bibliomancy for venus in gemini

'she was such a dear old duck' d sinclair '08

"Not until the moon was high did the alchemist ride into view. He carried two dead hawks over his shoulder.

"I am here," the boy said.

"You shouldn't be here," the alchemist answered. "Or is it your Personal Legend that brings you here?"

"With the wars between the tribes, it's impossible to cross the desert. So I have come here."

(Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist)

Thanks to you all for your patience during my absence from blogging. It's been a challenging couple of weeks.

Space clearing was a success - the garage is now organised after sorting through all the boxes of stuff left over from the move to this house just over a year ago. Likewise all cupboards and wardrobes are tidy and clutter free.

There's something very satisfying about giving away things that are no longer needed. Especially knowing that the items are still good and will be of use to someone else - a kind of random benevolence that has me wondering if I'll see that shirt on someone passing in the street some time.

I enjoy that someone somewhere has a need for those things and I play my part in it. Also, the simple act of giving away things of value but no further use seems to affirm just how abundant life really is.

We have so much. We're very lucky people.

Sorting through belongings showed me just how much of my money has gone into acquiring things I really believed I needed but didn't. And it had me questioning my methods of assigning value to material things. Truly an enriching experience - with unexpected results.

I was shocked when about four days into my 'clearing space for a miracle' I received the news that my baby's grand mother had passed away.

Pam had been fighting Cancer for three years and it had finally won.

It might not have been such a shock if I'd known that she was that close to leaving - I'd been spending time with her regularly so that she could enjoy her grand baby in her last days on Earth and had hoped that we'd have a few more visits before saying goodbye.

We'll miss her even though she drove me nuts with her swearing and grabbing my forearm each time she wanted to get a point across. She couldn't change a nappy for peanuts and she liked to feed my kids junk but she was a good sweet woman who loved people, and was loved in return. Seeing her one and only granddaughter grow up was important to her. I hope she's still watching, where ever she is now.

The funeral was a remarkable event - hundreds of people were bussed in from the country town where Pam and her husband have been living for the past twenty years. I've never seen anything like it. Everything was handled with style and humour and it was an honour to be there as part of the family.

The day before the funeral I received more news - my father is very ill and is in such dire straits financially that the family trust is now forced to sell the house that my children and I live in.

This phone call came on my way back from the local police station where I'd reported threats against me from a confused individual who I didn't know existed until six months ago - someone who imagines I've done something to come between her and the man she believed was her 'boyfriend' (the father of my baby).

I'm unsure as to why all of this has happened now - particularly as it's my intention to keep drama 'on the page' through writing and drawing. I live my life peacefully and soulfully, caring for my home, family and the small things I can do for the world. This is my Work.

All I can think of is that my Personal Legend (as Paulo Coelho calls it) is being challenged - and I'm called upon to draw on inner resources rather than become a victim to it all.

So I have.

Its strange but truly wonderful to find that I'm not afraid, that I'm not weak and that I can do this no matter how events beyond my control may seem daunting and overwhelming.

And if I can so can anyone. So can you.

five ways to parent with soul, part one

'pelican blood' d sinclair all rights reserved '08

There's a billboard outside the primary school I pass on my daily travels and for the past few weeks it has displayed this;


challenge for the day - find something good in your child


I don't know about you but the idea that its a challenge to find good in a child worries me. It reminds me of The One Minute Manager that I had to read when I worked for the Gap years ago. 'Find something good in your staff, and praise them for it', is how it went, along the lines of how to win friends and influence people and the like.

This billboard doesn't challenge anyone that far, so I guess its not about kid productivity levels or morale. But as I pass it, even in heavy traffic, it seems apparent that parents might need to see their kids - and parenting itself - differently.

So I'm offering some suggestions on how to parent with soul, that is, with acceptance of all its parts, good and bad.

1. Surrender. Yes, you read that right - give up the idea that you're in control and that everything will go according to your ideas of how it 'should'. Babies cry for no reason, toddlers poke things in the CD player and preschoolers swear in front of people you want to impress. Teenagers mumble. Some of them do none of these things. Children do as they do; that is the nature of the beast. Rules do not apply, so throw out the 'what to expect' book.

Boundaries, on the other hand, teach kids and parents how to be safe and to navigate life - and its up to us parents to see the difference between a reasonable boundary and a dumb veto that's making all concerned crazy. Telling a toddler 'no darling, daddy's watch doesn't belong in the bin' is crazy-making (ask my friend who lost a few watches); moving the bin, the watch and the kid out of range of each other is a reasonable boundary.

Or maybe the kid has a point?

The little darlings want to try out everything they see you do (perhaps - who knows for sure what their reasons are?) and have no idea of the value of a Rolex, until we drum it into them. But they do know the value of time together, just playing and making general mayhem.

So stop trying to fit the kid in around your life - for every one's sake - that's all over now. Better to concentrate on your own self control, and teach by example.

Rearrange your house, rearrange your life. Be prepared to at the very least. Trust me on this - by surrendering control, you gain peace.

2. Be still. Stop trying to 'fix' your kids, your parenting or your life. You can't make everything perfect for your kids, you can't make your kids perfect for your life, and you are the parent you are no more and no less.

Every heroic action creates a victim, every martyr creates an oppressor. I see so much solar parenting around me that its no wonder there's a greenhouse effect. Ah, OK, its a 'hothouse' effect - close enough - my point is that we could do a lot better by allowing our kids to have their own failures and teaching them to forgive themselves.

While we are at it we can allow our own parenting 'mistakes' (if there is such a thing - and here we can throw that damn book of expectations again) and let our children see that we are human,imperfect and lovable.

And, you know, your children are great the way they are anyway - complete with mumbling and 'bad' grades and black nail polish. Who says they should be any different? (aim that book at them, whoever they are!)

Last year my family grew, and we all had some growing pains. My fourteen year old daughter, eldest of five, started having conflict with teachers at school; her grades dropped and she seemed like the weight of the world was upon her, like nothing mattered, like she just 'didn't care'.

In this situation the only thing I could change was myself - my thinking. I knew I cared and could do with lightening up.

The school teachers started calling me and asking me how to 'get through to her' and then, later in the year, asking me to 'do something about her'.

"I have faith in her" I told them.
"I've delegated the task of sorting this out to her" I reassured them.
"I'm doing the best I can, and so is she. Please be patient." I tried, when that wasn't the result they expected.
"Stop relating to my kid like she's an animal that needs to be tamed!" I finally blurted. Actually I put that one in writing.

I do have complete faith in her, whether she improves her grades or not. She's not a performing monkey, she's a person. I've always maintained that there's no point in making kids miserable so that 'one day' they can 'make it' in the world. I want mine to be happy and true to themselves now, and because of this I love her even more when she is 'acting out'.

Anyway, she found her own way, with my full support, and she's fine. Only a few weeks ago her teachers called me to say how great it is to see the kid doing so well.


So what I'm getting at is that we are doing too much - we as parents have some kind of compulsion for taking action - just stop. Stop that right now! (I'm waggling a finger at you)

Stop doing. Let life unfold as it will and have faith that everything is how it must be, because it is.

(more soon)

bibliomancy, mischief and the anatomy of a dream

"Hermes...is not the source of light, as the sun is, but rather the source of this source. He also begot the moon-like and dark Pan. His world originates before sunrise, and as the source of his world he can only be the one who himself allows a source of illumination to originate in the outpouring of souls...

...in the prehistoric depths of the life-source, light and its mirror are begotten simultaneously; there as great Greek philosophers also knew, the source of light and the source of soul are one and the same..." (Kerenyi, Hermes p144)

There's a lot to be learned from venturing forth into the blogger-sphere. One Can Not, for example, post comments about misfortunes to one's cat on the blog of a cat lover - even with the most light-hearted intentions.

Really.

No seriously, I'm trying to lighten up, and step out from under my rock at last. And the story about my two cats called Arkie is funny, and has a happy ending. Well, apart from the bit where I accidentally killed the first cat, and reversed over the second one also completely by accident.

So, OK I'm not good with pets - this is something I'm working through.


Meanwhile I'm getting the picture that my style isn't going to have a 'typical' audience, and that being a virtual stranger just won't do.

And having said that, I see how things here could be less cryptic - and so (da da daah - *cough*) I set about explaining myself.

As far as bibliomancy goes I tend not to 'interpret' but rather to 'analogise'.

It is a form of divination and there's the temptation to rant on about possible manifestations of, say, the current transit of Mercury through Aquarius and occurrences like sudden (a trait of all things Aquarian) illuminations (Mercury ruling the mind) that come from venturing forth into community (also an Aquarian thing).

Or the odd little synchronicity involving technology (double ditto). The urge to express the soul's eccentricities; perhaps play a few tricks, Hermes-like.

But no, I prefer the moonlight and mystery and the possibility a passage points to. The act of defining is too orderly and interpretation is, to my mind, heroic - solar. I'm blinded by the light.

So I mostly ignore the quote I'm lead (oops I mean led) to and write my lived experience, knowing that there's a correlation and that all will be revealed - like undoing an origami crane. (There! that's how it started - that's how it became!).

If you interpret a dream, which is not far removed from divination, its intelligence is in danger of disolving - of being melted down and remade by daylight meaning and definition. That horse, no longer a horse but a sex-act; the snake a phallus - every character a stand-in for something else.

Too literal! A dream's lunar, night-world images - frightening, arousing and confusing - are the life lived by the deep unconscious mind.

A deeper, darker approach to a dream or a mystery is called for.

So lamp in hand we can ask - what does this image, this scene, this passage show me? What does it want?

Let it come to you.

Watch, wait - allow - and exactly what you need to know will turn up.

Try it. Take a dream or the above 'bibliomancy' and instead of penetrating it, let understanding surface. Leave 'symbols' out of it and get in touch with the nature of each image. A horse is still a horse - and its horse-ness. 'The source of light' is what it is - and its light-ness, its origin and its destination.

Yes, in the spirit of 'lightening up' - I'm willing to see things differently - if you have a dream you are yet to understand, perhaps this is exactly the bit of mischief you've needed to show up - maybe I can shine something on it after all - let me know, I'm all yours.

shadow mother

I'm not sure how I got so sidetracked but my original intentions for this blog seem to have gone to seed.

I was reminded this morning when I ran into a local woman pushing her two babies in a pram - sweet little blue-eyed cherubs covered head to toe in texta-coloured scribbles. We talked about how children love to draw on themselves and I mentioned a book I'd read that talked about adornment and the development of self esteem in girls.

Only five minutes before I'd been sitting with my coffee writing my morning pages and asking myself what my purpose is - why is my life where it is today and what direction is it taking?

It was good to talk about these things and it pulled me back into myself and my passion for archetype, ritual and culture - in particular about the mother archetype and its shadow 'the witch'.

It also reminded me that four years ago I wanted to write a book about motherhood, about raising girls in particular - and not just because I had four of them of my own at the time.

A series of events and circumstances had shown me something I'd previously pushed aside - something I refused to see. I'd found myself in a trap, caught in the complex seduction of ideas and illusions surrounding relationships, marriage and lifestyle.

It wasn't just that I woke up one day and discovered that I was a woman in my thirties with four young children with a man (at the risk of sounding spiteful I do use that term very loosely) who appeared to refuse to take any of the responsibility for the work of our relationship.

It wasn't just that I just couldn't stand pretending to be a 'happy family' anymore - that I felt like nothing more than an unpaid babysitter for a man who would take all the credit for the beautiful home, the beautiful children and the beautiful life we supposedly made together.

It wasn't just that when I left - packing the children up in the car my mother had bought me for the purpose of having some independence from my 'beautiful husband', leaving behind all the 'beautiful things' that I was now told didn't belong to me - I found that none of my 'couple friends' wanted to know me.

And it wasn't just that I didn't have a better excuse, a solid sense of my own self-worth or any idea of how important the work that I do raising my daughters is. I wasn't depressed, although my doctor would have me believe so (I later found out I'd had glandular fever). My sense of alienation was never from my girls, or from my own strength, or from men and fathers.

I just knew - and still do believe - that without a doubt there is an undercurrent of anger surrounding motherhood, mothering and mothers in general. And its not just overworked, unappreciated and undervalued mothers who are perpetuating it.

I set out to find out why it is that the world hates mothers.

You may now ask me 'what do you mean the world hates mothers?' What a load of rubbish! The world loves mothers, we idealise them if anything. Mothers are essential - without them the human race would be extinct. Raising children is the most important job there is, right?

Er, yes. That's all true too - on the surface.

Maybe I only feel it - this undercurrent of anger and hatred - because I'm a single mother - and even though there are a damned lot of us women raising children alone, we aren't exactly part of the ideal.

Being without a partner or husband means not being 'legitimate' and it means that you find out in no uncertain terms just how much value the work of a mother has in this world. You find out, not just in dollars and cents, but also how much of what you do as a mother is tied up with the currency of being a wife - and how much you 'contribute' to the macro and micro economies of society,community and household.

The first man I dated after leaving my husband was a social worker for the department of family services - he's the guy who extracts kids from homes where there's domestic violence and abuse of all kinds. He told me he found my approach to parenting unique;

him; wow, you're great at this - you should work with children.
me; I do work with children, I have four of them
him; no, I mean you should do it as a career
me; I do - this is a career
him; No, I mean you should get paid for it
me; I do get paid for it, its not all that much, but I get paid.
him; no, I mean it should be a proper job.
me; (withering glare) right.

Even a social worker, a professional in the 'caring' field doesn't see that mother-work is actual work that warrants status as a 'career'. He gave daily witness to the direct manifestation of the anger of and against women and children and couldn't be educated to my point of view. We didn't date for very long.

So, anyway, four years ago I set out to answer The Question and then write a book about it. Along the way I found my answers, and a whole lot of other questions - the subject is HUGE. I began to feel like it was all too much, and that I was too small, not qualified enough, not opinionated enough, just not enough - to even begin to write a book about it.

I went to some of the most highly qualified people I knew - my professors at university, all women, all mothers, and they didn't know where to begin either (and they had no time as they were winding up the Gender Studies department and heading to Canberra to lobby for better pay and conditions for childcare and aged care workers, ironically).

I read books and articles and scoured the internet. I talked to other women. I got my big Answer and I felt defeated.

I still do. I have five daughters now, and two men telling me I don't deserve any child support. The children are my choice, I'm told. Suck it up.

I'm getting fired up again.

Speaking with my father yesterday, he tells me that forty percent of Australia's children are being raised by single mothers. Forty percent! Alarm bells are ringing but the fire brigade aren't coming.

So, I have something to say to the world about the work of being a mother - and a renewed sense of purpose beyond blogging fiction and treading water until my children grow up and I can be a woman again (yes, there is a difference between being a woman and being a mother).

Its time to start placing a great deal more value on what we do, raising children. Its time to let go of the victim-martyr and 'not enough' mentality that takes over when it gets rough. What's not enough is to say 'the world hates mothers' and 'I'm angry about it' and leave it at that - its time to do something about it.

Starting with me, here and now.