hours writing out poems and my name.
The day my mother died in early April of 1987 it rained and poured and the wind howled and all I could thing was “how appropriate”. She so young, her daughters so young.
I pictured her setting the wind and rain in motion to tell us how sorry she was to leave.
I had my cousin Ann read this during the funeral mass. I’m sure no one else felt the significance except me but I felt like I was telling her that I understood.
What’s Your Number?
I was listening to a podcast recently – Good Talk with Pete and Jordyn Wilson in case you’re interested – and they did a three part series on Enneagrams! I’ve heard of them before, in fact I think I took a test not too long before listening, but forgot all about it.
I find these tests challenging. Am I answering as to how I think I am? How I want to be? What if it makes no sense at all?
So I quickly took the test and found out I was a 1. Which evidently was what I turned out to be when I took it previously. I did some reading on it and – what a revelation! The Teacher – The Activist – The Crusader – The Moralist – The Perfectionist – The Organizer. ✔️✔️✔️✔️✔️ and ✔️
I also read about Wings (9 and 2) and how when a 1 is in growth they go to a 7 and in time of stress they go to a 4. I thought it was pretty interesting that my husband is a 7 and in times of stress he goes to a 1! I always said we were so compatible because we balance each other out!
I’ve always been interested in why I think and feel the way I do. Is it because I have an identical twin? I used to think it was because I wanted to be the best I could be – and now I see that’s clearly my Type 1 talking!
I’ll share as I learn….let me know in the comments your type if you’ve taken the test and what you think about it all!
Thoughts From The Passenger Seat 