cedar_grove | Entries tagged with friends

Look what the goddess does when she is sad:
she takes up a tambourine, made of taut skin
and rimmed with castanets of brass,
and she begins to dance. The sound of flutes
blares out wildly, reaching even ot the depths
of the underworld, so loud, so clamourous it is.
Look what the goddess does when she is sad:
she finds the wildness in herself and as she does,
she finds that there is joy there too.

--Gree dramatist Euripides

We fill our moments with the demands of the mundane world. Yet however successful we are, we yearn for something more, something different.

Trying not to be judgmental, but the meditation of today helped me to realise something; helped me to understand the motivation of someone who, over the last couple of weeks has been increasingly bothersome to me - particularly as her behaviour has been upsetting friends whose happiness is important to me.

But... I came to realise through this meditation that rather than be angry at her, or intolerant or dismissive, or any of the other things that I have felt of late, toward this person - I should remember that although she seems to be filling her every moment with striving to fulfill the demands of the mundane world - there must be a large part of her that craves something more, and seems to be searching for it in the halls of 'success' and the exultation of her 'betters.'

Do I do the same?

Don't get me wrong, there's nothing wrong with being ambitious for yourself, and your own professional development, but when it blinds you to restraint, and to understanding that what you are saying and doing is hurting others...? Yes, then there is a problem. Are her insecurities manifesting in her inability to talk about anything other than how she has done this, and she has done that, or she is being praised for this that and the other and knows better than anyone else?

While all this is technically little to do with me - except in where her behaviour touches me in my day - I do not like how judgmental and dismissive I have become because of this, when surely I should be the opposite, and be supportive in other areas... after all, there's more to life than just work, right? And she does, even when looking at it as objectively as I can, appear to be compensating for a lack in one area with going overboard with work.

On the other hand, maybe she just really has got a good work ethic, and an overdeveloped bone of ambition within her, and I should stop putting on her for that. Am I jealous?

I don't believe so. But as I have said, I am annoyed at the way her behaviour is affecting those around her. Then again, do they not say that we despise in others those things that we do not like within ourselves? Am I as bad as that in my own areas?

Food for thought... as is how I can deal with the way I feel in response to this behaviour of hers... but when talking makes no difference, what is left than just to walk away and take a breath?

The wife blue sky wants to benetrate the earth.
The earth longs for utter union. Look: it comes!

Rain falls. Rain falls as sky meets earth.
Rain falls. Earth bubbles with life.

Life springs forth from the damp soil:
Flock of sheep like clouds, oceans of wheat.

All gifts far earth's children. And one more:
peace. Peace that blossoms in a rain of love.

--Greek dramatist Aeschylus, The Danaids

But, yearning for companionship, she created the heavens which, arching over her in love, seeded her with life.

As above, so below...

Here is another truism that is all too often forgotten by many practitioners. We as children of the Old Ones are as a reflection of the Old Ones themselves - much as the moon reflects in pools of water, so they reflect in us, and through the nature of mirrors, we in them.

Just as the goddess yearned for companionship with which to inspire herself creatively, so we find ourselve at our most creative when we have someone with whom to share. It does not necessarily nned to be someone with whom we are in an intimate relationship, but companionship enhances the human spirit. The human, as so many other creatures with whom we are brothers and sisters, are social animals.

on a personal level I had so often been as at odds with that, and so have been called a little bit of a recluse - from everyone, and it's definitely not been a good thing - but of late I have been, as with the underlying negativity I was living under, consciously trying to turn aside from it. Making the effort to be positive and to see the good in every experience; making the effort to be social, and to talk, converse and otherwise engage with people, the most important of those being my guy. I acknowledge that I haven't always succeeded, but the effort has been a genuine one and I feel better for it.

I wouldn't say that my creativity has returned completely, but I will say that I feel more at peace in and of myself.

On Hildar Hill the goddess sat.
Poets someday will say that
light itself paled beside her,
casting shadows on the wall.
On Hildar Hill the goddess sat,
radience streaming from her.
Poets someday will say that
looking at her was like staring at fire.
On Hildar Hill the goddess sat,
combing out her fine hair.
Poets will someday say that
it was as fine-spun silk
and shone like gold.

--Song from the Faroe Islands

Absorbed in the world's beauty, we move together toward the dawning springtime.

After my wake up call yesterday; after realising that Mir is right, and that a big part of my issues both here and elsewhere, is the fact of my ingrained negativity... that I look at everything by looking at the negative and not the positive, it's time to do something about it. Not to talk, but to do.

I'm incredibly lucky - blessed - to have in my life, and to have around me some great people. None more so than my guy, who in spite of everything, or maybe even because of it, is self aware enough in a way that I seem to resist, to hold up her hands and say "I recognise that I..." Through our conversations, our admissions and confession, through hearing what she had to say, I begin to feel as though scales over my eyes and heart have broken free, and I am able to peel them away from the parts of me that needed freeing. I missed so many of the ways she was supporting me because I was caught in a downward spiral of negativity, and I apologies for that, she's been amazing and I embrace that love she's given to me and mirror it with all my heart.

Egypt isn't to blame for what I'm experiencing, what I'm feeling, nor my behavior in response to that. I am, and I can do something about it.

I also accepted the fact that I haven't always been using these posts as they are meant to be used. They're not meant to be used to whine and complain, but to comment on aspects of my faith, and path, and to reconnect with the goddess and that side of things. Yes, some of the posts I'm made have done that, but not all of them, few of them in fact. This too must and will change. And yes, I'm human - can't be a saint, as Mir said, even the saints weren't saints, but yes I can make sure that I separate the everyday whines/complains from what I want to be the reconnecting with my inner self.

Light is returning, and I'm able to see the springtime beauty around and within me, and I am able to embrace that, by looking positively... by acting accordingly. Yes, there are things that I want to do - like complete the novel - that I need to be at the computer to do them, which means shutting myself away - but also it doesn't hurt to take a while out to do other things, be less of a hermit. Like today... I needed something from the store, so I stayed on the school bus past my apartment as it goes past the store - saved a walk - and two other colleages went to the store, and then I was invited for coffee afterwards. The temptation was there to say no, that I had to get back, but then no... I embraced the chance to sit outside in the warm afternoon sun, with two people I work with and want to know a little better. We stayed for quite some time, until it had gotten dark as a matter of fact, and it was a good positive experience. Just a little example and reminder to myself of what can be. However (this part is tongue in cheek), note to self - do not order French coffee ever again. Talk about being able to stand the spoon up in coffee! Wow! I think next time I'll try mint tea!

The world is beautiful. Life here though different and sometimes difficult can be beautiful too, but more importantly is being able to see it, and then to share it with the ones I love.

Don't worry so much about tomorrow;
consider this day a gift from Fortune,
this day that you are granted to be young
and dancing while the new sap rises

and death stays away. Now is the time
to discover new purposes for playing field or
public square: to discover them as places
for lingering whispers when soft night

covers secret meetings, a place for hide-and-seek
and tell tale giggles from a girl hiding in a corner
from whose arm or finger the prize is snatched
and who - almost - resists.

--Horace

Within ourselves, too, we must learn to labor through the silent nights and winters of our lives, times when nothing seems to come to fruition, when we encounter only disappointment and disdain. For the inner work we do during these times is what creates the environment for growth on which others later remark. Keep faith during the wintry times, and spring will surely follow.

On the end of this week, this month really, it is a timely reminder - spring will follow. Even at the hardest of times in our lives, it will always get better... but of late, I could only hear myself asking 'when?'

These last three months have been a labor of trying to understand myself and my reactions to things that I should have been able to take in my stride, yet have found myself struggling. Maybe it's the speed at which everything happened, I couldn't say for sure, but I feel like I've been on the back foot the whole of the time, about to fall on my arse, and just when I think I start to right myself, there's always something and I'm right back where I was... teetering backwards, arms waving in the air for balance - one step forward and two back. Intellectually I know this added insecurity will not last, but it's not possbile to think only with your brain and intellect. Especially not when you just feel plain scared and lonely, and out of touch - and you I have to admit that much of the time that's how I feel. It's been bad for me. It's been bad for my relationships and no matter what I have tried It hasn't helped.

I'm blessed. I have the love of a 'good man' to reach out to, that has held me and my sanity for this time. The only trouble is, that now, my guy needs me to do the same. I'm trying, but I'm falling short, even I admit that. It's time I found my feet - this shrinking violet is not who or what I am. Step up and be the woman she needs. I don't feel I've done what I should, and given as much as I could, or even as much as I want to give. But I'll never stop trying, and I know I'll very be satisfied with the way I show my love, even when I do good things it's never enough, because she deserves everything, better than the best, always. She doesn't deserve the abuse and neglect. I hate that I've done that.

I'm glad of the few good friends I've made, one especially, who has been an unrecognised pillar, someone who has just been there in the background. Helpful, quiet, supportive.

I'm saddened that the one most vocal of those whom I trusted that has turned out to be a bit of a 'viper at the breast.' I feel a little stressed to still feel somewhat beholden to her for all the help she's given me, but that doesn't mean I have to put up with the abuse, right? Still I feel trapped by it, and her constant negativity is like a battering ram that I can't escape. That she goes running off to management the minute I or anyone else tell her 'no'; or when anyone disagrees with her over something, or simply tells her something in confidence has only just been proven to me, who was previously prepared to give her the benefit of the doubt - I feel my trust has been betrayed, and that's the least of it. I have tried talking out grievances, I have tried helping when she has expressed she needs help, I have tried supporting, and tried talking again - nothing seems to help, or to be good enough and now there's the added sense of not feeling able to trust her. As I said to mum today, if she wants to be my friend, then fine... but she's got to stop with the drama and stabbing in the back when things don't go her way. She'll tell you she doesn't do well with conflict, and then seems to go out of her way to create it - and fan the flames of drama with rumour and gossip and innuendo. I don't need friends like that, she isn't good for me; not a good influence.

On a everyday living front... a small breakthrough today, as having battled with a headache and period pains all day, I didn't feel like cooking - I had a takeaway menu that was left on my doorstep the other day. Now, I don't like calling to speak to 'people' at the best of times in America and in England, so...for me to do that in Cairo, nah, it wasn't happening. But... I made myself do it. I'm glad I did. The food was good. If I can do it here I can do it anywhere, right? The newer, talkingest, phoningest me!

The goddess is an eye of fire,
born from a cauldron of strength.
The goddess is a radiant fire,
born from an ocian of fear.

The goddess is strong and fearsome.
Her magic is strong and powerful.
When she grows angry, she strikes,
and her enemies wither from her wraith.

--Egyptian Coffin texts

Egyptians knew when they honored Sekhmet, the wrathful lion goddess of the sun's fire, nature cannot be contained nor constrained within our human vision of gentleness and love.

I am a woman that has a temper. I know this and I have always known this - but since childhood... since understanding that my father and I shared that temper and that it wasn't good for either of us when we clashed, I trained myself - not necessarily a good thing to do, but I did it anyway - to sublimate my temper, to sit on it. I turn it inward so that I don't blow up.

When I lose my temper I'm not a pretty sight.

But in an effort to be more healthy - psychologically speaking, I've at least been trying to talk about things that are bothering me - to let off steam I suppose you'd say - even if the person I'm talking to is myself... you know the whole, walking around muttering to myself kind of deal. Not working.

I'm starting to think I should just let go all of those long trained, self imposed restraints and just - when I'm pissed off, when I'm angry, when someone has had a go at me or stabbed me in the back, to just let rip. Just once. Maybe. Maybe just once to fly through the streets like the avenging Sekhmet, destroying all in my path, laying bare all before me... Yea-no. Can't do it.

I can't do it for a number of reasons, chief among them that it's counter production, and certainly not the patient, loving and considered pagan I want to be. I seriously know I should be able to just turn around to someone that has bothered me, annoyed me, hurt me - whatever, and say, "You know... when x that really made me feel..." but that's not happening either.

I'm realising a lot of the time that's a timing thing... see... what brought about all this thinking about temper is that in the last few days at work, a member of our team has been - well basically behaving like a kid that can't get their own way and is standing making a big fuss about it, instead of being reasonably professional about the problems she's facing. She has said to me on a number of occasions in the past two months that she feels out of her depth and unqualified to do the job that she has to do. Others on the team are far more qualified than she is. My immediate response on all of those occasions was unequivocable support. "We are your team," I told her, "Let us help you." Only to be stonewalled on every occasion. Now, today, the entire team was pulled into a meeting with the head of Primary to address the issue of our lack of pulling together as a team. That the woman in question is feeling, in her own words of the meeting - out of her depth, unable to do her job, and she doesn't feel that we, as her team, are supporting her. Um... excuse me - how many times have I alone offered! How many times have others... and we have been rejected on every turn - for why? - because the woman will not adjust her practise, is inflexible and honestly quite bombastic. So for the second time in as many weeks I ended up really feeling quite cross, and internalising it.

Still I try to be supportive, because as the people out here go, this woman is one of a number of people I can count on the fingers of one hand that I would actually have called a friend. But I have to sadly confess that this is becoming more and more difficult - a tenuous relationship... because having, as a member of the team, along with the others, practically bent over backwards to accomodate this woman's needs, when we next had a planning meeting firstly she didn't arrive, then when we asked if she was coming she came and was petulant, hostile and just downright arbitrary about everything - and talked to us like shit.

Seriously I'm hoping that she gets over whatever bug she has up her arse by the time this holiday is done, otherwise I really don't know how things are going to go... and that's a shame, because we had a good relationship before all this began.

Gray-eyed one, I sing of you, wisest and most beauitful, relentless Athena, protector of cities, strong-armed and fair. From his head the great god birthed you, dressed in golden armor and bearing a sharp spear. The holy mountains shook when you were born, and the earth quaked, and the sea's dark waves broke against the land. Even the sun stopped in astonishment at this sight, this goddess, fresh-born and strong. Hail to you, Athena, my I never live without the shield of your protection.

--Homeric hymn to Athena.

To live in her image is to live fully but safely, to be generous but not exhausted, to have enough both for ourselves and to share with those who merit it.

I woke this morning feeling a little low. There was no reason for this that I could fathom, even after a long self examination. Yes there have been stresses at work, but the week has ended and I have survived it reasonably well. Personally I am able to speak with and spend time with Mir once again, making the best of what we can with the distance between us, and we're getting a few things done, we're getting a few plans made, and I'm looking forward to the future and to the time we can spend together again that's coming up. So no, no reason I could think of for feeling low and ill at ease, and headachey when I woke.

So I must turn myself today to Athena, to crave her wisdom and protection, to ask her help in understanding from where these feelings come... without of course overlooking the obviousn answer of it being hormonal. The signs of that are there in and of themselves, but... who wants to admit to being driven merely by the chemicals (albeit natural ones) that are flowing through their body?)

Another less obvious answer is that I'm finding that one of my closest friends here is adding to my stresses. Don't get me wrong, I love her to pieces, and I know I can count on her for help when I need it and can go to her with any problem I might have, and she'll probably be able to point me in the right direction to find the answer, but... lately she's become so... 'flappy' and intense. I know she's got a lot going on in her personal life, which isn't mind to talk about, but I see it spilling over into work, where she's just suddenly become almost a nightmare of 'this is what we're going to do and this is how we're going to do it and that's it, right?' and walking away before you even have a chance to understand what it is she's talking about, and for that to be coming from a team leader, it's not very helpful. And in personal relationships she's become very short and distracted too - understandable with what's going on in her life - but it kind of leeches out the energy. I want to be able to be supportive, but she tires me out. It wasn't until I sat down and thought about how I'm feeling that I realised this... and realised that I don't really know how to deal with it.

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

At heart, hospitality is a helping across a
threshold.
--Ivan Illich

This is the hospitality of relationship: for family to help us manifest who we are in the world, for friends to bring us to thresholds of realness, for loved ones to encourage us to cross barriers of our own making into moments of full aliveness.

Saturday 3rd
I woke this morning to the sound of my neighbours drilling or something... to the sounds of children playing outside... to the sound of life happening. Tired, but knowing that I had an easy day ahead of me, I felt a certain kind of peace.

I was able to spend the morning on Skype with Mir, even though she was sleeping – watching over her, (not that she needed watching over, but...) and watching the rats on the couch, when I could see them all by the flickering light of the TV. Slowly though, the sun started to rise, and the shadows and darkness blanketing the view coming from the webcam lightened and I was soon able to see clearly – like I had come into a moment of full aliveness... to cross from darkness into light. I felt comforted and honoured to have been trusted to share that – to watch the light come up on my sleeping love. There was something special in that, both in being there with Mir to share that time with her, and also in watching the light creeping back into the world – crossing the threshold from night into day. How often we see it the other way around, but rarely this way – and it just... moved me today.

After Mir woke up to call the vet about Lindsay's teeth, she went back to sleep, as she had been up a long time with the rats, and I spent the time watching Mythbusters and reading, because I wanted her to be rested, and then we spent a wonderful day together, talking and typing... and looking forward to being together over the holiday.

Later in the day I saw Sarah when she popped in just in case I needed someone that could speak Arabic when the landlord came for the rent. I also needed someone to change the strip lights bulbs in the living room, one was burned out the other was flickering worse than a candle in a breeze. I worried when I saw her. She looks so pale since the other day. I know her husband turned up unexpectedly. I also know that she's not been answering her phone the way she normally would. I guess I'll find if she's okay with everything when we see each other at work tomorrow.

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

If you try to understand love
before being held,
you will never feel compassion.

But once everyone left, he was alone with all he knew.

I've been thinking about friends and friendship… about love and loving… and being loved, and being a friend… how we make the distinction between one kind of friend and other. If we do… if we should. Surely a friend is a friend is a friend… anyone who's not a friend is either someone you don't know… and acquaintance or a colleague. *shrug* Yet, shouldn't a friend be a friend always? Shouldn't even that kind of love endure? Shouldn't that kind of compassion be always there between friends?

I have always been a bit of a loner… a bit like the boy in the garden whom people will come and talk to… but then in the end, just up and leave. All through school it was because I was the one that was diligent at work, and relatively intelligent. I wouldn't say that I was used exactly, but they were definitely more like acquaintances than friends. There was only really Nikki whom I can say we actually did friend-like things together… (staying over with each other… all that kind of thing), but even with Nikki there was always still that underlying, uneasy feeling that somewhere along the line, she was making fun of me. I did not feel 'loved.'

Even now, after so many life changes, there are those people who have drifted in and out of my garden – and when they were there, yes… it seemed like friends… people with some I shared a lot of things, the way one does with friends. People I relied on, and who leaned on me in return – but where are they now? Is it that I pulled in all my borders and put up walls during a major change in my life and simply haven't let those walls down again yet? I'm still kind of 'in touch' with some of them who I feel I could 'let in' again… people who I was very close to before – yet I still feel some hesitancy that leaves me uncomfortable.

Current Mood: blank

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

Nothing among human things
has such power to keep our gaze
fixed ever more intensely upon God
than friendship.
-Simone Weil

Honest friends are doorways to our souls, and loving friends are the grasses that soften the world.

I have few people in my life that I would call 'honest' friends. These are people that I have been close to even when we haven't seen each other for a long long time. We can bump into each other, speak to each other on the phone and it's like we haven't been apart at all.

These are people with whom I could, if I were a brave soul, share all that is going on in my life, and they would listen with an open heart, and I know they wouldn't judge me.

Being not the brave soul, there is only really one of my honest friends that I open up with in that respect. Yes I know it's a cliche that the one you love is your truest friend, your best friend. But it also happens to be true in this case. Mir, I love you.

I know they won't let me get away with bullshit either, which is sometimes a source of endless frustration. The child inside that is having a tantrum, for instance, and just wants to be humoured - and we all have one don't we, whether or not we're honest enough to acknowledge them or not - hates when my honest and true friends call me on it. It might be what I need at the time, but it's not what I want.

At times it feels that they're being hypercritical, but I know that's not true and is just a reflection of that inner child rising up in petulant protest against not being coddled. Times like that I have to take a breath, take a step back and look and feel with adult eyes and an adult heart... and times like that I hope that I am able to be the same kind of honest friend to others as they are to me.

Current Mood: thankful

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

How many ways can a statue dream of living?
Every time I reach for you, we begin.
We begin.

To feel isolated is part of the human journey. But when we obey the feelings of hesitation and separation more powerfully than those of love, we start to experience numbness and depression this is when we start to live like statues, believing that all we can do is watch.

A little while ago, while looking at my messenger list, I realised it had been along time since I'd contacted one of the friends on there that I used to be close to. She was going to come and visit me, since she only lives up on Merseyside way, but then her work got in the way, and... we kinda just dropped out of touch. I was determined to get back in touch, but kept never noticing when she was online, so one day I sent her a text message instead and after that got back in touch, and... I like to think we've just picked things up where we left off. Good friends do that, right?

Not always...

Looking for something today, I happened on the print outs of some Emails from someone who I had loved as a very dear friend back in 2001. It wasn't an argument as such... actually she thought she was helping me... but really went about it in the wrong way entirely. It was at a time when I was suffering from depression because of the infertility I was suffering, and she out and said she thought I should have myself committed. Then when I asked another friend to intercede between us because I was too hurt to be able to not be angry, she objected, and asked me not to contact her again, to give her space. I did... and for a long long long time - I'm talking like 7 or 8 years - we didn't speak.

She's now a facebook friend, and we have each other's email addresses, but things are not the same, and I don't think ever will be. I'm not angry with her, I've forgiven the hurt, just... there's a lingering awkwardness. If she could have been so mistaken about me before, how can she understand me properly now?

Which of us, in that case, isolated ourselves from the other? And what hurdles do we face in rebuilding the kind of closeness that we enjoyed before? Can we even do that?

Current Mood: contemplative

Or should that be 'fiending frenzy' - given the time of year. :)

But anyway, there's a friending frenzy going on over at

trekwriter's LJ right now - a festive feast of fun and frolicks... or something. Go visit her journal, friend her, friend her friends. They really are an awesome bunch.

Current Mood: busy

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cedar_grove

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Page generated Aug. 4th, 2025 04:55 am

Welcome To the Cedar Grove

...you are a leaf driven by the wind...

Entries tagged with friends

You Are Not Better Than Anyone Else

The Reflecting Pool

To See The Beauty In the World

Talk Talk

Temper Tantrums

*Hormonal Vampires

Night Into Day

Alone In My Garden

Honest Friends

Friends Don't Shoot One Another...

Friending Frenzy...

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April 2019

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