And finally the Thursday Update
So Thursday I finally did it.
The week beforehand was full of preperations. I completed all of my elemental oil blends. I now have:
Air:
2 parts citron
2 parts almond
1 part lavender
1 part pine
A few drops of lemongrass
Fire:
2 1/4 parts carnation
1 1/2 parts ginger
1 1/2 parts frankincence
1 part dark amber
1/2 part nutmeg
Water:
2 3/4 parts Rose
2 1/2 parts Peach
2 parts Freesia
1 1/4 parts Jasmine
3/4 parts Magnolia
Earth:
2 parts Patchouli
2 parts Honeysuckle
1 part oakmoss
1/2 part cypress
They all turned out fabulous. AJ was able to identify the elements by scent alone (as I wasn't around to set up for the ritual) They do such a good job of envoking the right feelings. I'm quite pleased.
I had my last meal on my lunch break (6-7PM) Wendsday night. Thursday morning I kept forgetting that I couldn't just go grab some coffee. I would reach for the refridgerator and then remember I was fasting . . . not that I usually open the refridgerator, not that I was feeling particularly hungry, and not that there was any food inside the thing. Some part of my subconcious was just a little food obsessed because it knew I was fasting. We packed up and headed out toward Bagbee hot springs in search of a campsite by the river
The one we found was perfect. A little less private than we would have liked but a nice camping area and a lovely view of the woods up the hill. At this point I was escorted up the reather steep hill. It was about 3 PM and I found out that the fast was definately effecting me. It took alot of effort to climb the hill. I kept falling and sliding and it felt like I was trying throw myself up reather than climb. We found a log on the hillside that was on that was on relatively level ground and that was where I made my home.
Time passed
I realized I wasn't panicing. Not even a little. I tried to focus on the fact that I was alone and that got a certain uneasiness but no real fear. I worried a little that I wasn't doing it right, that the fasting was keeping me from being able to focus on anything. That I was so tired I was enjoying being still. It was strange. It actually was a really similar mental place to the days before I was admitted to the hospital with my intestinal blockage. Where breathing and sitting still and just getting through the now was difficult enough to occupy my full attention. I wrote in my journal and tried to keep focused on the task at hand but didn't panic.
After awile I got a nose bleed. I am actually prone to them when the weather changes and I was up in the mountains on a really hot day. Of course I didn't think about this before going up the hill so I didn't have anything to take care of it with so I leaned back and let most of the blood go down my throat. Some went on my face and arms but I was able to keep it off my clothes. As the nosebleed ended I looked at myself covered in blood and realized that I wasn't as self-destructive as I used to be. In the past I would have been tempted to make the would worse. To use the excuse of the injury to inflict pain on myself. This is actually connected to a fear of myself that I really identified with when reading Dean Koontz's False Memories. That is pretty much gone. I don't know when it changed but I'm not afraid of me, at least not like I used to be. I'm not as destructive as I used to be. I know that getting in touch with my firey-ness (although I don't know how I ended up being all firey. Fire is actually the weakest element in my chart) would bring up this issue and I'd like to play with that more. I know that I'm far from harmless no matter how much I would like to be otherwise, but my urges aren't as strong as they used to be for whatever reason. I guess I'm more in control. Damn there's a sentance I never thought I'd say. After all of those years of my mother telling me that I need to learn to control myself and thinking of it as a bit of a lost cause I'm finally making some amount of progress. Reading this I really look like I'm some kind of crazy compulsively destructive person. It's not really like that. I just tend to have very strong urges, whatever they may be. Usually they're urges to laugh or eat cheese or get laid or something. Just every so often they were urges to be a little violent, usually with myself. Pretty normal stuff just on a high level of intensity. I'm not saying I don't still have strong impulses, just they don't often surprise me these days.
So I faded in and out of concousness. It actually felt alot like watching TV. Every so often I would realize I'd zoned out and have the realization that was I was thinking was trivial and odd but not be able to remember what the thoughts were. They felt like watching sitcoms. I debated on weather or not I had the energy to make my way down the hill. I figured that it wasnt' really cheating if I said time was up out of boredom. In retrospect that was really bad logic but I wasn't all there. Eventually I did find the energy to get down the hill and halfway down I found AJ coming to gather me up for my ritual.
The ritual went nicely. Before leaving I had written it up and printed out a copy for each person. Somewhere along the road the papers disappeared, (I had it in the back seat when I picked up AJ but he never saw it back there and it never went into his house so who knows!) so it was a little less orginized than I would have liked but it went well. I asked Hathor and Hermes to be my patron God and Goddess and did alot of agknowleging that I am cool. It was good. I'd be happy to show people or answer questions. I was basically told to share stuff so I'm totally willing to.
Afterwards we celebrated and slept
That night I had an odd dream. I came into work, except it wasn't work. It was clear I still worked at Fred Meyer, but there was a desk with a lady at it in the back, like my own secretary. Anyways, we were chatting and she remembers that she got a message for me. She pulls it out and begins reading:
"We regret to inform you of all of the heavy lifting and hard work you will soon be doing. We were very impressed with your interview . ."
They began listing the reasons I was impressive. Some of them were things like work ethic and the like, but many of them were spiritual in nature. I remember having the "I said that in an interview??!?" reaction more than once as I tend to keep my religion pretty far from my professional life. That's a little odd. I see myself as doing sacrid work but nobody can know that I am.
"So with all of that said we would like to welcome you to the Loss Prevention department"
I felt the joy of my long awaited promotion. I had a history attatched to this. The job was working in our giant basement stockroom tallying boxes and making sure all of the inventory arrived from the warehouse. It was a management position and a step up, but I have a feeling that the back story is unimportaint, just something I need to add to my realizm
When I told Jeff about the dream he asked my who the God of loss prevention would be. It would definately fit in Hermes's domain. God of theivery and merchentilism whom you prey to to keep your thing safe . . . as well as steal someone else's or have good profits.
The week beforehand was full of preperations. I completed all of my elemental oil blends. I now have:
Air:
2 parts citron
2 parts almond
1 part lavender
1 part pine
A few drops of lemongrass
Fire:
2 1/4 parts carnation
1 1/2 parts ginger
1 1/2 parts frankincence
1 part dark amber
1/2 part nutmeg
Water:
2 3/4 parts Rose
2 1/2 parts Peach
2 parts Freesia
1 1/4 parts Jasmine
3/4 parts Magnolia
Earth:
2 parts Patchouli
2 parts Honeysuckle
1 part oakmoss
1/2 part cypress
They all turned out fabulous. AJ was able to identify the elements by scent alone (as I wasn't around to set up for the ritual) They do such a good job of envoking the right feelings. I'm quite pleased.
I had my last meal on my lunch break (6-7PM) Wendsday night. Thursday morning I kept forgetting that I couldn't just go grab some coffee. I would reach for the refridgerator and then remember I was fasting . . . not that I usually open the refridgerator, not that I was feeling particularly hungry, and not that there was any food inside the thing. Some part of my subconcious was just a little food obsessed because it knew I was fasting. We packed up and headed out toward Bagbee hot springs in search of a campsite by the river
The one we found was perfect. A little less private than we would have liked but a nice camping area and a lovely view of the woods up the hill. At this point I was escorted up the reather steep hill. It was about 3 PM and I found out that the fast was definately effecting me. It took alot of effort to climb the hill. I kept falling and sliding and it felt like I was trying throw myself up reather than climb. We found a log on the hillside that was on that was on relatively level ground and that was where I made my home.
Time passed
I realized I wasn't panicing. Not even a little. I tried to focus on the fact that I was alone and that got a certain uneasiness but no real fear. I worried a little that I wasn't doing it right, that the fasting was keeping me from being able to focus on anything. That I was so tired I was enjoying being still. It was strange. It actually was a really similar mental place to the days before I was admitted to the hospital with my intestinal blockage. Where breathing and sitting still and just getting through the now was difficult enough to occupy my full attention. I wrote in my journal and tried to keep focused on the task at hand but didn't panic.
After awile I got a nose bleed. I am actually prone to them when the weather changes and I was up in the mountains on a really hot day. Of course I didn't think about this before going up the hill so I didn't have anything to take care of it with so I leaned back and let most of the blood go down my throat. Some went on my face and arms but I was able to keep it off my clothes. As the nosebleed ended I looked at myself covered in blood and realized that I wasn't as self-destructive as I used to be. In the past I would have been tempted to make the would worse. To use the excuse of the injury to inflict pain on myself. This is actually connected to a fear of myself that I really identified with when reading Dean Koontz's False Memories. That is pretty much gone. I don't know when it changed but I'm not afraid of me, at least not like I used to be. I'm not as destructive as I used to be. I know that getting in touch with my firey-ness (although I don't know how I ended up being all firey. Fire is actually the weakest element in my chart) would bring up this issue and I'd like to play with that more. I know that I'm far from harmless no matter how much I would like to be otherwise, but my urges aren't as strong as they used to be for whatever reason. I guess I'm more in control. Damn there's a sentance I never thought I'd say. After all of those years of my mother telling me that I need to learn to control myself and thinking of it as a bit of a lost cause I'm finally making some amount of progress. Reading this I really look like I'm some kind of crazy compulsively destructive person. It's not really like that. I just tend to have very strong urges, whatever they may be. Usually they're urges to laugh or eat cheese or get laid or something. Just every so often they were urges to be a little violent, usually with myself. Pretty normal stuff just on a high level of intensity. I'm not saying I don't still have strong impulses, just they don't often surprise me these days.
So I faded in and out of concousness. It actually felt alot like watching TV. Every so often I would realize I'd zoned out and have the realization that was I was thinking was trivial and odd but not be able to remember what the thoughts were. They felt like watching sitcoms. I debated on weather or not I had the energy to make my way down the hill. I figured that it wasnt' really cheating if I said time was up out of boredom. In retrospect that was really bad logic but I wasn't all there. Eventually I did find the energy to get down the hill and halfway down I found AJ coming to gather me up for my ritual.
The ritual went nicely. Before leaving I had written it up and printed out a copy for each person. Somewhere along the road the papers disappeared, (I had it in the back seat when I picked up AJ but he never saw it back there and it never went into his house so who knows!) so it was a little less orginized than I would have liked but it went well. I asked Hathor and Hermes to be my patron God and Goddess and did alot of agknowleging that I am cool. It was good. I'd be happy to show people or answer questions. I was basically told to share stuff so I'm totally willing to.
Afterwards we celebrated and slept
That night I had an odd dream. I came into work, except it wasn't work. It was clear I still worked at Fred Meyer, but there was a desk with a lady at it in the back, like my own secretary. Anyways, we were chatting and she remembers that she got a message for me. She pulls it out and begins reading:
"We regret to inform you of all of the heavy lifting and hard work you will soon be doing. We were very impressed with your interview . ."
They began listing the reasons I was impressive. Some of them were things like work ethic and the like, but many of them were spiritual in nature. I remember having the "I said that in an interview??!?" reaction more than once as I tend to keep my religion pretty far from my professional life. That's a little odd. I see myself as doing sacrid work but nobody can know that I am.
"So with all of that said we would like to welcome you to the Loss Prevention department"
I felt the joy of my long awaited promotion. I had a history attatched to this. The job was working in our giant basement stockroom tallying boxes and making sure all of the inventory arrived from the warehouse. It was a management position and a step up, but I have a feeling that the back story is unimportaint, just something I need to add to my realizm
When I told Jeff about the dream he asked my who the God of loss prevention would be. It would definately fit in Hermes's domain. God of theivery and merchentilism whom you prey to to keep your thing safe . . . as well as steal someone else's or have good profits.