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Week 51 of 52 When Is A Cigar Just a Cigar?

June 24, 2013 //
2

REFLECTIONS

Throughout the year of theotherwomanblog, I have paid attention to impactful images and incidents. If something caught my eye or made my stomach lurch or left me in awe, I took note, trusting that this physiological response delivered a message of value. Up until theotherwomanblog, I relied on my mind almost exclusively. I gave little credence to my instinctual nature…my 6th sense, gut reactions or intuitive flashes. I believed this was old school hooey…along with Shamans, Psychics and Intuitive Healers. I honoured the very masculine, left-brained, Scientific Process.

Symbolic Meanings
The Symbology of Angels
What Does This Mean?
Symbology

But my Blog’s goal has been to unearth and explore the mystery of femininity in an effort to create psychological and physical balance. I’ve had to learn the ancient art of Symbology, so that I could bring meaning to poignant images and experiences. This skill may seem counter-intuitive or irrelevant in these modern times, but my wildly exciting year says otherwise. These vibrational, visceral reactions, once interpreted, became the cornerstones of my transformation. A heretofore buried complex or issue would burble to the surface, where my conscious, thinking adult self could dissect it, and eventually become free of the complex and its undermining grip. This is the therapeutic process, done without the therapist, the couch, prescriptions or money.

For example – Goose as Spiritual Guru

Me As Wounded Goose – Alone
FEELING ISOLATED AND LOST

I came across the Canada Goose, pictured above, during Week 21 of 52 Changing My Lipstick to Red. This powerful and disturbing incident, has been pivotal to the unfolding of my key complex. This complex centred on the fact that my ‘successful adult’ persona, hid the dispirited, broken-hearted woman within. 

Symbolic Interpretations from Goose Image

1. The lone goose, separated from her life-long partner, helped me to accept that the characteristics of my complex prevented me from enjoying a successful and loving relationship with a man.

2. The shooting of the goose by an arrow, brought Cupid to my mind…thus reminding me to focus on issues of the heart…love enjoyed, love lost, love still to come!

3. The position of the arrow in the Goose’s foot triggered a question. “How am I shooting myself in the foot?” When this Goose sighting occurred, I was struggling to feel confident when sharing my writing. This query helped me to see that I must stop letting others’ reactions define my value as an artist! My ‘artist’s voice’ was just that…one voice amongst billions…no less…no more!

4. I gathered hope for my eventual salvation because the bird had been wounded, not killed. With immediate attention to my issues I might prevent the wound from festering…thus avoiding death.

This was a harsh lesson, delivered by the horrific wounding of a Goose. To another person, this wounded Goose would have been just that…a wounded Goose. As Freud once said, “Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.” For an image or an event to be significant and therefore transformative, it must grab your attention…likewise though, you must be open to receive!

Sometimes a cigar is just that...a cigar!

Sometimes a cigar is just that…a cigar!

2013 FLOODING – WHAT DOES THIS SYMBOLIZE?

Every city I have lived in, except for my present home on Vancouver Island has experienced, is experiencing or will experience catastrophic flooding this Spring…this list includes The Pas, Winnipeg, Banff, Calgary, Bragg Creek and Vienna… As I have watched this unfold throughout June, I feel sorrow for all who have been impacted. The power and unpredictability of water, leaves me terrified. I have vowed to sell my waterfront cottage after every ferocious winter storm, but recant once the threat passes. But now, with all the flooding of my home towns, what is the Universe telling me? Are these floods symbolic in some way…denoting a cleansing, or purifying of past wrongs…signifying a fresh start, as water is a universal symbol of change? Or is the flooding of everywhere I have lived a PREMONITION? Sell up now, and move to higher ground before you too are swamped!

Below is a 3 minute video I took while standing in my living room, in the cottage, during a winter storm. Then I have images of all 6 flood zones…HELP ME DECIDE! When is a cigar just a cigar? Should I sell and move? At the end of this post is a poll. Please VOTE!

DEEP BAY WINTER STORM FILMED FROM MY WINDOW

Vienna's Danube River Flooding in June 2013

Vienna’s Danube River Flooding in June 2013

The Flooding of VIENNA June 4th 2013     I lived here from 1991-1998

Canmore in Banff National Park
Canmore Flooding 2013

The Flooding of BANFF NATIONAL PARK  June 20th 2013    I lived here from 1972-1973

The Flooding of BRAGG CREEK June 20th 2013   I lived here from 1990-1991 and 1998-2011

Murray took this video as he was leaving Bragg Creek

Sad Wet Calgary
Calgary’s Roads Become Rivers
Near My Daughter’s Condo

The Flooding of CALGARY June 21 and still ongoing. 2013   I lived here from 1980 to 1990

Winnipeg Floods 2013

Winnipeg Floods 2013

The Flooding of WINNIPEG June 21 2013    I lived here from 1965-1972 and 1973-1980

Fear of Flooding in The Pas when Alberta’s water arrives.
Alberta’s Flood Water Heading for The Pas MB

Floods Predicted for The Pas Manitoba in 7-10 days    I was born here and left in 1965

SHOULD I MOVE? PLEASE TICK A BOX IN THE SURVEY BELOW. YOU WILL BE PART OF MY DECISION PROCESS!!

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Categories Creative Expression, Finding your Voice, GOD/Cosmic Consciousness, the other woman, transformation

Week 50 of 52 Mid-Life Crisis – Heaven or Hell?

June 17, 2013 //
4

 

The purpose of our lives is to give birth to the best which is within us.

– Marianne Williamson

REFLECTIONS

Unearthing the Un-lived Life

As I near the end of my year long journey, I am excited to begin the process of summarization. The otherwomanblog has concluded a decade of transformative steps, culminating in an epiphany of spirit. An epiphany, that wondrous and sudden realization of a great truth, seems to occur in a split second, but in reality, comes after a period of dedicated work…work which expands and deepens the interconnectedness of body, mind, psyche and soul. This process is necessarily slow, ensuring we maintain psychological stability, thus avoiding an imbalance that might see us in a straight jacket.

Psychological Equilibrium is Critical

Psychological Equilibrium is Critical

Psychological equilibrium is as critical to the body’s health as temperature, blood sugar, acidity/alkalinity etc.

In my 40’s I was drawn to novels about women who had walked away from the very lives they had spent decades creating. Metaphorically, women ‘dropped their aprons to the floor‘ as they turned away, leaving their kitchens…their homes…their workplaces…their lives. It was as though these women, seemingly against reason and on a whim, walked away from everything they had achieved. Eventually, they would resurface, often in remote settings and in reduced circumstances, but on a personal mission from which they would not be budged. Friends and family, left behind, would attribute such uncharacteristic and bizarre behaviour to a “mid-life’ crisis. In hindsight, I realize that my drive to read about women making unexpected turns in mid-life acted as a preparatory foreknowledge for the psychological and physical struggle which was about to unfold in my life.  

So much ink has been spilled trying to define and understand the mid-life crisis. Stereotypes abound!

Red-Colour of Passion and Anger
Nothing is Calm in a Mid-Life Crisis
Mid-Life Crisis Stereotypes
Attempts to Deaden Emotion

Are These Women to be Admired or Shunned?

Possibly the answer lies in the psychic depth to which a woman in mid-life crisis goes! If the process stops at the ego, manifesting in the purchase of a ‘hot’ car or ‘hot’ bed-partner, a facelift or a tummy tuck, shunning may be justified. But if instead the woman attempts to fulfill her higher calling, by restoring wholeness to her personality, then I feel such a woman is to be admired. I have come to believe that each of us has a talent, a passion, unique to our soul. And when this passion is pursued and shared with others, the world is made just a little brighter!

Passion Enlightens
Creating a Brighter World
Creating a Brighter World
Creating a Brighter World
Becoming Whole Through Consciousness

In the first half of my life, like most, I gained an education, life skills, a career, a family…demonstrating self-discipline in a myriad of ways…all necessary tasks if one is to be a contributing member of our civilized world. But once all of this was achieved, a pesky little question erupted my calm…“Is this it?” I had to accept that although I had fulfilled numerous goals, my true calling, my life’s purpose, was still to be unearthed. 

Going Through Hell to Reach Heaven 

In my 40’s, although tantalized by the idea of women who changed the status quo of their lives, I lacked the necessary courage to take a real step away from my familiar, materially successful life. In my version of ‘transformation’, I was in control! I would decide ‘the look’ of my new life and plan its unfolding. But the picture I created was just another version of what I already knew…some ego driven perfection that would ultimately be unfulfilling. The aspect of transformation I did not want to endure was the breaking down of my ego… an ego that held rigid views of what was worthy and what constituted success…an ego full of stereotypes and prejudices…I also had to acknowledge my weaknesses and unpleasant character flaws. In short, I needed to find humility and become humble.

There is no simple, pain-free way to crack the ego. Our ego cracks through the ‘hell’ of the mid-life crisis. This ‘hell’ comes in many forms, all with the express purpose of shattering the status quo…hell may come in the form of an infidelity or a severe illness or a horrible accident or an unexpected loss of status or employment or the development of a phobia…some form of status crushing, life altering, attention grabbing event!

My life altering events came in the form of 2 near death experiences and temporary blindness. Impossible to ignore, I was forced to move away from the known, into the void that is the unknown. Healing my body restored my sight and then imperceptibly, but fantastically, I began to become acquainted with my inner riches. The struggle to heal drew me into the depths of  my soul, allowing me access to the unbounded love and creativity of the Universe. This is the Heaven that follows the Hell.

Heaven Via Hell
Heaven Via Hell
Mid-Life Crisis – Heaven Via Hell
Mid-Life Crisis – Heaven Via Hell
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Categories Conscious Creativity, Creative Expression, Finding your Voice, GOD/Cosmic Consciousness, Having a Vision, Self Determining, Spirituality, the other woman, transformation

Week 48 of 52 Imago – The Final Stage of Metamorphosis

June 2, 2013 //
6

The privilege of a lifetime is to become who you truly are.

There is no coming to consciousness without pain.

Carl Jung

REFLECTIONS

THE IMAGO

Usually when I sit down to write, I have a theme that surfaces from the richness of the Unified Field. But not today. My thoughts run helter-skelter, scrambled and chaotic… I write some words, make some sentences…erase some words and then erase everything…I stare at a blank page…then start the process once more…then I glance outside and watch the robins and then I notice a butterfly and then the shadow dance of leaves in the breeze…now it’s noon…word count 3…997 to go…I’ve been wandering through my mind for 2 hours…

I, Between2Marys, feel like these minor utterances on my blank page. Like a bolt of material or a block of marble of a stack of lumber, I am caterpillar soup. If you were to cut open a cocoon or chrysalis at just the right moment, you would see neither a caterpillar nor a butterfly. You would see a liquid, amorphous mess of imaginal cells. Cells that look undifferentiated but hold the power to be eyes, wings, legs or antennae. In biology, the imago is the last stage an insect attains during its metamorphosis. It is within this final process of growth and development that the insect attains maturity.

I AM NEITHER A CATERPILLAR NOR A BUTTERFLY

Rather, I am in this embryonic phase…

Undifferentiated Cells within the Chrysalis

Undifferentiated Cells within the Chrysalis

between my old life where I dared not dream my own dreams and this new life where my dreams abound. 

The Aftermath of Last Week’s Post – Transforming the Animus

Liver Detoxification

Within minutes of ‘publishing’ week 47 of 52, I became so ill with fever, diarrhoea and vomiting, I was forced to lay on my couch for 2 days…full-on liver detoxification. It was as though  every stored disappointment, every stored sad thought, every stored anxious or enraged encounter I ever had with my father and subsequent men, oozed out of my pores, bile ducts, stomach and liver. Like cleaning the sludge from a polluted river, the troublesome contaminants (in the form of  thoughts and feelings) had to be eliminated. I was no longer the little girl forced to keep her thoughts and feelings to herself. Nor was I the needy, insecure woman, dependent on the approval of a man. As an empowered woman, launching her creative life, it was time to let go of any impediments to the free expression of my dreams. By mid-week, I walked into my garden, knowing it would become an expression of me. Gone were my feelings of reticence or incompetence. My path had become clear.

My Path is Clear

My Path is Clear

 

Similarly within the chrysalis, anything unnecessary to the life of the butterfly is destroyed by tissue dissolving enzymes. Amazingly, this highly sophisticated process , whether within the human body or the chrysalis, discriminates between that which is valuable to the new life and that which is detrimental…eliminating the detritus as part of the process.

Now, as I feel less symptomatic, I can marvel at my body’s capacity to restore and re-new itself. 

THE OTHER WOMAN BLOG

Experiencing Freedom!

Experiencing Freedom!

As the year of theotherwomanblog nears its 52nd week, I feel the burgeoning life of a wild and free woman. As I move towards the Summer Equinox, when all species come into bloom, I have the desire to break the shackles of containment and live the ‘unframed’ life…to plan far far less than I ever have… to allow instead the call of of the wild, the instinctual, the intuitive. I will invoke the ethereal guidance and support of my Spirit Guides, found beneath my mind. If I feel drawn to a book, a person, an activity or a thought, I will not question this impulse, but instead have the faith to follow.

The collage that inspired theotherwomanblog was created in a place of Spirit. I never questioned any image I was drawn to include. And only upon completion of the collage, did I understand the importance of its message.

I am posting a day early because tomorrow I am putting my work aside and driving to Victoria for some fun! For a snippet of all things Viennese, I am attending a Dramatic Reading of The Boy on the Bicycle by Peter Schnitzler. He is a film director out of Los Angeles, but was born in Vienna. He is the grandson of the very famous author, Arthur Schnitzler whose writings created quite a stir in 1900’s Vienna. The movie, Eyes Wide Shut, was based on his book, Dream Story. The theme of both centre on the fantasy of breaking free of societal mores…a fitting topic for a wild and free woman.

Sexual Fantasy

Sexual Fantasy

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Categories Animus, Conscious Creativity, Creative Expression, Finding your Voice, GOD/Cosmic Consciousness, Spirituality, the other woman, transformation

Week 47 of 52 Venus Needs her Inner Mars-Transforming the Animus

May 27, 2013 //
5


Like a French poem is life; being only perfect in structure when with the masculine rhymes mingled the feminine are.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

REFLECTIONS

From Seedpod to Bloom – Synergy of the Sexes

Part the earth and plant a seed. Mother Earth’s fertile, moist richness willingly receives this seed. Her power lies in her capacity to initiate the process of transformation. Mother Earth provides the nurturing receptacle that will ignite the life of the seed. But then, the plenipotent* masculine must arise and thrust through the surrounding earth. Only when the masculine and feminine interact synergistically, in perfect symbiosis, will the plant reach its zenith. Metaphorically then, my ideas are created and nurtured in the bountiful Feminine, but need the drive and determination of my action-oriented Masculine to become a tangible product.(Jung named the masculine energy within the woman, the animus)

Independent But Interconnected
The Feminine Recives the Masculine
Individuation-Consciousness for Both
The Powerful and Supportive Animus

In creating theotherwomanblog, I have given voice to my desire to be a writer. I am excited, impassioned and fulfilled every time I sit at my computer, and give birth to a new post. This experience is the symbiosis of the feminine and the masculine. Like a great river in nature, ideas flow endlessly, exciting my soul as I venture along this unparalleled creative path. I feel the pounding surge of new life within me, reminiscent of watching my daughters squirm and stretch in utero. But ideas, just like babies, must be born…given the chance to live outside the safety of the womb, the heart, the mind. If the ideas remained in my head, as they did for years, never manifesting into a sharable product… then I would be now as I once was in my old life…near death…like a stagnant river without flow, lacking vitality, gasping for air. Thus is the perfection of creativity! I am fed inwardly, soulfully, while simultaneously feeding and nourishing outwardly, by sharing my product.

Can I Manifest Other Dreams?

I have been trying to universalize my writing experience. Can I live other aspects of my life in a way that feeds my soul, while enriching the souls of others.

Here are just a few of my dreams:

1. I want to design my own garden, ending my reliance on my talented gardener, John.

2. I want to visit Vienna in July, as an empowered woman, open to the riches of the city.

3. I want to write a memoir or novel encapsulating theotherwomanblog experience.

4. I want to cycle Lake Constance in Switzerland.

5. I want to create a workshop, with an accompanying manual, in which I will help women free themselves from captivity…reducing their tendency to capitulate or coerce or kowtow, and instead find the courage to overcome the obstacles to living an impassioned life..

Tending My Garden – Dream #1

A few days ago I asked myself, Between2Marys, what do you hunger for? The answer came quickly. I hunger to create my garden, digging in the earth, planting and caring for all the life that has found its way into my yard…and then the reverie ended and I froze. Here was a clear desire, but where was my confidence to execute it? For 8 years I have watched with envy as my gardener, John, effortlessly designed and created my garden. His work seemed like magic, and beyond my capability. Logically, this was never true. Of course I was capable, but each time I thought about creating my garden, a judgemental, negative voice would descend upon me, leaving me feeling inadequate… not up to the task…forcing me to leave the execution of my dreams to the ‘experts’.

Invoking My Positive Animus

I needed to invoke my newly developed positive animus, to be my helpmate, to act in loving service to me…to help manifest my ideas and ideals. The attributes of the inner masculine include strength, decisiveness and a quality of protectiveness. Embracing this newly developed positive animus, I got in my truck and drove to a Garden centre. Once there, i became overwhelmed and almost drove away. I sat in the truck for 15 minutes until I felt strong. I then walked between rows and rows of plants, until their very presence calmed my anxiety. Step by excruciating step, I began to create my dream. 

Plants for seaside gardens.
My Garden Will Rock!

New Life

Exhilarating Labour!

Exhilarating Labour!

Tools of the Trade

Making Peace with the “Father Complex”

In this year of theotherwomanblog, I wanted to free the woman within, to give voice to my creativity, ensuring I live with passion and purpose. My newly found voice has come from making peace with my ‘internalized’ man. Through the myriad forces of family, culture and my own actions, I developed a very deleterious, menacing animus. My one-sided, negative view of the masculine nature affected my interactions with men. To me, men were self-serving, emotionally unavailable betrayers.

Destructive to the Men and to Me
Menacing Animus

It is amazing that I ever had dates, let alone marriages! My brutish stance devastated the men I interacted with, as well as leaving me questioning my ability to think or act. This year’s journey has given me the opportunity to examine my early years with my father as well as society’s attitudes towards women. I have dug very deep into the truth of my long held prejudices towards men, ultimately realizing that the perspective I created as a child, no longer served me, the adult woman. 

It is crucial for me to have within my psyche, a devoted, wise and lovingly present animus. Not only will this result in loving relationships with men, but this positive inner energy will give me the strength to realize my dreams!

GLOSSARY

plenipotent – invested with full power

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Categories Animus, Conscious Creativity, Creative Expression, Finding your Voice, Having a Vision, Jungian Analysis, Self Determining, the other woman, transformation, Wild Instinctual Woman
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