Tonight is the Full Frost Moon, named as such because the frost and ice will start to set in as the earth grows colder, animals will start to hibernate for the winter months, the last leaves will fall from the trees, and the land will become barren.
The Moon is rising in the constellation of Gemini. We are amidst some strong planetary alignments that are heralding a need for profound change and revolution inside and out. Our attitude is of utmost importance during this time and can empower us and see us through whatever we are facing. Gratitude for what we have and a willingness to move with the energy that is calling is required.
This particular Full Moon will not be boring and will have an unpredictable vibe along with it. The places where we have been feeling stuck in our lives may suddenly begin to move or shift. If emotions are clogged, they may surface and flow; let them. Don’t hold anything in, let your emotions out. Be aware of dualistic thoughts, emotions, and behaviors, as this may be generating a lot of mental stress and tension, as well as sending out mixed signals to others and the Universe. Try to stay grounded and find a balance. Finances are illuminated on this Full Moon, to watch what we are spending and to improve or bring in extra income.
Tonight’s Full Moon brings change, as we are coming to the end of the calendar year. With Yule and the New Year fast approaching, we must become empowered to make the changes necessary to shift our situation. It is up to us; the time is now. We must let go and surrender to the deeper current that is transforming us. You are the master of your destiny. Take your power back from society and other people. Learn from your past mistakes. Vow to do better next year. Make a commitment to your success. Be adaptable. Make friends with change. It is not the enemy. Change is your friend. Change sheds the old and gives birth to the new.
This Full Moon is about communication, higher learning, and our sense of creativity and adventure. Something has been building inside of us and now is the time when the energy of the cosmos demands that we let it out. We are magnets to our desire, and we have the power to attract what we want toward us.
Gemini is the sign of knowledge and learning. This will give us a boost in mind power, as we will be able to see things more clearly. We will see our own truths and a fog will be lifted that can show us a path that can lead us to improving ourselves both spiritually and mentally.
This Full Moon look into yourself and ask yourself what you need to move forward. Ask yourself how you are going to achieve this, and ask yourself if you feel that you are strong enough to do this. If you feel that you are not strong enough, use the energy of this Full Moon to heal and gain strength. Ask the Goddess for guidance and to lead the way to a more positive, happier life. Tonight is a good time to determine just what you value and want you stand for, as well as what you want to create in your life and carry forth into the next cycle of your evolution.
Have a blessed Full Moon. May the Goddess watch over you.
Full written & photo credit goes to Wicca Teachings.
I had a major meltdown Monday. I can’t recall the last time I felt that alone, that isolated from my friends & family, or that upset. I’m certain it’s happened before, but Monday was simply too much, too soon, and way too intensely upsetting. I vividly remember scrolling through my contacts list at one point, and realizing that I could not call a single soul in it. I reasoned that I didn’t want to bother anyone at work. It was quite sobering.
When a strong woman says “I’m tired of being strong.”, it’s honest. When a strong woman says “I feel broken.”, that too is honest. But when a strong woman seeks help so that she does not harm herself, knowing the potential is there, and gets told “There’s a nine month waiting list to be seen.” or “We’re booked solid until January, so you should go to your nearest emergency room.”, it is astounding.
When you go to the emergency room with a mental health crisis of any kind, it is my experience that you will not be taken seriously unless you’re bleeding or have overdosed and were brought in on a stretcher. Does it really have to come down to that? I think it is a horrible approach and I wonder how many other people have experienced this.
If a mother can go to a police station, fire house, rescue squad, or hospital, and legally surrender an infant (Known as the Safe Haven Law) without fear of being deemed a criminal for child abandonment, then I should be able to go into any medical establishment and say “I am worried for myself, I need help.” without fear of judgment or criticism, or being mistreated. Instead, I spent several days talking to my insurance company, who are utterly useless, trying to find a way to get immediate care. But no such place exists without an extensive waiting list. They just keep telling me to go to the emergency room. I didn’t break my leg, this is not an emergency room situation unless I have hurt myself or someone else. G-d forbid!
I don’t need to be hospitalized. I know that, and so do the few people who support me, but do I need additional support and someone to talk to? Yes. I reached out to my psychiatrist for a prescription, asking whether or not I should go back on medicine I already have or medicine I used to take, the latter of which would require him to call a prescription into the pharmacy for me. Unfortunately, medication is always very tricky, and side effects are generally the reason I stop taking them. That, or the fact that they don’t make me feel better. I can’t function when I’m deathly ill from side effects or I can’t physically get out of bed from the drowsiness certain medications provide at even a low dose. I have yet to meet one that truly works without making things worse.
It’s almost 2016, and there are still so many people ashamed to talk about their use of antidepressants or anti-anxiety medication during difficult times in their life, or daily to manage very real issues that aren’t their fault to begin with. I would be far more embarrassed pretending I was okay when I am not. Suffering in silence makes the suffering one hundred times worse than it is if you simply reach out to someone and ask for help. But here I am, and there’s no one willing to help. It’s like being outside in -50 degree temperatures and having someone throw ice water at you. It is also incredibly hurtful and insulting.
The past few years have taken an immense toll on me, I’d never deny that, but the last two and a half weeks have been like bleeding to death slowly. And yet, as I sit here with a cold that came out of nowhere, I find myself unable to handle answering the phone or responding to a text message (I wish I could say they were simple, but they’re not. I currently have the Do Not Disturb feature on because listening to my phone vibrate all day is getting to me.). I’ve reached a point where too many people want immensely large pieces of me, but none of them are willing to grant me so much as an inch of kindness, compassion, or understanding. I take a few days to take care of myself and get told I’m horribly selfish, which is the exact opposite of who I am. I’m considering the asinine source before buying into such nonsense. Sometimes employing a “I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that” filter is a good idea.
I am the first person to say that it’s important to advocate for your own mental health, and your overall health in general. It’s important to question everything, especially when you aren’t receiving legitimate answers. I also feel it is important to take ownership of your own crap. That being said, I feel like this particular situation is what’s affecting me and making me physically ill. It’s not depression in a traditional way, it is the situation causing how I feel, but it is still difficult and I’d prefer to be prepared for anything more that comes at me, as opposed to pretending nothing affects me. I’m human, and it’s not a crime.
I might not have been in a good mood to begin with, but come on, this has merit.
I got home late from the hospital Monday night. They keep the rooms outrageously hot in that particular part of the hospital. I kept putting eye drops in to counteract the heat drying my eyes out, and I kept disinfecting things because every other person was coughing or sneezing. I already knew I had something in my system, but now it’s affecting my head and chest. For a period of time yesterday, my voice was but a whisper. All I was capable of doing was sitting and today hasn’t been much better, except that I have my voice back and have been able to do a few things in and out of the house. My head feels like there are multiple hot pokers stuck in different directions, my sinuses are killing me, and my eyes and throat hurt like hell. The weather, all dark and grey, complete with rain, is only adding to the pressure in my skull. I find it insulting to get sick when I am already dealing with enough insanity.
My brother is still in the hospital. They wanted to discharge him on Monday, but his blood oxygen levels weren’t good and they were talking about doing another procedure before discharging him. By Tuesday, his levels were almost 100% improved, the second procedure was determined to be okay a month post-op, but not now. There was also a major snafu when one of his surgeons discovered a potential infection on an x-ray. He wasn’t sure what it was, but wanted to run some tests to figure it out. They have since discovered that he indeed has infection, but they aren’t 100% sure where or what it is. He’s been saying he “feels hot” since last week. They kept telling him his vitals were good and it was merely a side effect of the anesthesia and medication. Last night, the nurses argued once they discovered he had a high fever, because apparently the two nurses prior to the shift change failed to report that he had one at all. His primary surgeon was called at home around midnight and was, quite obviously, very concerned. He ordered a laundry list of tests, some of which were performed immediately after the phone call, and others were done earlier on, with a few more ordered for later today. My brother, in perfectly dramatic fashion, blamed me for this. It is, naturally, all my fault. How could it not be?! Lord knows I walk around with a veritable petri dish just waiting to unleash it on my own flesh & blood. <rolls eyes>
I’d like to blame that psychotic comment on his medication, but I have no idea where he gets the idea that I’m some kind of monster trying to keep him in the hospital (If I was, he’d be chained to a bed in a mental hospital.). Because I’m honest? Because I’m direct? Because I don’t coddle him? No matter what I say or do, I am wrong. It’s like being married, except this isn’t Arkansas (That was a snarky comment, not a statement of fact, lest someone become offended and lack the ability to decipher my sense of humor.).
Quite frankly, I’d like him to recover in someone else’s home, tormenting them. If I hear about his dietary restrictions one more time, he’ll be lucky to get a loaf of bread and a gallon of water each week upon being released into my “care”. I offered to bring him something when I go back to the hospital and was told I “can’t be obvious about it” because I brought him a request Monday and apparently someone asked how he got it or something along those lines. I didn’t know I was committing some evil act by trying to do something nice. He’s a grown man, what am I supposed to do, bring him a teddy bear?! His vocal cords are healing (If you watch Chicago P.D., I can tell you that, at the moment, he sounds a lot like Jason Beghe.) at a slow rate, so I’ve made an effort, but all he does is piss me off with the unappreciativeness. I don’t have a lot of patience to begin with, so insulting me is not the way to get what you want or need.
People don’t rely on me for compassion, they rely on me to get the difficult shit done. I realize he feels he deserves some kind of “compassion pass” at the moment, but I don’t have it in me to change the core of who I am. I handle and face situations, but I’m not going to be someone I’m not, regardless of what a situation may be. In life, there’s no room for sugar-coating, and I certainly don’t expect people to do it for me either. Deliver the facts, I will deliver solutions, but don’t play games with me. It can seem cold and dispassionate to people, but I am actually quite passionate. If I wasn’t passionate, I wouldn’t do a damn thing for anyone. I would absolutely be selfish and self-centered, but I’m not. Sometimes when people are going through something difficult, they imprint their issues onto you, because their coping mechanisms aren’t strong enough to hold them together emotionally.
Ultimately, medication or not, I know who I am. This week has been a bad situation and it upset me to an ugly point, but my survival and success rate are 100%. I’m not going anywhere.
Tonight is the New Moon in Scorpio. It is time to shed our old skin. Release what is dying. Let go of what is not working for you. Scorpio is about death and rebirth; transformation. This is a cycle of completions and new beginnings.
Scorpio’s New Moon is all about change ultimately, the changes and losses place you squarely on a new path that you are supposed to be traveling. Your eyes will open to the beauty of all that is you. This is a wake-up call. It is about sweeping your life clean of negative clutter. Belief systems can crumble, routines and relationships may breakdown. Structures that you have built are challenged. Things that you may have thought were reliable and dependable end. For a while you may feel adrift, in transition. Then new doors open and new chapters begin. You are ushered into a new phase of life.
Create the space for positive energy to enter your life. What is not working this New Moon will breakdown. You will breakthrough into a new and better life. Become who you truly are, rather than who you think you are supposed to be. This is the true meaning of transformation. As we embrace our own darkness, we become whole. We acknowledge the truth of who we are, which will help us see the truth of others.
Scorpio is all about seeing the truth. If we can be truthful with ourselves about really seeing and releasing our emotions, we have great opportunity to complete some aspect of our lives and begin a new phase. Relationships with others and with ourselves have great potential for expansion and change.
Scorpio’s strength is that it isn’t afraid of the dark, and so when the Moon is in Scorpio, it is a perfect time to look at our shadows and see what we’ve been in fear of, suppressing and repressing, and then deal with it. When we face our inner demons they aren’t as scary as they once were.
Let us use these insights to fuel our understanding, to allow us to have a bigger, clearer picture of what is occurring in our lives, so that we can easily navigate the changing tides. Scorpio holds the power of the water element, this will have our emotions on high alert. Let your raw emotions come to the surface, this will allow you to heal both mentally and physically.
Things are shifting. What will bring us balance? What will bring us closer to our joy/truth? Let’s move in that direction as we get in touch with our truth and allow others the same freedom.
The New Moon in Scorpio is sure to leave its extreme emotional imprint of new beginnings upon us. It almost dares each of us to go into the unknown and expose new parts of the self which are waiting in the wings, desiring expression. Get to know yourself again and figure out what you really want.
Have a Blessed New Moon and may the Goddess watch over you.
Waking up this morning, I had a plan. Thus far, that plan is at a standstill as I am still dealing with yesterday’s migraine. In turn, all I wanted was silence, in all its perfect glory. This, of course, is where the leaf blowers come in, and threaten to make me sicker.
After doing some mundane things earlier on in the day, the sound of three (I wish I were joking) leaf blowers on my property became unbearable. I was in the kitchen at the time doing some early prep for Sunday dinner, otherwise I might not have heard them in the back of the house, which is where I do most of my work.
I glanced out a window after a while because the noise was getting louder and closer, and there were no less than six people on my front lawn, three of whom had leaf blowers. I cannot tell you how annoyed I was, but I decided to let it go. If you can’t shoot people for being idiots, you might as well let them look like the idiots they truly are as they mind someone else’s business on a suburban street for all to see.
Yesterday my vile next door neighbor took it upon herself, as she does every Fall, to break out the leaf blower and blow every leaf off of her property onto mine. She blew them halfway to the middle of the front lawn, as if they magically got there on their own. Who does that, you ask? Someone not entirely sane.
She pretended she didn’t see me go to the mailbox before she started this nonsense, that I hadn’t answered a question when her husband stopped me to ask about my brother’s surgery, as he visited him in the hospital last week, and that she had not seen me Friday night when I came home from running errands. She was too busy gossiping, but believe me when I say her eyes are always on me and my business. As my brother would say “Don’t watch me, watch TV.”
Today, she did the same thing with the leaves, except this time she, her husband, and several other members of her family bagged the leaves up, because apparently they have nothing better to do on a Sunday morning. There are eighteen bags of leaves sitting at the end of my driveway, as if she did a good, neighborly thing out of some semblance of goodness that I can attest, does not exist. She put three bags in front of her driveway and the rest in front of mine, as if I am blind. She wants it to be obvious that she did it, but I’m smart enough to know her motives.
Don’t get me wrong, if this was a genuine move, I would be quite appreciative. I cannot afford to be an ungrateful bitch, and I’m not. However, she knew I was home. There were two cars in the driveway before she started and after she finished. There are several other houses on this street that could have used her brand of “assistance”. The neighbor next door lost her husband in April and is having a difficult time. I would think it would make a hell of a lot more sense to help her as she’s visibly struggling with such a severe loss, so believe me when I say this was far from genuine. If I were going to help someone, I would be doing the yard work for the other neighbor whose husband used to do to it for her and their family. That, at least, makes sense.
Here’s the issue, apart from my desperately needing quiet; This isn’t her house. If the leaves from my trees bother her, tough shit. They aren’t hurting anything or anyone, and there is no mandate in this township that says when or if you mustbag up leaves or not. It is November, and it’s early November at that. The leaves can be bagged up for pick-up, if one chooses, well into mid-December. Generally the majority of mine get removed in early Spring because I’m not so OCD that it needs to be perfect. In fact, I’d prefer the chipmunks have leaves lying around in case they need them. Moreover, I have more important things to think about at the moment, and raking leaves is extremely low on the totem pole of thought. But hey, if she wants to waste over two hours, have at it. It will get colder, the wind will continue to blow, because hurricane season is not yet finished, and she’ll be back at it in a week or two weeks from now because both trees out front are FULL of leaves. They’re going to keep falling. It makes no sense to bag leaves up more than once, if one is going to do it at all.
Instead of treating me like a human-being that exists, she does this because the leaves bother her (God forbid a leaf get on her new car! The woman, I kid you not, threw a party to show her new car off to anyone and everyone, as if she hadn’t been driving a relatively new car before this. Did you just shake your head at the craziness of such a stunt? It’s very similar to driving around with the sale’s sticker on your car for months.), and what’s more, it bothers her that I do not say a word to her, not in English any way. I lack the ability to be polite to people once I’ve seen their true colors. I’m contemplating slipping a note under her husband’s windshield wiper when I go out tomorrow morning to thank him for bagging up the leaves, despite the fact that I know he wouldn’t do all that work on his own since he’s due for knee replacement surgery any day now. She thinks she’s being cute, but she has no idea who she’s screwing with. I should have taken video or photos, because if you’d seen the behavior as she barked orders at her minions, I mean family, you’d understand my reaction. I strongly suggest she see a doctor and get her medication adjusted.
Now that it is quieter, I am still hearing leaf blowers (and lawn mowers) throughout the neighborhood. It’s kind of like dogs that all bark in sync the second the mailman is on the street. If I knew where my ear plugs were, I might be able to quell some of the nausea the noise is inducing.
On the flip side, I LOVE preparing Sunday dinner, but since it’s just me (my brother won’t be eating solid food for quite some time and Case Study #2 is on his way to the airport.), I broke it up into three meals to prolong the culinary delights. I still have mushrooms to saute, some additional veggies to chop, and the centerpiece of it all to throw together. If I can get my stomach to settle down, dinner will be awesome and continue to be awesome for a few nights. 🙂
I have so many friends who don’t understand my love for cooking (My cousin once asked me how to make corn on the cob. I tried hard not to laugh as I explained the simplicity of it.), or who don’t cook at all, which is why I’m the one that feeds them when they visit, or when I visit them. Cooking is merely another art form I enjoy, it’s a skill set that not all people have. That doesn’t mean I don’t scoff when a friend of over 20 years happens to let me know that she’s learning how to cook for her husband. I had to explain that when cooking, you need to cleanse the palate in order to be able to taste what it is you are making and gauge the seasoning accordingly. When I received a giggly, moronic response, I rolled my eyes and have tried my level best to keep my mouth shut since. If you’re public with your stupidity, or you advertise it via social media, don’t expect me to pretend I didn’t just hear what you said. Don’t hand-feed the writer material!
And on that note my loves, I am off to the kitchen once more to put all of the finishing touches on one of my favorite meals. Buon appetito! 🙂
Some months are good to you, and others are a bitch. Sometimes a month is riddled with bad news, negativity, hostility, and unhappiness. When a month is ugly, you need to say goodbye, and leave it behind you. It’s senseless to constantly look behind you to the bad when the future is going to be fresher and brighter. It does not mean it will be easy, but can it be better? Yes.
And so, I say “Goodbye November”. I took this month with a grain of salt, a shovel full of sand, and a sprinkle of sugar (real sugar, not the fake crap!). It’s time to look forward.
December is, by proxy, an emotionally difficult month for me. It is the anniversary of too much death, it is the month of birthdays of people I have loved and lost, and the holiday season is a poor reminder of all those things.
I’m a bit of a hermit during the Winter months. I write, I read, I listen to music, I watch movies, I do my best to stay out of the cold, and I try not to think too hard about all of the horrible shit that has happened in my life. I try to look, and focus on, the positive. It’s not always easy to do. You live, you learn, you grow, you evolve (Sound familiar Lillian? LOL.). But most importantly: You make an effort.
I can say, without fail, that I have grown and evolved SO MUCH in the past seven years. I look in the mirror and see someone who is definitely smarter, sharper, sassier, and completely unapologetic in the fact that she’s going to be herself. Right about this time seven years ago, I was writing a eulogy to be given at my father’s impending funeral. I spent two months writing it, knowing that the end was near. I wrote something heartfelt and beautiful, and about a year later I had someone insult it, saying that I accepted crumbs when I deserved more. What she didn’t understand is that I have class, and tact. Whatever goes on behind closed doors doesn’t always need to be aired to the world at large. I chose to write something and speak in a way that would not shame anyone. My feelings may have evolved since then, but I still stand behind the choice because I know it was the right thing to do.
Not everyone is going to understand or respect your journey. They don’t have to, and they don’t need to. After all, it’s not theirs to comprehend.
Be you, no matter how difficult it is at times. Don’t apologize, unless you’ve truly done something wrong.
Goodbye November…I won’t miss anything about you. I am cutting ties. It’s time to go “Back To December”.
Written by LISA MARINO-Molchanova 