04 May 2008

Taurus Energy

4May08 Sunday 4:38pm

I'm trying to read through all the New Millenium Beings written for Taurus but am finding that there is so much in all of them that the summary I could write wouldn't be a summary after all. I laugh, as I did in Aquarius, that the issues I've been blogging about fall into Taurus territory. My whole piece on expecations...

Anyway, here are some notes gleaned from a few of the previous New Millenium Being newsletters written by Guru Rattana over the years.

From NMB #16 2000
I liked her three phases of Taurus the bull:
The Sleeping Bull
The basic lesson to be learned is to shift from a dependency on external values to a reliance on inner ones. Look at what you value most, how it impacts your life and how changes in your value structure will help you to achieve what you really want.

The Awakening Bull
dig deep to access hidden resources in your own psyche. Examine personal values and align them with your inner core and eliminate those that are a by product of social conditioning and poor parenting. Learn not to depend on the material world for your inner security. Free yourself of the bondage and insecurities caused by physical attachments whether they be money, possessions, situations or relationships.
Find more rewarding and less destructive ways to nurture yourself and express yourself freely. Learn how to reconcile, connect and align your inner and outer worlds.

My entries about Shiastu and Kundalini Yoga, getting into the body instead of just being in the mind fall in line with Guru Rattana's comments that "the body must be honoured and used as a vehicle for the higher expression of the soul. Your physical body must be cared for to facilitate the masterful use by the mind and emotions to serve your inner purpose."

The Awakened Bull
The touchestones might be, "I want what I have." "I have myself." 'I desire the light."
It is the way of artful, spiritual living. Your spiritual presence inspires, your expression of Divine Will leads. Your artistic expression of life frees, uplifts and transforms everyone and everything you come in contact with.

In NMB 17
she writes about Taurus issues which include the desire for comfort, security and pleasure. Basic questions involving choices of how to use our time, money and energy. We ask ourselves questions related to Values, Security and Foundations. What do we truly value? What will give us real security? What are our foundations and are they built on values that give us real security?

Taurus energy teaches about magetism. What we attract depends upon what we believe we deserve and how much we value ourselves. Taurus teaches us that we must find out what we value and protect ourselves from being influenced by external disapproval of our personal value system. Our ultimate security is built upon self-acceptance and self-love.

How do we tune into Taurus energy? Taurus makes us slow down. Taurus energy also grounds us and helps us be very present in our bodies and aware of the sensations in our bodies.

Taurus main attributes or words that describe: stable, loyal, patient, sensual, indulgent, stubborn, resistant, immovable, lazy, slow and attuned to the natural world. Our goal is to allow ourselves to experience these energies and then to work with them and allow them to nurture, sustain and teach us.

Taurus teaches us that one of the highest forms of healing is available through self-love.

NMB 33 is so packed with information that I can't even quote from it.

NMB #87
How we value ourselves determines how we spend our time and money.
In Aries we defined our self. In Taurus we plant our garden. We figure out how to support who we are, how we get what we want, and how to survive and meet our basic needs.
The first steps in self discovery are coached by Aries. Our Taurus coach introduces us to things, possessions, resources and value (both personal and material.)

Value - we discover what we value - what makes us comfortable, what things give us pleasure, what physical situations we feel are necessary for our security. We learn about what we have to Do to get what we want. We learn about the practical economices of life and that we have to make and have money to buy possessions and services. What we also learn is that the value we place on ourselves is a determining factor in our ability to manifest both the necessities and foodies of life.

The sooner we link the two together, the more we can manifest and enjoy what we acquire:
1) the things that money can buy and how to generate enough money to purchase them
2) What money can't buy - our personal values, our self-worth and our unique talents.

If we are too fixate on the status quo and too influenced by our society and family patterns, we may fall into the rut of following a pathe that our parents deem appropriate for us and live by externally defined values that don't reflect what really makes us happy.

And because there is so much on Taurus I skip to her most latest NMB #147
You can always subscribe for the actual newsletters that are always filled with lots of info

Taurus and Scorpio (The full moon is always in the opposite sign which means that the opposite signs issues come up during the Sun signs stay). Taurus and Scorpio work together to help us understand what we want and what we have to do (or not do) to get it. We need to commit to changing what needs to be transformed. We can figure this out by reviewing our values, identifying our deepest desires and defining our highest priorities.

Taurus
- willing to work to achieve and maintain a secure, stable, material lifestyle.
- seeks to enjoy the peace of mind and the emotional serenity that material security and physical pleasures afford.
- needs to figure out how spiritual laws apply to the physical world and to learn how to function effectively in the physical world.
- involves learning about the laws of manifestation and the laws of attraction

The Taurus path requires:
1 - being grounded in the body
2 - operating effectively in the physical world
3 - being able to manifest and manage the resources to take care of ourselves
4 - experiencing spirit in our daliy lives
5 - attuning to and appreciating the beauty and sacredness of nature

Taurus needs to learn
1- to enjoy, not just be obsessed with the money game
2 - to establish a secure financial base and use it to take care of ourselves
3 - to overcome worries of not having enough
4 - to let go of anxiety about loss
5 - to enjoy and appreciate the wealth that it has

Taurus must build and be involved in some creative project to feel satisfied. Inner peace is elusive if we are not working with our favorite tools and producing something - music, arts, crafts, physical structures, or financial, construction or spiritual projects.

We follow our destiny path when we are engaged in divinely inspired creative endeavors. We can attain a level of contentment once our creative urge is appropriately focused and one pointed.

The Bull teaches us that right livelihood and work is a creative act, not punishment.

Trust

Sunday 1:28pm 4May08

Yeah so I deleted what I originally wrote here cuz I now want it to be private!

EY

nb: I forgot to mention in my Gatsby post that I'd also been working on going through my clutter again. I found a piece of paper that said, "be the kind of person you want to attract." As I walked out from having filled in the application for adoption and asked myself how crazy I was for considering the adoption, I answered , "If you want love, give love."

The Great Gatsby

Sunday 12:51pm 4May08

After my prisoner of expectations moment this week, I walked home Thursday after work and decided to go into the vet to see the kitten in the window. Sometimes a cat lover needs to tease herself. Can you feel it coming? ha ha!

The workers were all very friendly, got me behind closed doors to see the kitten and informed me that she wasn't the only kitten they had. Kitten in the window is a black kitten with white feet. The other two kittens, also girls, were all black. I was phewing all over the place because, if the truth be known, I want a boy cat. I already have three girls. Isaac says, "we have one more kitten. We keep HIM separated because he has the sniffles and is on antibiotics." Jessica returns with Isaac to tell me that itsy bitsy boy had rough beginnings and almost died twice but he's doing fine and he purrs the moment you touch him and he's really affectionate and we all just love him! He is 10 weeks old and is the size of a 3 or 4 week kitten. He's got the big forehead and expressive eyes much like Yoda, what all the staff have been calling him. Yoda is the spitting image of kitten in the window.

I say, "I'm all about rough beginnings!"
Jessica says, "Then he's your guy!"
Yes. I inherited my mother's love of the runt of the litter. I like to fill a need when there is a problem. My heart opens wide when someone is in crisis. But that is the height of being human isn't it? When that news story hits of major misfortune whether it's September 11th or Hurricane Katrina, or an innocent bystander walking down the street and accidentally being shot and killed and leaving his child fatherless. Or that little girl abandoned in the stairwell during the winter of which many famillies wanted to adopt. Heck, I wanted to adopt her. With the worst stories we all really step up to the plate to help out in what ever way we can.

So yes, what I'm saying is I've adopted itsy bitsy male kitten. He almost died twice and he wheezes when he breathes and he's the size of one of my hands and he's still on antibiotics (supplied for free from the vet). And since he's such a little guy with poor beginnings I name him Gatsby, after F. Scott Fitzgerald's character and the name goes nicely with Zelda, my two year old, named after F. Scott's wife. The big cats are all pretty bitter as what happens in the beginning. Zelda is too busy running away scared to really check the mini man out. Picasso and Quincy spit at him and spit at eachother and spit at a fluff of dust. But they're not giving up their positions on the bed although they give me dirty looks when I bring Gatsby up to cuddle.

When I went to pick him up yesterday, just about every staff member came out to check me out and say good bye to their favorite rescue and beg me to bring him in for a visit. Last night I chose a birthdate for him, counting back ten weeks from the day I met him since they weren't sure of his actual birthdate. Although I will ask again just to be sure. Ten weeks ago was still in Pisces and around my birthday. haha. So his chosen by me birthdate is Feb 28th. And he's a leap year baby like me.

What is more exciting than watching a baby something? What is better than to nurture and love?

EY

01 May 2008

Prisoner of Expectations

Thursday 1May08

Prisoner of Expectations
Through the silence I find one of my big issues pop up. Sometimes I find I’m upset or mad about stuff and I can’t articulate what the main issue is. Currently it’s the business culture of recognizing some people with awards for service and continually bypassing others. The different rules for different people syndrome! I know it all too well. I lived it in my childhood home first and am still regularly faced with it.

Back in 2000 or 2001 when I was going through similar changes but worse, I went to see a movie Café Ole with my girlfriend Tricia. It’s a cute little Montreal film about a guy that does for everyone else and somehow his life is passing him by while everyone depends on him and takes him for granted. Towards the end of the movie when he makes a drastic change he says a line that spoke to my life and made me cry. Tricia and I left the movie theatre and I was still crying. We walked through the Manulife Centre and I was still crying. As we were about to leave, she looked at me and asked, “Are you okay?” and I said, “I can’t get it together, that line is playing in my head. It’s me” and we stood outside the hair salon that I’d worked at earlier that year as I sobbed in Tricia’s arms. It was pretty big!

Here I am, present day, faced with the recognition issue. I study the times I’ve been taken for granted or not acknowledged for who I am. I don’t do anything for recognition but when others are recognized for less than what I’ve done as part of who I am the red flag comes up in my mind and I think, “Humph! I’ve been doing that and more forever and not a soul has mentioned anything.” Interesting!

As a Pisces, just about anything you read says that they are always last and are used to it. They walk through life not being recognized. Blah, blah, blah. But seriously, is it because I’m a freakin’ Pisces? And of all the things that are Pisces, why does that have to be the thing that is true? These days I see the lack of recognition, the high expectations and the general taking for granted of, as a message from the Universe not to feel guilty about moving on and following my inner voice and what dreams she concocts.

I’ve come a long way since that day I cried in Tricia’s arms and it’s been a long road, with dropping friends and changing jobs and sometimes yelling or slamming doors or fire bombing an incendiary email as a last resort. But it bowls me over when it creeps back in.

It’s the reason why we rebel against our parents. We’re trying so hard to identify ourselves and to be identified as who we are separate from who they want us to be for their own comfort level. I never really rebelled against my mother while she was alive. Not on this issue anyway. I was always the daughter I was expected to be. I’ve always been the employee, the friend, the lover I am expected to be. I am dependable and available and cheerful to do it and I don’t ask for much other than peace. But where are the people who are grateful for people like me? People who can express their gratitude? People like me are so easy to take for granted.

At the arts organization I worked at for 10 years, my boss scheduled me for the shitty shifts and worse, with people she knew I couldn’t stand on a regular basis. If it was a festival, all the lazy asses would be scheduled with their buds and I’d be stuck with shady character like clock work. Lazy asses would ask, “Are you being punished?” It made me wonder. When I discussed it, I was either told that she depended on me or (the slap in the face) I can’t schedule every body only with people they like. Hmm, but you depend on me, isn’t there some reward in that? Even with friends in the past (people I’ve since dropped or limited my contact), there were the constant stupid situations I’d be put into. And it’s not like I never speak up for myself.

When I finally reach my limit because surprisingly, to every one who watches it happen, I do have a limit, although it can take years, the culprits get uncomfortable. Or come up with lame ass excuses. Most recently I was told that I had all these walls so built up that this specific person felt that he didn’t have to worry about me (that was when I was in pain for three months and I’d asked, what kind of friend doesn’t call or email even once). I was told a few years back that the reason why I didn’t want to be included in invitations that included these two women that I didn’t like (and said I didn’t like the first time I met both of them) was that I was intimidated by strong women. Those two examples still irk me. And at work, past and present, well there’s a whole whack of examples of interesting reasons that are never quite based in reality. *sigh*

There is always that air that something is wrong with me for wanting to break out of the mold that makes everyone else comfortable but leaves me feeling unfulfilled. That level of invisibility, not being heard, not being recognized, being taken for granted, who wants to be constantly jiggling in that Jello mold? It’s always a shock when I make that large sweeping decision merely because people haven’t heard a fucking thing I said. I say it in a nice voice first because I genuinely like those people. Then I say it in a loud voice because I’m nearing the end and this is my final warning. And then I leave and their so damn surprised.

Why do I attract so many people who need so much attention that they can’t hear anything but the sound of their own voices? I believe that I live in a supportive universe and obviously the way I’m dealing with this issue isn’t working. I need to work on my thoughts, my energy and my actions. That’s what I contend with. That’s what clanked around my brain at 1am when all of a sudden, I was awake with no signs of falling back to sleep. I sat on my bed with my journal and started to write. I turned on the television to CBC and lo and behold, Café Ole was on. The supportive universe poking me to see if I remembered that there was a line in the movie that was so apt back in 2000 or 2001 and it was going to be again if I was going to wait to hear it.

The character writes it in a letter to the lady he’d been playing the piano for on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Fridays for $5 each session. I’d forgotten that she had said a part of it first, which was what propelled him. And instead of Malcolm Kaye, the character playing piano, the lady now has Sal there (a character who Malcolm also helped). Because when we leave, people always find someone else to take our place, and I need to remember that. She asks Sal to read the letter again and in it Malcolm writes, “I am not going to be there to play the piano for you anymore because I am tired of being a prisoner of expectations.” And she smiles because she was a prisoner of expectations and missed out on what could have been her one true love.

And when I heard it I didn’t cry this time but I nodded my head. Yep, I’ve changed some but I still have some work to do. And because I know the universe is supportive, I just need to get my thoughts and actions and energy in line and constantly ask myself, what do I want? If I believe that I am taken for granted, I will constantly be faced with opportunities where I am taken for granted. And people are so seductive in their guilt trippy I depend on you speeches but when I leave they always find a replacement. It’s worth repeating.

It was only supposed to be for a short time, in my childhood home, when all this began. It was so the step sisters would be comfortable and would know that they were welcome. Somehow there was always an excuse to maintain the status quo. And I never rebelled as all of us must, at some point, in order to grow up.

So I step into this full-fledged realization with a little bit of rebellion and an awareness that I need to do what’s good for me (which I’ve gotten better at). That there will always be an excuse, a justification to keep me a prisoner and I just don’t look good in prison stripes.

EY