Welcome To the Cedar Grove

From The Book of Awakening: Having the Life You Want by Being Present to the Life You Have.

From the beginning,
the key to renewal has been
the casting off of old skin.

But what does this mean? Not that we can live forever, but that the way to stay closest to the pulse of life, the way to stay in the presence of that divine reality which informs everything is to be willing to change. Still, change what? To change whatever has ceased to function within us. To shed whatever we are carrying that is no longer alive. To cast off our dead skin because dead skin can't feel. Dead eyes can't see. Dead ears can't hear. And without feeling, there is no chance of wholeness, and wholeness remains our best chance to survive the pain of breaking.

I don't know what to write today... and it bothers me. It scares me a bit actually. I've already started this entry three times, got about a couple of sentences in and thought, no... that's not what I want to write.

Not last year, but the year before, when Mir and I were in Vegas for the convention Mir insisted that I go and enjoy an afternoon at the spa there... I wasn't sure about it... felt a bit... I don't know, nervously embarrassed I guess. I'd never had such pampering before, and didn't think I deserved it, but Mir insisted, wanting me to have that, telling me that I did deserve it and so I went. I had a facial, and a full body scrub, and OH. My. Goodness, afterwards I have never felt so alive - so physically alive. I felt soft, and renewed and loved (because of course Mir had made it all possible).

I was thinking about it just now you see, with all the thoughts of getting rid of dead skin in order to be able to feel. Now, I know this is a physical example... an actual concrete example, but it makes me think along emotional and spiritual lines... what I need maybe is a full emotional scrub, a full spiritual scrub with figurative apricot seeds to get rid of the dead skin I'm carrying inside so that I can feel again. Just a thought, and I don't know how I'd do it.

I just keep thinking - a couple of more weeks or so, and I'll be there, because all I want to do right now is lie down and curl up together - let Mir read to me and run her fingers through my hair or whatever while I just drift... though that could be bad manners 'cause I wouldn't be paying attention to her then. :P

But it's what I want - what I need. I need to shed the skin of the distance that distance has put between us. I'm going to do that.

On an entirely different note, and I don't even know if it's related at all, but it's choking me up inside so I'm just letting it out...

Since I got home I've been feeling particularly agitated... down... lonely... lost, and it's all because I read a list of chapter titles for one of the new Stargate books. One of which is 'Michael'

Okay so getting a little bit long winded, I've been putting of and putting off and putting off reading the new Legacy series of Stargate books, because they're a book continuation of the series in much the same way that the Pocket Book series continues on from where Enterprise left off... and god knows I didn't like what they did with Enterprise. So I was nervous of 'dodgy book canon' as I've come to call it, and that put me off reading the Stargate books.

Eventually, I caved... I started reading... and while I didn't find the first book, Homecoming too objectionable (actually I quite enjoyed it up until the last chapter or so), starting in on the second book, The Lost I had to put it down after the first chapter and I've not picked it up again since.

( Spoiler cut - don't read this if you don't want to know what happens until you've read the book )

So then I go and read that one of the chapter titles in Allegiance (Book 3) is 'Michael' and I had an immediate and visceral reaction. And but for the fact that he's not 'mine' I could almost believe that I was channelling Michael himself... I mean I suppose it could be Teyla's reaction but still... it hurts, and I don't like it.

Maybe I need to shed my expectations of the book and just read the damn things instead of expecting the worst... maybe that's what I should do. All I know is that right now, it's left me feeling on the verge of tears.

Don't mess with Michael