Blow out the Candles and make a Wish....

Every year, I post on my Blog about what I have
learned and decided to "let go" from the previous year so that I can celebrate getting a year older and hopefully wiser.  It was really hard for me this year to post; I was busy being clergy visiting hospitals; and running to do handfasting rituals, keeping the Temple workshops flowing, and dealing with the day to day counseling that I have grown into doing.

This does not count, that I am a wife.  I love my husband and we have four children and four grandchildren.  Somehow, we try to make time for them also.  Yes, I have immediate family two brothers and nieces and nephews galore...and all of these people I am glad to say I care about too. 

A very best friend made my birthday cake this year, it was a Sugar Skull skeleton that was filled with eyeballs and truffles.  Bright Pink and white I smiled, for it was the color of friendship.  One eye of the Skeleton had an eye missing...and while I felt love looking at the cake; I could not help but ponder the significance of that one empty eye socket.

Every year, I walk some of my students through a Odin ritual.  In this ritual they come to understand that they cannot "gain wisdom and understanding" without suffering and sacrifice.  It is not the kind of suffering and sacrifice that we deal with day to day but the kind the god ODIN agreed too.  He wanted the gift of wisdom, and to get that he had to "willingly sacrifice something" .  If you know this story, you realize Odin gives up his right eye; in exchange for one drink from this well.  Of course, Odin does this and because he does he gains the wisdom that he is seeking.

I do not ask my students to give me anything; I convey to them the idea that the Gods and Goddesses will ask you to willingly "sacrifice" something important to you for you to "gain something" much more important for the world you live in.  The key, I remind them, is to realize you must "willingly do it".  The ritual is over...hopefully they understand.

I look at the beautifully wrought cake, my buddy has made out of the love of her heart for me.  I gaze at the eyeballs laying all about it and notice once again the empty socket.  I see the convergence of what I have shared with others, and what I am being asked to do.  I lean forward, and joyfully agree...."Happy birthday to you, Happy birthday to you, Happy birthday dear Sonya...Happy birthday to you....Now blow out the candles!!!" I hear everyone yell gleefully.  I close my eyes.

I blow out every last candle, and there were many to blow out and not one missed.  Thank you, I say to Isis; and yes I agree to whatever it is I must do for the gift that you would like me to have.

I have given up, any outside dreams of traveling the rounds as a celebrity stylist; or futher developing pinup hairstyles with photographers I adore.  I gave up the idea of being a gypsy and touring forever with one band or another playing for whatever I could pull together.  I gave up the idea of being single and traveling the world in the second phase of my life after my eldest son went to college. I gave up the dream of being a professor.  I gave up moving out of Memphis, Tennessee, and decided to stay and help the Gods and Goddesses and Spirits of this city with whatever they asked me to do.  I have given up most of my spare time, and any hobbies.  I have given up hair appointments, nail appointments, facials, massages, and extra special things like faster cell phones to serve.  You would have thought; that there was nothing else I could give up...but then there is my right eye!

I hope this doesn't seem negative because at the age of 43 I am calm; and smile and laugh to myself.  Whatever it is I am asked to give up, or do at this point in my life...I am there.  I understand that I do not truly understand.  I know that I know nothing.  I see that I really do not see.  I comprehend that feelings are not always reliable.  I know that if I died I understand what my eulogy would probably be; and what songs I would like sung and whom would be there...and I am at peace with that.

I was told once, that there is a warehouse and in it is a door that stores every imagined "treasure" that you could want in your possible human life.  These things are dispersed to us as we need them or ask for them.  However, it seems (I was told) that many of us will not collect or even get a chance to glimpse our true horde the Divine wants to give us because we are not listening; because we do not ask.

I blew out all of those candles, and everyone asked "What did you wish for?"  I wished for that " key to the treasure that the is on it's way to me" I said.  They all laughed not understanding the reference or getting my meaning. 

Today, I found a key in the parking lot of the hospital before we got in our car to leave visiting our member that is "under the weather".  I almost missed that key, being so busy thinking of all the things I had to do today; and all the things that had to be accomplished for the week.  BUT I did not miss it! 

Spirit, has a way of responding to us if only we listen....if only we look...if only we pay attention.  It is trying to interact, and co-create with us, and would love to give us all we think we need and want and more. 

It has been another year.  Maybe next year, I will be wiser because I got a key....and I gave up my "right eye" to drink from a well. 

Thank you for the gift of your time!  Please remember, if you do not ask; then get out of the way...you will never be able to receive.  This is what I have learned this past year; and after three years of persistently blogging to you all....I want to thank you for still reading, and sharing and even CARING about my opinion.  Thank you