Solstice Blessings.

I know astrologically this was yesterday, but I always stick to the 21st for Litha, Yule, Mabon and Eostre.
Today is really horrid here in the North, yesterday was lovely, but I guess that's just a typical Cumbrian summer - virtually non-existent.

To celebrate I had a lovely meal earlier and then I performed my ritual, then it was time for my meditation.  During the meditation - not one of my own - I was to visulaise myself within a stone circle with others, only those who I sensed were with me were my deceased loved ones.  That was quite unexpected, but very pleasant.  I've been having a bit of an obsession again just of late - the same obsession I am having to receive counselling for - so it's kind of helped with that.
Anyway, so the sun has reached its zenith and in a few days we will feel the earth shift once again - I always sense the standstill around the sabbats, and sense when we are on the move again - nothing lasts forever, time is precious to us and we should make the most of our days.

Wishing you all a Blessed Litha, may the sun shine on your life (even if it is wet and dark like much of the UK) and bring joy and peace to your world.

Saturday

Saturday's, for me, are supposed to be all about letting my hair down and doing as little as possible when it comes to doing things for others.  It has recently occurred to me that despite all of my health issues my family lean on me just a bit too much.  As my husband pointed out, I really am too kind hearted.  With this in mind I planned to extend the Sunday ritual that I have into the entire weekend.
On a Sunday I always do at least one restful thing, mostly it is a little time spent meditating or visualising and it is the only day I ever seem to actually stick to my guns on such things.  With the recent Super moon I feel more exhausted than ever, the energies have been greatly amplified and dramas that would never normally be dramas have knocked spots off the usual dramas!
I have had my fill of family daftness this week.  I call it daftness, well, because it really was only daftness.  The energies of the Super moon seemed to intensify the daftness and turn it something it didn't need to be but it has drained me so much that I thought it was high time I started saying no - more than I do.

You know, I'm full of good advice for others when it comes to problems and dramas in their lives and generally family and friends rally to me for that advice.  One of the most common pieces of advice I give is learning how to say no, yet here I am not heeding my own advice and feeling so run down.
So I decided last night that my weekends are now going to be all about relaxation and restfulness and meditation and other stuff like that.  Next weekend I will be doing my Reiki level 1 and I want to be in a good space, emotionally, for that.

The Supermoon.

I wrote this blog post last weekend, when the energies of the Supermoon were really strong.  Since then I have noticed that they are still influential, especially in areas that would be a mere hiccup and not the major drama they are turning into.


The moon is really close to earth right now.  When she rises she looks so close that we almost believe we can reach out and touch her.  Different theorists have different theories - as they would ;p - about how she will affect us.  I have personally felt an intensity in emotional issues that haven't been prevalent for a very long time.  People who I have no contact with stirring up trouble and dragging me into it; family issues that I thought were long resolved got dragged up again; petty annoyances with my not so wonderful neighbours have really intensified.  It's like everything on an emotional level for me is being super charged and thrust back at me, requiring me to deal with it NOW.

I have felt particularly helpless in all of these areas.  I know I haven't done anything wrong in regards to the not so close and ex friend issues - because I haven't seen them, spoken to them or had any contact with any of them.  I cannot fix something I haven't broken, nor can I get involved with something that I have no role in.  A stirrer is stirring the pot of emotional drama and trouble and everyone involved is acting exactly how she wants them to - including taking potshots at me because she loves to sulk about any of her "set" interacting with me.  She only needs to say I have "abused" her and the drama starts - again.  But I haven't spoken to her or any of her "set" in what feels like forever so I know that what she is saying is all a pack of lies, just to cause trouble and the Supermoon is adding that extra bit of bite to the already volatile situation.
The family dramas are just silly things and yet I feel helpless - as I do with the friendship/ex friend issues - on both counts it is down to petty behaviour and I am loathe to get involved with such childish shenanigans; like I pointed out, I am 41 not 14.
The neighbour issues are the usual - next door parking along my front when they have their own space.  They haven't had the opportunity this past fortnight as DD1's boyfriend had left his car here while he was away doing exams.  His car was moved, (by him), yesterday and within a couple of hours they were back on our front.  The next-door-but-one idiot  has bought her supposedly seriously ill son a motorbike.  He is 14.  He revs it in the back garden for hours until she gets sick of the noise and then he rides off on it - no helmet, no insurance, no license.  So more dramas I have no control over, but getting under my skin all the same.

Generally I rise above the neighbours, because I know they have no manners, are ignorant and selfish and if they think their behaviour is annoying they do it all the more.  The family stuff I tend to keep out of and let them sort themselves, being on hand if they ask for advice, that sort of thing.  As for the friend thing, well, these are the same set of friends/ex-friends I have had dramas and troubles with for as long as I can remember.  I came to the conclusion a while ago that they aren't my friends and I moved on from them.  That my name has been thrown back into the mix for one troublemaker's perverse pleasure is just unfortunate I guess.  I refuse to be drawn into whatever dramas they are having and I know it had nothing to do with me.

As with all full moons the energies will ebb and flow, the intensity will lessen.  I guess it's just a matter of riding the crest of the wave until the emotional rollercoaster passes.  I've donned my hard hat, taken a deep breath and found things to do to keep me out of the way of all of this drama that is trying to drag me in.

I took a few pics of the supermoon last night and over the past couple of days.

Last night.....

........I performed my first ritual in a very long time.  This may seem unintersting and not that much of a big deal to most, but to me it marked the dawning of a new era.  It represented the fact that I have been able to move forward from that horrible place I have been dwelling for such a long time now.  As corny as it sounds, I really didn't expect it to feel so.......wonderful, but it did.  I'm trying to find the right words for how I felt, but nothing is right, so I'm not going to try.  Those of you who have felt the beauty and magick of rituals and spell casting will know what I mean.

I have to say, I felt relaxed all evening, slept well - for a change - and was able to greet the new day (today) with enthusiasm.  Feeling so good and positive has meant that I was able to get creative for the first time in I don't know how long and actually get some writing done.  I also was able to make sense of some very intriguing signs that have been presenting themselves to me for quite a while, only I had no idea what they were all about.
I feel as if I have just worked out how to get out of an intricate maze and have been greeted by a beautiful sunny day after wandering, lost, in the dark and gloomy overgrown hedges of the maze.  I don't think everything about feeling so good can be contributed to performing a Beltane ritual, but I think it certainly helped me refocus my thoughts and stagnant mind.

I am happy to be walking back into the sunlight after months in the darkness.

Beltane Blessings.

Sharing our Grief.

Another Daily Om picked at random.

This OM looks at sharing our grief and opening ourselves up.  This post isn't exactly the same, but I think I need to share it all the same.

I have a friend, Sally, she lives a long way from me but we connect quite often to share joy and sometimes pain.  Last year when I was struggling to come to terms with my brother's death my Dad got rushed into hospital.  At the time I was leaning on Sally, from time to time, she let me talk.  I needed it and I am always grateful she was there.  But then the situation with my Dad got worse and I found I just couldn't talk about it with anyone outside of the family.  I don't know if this upset Sal, I really hope it didn't, but it wasn't anything she had said or done that made me withdraw, I really just couldn't discuss it.

The situation with my Dad seemed to improve at first, he was admitted to hospital and we believed he would get home.  But then things took a really drastic turn.  His kidneys began to fail and we were told he wouldn't get any better.  Just before this episode he had been his usual self and my mother had told him that we had to have a meeting with a social worker before he could come home.  He was worried, naturally, but I didn't think it was so bad.  Then my mother sat in the meeting and all but told the social worker she didn't want my Dad to come home.  She couldn't cope with him.  I had to tell the social worker that yes he could come home and yes there was room for him to have a bed downstairs and yes care could be set up for him.  So this was to be arranged, but first they might put him in respite care.  My mother agreed and I refused.  My mother told him and he was very upset.  I told him I would never allow them to put him in a home and eventually calmed him down.

After this he seemed to rapidly go down hill.  He got an infection - a UTI - which was really bad and thus affected his kidney function.  He withdrew from the world and visiting was always an awful experience.  He wouldn't speak to any of us - well, he actually would talk to me and my husband some of the time - and he was refusing food.  He was in a room on his own, then back on the main ward, then back in his own room.  There was one day, not long after they told us his kidneys were knackered and there wasn't anything they could do and he seemed particularly chatty with me and DH.  He had tears in his eyes all of the time and this stage lasted about a week.

My family became divided.  My mother was so grief stricken over the loss of her son that she refused to really have anything to do with my Dad.  I had to force her to visit.  She wanted him out of her life.  My brother P agreed with her, as did my cousin's wife.  In fact my cousin's wife had a huge influence over my mother back then.
I could understand their feelings - he wasn't a brilliant father to my brothers, he was slightly better with me.  When I was a teenager I hated him - I guess that's the norm during the teen years though.  I was the only one who would stand up to him when he was ranting at us as kids, I never took any of his crap.  When I had my own kids he loved having them.  But by the time brother P (only me and P have kids) he was too sick to look after them and I think this narked him and his wife.
There was some genetic problem that resulted in my younger brother being severely disabled and when he died my mother blamed my Dad for this.  She switched off from him, left him to fend for himself and this is how he ended up in hospital.  At one stage I wondered if she had tried to kill him, though I know she hadn't now.

It was like nobody wanted him anymore except me, my husband and my kids.  My mother visited because I forced her to.  Brother P and brother I visited because my husband had words with them over how unfair they were being and brother A did visit, but he has schizophrenia so it wasn't always easy getting him to go.

I fought for almost 12 weeks to get him home.  I felt as if I had failed.  Then I realised that I couldn't have done anymore and that was when I became angry.  Angry at my Dad for giving up on life.  Angry at my mother and brothers for not being better with him.  Angry with the hospital who caused his nasty infection that led to his death.  Angry with my brother who had died four months earlier.  Angry that my mother only seemed to care about that and nothing else.
I wanted to grieve, but I didn't want to go through the pain.  I cried once, for a couple of minutes and then I switched off from it all.  I had almost suffocated when my Aunty had died in 2005.  The pain was so bad I had switched myself off  from that too, but my mother's grief had almost floored me.  I didn't want to feel that again so anger was my only option.

My Dad taught me how to be a fighter.  How to be tough and fight for what I believed in.  How to take on the world and win.  When he died I felt my age - I was a few days off turning 40 - and it all came flooding back to me; my own baby dying in 1996, DH's illness that almost killed him, my Gran dying around the same time, my Aunty dying in 2005 and then my brother.  I thought about another Aunty who had died just before my Dad.  She was in her 80's and died from natural causes, but this just made me more depressed about getting older.

Ever since then I have remained angry.  Then my half-cousin's wife hung herself at the end of July last year.  She was the same age as me and I felt even worse.  My brother had been 29 when he died, my baby hadn't even been born.  Life was just too cruel and I was so mad at it, at them for not fighting.  I was unable to sleep, I needed to know that everyone was still alive in my house and so began my nightly ritual of struggling to get to sleep, then after only being asleep for a couple of hours I would wake up in a blind panic and I would have to get up to check everyone was still breathing.
I have driven myself mad with this crazy ritual and this is why I am seeking help.  I need to move on from this stage, from the anger and hurt and raw pain that eats at me everyday.  From the awful experience we went through when my Dad was still alive, in hospital and feeling like his wife no longer cared for him.  I need to accept it all and move on from it.

I know this post is very disjointed and probably doesn't make an awful lot of sense.  But I wanted to share my grief with some people who have been kind enough to be there for me over the past 16 months.  I have said time and again that I didn't want to talk about "it" because "it" hurt too much.  But getting "it" out into the open has helped me enormously and that is the purpose of this post.

Anger.

I have mentioned a few times that my family have been bereaved five times since December 2010.  One death is difficult enough to deal with, but five........

I feel so angry with three of them for giving up on life and I know that this preventing me from moving onto the next stage in the grieving process.  I know I am trapped in this stage and I know that this is causing me the problems I am having with sleep and the obsession about who is going to die next.

I faced something similar when my son was born 15 years ago.  The year before - 1996 - I fell pregnant and we were over the moon.  But I lost the baby and encountered a pain I thought would engulf me whole.  Had I not had two daughters to care for I think I could very easily given in to the pain I felt.  A few months later I was pregnant again with my son, but I spent the entire pregnancy feeling terrified something would happen.  After he was born I suffered from Post Natal Depression.  One of the worst things I went through was not being able to put my son down.  I felt that if I put him down to sleep somewhere he would die, only I could save him by holding onto him all of the time.
After months of therapy and almost a year on anti depressants I discovered I was angry with my baby for dying and that I had held on to that anger so tightly that is engulfed me.  It was only when I learnt to let go of the anger that I was able to move forward and mourn my baby.

Anger is such a self destructive emotion if we don't let go of it.  Anger can be a good thing if we use it to channel our emotions in a constructive manner, but if we don't then we bottle up that anger and it eats away at us, making us miserable, making us ill, causing us problems.  We have to learn to let go of our anger and resentment, free ourselves of the negativity that these emotions fill us with, only then can we move forward with our lives.

Feeling the pain.

Today I picked another of the Daily OM emails at random and the message was about tuning in to our pain to listen for the message.  This really piqued my interest, given the amount of emotional pain I have experienced over the past 16 months and beyond.

I have to say here and now that five deaths in sixteen months have taken their toll on my emotional wellbeing.  I hate admitting that I am in need of help but I am so fed up of feeling the way I do that I have booked myself an appointment with my GP.  My problem is that I find it difficult to fall asleep, stay asleep, and get enough sleep.  Now, when I say this I mean that I cannot sleep on a night, falling asleep during the day isn't so bad, I quite often get a decent sleep during the day.  This was all good and well when I was laid up in bed but it is not so good when I need to be up and about.  I started taking herbal tablets to help me sleep and they are working to a certain extent.  But they don't keep me asleep all night, well not all of the time anyway.

The pain I am experiencing relates to death.  I have become obsessed with it.  I have panic attacks over it.  I am terrified to fall asleep because I don't know who will have survived the night.  It's pretty grim feeling this way and that is why I have booked an appointment to see my GP.  But I must stress I don't want to numb everything with pills.  I am not sure what I hope to gain from an appointment with my GP, maybe I am in need of some counselling, who knows?

Anyway, this is what the message from the OM was about; our first instinct is to numb everything with medication.  It is telling us that we should listen to our bodies and minds and see if we can hear what message there is.  We don't have to rush into dosing ourselves up with medication in order to heal our pain, although if we truly do need urgent medical attention we should go for it.
I know I hurt over the deaths of five loved ones, and I know I hurt a lot.  I know that the pain is eating away at me and this is because I cannot talk about it.  I cannot talk about it to anyone because I am so damn angry with my brother and my father for giving up - and I know that sounds stupidly selfish.  I know I need to let go of the anger that I am holding on to so tightly, I know it is the anger that is making me fearful and unable to sleep, but I just don't know how to let go of that anger I have inside of me.

I have found my message and am acting upon it for the good of my health.

Daily OM

I have added a link to the Daily OM on the side of my blog.  The Daily OM is pretty cool, I get email updates/OM's all of the time and never have nearly enough time to read them through.  I'm kind of hoping this will inspire me to read them more often and act upon the advice/info contained within each message/email.

I have each OM saved in a folder in my email account and I just picked one out at random.

The one I chose to read is discussing following nature's cycles.  This is something I have now gotten into a big way.  When I first became incapacitated I was very frustrated at not being able to just do what I wanted/needed.  I soon discovered that most of the stuff I was hankering after doing was not really all that important, it was just stuff that I had began to fill my life with.  For the first few weeks I spent a lot of time sleeping, this did worry me as I thought it was due to the fibro.  Eventually I realised it was what my body needed for its own good.

The OM goes on to suggest we balance our lives with nature, making a few suggestions as to how we can do this.  I have already mentioned how I have learnt a great deal about myself whilst I was recuperating in bed.  That time I spent unable to do much has led me to a decision I made at the weekend - to learn Reiki.  Learning Reiki is just one of the many things I have adopted in my quest to live a more natural life.
When I say live a more natural life, I am not just talking about recycling and green living.  I am beginning to attune my whole being to the natural cycles around me, and I understand that can be quite a difficult undertaking, but I want to help my body be in balance with nature.  And as long winded as I have made that sound I am finding this quite an easy thing to do.

Pleased with myself.

I am extremely pleased with myself, in a ridiculous fashion.  I made some black salt - you know, the witchy/hoodoo type?  I just cleaned the fire out and though, "hmm, I should keep some of this."  So I did and made black salt.  It is the first witchy thing I have physically done in what feels like forever.  Now I want to do a million things all at once, which is also pleasing as my interest is well and truly piqued once more.

Baby steps.

V is for......

........Valkyrie.

My first encounter with these mythical beings was in an episode of Charmed.  Before that I had never heard of them and had no clue as to what they were.
A Valkyrie is a celestial lady of Norse mythology.  These ladies come to the battlefields to select the best warriors and bring them back to Valhalla, the great hall of the Upper World.  They have other names attributed to them, Odins' Meyar - Odin's Maidens, Oskmeyer, Odin's Wishfillers and also Waive Maidens.
Odin was the God of War, poetry and wisdom and is one of the main Gods in Norse mythology.

The great warriors chosen by the Valkyrie were those who had died in battle.  They fought in the heavens as a form of training, after each battle their wounds would be tended to by the Valkyrie.  These warriors were therefore able to fight endlessly in preparation for the battle of Ragnarok, the final battle.  The Valkyrie were fierce warriors themselves and had the ability to regenerate too.
Some legends have a total of 36 Valkyrie, whereas others have only 13.  The 13 are:
Goll = Battle Cry
Geirolul = Spear Charger
Hrist = Shaker
Hildr = Battle
Hlokk = Battle Noise
Herfjotur  = Army Fetter
Mist = Cloud
Radgridr = Bossy
Randgridr = Shield Destroyer
Reginlefir = God's Daughter
Skeggjold = Axe Age
Sigrdrifa = Inciter To Battle
Thrudr = Power Woman

Ostara Blessings.

Technically speaking, or should that be astrologically speaking? it was Ostara yesterday.  But I like to keep my Sabbats on fixed days because that is what works for me.  Ostara is a a time of balance.  A time to work on any area of our lives that need balance or rebalance.  A good time for spring cleaning, out with the old energy and in with the new, although I have been doing so much each week since Imbolc.


  

More catching up.

It would seem life is too hectic for me right now and that prevents me from daily blogging.  This doesn't mean I am not keeping up with my 366 days of witchery challenge.  Recently I have read up on the following:

Robin Goodfellow, a Brownie like creature who is said to help women with their housework.  He can shapeshift into various different creatures and he is keen on persuading travellers to follow him, with them ending up lost.

Sylph, an elemental of air.  The Sylph is made entirely out of air.  Anyone casting a spell that requires this element will call upon them to aid in the magickal workings.

Trolls - different cultures have different variations of the Troll.  Trolls hail back from Norse mythology and the name Troll means monster.  The Danish people see their Trolls as ugly creatures, with large noses, a white long beard and wearing a craftsman's apron and a red cap.  The Norwegians have them as ugly, but also hairy creatures.  They also have a female version - a beautiful redheaded female.  In Sweden and Denmark they are remarkably like the Brownie.

During the Middle ages they were seen as evil doers, wielding Black Magick.  They were reported to steal people's possessions, even women and children!  It is said that Trolls hate noise and that they can be driven out by church bells.  People can also protect themselves from the Trolls by wearing or carrying Miseltoe.
Trolls turn into stone if they are caught by light, so they only come out at night.

Unicorns can vary in size, according to where the tales about them are from.  Some people have them the size of a horse, which is how I have always viewed them, whereas others have them as the size of a deer.  Surprisingly, a lot of the info that came up relates to how Unicorns defeat the devil etc, as told in the Bible.  It surprised me a lot actually, given that the creature is a mythical being.
Another story has Alexander The Great as having a Unicorn, not a horse.
The most popular time for Unicorns was during the medieval ages, whereas nowadays they are only really popular with people of a certain belief and children.

Pagan Blog Project - E week 2

Emotions may not seem like a very pagan minded topic, but they shape who we are, what we do and how we do it.  Something that I noticed when I first came to my path was that I had a tendency to be a pro active witch when I was mad about something, or was desperate to chage something, thus my emotions were shaping my magickal life and workings.

As I got older and started to really get to grips with magick I was able to stop myself only casting when I was angry or hurt, thus controlling my emotions and not allowing them to run my life for me.  I have to admit it can be very difficult to control your emotions though.  You know yourself what you are capable of and what you will and won't do when it comes to casting spells etc.  It's so easy to get annoyed by someone and not allow the feelings of needing to retaliate overwhelm you. 

The obvious tool in controlling your emotions is to count to ten before taking any action or speaking.  This few seconds can often be all that is needed to let you think beofre acting/speaking and not doing or saying something you will later regret.  Sometimes a longer period of time is needed and you may find that a few hours, or even a few days are required before doing or saying anything.  I have been so guilty of this in the past, someone has really hurt me and before I have even had the chance to think about the situation I have zapped them with something, a classic example of letting my emotions rule me.

Emotions are very much part of paganism and witchcraft, in so much as we need to have a good handle on them and not let them get the better of us.  Controlling your emotions is every bit as important as grounding or casting circles, or whatever other techniques we deem important, but it is very often the one thing we overlook.

Emotions needn't be our enemy, they can be our friend, our mood balancer, our guide to something feeling off.  If you aren't already in control with your emotions, now would be a good time to work on them.

Chaste Moon Blessings.

Q is for......

......Qandisa.

Qandisa is a terrible Djinn or Demon, according to Morrocan mythology.  Her usual appearance is that of an attractive woman, though she is known to be a shape-shifter.  Apparently, she was once the Goddess Of Love but after falling from grace she became an enticing sinister woman.

She entices youn and naive men into the rivers and streams that she inhabits, and those who do follow her are never seen again.

Sacrifices and offerings are made to her at the time of the Summer Solstice in certain parts of Morocco.  By doing so these people believe they have appeased her and will be safe from her.

P is for.......

........Pixie.

The word Pixie makes me think of cute little fairy like creatures, with cheeky smiles and a sunny disposition.  Apparently not though.  It is said that the Pixie is a redheaded fairy like creature from Devon and Cornwall area and that they have upturned pig-like noses, pointy ears and wear green clothes.
It is believed that they are the souls of the dead, who, as children were not baptised.  This means that they could not enter heaven, but as they had done nothing wrong they weren't admitted to hell either.

It is said that they fought a war with another race of fairies, they were victorius and this won them their own territory in Buckland St. Mary, in Somerset, a place they protect fiercely.
The Pixies are said to steal horses which they ride around in circles.  This action creates gallitraps, a magickal circle.  Anyone who is caught in the gallitrap will come under the power of the Pixies and if a criminal is caught in a gallitrap then they will be hung.
The Pixies are also said to lead travellers astray by bringing them bad luck.

366 Days of Witchery - an update.

Although I am not posting everyday, at the moment, I am still practicing my 366 Days Of Witchery.  I do something or look at something everyday to remind myself just how wonderful the craft is.
I am struggling with a very bad fibro flare, as well as the problem with my neck - I have Cervical Spondylosis - and I am awaiting my physio appointment - which is March 27th.  I am quiet everywhere because of this, the reason being I am barely spending any time online due to the ill health.

Happy Blogging to all and Bright Blessings.

Pagan Blog Project week 9 - E.

E is for Eclectic, of course!

I love being an Eclectic witch.  It is who I am.  The word, eclectic means choosing something or doing something from/with a variety of different sources.  Being an eclectic witch can often be confused with having no real focus, but that really isn't the case.  I have found that almost all of the eclectic witches I know have studied many different paths and forms of magick and witchcraft, making them well equipped to wander down the path they have chosen.

Eclectic witchcraft gives me so much freedom -if I want to swap things about for a spell I can, I am not tied to one tradition.  It literally means I can do things my way, work with the best bits of any tradition I have researched/studied/worked with before.  Basically that is how I came to eclecticity; I liked many different aspects of different traditions but couldn't align myself completely with any particular one.  I felt frustrated and held back, but then I let go and it all made sense to me.

To some, eclecticity can seem really chaotic, there are no set rules other than those you impose on yourself.  You may celebrate one esbat or sabbat using a ritual from one particuar tradition, but then the next time round you may choose something entirely different.  Or you may choose something with aspects of all traditions, and that for me is the beauty of being an eclectic witch, you are living your own path, unique to you.  Nobody gets to tell you that it is wrong because nobody else is walking that very same path with you, your rules, your choices, your decisions, your own unique type of witchcraft tailored for you by you.

It's a pretty awesome path to walk, your own, I highly recommend it.

March is here.

Despite us having a mild autumn and winter it certainly feels like forever since spring and summer were here.  I had actually forgotten how much I love March through to October.  In recent times I have felt more comfortable with winter, I have found solace in that season.
But I got up this morning, the sun was shining, March had arrived and all of a sudden I felt like everything was going to be OK.  It's at times like this that I realise what my family went through from December 2010 to April 2011, and then beyond with the grieving stages.  When you go through that you feel like you will never feel OK again, even when you can fucntion in your everyday life you still fell that nothing will ever be fine again.

But as March rolled round I have found that it has been fifteen months since my brother died, and the first year anniversary of my Dad's death is the end of April.  Time passed and I survived.  I still have trouble with sleep - although some of that is down to the fibro - but I am not waking up in sheer panic at some ridiculous hour panicking about people dying, worrying about who is going to be next.  It is during those dark times that everything feels impossible, your faith in anything gets shaken and you begin to wonder just what the point is.  Sometimes it isn't until you are through those bleak times that you realise you were actually there at all.

And then March arrives and I feel that the dark days are behind me, truly.  Even though I thought I had gotten past this stage I realise that it was still lingering on, catching me out at 3am and mocking me when I thought I was doing fine.  I know now that I am still getting through it because I am still as angry as hell and still don't want to talk about it outside of my family, and I only discuss it with them when I absolutely have to.  But having spring around the corner, if not here already, has given me hope.  Spring is full of opportunities and wonderfulness.  Spring brings hope and new life and holds so much promise.

March is here and I am eager to plant my seeds - no, I still haven't got it done - and see the beauty that will be my garden once life returns to it.  And I have magpies building a nest behind my house, I guess they really do love me these blessed magpies.  They have been coming closer and closer and have been right up to the house.  They ignore the cats and the cats ignore them and they hop around my garden like they own the place, chattering and calling out and arguing and fighting with the crows and gulls that frequent the back gardens and wasteland behind us.  I am looking forward to the coming months of new life, chicks and other babies, plants, seedlings and once again attempting to grow herbs from seed.

The joys of spring are plentiful.