Reclaiming the Witch Within

I find it hard to write at the two blogs I keep. I find it even harder to do anything that even remotely resembles remaking my life.

In part it is due to lack of time. I am still working two jobs and will have to continue doing so for the foreseeable future. Most of the time I am working anywhere from 55 to 70 hours a week (depending on how I get scheduled at my second job).

In part it is due to lack of energy. My health issues related to chronic pain and fatigue are kicked up something fierce. Unfortunately, so is my insomnia. For the most part if I am not working (or food shopping, or cooking, or paying bills, or trying to turn watching an hour or two of television with my 12 year old into “quality time”) I am capable of little more than sitting on the couch mindlessly surfing the internet while half-way watching TV with my husband.

But mostly, it is due to, frankly, being more soul-sick that I care to admit (even to the therapist I started seeing earlier this year).

It is this (as well as the figurative voices in my head that remind me incessantly about my worries, my flaws, my failures, and my failings when I have a moment of peace and quiet) that renders me silent.

There is a series of books I love by Anne Bishop (The Black Jewels). Without attempting to go into too much detail, one of the concepts in the book is that the people referred to as the Blood (those capable of casting spells, performing magic, having psychic ability) have within them an Abyss. It is at once their own inner well of power – a place to descend to and emerge having gathered one’s strength for a task at hand – and a psychological state, an inner landscape if you will. It can be a place to escape and heal in, or a place to lose yourself among the shattered shards of self.

Not trying to be morose or melodramatic, I have in some way found my way to the outskirts of an Abyss of sorts. It takes so much damn energy to walk the fine line that allows me to juggle everything that I need to, to stay as outwardly positive as possible, to remain the rock my family needs me to be, and to avoid collapsing into a quivering heap of hopeless sobbing that I find I don’t have much of anything left at the end of the day to do the inner or outer work I need to do to both heal and move forward.

Not sure where that leaves me, or where this journey is taking me. But I am trying to hold on to hope. That’s really all I can do.

Blessings

Mama Kelly

Be advised that currently 2 Witches is rarely updated. Lady Rose writes over at Blissful Moon and Mama Kelly is writing over at Blade & Cauldron

Most of us have had the experience … be it cleaning out a little used hall closet or just a junk drawer … of sifting through a bunch of stuff in order to figure out what we were going to keep.  Along the way we find out that there are things that we picked up, sure that we absolutely needed them (or just really really wanted) only to learn that we really didn’t after all.  As we continue to sort we discover broken bits and missing parts that no longer serve any purpose that no longer have a place they belong.  We find things that are instantly recognizable as trash (that we look at and wonder why we’ve been holding on to it all this time) and, when we’re lucky, we even find small treasures that we forgot that we had.

Sorting through our lives is much like cleaning out a closet.  We discover that we are holding on an awful lot that no longer serves any purpose.

There is physical clutter to release, obviously.  But, I have found that it is the emotional and spiritual clutter that trips us up more often than not in our quests for the life we want.

The voices you hear that echo back to you the criticisms of your past … that remind you that you’re ugly, fat, clumsy, stupid, lazy, etc.  That remind you that you’ll never succeed, that you’re a failure, that your dreams are stupid, that your opinions are flawed, that you’re not good enough.

The habits that rob you of the time you need to explore new paths and grow your dreams.  The coping mechanisms that you cling to, in spite of the fact that they don’t work anymore and are hurting your health.

But, as Yoda put it … “luminous beings are we, not this crude matter” … and I would add that the stress that life brings, that the damage that the world inflicts on us, the wounds that others inflict on us, and (even more damaging) the wounds we inflict on ourselves can’t touch it, cannot change it, cannot extinguish it.

Can we find ourselves in a place where we can no longer see it’s glow?  Certainly.

Can we find ourselves living a life that no longer reflects that light to the world around us?  Definitely.

My theme this year is reclaiming.  Putting aside the smaller, more tangible, goals that I have given myself to push this journey along, the hoped for end result is to find myself at the year’s end able to feel my own luminosity again.  To find myself in a place where I can take my inner light and let it shine more that it has in a long long time.

Part of that journey means getting real about getting rid of all that which no longer serves any true purpose in my life.  But, it also means digging through the rubble to find those hidden treasures that I have lost.  To find the broken bits that can be repaired.  To find pieces I’ve lost and fit them into the holes in my life/heart/soul they belong.  To find new ways to cope and find ways to heal and, maybe more importantly to take those steps into the unknown and trust that, when all is said and done, the Gods will lead me to exactly where I am meant to be.

Blessings

Jia

Be advised that currently 2 Witches is rarely updated. Lady Rose writes over at Blissful Moon and Mama Kelly is writing over at Blade & Cauldron

My theme for 2012 is RECLAIMING …

reclaiming my health (and my husband’s)

reclaiming our finances

reclaiming my spirituality

and reclaiming our dreams by working at them each and every day

Part of that reclamation work includes reclaiming a blogging life.  With 2 blogs to keep (2witches, which will focus on all things related to spirit and bladeandcauldron which will focus on the more physical aspects of life).  How, exactly, I am going to fit this in (while I continue to work 2 jobs for the foreseeable future) I haven’t yet decided I only know that it is not something I am willing to walk away from.

Happy 2012 to each and every one of you.

Blessings!

Mama Kelly aka Jia

Be advised that currently 2 Witches is rarely updated. Lady Rose writes over at Blissful Moon and Mama Kelly is writing over at Blade & Cauldron