Wishcasting Wednesday

Jamie, over at Starshyne Productions has this wonderful inspiration for Wishcasting Wednesday. I'll let you read all about it on her blog. I've been following the posts, and I've not jumped in for half a dozen reasons or so, all of them having to do with time and commitment and a few more of them having to do with being a tiny bit shy and not so much a joiner. But, I have to laugh at my response when I landed on her blog today. The question is simple: What do you wish to read? (Can you hear me laughing?)

A few of you know me rather well and I bet at least one or two of you are already imagining my mental answers. They went like this: I'd like to read my children's eyes, I'd like to read my own tarot cards with skill and without doubt and with bone baring honesty. I'd like to read my own heart, the wishes of my mother and the hopes of my brothers. I'd like to read the needs and wishes of my colleagues and friends, and I'd really like to read the Heart of the Holy Ones. I went on like this for some time today. And eventually, I was silenced. Am I overthinking this one just a bit? Maybe? You think? Ahem. Um, I am a librarian you know!

So! What do I want to read? Well...

For starters, I'd like to finish the last five hundred pages or so of Kristen Lavrensdatter. I loved it so much the times I read it before - this time, not so much. I find myself being more than a little impatient with her willfullness and lack of foresight. But, I hate leaving a book half read and so I cannot pick up something else until this is done.

Then! I'd like to really read everything I own. Yes, that's right. How many books have I just skimmed? All those books a therapist suggested, all those massage and healing books that I opened to the precise bit of information I needed, Job's Body comes to mind, and then put down to gather dust. I'd like to read all those books that were too painful for me to process.

I always return, every year or so, to Brothers Karamozov and I randomly pick something from Charles Dickens. Cynthia always inspires me with her poetry selections and I really wish that I read more poetry. I've promised to soon begin The Book Thief and Eat, Pray, Love.

Really, I just like to read. When I read, my thoughts are more colorful, my language more precise and I believe (or imagine) that I make more sense when I speak. Let me know if you notice any improvement in the next few posts!

I wish this enrichment in my life, for my soul. Let it be so.

~Lee

Round in a circle we go:

I love to blog. I love to write. I love words and the play of words on the lips, on paper and spoken.

So, when I find that I’m not writing, in some form or another, there’s generally one reason. And that reason, generally speaking of course, is that my thoughts have become a tangled ball and I’m searching for the one magic strand that I can pull, releasing the jumble so that it flows effortlessly through my hands, my head and my life in a smooth, straight and easy pull. This time is just like the others. Sometimes I can’t even find the tangled ball of yarn, it’s hiding beneath the couch, or in the car, or somewhere in a forgotten satchel, and the satchel is in Indiana, forgotten beneath the crumbling statues left behind. Often, I don’t even know I’m looking for the tangle until I find it.


Tonight I found the tangled mess of thoughts and I saw how it had wound its way around the whole of my life. I might not quite unravel it all in one post – I know you all don’t like to read that long! But I’d like to begin.


Some of you have actually followed the progression of my posts – and only a very few have been astute enough to follow the path, and a few have been kind enough to notice and email. On the surface, my blog has no cohesion. Okay, I can live with that. I am a librarian, I knit, I craft, I sew. I am a mother and I have a wild variety of English garden interests. Those are many, but not all of the things that I am. I am passionate about many more things; even more than those mentioned here. And that is where some of the trouble begins.


For the past few months I have made for myself a quiet commitment. That commitment has been to be more the librarian that I dream that I would be if I were working in another magical library someplace in the ethers. That library would be filled with other librarians, with students asking “hard” questions, I would be creating magnificent displays and tutorials. If only….

So, I’ve begun really doing that.

When I have students ask more one more time! to fix a printer jam, I’m taking the time to then ask them about the project that’s jammed our printer (that I even said OUR printer is really a strong indicator of the change in my attitude.) Once I find out about their projects, I’m able to ask questions, to show interest and suggest resources. I’m working on tutorials and doing all that paperwork that sometimes seems so simple and routine that I let it pile up to gargantuan proportions. I can see the results of my efforts. I can actually count the results each morning as I record the door numbers. I no longer leave that silly task for Friday knowing that the average will be the same whether I record the number daily or weekly. By recording daily, I am able to see, or at least assume with some certainty, the results of what I did the day before. Ah, yesterday I was very proactive and walked around, chatting a bit and smiling at students. I willingly worked on the printer rather than doing so in a way that no matter how I thought I protected my secret resentment, surely must have energetically jumped into my students’ being. And, the numbers were UP! My circulation has increased because I’ve been making suggestions and asking questions. I have been present.

And, I come home more tired each evening. The enthusiasm seems to have stopped at 5 PM. Why? Because when I get home, I can no longer turn off the effort it takes to not look for that ball of tangled yarn. It has been as though, somehow, if I am to be a real librarian, I cannot knit, I cannot give any energy to those other parts of myself.

It would be easy to say that the circumstances of my life are the root of the silence. Indeed, my current circumstance is quite difficult and challenging. It would probably more true to unearth some deep and engrained pattern in my thinking and my way of being. But for now, here’s just one of the small threads that I can pull.


As I become more and more enthusiastic about my work and focus more on practicing the real skills of my profession, there is less and less time for other pursuits. No. Let’s say it correctly…there is less and less time for the expression of my other pursuits here on my blog. Here’s the real truth. I received an email from a reader who indicated that she could no longer read because I am blogging about the ummm, I’ll just use my own words, about that evil, occult stuff. Now, on the surface my thought in response was, “okay, don’t read.” I am not here, or at least I have not been here, to attract some gaggle of readers or make myself a name. Right? Really? Well. Maybe not.

At the same time I am reading all “that stuff” about your individual, personal online brand. Oh no! I’ve no brand! I am all over the place and writing about the wrong things for the wrong audience!

And so, I did not write that blog post about the Fool card as I committed myself to do. Honest. I worried myself that it didn’t look very “librariany.” The phrase that comes to mind, as I finally claim the tangled ball of my own yarn is, “that sucks!” Really. That sucks. What if all my (there are hoards you know) new librarian friends stop reading that crazy, occult lady? What if my new librarian friends think my silly, not often perfect craft projects are less than professional? OR! What if I offend with my political views? What if I stumble in my expression of my social and cultural beliefs? What if I photograph the garden that I intend to grow this summer and it dies? I hope someone can see where I’m going. Cuz we’re almost there.


Yes. We’re here: The Fool card. The post I didn’t write. Look at that happy fellow! Look at how his feet land just inches away from disaster. Why isn’t he disturbed? Why isn’t he looking around and behind and below? The Fool travels light. He’s not carrying around all that concern about what others think, about whether or not he’s done the right thing or spoken the proper words. In utter and primitive innocence he goes where he must. Yes, there is more meaning, deeper and more profound meaning. But what is seen in the card changes to meet perfectly what we need to see in the moment. And for now, for me, that’s enough. And to make it all perfect I have a song stuck in my heart tonight, I haven’t heard it played. I only hear my own voice singing it in my body, “We are all innocent….”


I recall once, when I first experienced the profound reality of Confession. I said to my Confessor, “But God sees all that really ugly stuff inside of me!” I was truly humbled by the reality of my failings. “Oh yes, but God doesn’t have much time to waste on what’s ugly because the Universe is too much in love with all that’s pure, and Holy and RIGHT.” Over years I have come to see that I can only be the whole being that I am. And, most of the times that I have attempted to be crafty, to conceal what I thought should be concealed and reveal what *I* thought should be revealed when I thought I should reveal it – that I have done damage. And, the pole of that is that I have also come to realize that on at least a few occasions, when I expressed the wholeness of who I am, without doubt, without contrivance, that in innocence some thing, or some one, heard something RIGHT.

I am willing to be the Fool for now, to try on his garb, and dance in those innocent footsteps, sometimes courting disaster. And don’t you find it quite interesting that the fool card is followed immediately, not ten or twelve cards from now, by the Magus? The one I think of as the Master, the one focused with purity and singularity of purpose. Is it possible to dance between the two? It must be or one would have to leave the Fool long behind to experience the Magicaan. Instead, they are friends, traveling parallel paths, one on the footfalls of the other.


Surely there must be some occult librarian to whom I can point for justification?
I hope that made you smile.

~Lee
The librarian who knits, who sews, who tries to grow gardens, who argues with her children, makes not so wise decisions (sometimes when she knows she’s doing it too!), reads less than she likes to confess and is looking to travel light.

I'm still here. Yes. I'm sure of it. I had intended to write a little post about my Easter gifts; aren't they cute? They were fun!

I also intended to write what would have been, I'm quite sure, an eloquent post about this magnificent Easter gift:



And! I have mentally written a lengthy post about my experience of the Fool card in the Tarot Deck for Tarot Thursday. There's also a post about Wellness Wednesday. Well, that post might have been filled with all the things that I haven't been doing in order to see my own health and well-being progress.

The truth is, I've been a little blue. My life at home has been, ummmm, I think the best word might be, "complex." And my life at work has been challenging and hectic. So for a little while now, I've found it easier to read your blogs, devour your words and do a little twittering. I feel this cycle reaching its conclusion and I believe I will write for you the Tarot post this weekend (I'll be behind, please forgive me!) and a little update.

I am going to be moving. Pretend that I've said it with conviction and enthusiasm. Yet, I have no idea where just yet and I'm a little bit worried about that. But, moving is inevitable and so I'm determined to see the possibility and infinite potential for good things. I have to laugh though, my back isn't quite as enthusiastic as I'd like. Tumor guy did not go on vacation as ordered, wishing instead to observe the coming feat. This could be an interesting dance.

If not this weekend, soon. With lots of great, new tidbits to share.

Cheers! ~LeeA