Categories for My story

It is difficult to let go of my dreams. Simple as they are, they are all the more tempting. I’m not thinking nothing will come of it. But it is holding me back. So right now i’m filled with doubts. Not sure which way to go. Not sure what action will make me the happiest.

I do know i need to stay close to me. Trust in me. Wait for the right time. I hope. I know i’m gambling. I know i’m the only one believing in myself. I hope i can find the strength in myself to go ahead with my life. To feel happy. To shine.

I so hope.

And doubt.

It is hard to recognize the bits in me which are really me. The bits in which i adapted to the people around me. The people around me which changed all the time.

Maybe you wonder why i throw the I Ching, why i use the tarot cards. Partly because they are around. But i also feel my life currently is moving in line with the world. Anything i read, anything which generates a meaning, is important for me. It doesn’t matter where it comes from. It is like, everything arrives at my place at the right time. It is scary, because i do not feel safe at all. I often do not know which way to go. The only thing i can depend upon is myself, my own feelings and emotions.

I remember last week i was thinking this line which i uttered in a fantasy:

Give me a crown and i will wear it with pride.

The crown of course is corona.

I do feel lost. But i’m not asking for help. I’m not giving up. No no no no. Not now. This close.

What should i do?

It is May 2020. I have been living in the place i am now for three months. The deal is i will live here for four months. So i only have four more weeks to find something else.

This is not something new. I knew this from the the beginning i started to live here. But i did not think about it too much. I had my fall, the accident on 3 February. That was a big thing for me. And i enjoy my time here.

But it is enough. I realize that.

I feel lost. I know this place is like a branch i can rest on for a short while, before i need to move on. I’m not sure what to do. So i better be extremely careful.

So i threw the I Ching, after i wrote the first part of this post. I got two signs with one changing line. The first sign is 39 Obstruction. The changing line is the top line, a six. When this line changed i got the resulting sign de 53 Development. Both these signs seem to fit my question and my current situation. An obstacle and a slow development.

A slow development is what i am used to the past years. I have been the most important factor in that. When i sold my house, but could live in it for two more years for rent. That was a slow movement.

The Obstruction starts with a description. A dangerous drop lying in front of us, behind us a steep mountain. Surrounded by obstacles. Obstacles which can and need to be overcome. It tells us to face the upcoming troubles and withdraw as a preparation for surmounting the difficulties. We need to find a connection with like minded friends and accept the guidance of someone who can deal with the difficulties. We need to be inspired with the will to keep on going. Especially when our trying seems to lead us away from our goals. An inner sustained course will lead to salvation. This sign, which will last only a short time, is important for the development of our character.

The changing line at the top says the following:

Going leads to obstructions,
Coming leads to great good fortune.
It furthers one to see the great man.

Here a man is shown, who has left behid the world and her works. When the time of obstacles comes, it would seem easy to leave behind the world and go to the hereafter. This way is not open to him. His duty calls him back to the world. His experience and his inner freedom will make it possible to achieve some grand that will lead to salvation.

This changing line leads to sign 53 Development. The maiden is given in marriage. Good fortune! Every passage has its pace. Acting in haste is not right. The correct way to development is the refinement of ones own personality. Gentleness, the slow adjusting, but at the same time the penetration is the visible result from an inner restfulness. The gradual development gives stability. Only stability gives the certainty the slow progression will not weaken.

The image is of a tree on a mountain. It grows gradually. The influence on people can only be gradual. One needs to work on her own moral development with constant care.

——

Thank you.

*bow*

Today i was thinking about what i wrote last Thursday for my post on Friday.

Right now i’m in an in between place. Not yet leaving behind my past, not yet looking to the future. This pain i feel is something i need to deal with. I need to give it a place to rest. I know i can. I know. But it is hard, difficult, painful.

Today i came across several articles and posts and videos which were directing me in the same direction:

• Liminality

. In anthropology, liminality (from the Latin word līmen, meaning “a threshold”) is the quality of ambiguity or disorientation that occurs in the middle stage of a rite of passage, when participants no longer hold their pre-ritual status but have not yet begun the transition to the status they will hold when the rite is complete. During a rite’s liminal stage, participants “stand at the threshold” between their previous way of structuring their identity, time, or community, and a new way, which completing the rite establishes.

• Rite of passage. A rite of passage is a ceremony or ritual of the passage which occurs when an individual leaves one group to enter another. It involves a significant change of status in society.
• This came up while i was watching a youtube video: Myth, Wisdom & Pandemic, Stephen Jenkinson, Zak Stein & Charlotte Du Cann
  
  I haven’t finished this video, but i will continue once i have written this post. The word liminal did come up in it quite early on in the video. Curious about the rest of it.
• Then the thought came up to pull a day card for me. I pulled Death. Pulling the Death card is like, are you ready to move onto the next level?

I have been thinking about these aspects and things in myself for many many years. Maybe even the biggest part of my life. I hope i can find the courage within myself to continue with this. To take on my life and my work with seriousness. To not let go. To hold on. Fiercely.

Three months ago i moved my stuff out of my house. I stayed in there for another short week, clearing up all the things i didn’t want to save. Magazines, a couch, an old fridge. Out of my house.

Because it still felt like my house. And really, right now, it still feels like that. I still feel the pain of leaving that nice little place at the waterside close to the center. I still have the key of the downstairs front door, so i can get my post. Because i’m still officially living there. Sometimes at night i still see the sleeping room, the bathroom, the backroom, the front room and the kitchen in my mind. I still feel what it was like to live there. Safe. Alone.

This hurts. A lot.

This evening i talked with Ted about this feeling. I felt the tears coming to my eyes. I said i have only one plan. Plan A. This website. This place which i have made my own. This place which i love. This place here where i feel at home. This place i can not leave behind.

Right now i’m in an in between place. Not yet leaving behind my past, not yet looking to the future. This pain i feel is something i need to deal with. I need to give it a place to rest. I know i can. I know. But it is hard, difficult, painful.

So right now, i am looking back, living the memories.

I hope you are well. Enjoy the weekend. Stand up straight! Salute!

I don’t sleep very well. I know, i should not watch movies and television series on my iPad while i lie in bed. It is better to read. But it is hard to resist.

When i turn out the light, i usually switch to my right side. Then i turn around to my left side. Then i turn to lying on my back.

I think about sex. About love. About loving sex. Sometimes i masturbate, but usually not.

Sometimes i turn on the lights again. Play a bit of Stardew Valley, my favourite game of the last two weeks. Then i turn down the lights again, once more. Tossing and turning.

This is difficult. Last night it felt i fell asleep only half past five. I am not sure of this, it could be i was asleep earlier. I simply don’t know.

And all i think about is love. Someone to love. Someone to love me, to enjoy life with. To live life as open as possible. Garden, sing, dance, cook, talk and smile and laugh with.

Not so easy.

My card of today. A torrent of emotions has separated me from home. The past days i have thought about all my things, my furniture, my books, my records, my cd’s, my cooking stuff stacked in the storage facility. Feeling sad when i think abut this. Feeling like i have already lost this. Which i haven’t. But still.

It is difficult to find a good way to move forward in. Right now.

Five of Cups Description
Arcan: Low arcane
Element: Water, female, passive energy – emotions

There are sure Tarot playing cards whose imagery without delay conjure up negative feelings, and the Five of Cups consists of such weight. This is a card which indicates loss as well as the painful demanding situations which stem from that unique loss.

The card depicts a figure that is wearing a black cloak. The man or woman hides his face in what seems to be despair. There are 5 cups at the ground, 3 of that have fallen whilst the opposite two remain status. The individual, however, appears to observe that there are two status cups as is simply too busy mourning over those which can be fallen. There is a effective river which flows between him and a house or a castle in the distance, indicating that a torrent of emotions have separated him from home.

Five of Cups meaning
The Five of Cups symbolizes disappointment, and the feelings that come when things go otherwise as you expected. You are feeling sad that a sure situation hasn’t clearly became out the manner you have was hoping it would. Instead of transferring in the direction of a more superb perspective, this card seems to mention which you are dwelling within the beyond, inducing emotions of self-pity and regret. The water which is simply spilled from the cups shows which you would possibly have overlooked an opportunity. It also shows that the trouble is often emotional and now not material or financial.

Instead of transferring toward a more fine perspective, this card seems to say which you are dwelling inside the past, inducing emotions of self-pity and regret.

The which means of the Five of Cups suggests that you can have certain issues letting go of things that are within the past. What is more, it also suggests that you are unwilling to analyze from mistakes which you have already committed. The card is regularly going to reflect a person who is so stuck up in his beyond that he is truly incapable of moving on. This way that he has a high danger of lacking out on what new joys that the future can bring.

Reading the article again i read Monday for the first time called Our political authority does not only govern over life, but also over death, i tried to remember my motivations to say no on the donor question asked in 1998. No, i don’t want to donate my organs to anyone once i am dead.

I remember thinking about it. I remember feeling that my body is my own. I wasn’t thinking about cannibalism, about necropolitics. I was basing my decision on a feeling. I didn’t want any medical professional to decide for me. I didn’t feel my body belonged to the medical profession to do with what it desired. It is irrefutable my own body. It is me.

Me.

So i said no. Not giving in to the dominating discussion with its focus on charity and giving other people another opportunity to live a full and fruitful life. No. I am my body. My mind and my body are intertwined. Inviolable. Sacrosanct.

This was based on a feeling i had. A feeling i listened to. A feeling i took seriously. Not out of a whim.

Today, with the new law approaching on 1 July 2020, i still feel the same. Even more so. I have read about the difficulty of determining brain death, i read about keeping a body semi alive to get the organs out. I’m not looking forward to my own death, and i don’t want to mess this up with surgery and decisions. I would like my death to be mourned, not celebrated because somebody else can live on.

I actually feel violated by the ad on Dutch television asking people, almost telling people to say yes to being a donor. In this i am happy i have my own mind making decisions for this.

These are strange times. As i said in an earlier post, if i get sick, if i die, so be it. I hope not, but it is not in my hands. My life continues. No work, no public transport, no kids. We are not required to stay in our house the whole day here in the Netherlands, so i make walks. The garden work continues, with smaller groups.

I’m steering my life. It is a bit like the end of Thelma & Louise, driving the car of the cliff into the depths of the afterlife. Still giving direction, just not sure where i’m headed for. Apart from love of course. But i don’t know if that is in the cards for me. I simply don’t know.

I do know i need to let go of some many things. So many feelings. So many desires. So many wants.

I try to live my life as good as i can. I try to make the best of it, my own way. I try to really think about things. I try not to accept what other people say too easily. I still feel happy with this.

I hope i get somewhere. I hope i get out of this nowhere land i’m in now.

Enjoy the weekend. Love 🙂