Tuesday 18 December 2012

A Jar of Mustard

Another Christmas is approaching with fast, noisy steps... And like every other Christmas for the last ten years, my heart bleeds with longing...

Yes, I have my children and my friends in this country where I had build a home away from home, but it is not home. There is no snow like a white blanket covering the Earth, there are no snowflakes dancing in the air in a frosty night... There are no children knocking on the door to sing carols old as time, there are no bells from snow carriages pulled by horses... And more then anything else, I don't have my parents and my siblings with me to decorate the Christmas tree on Christmas Eve, joking and singing and drinking boiled wine with cinnamon... There is none of my mother's cooking, and no laughter in the kitchen as more and more dishes are prepared...

Another Christmas is coming, and my heart bleeds for all of those lost things that I had barely noticed once... I dream of the old decorations that went up a real fir tree, that smelled of winter and forest, those decorations that were taken out of dusty boxes year after year... I dream of my father putting the star on top of the tree and the laughter as we tried to untangle the lights... I dream of sitting next to the tree with my brother, late into the night, and talking about the year that has passed and the hopes for the year to come... My mum pretending to be Santa late after dark on Christmas Eve and the jokes and teasing as presents were unwrapped... I even miss the crazy days of cleaning the house, before the crazy days of cooking with my mum, before the decorated table nearly breaking under the weight of all those dishes...   I miss siting with my mum and discussing the Christmas menu, pondering over each dish... I miss the carols on old LP disks...

After ten years away from Christmas, I miss it more then anything... Yes, in this home away from home, I made the Christmas tree at the beginning of December with my daughters... The tree is plastic and the decorations mostly new... And the carols played on YouTube, in English, chosen by my eldest daughter... Yes, I had made the menu with my daughter, as once upon a time my mother did with me... And yes, I went to the craziness of cleaning, and buying presents, and buying all the ingredients for the feast to come... But I had done it on my own, without the laughter I once shared, as I will do all the cooking... And yes, presents will be unwrapped under the tree, with laughter and hopefully delight, and there will be a dinner feast with lots of foods... And in between those dishes, there will be some, highly inappropriate for the hot Australian summer, that remind me of home, those dishes that will find their way on the table of every other family in my far away land... But it is not home...

As I will be cooking, my soul will be longing for my mother's kitchen, and my father's jokes as he photographs the dishes, and my brother's hunger, and my sister's beauty... I will be cooking and I will dream again, for yet another year, of doing it for my entire family, daughters and parents and siblings...

But I can never have my Christmas at home, no matter how much my soul longs for it...

Today, with an over full shopping trolley, as I was dashing madly from one shop to another with a typed up list in my hand, I stopped at the butchers... And I saw a jar of mustard... The colors reminded me of the one my mother buys, and I looked closer... And looked again at the writing, not daring to believe... But yes, the writing was in the language of my childhood... And I picked it up, still not daring to believe, and looked again... It was indeed made there, high up in my mountains... I could feel my smile creeping on my tired face... It was home. A tiny, tiny piece of home... I might not have my loved ones close, I might not have the carols of my childhood, or the puffy and cold white snow, there might not be any children knocking on my door, but along with my daughters and my memories, I will have this little piece of home... And as I will be mixing that mustard in the dishes I am cooking, I will have something of home into it... And it does bring my family closer... Just a tiny bit...

Somehow, from all the presents that will find their way under my tree, this simple jar of mustard is the best present I could have found in this land where I had built my home... Because it is a piece of the home of my soul, the home I am longing for, painfully, every Christmas... I could have never believed that I will find happiness in a jar of mustard... But for me, it made Christmas more real... more Christmas...

Sunday 11 November 2012

A Little Light, A Little Magic

It was meant to be simple. Something I had done countless times before, even before I knew what I was doing. Something I learned to control and use at will. As a daughter, as a friend, as a mother, as a stranger at times, I used the gift again and again, time after time, to sooth and to help.

Why have the gift if not to use it when someone needs it? No thought involved. Just the calling and the reply. No danger lurking. There is help, there is answer and soothing, and there are barriers which you simply don't cross. It was meant to be just as simple. Soothing pain away was something I always did, at the beginning with no skill and very little magic, later, as I learned more about my gift, with more magic and less consequences.

Someone was in pain and the woman, the witch in me, responded. Harm none. Do not manipulate. The only rules I live my life by, the only rules I would not break. As a woman I responded with touch and kindness. As a witch, I responded as I know best. Open up, do not intrude, let the energy flow, knowing that the other, unaware will just be able to use the light to the best of his soul. As I was offering nothing else but light and understanding, nothing else but wisdom and hope, as I was only offering the undiluted energy of the Universe, it seemed simple, easy, just, right, safe...


So I opened up. And maybe that was the first mistake, as by now I am skilled enough to offer energy without leaving myself open. My second mistake was opening up without checking first how open the other person was. Or maybe I just knew it and in a moment of blindness I thought it mattered not. I am trying to understand what happened, using logic as a microscope, and the understanding eludes me.

Somehow I opened up completely and I let pure love pour through me. Initially my senses were assaulted by pain, pain so deep it made me reel. Pain and sorrow, sadness and sacrifice, regret... A wave of undiluted pain... In that total compassion and empathy, I still had enough reason left to not intrude, to not look at the cause... And then the time stopped and the world vanished... There was nothing left, nothing but two souls touching, connecting... Losing their boundaries and reaching out towards an unity so perfect, so full, so round... I have no idea for how long did we remain lost into each other's eyes, with arms loosely wrapped in a friendly embrace... It could have been seconds, or the eternity. I would not know because it was in a place beyond time and physical space, in a space that was nothingness and yet the sum of all that there is.  I can't even put into human words what I felt beyond the pain: recognition, wonder, unity, home, peace, surprise... Perfection... Two souls touching and meshing... We pulled apart... with a longing that should not have been there between two near strangers...

I look back and I am able to understand that somehow we were both completely open, naked of all defenses... And that none of us closed the connection... There was power there, more power then I ever experienced. Mine skilled, his unskilled, but power nerveless...

Later, experiencing his emotions as clearly as mine, even though, thankfully not his thoughts as well, I told myself that I just soaked part of his emotions. Cleansing should have been easy, simple, basic... Again something I do as easy as breathing nowadays... But it wasn't. No amount of meditation, charkra cleansing, earth connecting, helped... My own emotions, his emotions were not two separate things anymore... Ended up going to sleep, hoping I will find a solution... Only to wake up realizing that whatever happened, it was more, much more  then just soaking up like a sponge someone else's emotions. Somehow I lost the edges to my soul...

And that is something I had never experienced before. I have no idea how to close something that became part of my very being, no idea how to separate the me from this another, and it confuses me because I can not putting into its own little box with a clear label. Maybe the witch in me has seen or recognized something more, but the woman in me has no idea what that is...

Dark

Night... Dark as nights filled with promises, dark as secrets that are better left untold, dark as hopes that have no right to exist, dark as pleasure... Dark like a night when the moon does not shine, and yet is so alive... Dark as the time of no being, so mysterious and yet so safe...

I love the vibrancy of sun, the life and joy of it, and yet the dark attracts me, like a whisper, like a mystery that wants to be unraveled... There is life in that dark, a life harder to see beyond the veils, a life filled with mystery and magic... In the dark I can get lost and nothing else can exist. The time stretches, then stops, the world ceases and there is nothing left but that sea of night that drowns me, exhilarates me, scares me and soothes me... A sea that gives life to dreams I thought I left behind, a sea that stirs something in my soul that was better left asleep...

And yet, I am attracted to the night, attracted enough to throw caution to the wind and allow myself to be carried on the waves to wherever they need to take me. I try to tell myself that I have a choice, that I am still the master of my destiny, and I can hear the Gods laughing at me... I know that beyond the dark there is joy and pain alike, but the veils are too thick and I can not see on which side is the joy, on which side is the pain, and all that I know is that on this particular journey the two are interlinked, that accepting one I have to accept the other, and it is not what I want... It is not a journey I am taking willingly, more so as for once my instincts choose to be silent...

I am so used to listen to my instincts, so used to have them as an aid in my decisions, and without it I feel lost... Just trust that the Gods know better then I do? Oh yeah, on a rational level, I know that, as well as I know that each journey just makes me stronger, wiser, that each lesson is a blessing... But I look into the dark and I wonder at the promise, I let myself seduced by the mystery... And yet, even when it is too late, I don't want to step further onto this road, I am reluctant to make this particular journey...

My human arrogance screams that it is too fast, too soon, not what I want or need... I don't want to change yet again, I don't want to tilt my world again, and I know without doubt that at the end of this journey, regardless of what I end up finding following the rainbow in the dark, I will be changed and for the first time I am scared of change...

How the Gods must be laughing! Me, who always welcomed and thrived on challenges, me who is always willing to change and grow, me who stepped with courage in the crazy dance of the unexpected, I sit on the edge of the dark, still able to see a glimmer of light, too scared to step further because the road is not marked, because it is a completely new journey with no safety nets, because my instincts are silent, because I am requested to put my full trust into the Gods hands, with no guarantees and no reassurances... Just trust and go with the flow, the Gods are saying... So simple, so easy! Just trust!

I can't just trust, just let myself carried into a world where logic does not apply... Just trust! And that is the hardest thing in the world for one such as me, because I lost my trust long ago... And yet, the pull of that dark night it is more powerful then me... Like a mermaid's song that calls and pulls, it waves around me until my will is nothing and no choice is left except to go under the waves and let them take me to an unknown destination...

Wednesday 31 October 2012

Love Spells and Bubble, bubble, boil and trouble

I was not going to write about love spells. Partially because I have no interest in them, partially because in my opinion such spells are almost always pure trouble...

But too many people, when they hear I am a witch, after a minute of silence, end up giving me a detailed description of their love life, or lack of, and ask for a spell to fix the problem. On the other hand, it is Beltane, so what better night to write about love spells?

Love... When I think of love, I think about the one emotion that shapes our lives more then any other. We wish for it, we bathe in it, we long for it, we fight it, we run away from it, we cherish it... Sometimes we yearn for it so much that we see it where it is not, other times we are so scared of it, we can not see it even when it is there... Love... Love for one's family, love for a lover, for things and possessions, for moments, for friends... Sometimes love for nature, or a stranger... Love for a day or a lifetime... The love we give, the love we are given, or the one that is lacking... Used wisely, it has the power to lift us to the top of the highest mountains... When the wisdom is lacking, love is the one that can take us to the bottom of despair...

There are many people and many things I love... My family and my ancestors, my children, my friends... I love my coffee in the mornings when my brain is still half asleep... I love the wind blowing wildly in a storm and the breeze gently blowing in a hot day... I love the sunrise with the promise of a new day, the sunset with the culmination of another... I love the moon, gently lighting a dark night sky... So many things I love... More often then not, I prefer to count my blessings in the love I give, rather then in the love that is given...

And there are loves I avoid out of fear, because I have been hurt too deeply.

But most of the love spells I am asked about, are more precise, more to do with love from a man or a woman... I do not know if it is possible to use magic to make someone love you... and I don't even care to find out... What I do know, is that you, yourself should be magic enough if someone is wiling to give that love. Because Love is an emotion you offer, but you can never request. And I also know that forcing someone into love, it breaks one of the only laws I respect as a witch: An' it harm none,
Do what ye will.


And yet, love is not about you, but about the other, about you offering without the need to wait for a return. Forcing someone into love hurts not one, but both people.

However, there are some love spells I do agree with. The only one I would freely practice, with no buts attached to it, would be love for oneself. I noticed in life how people freely offer love to everyone and everything around, and I always thought it is beautiful. But more often then not, self love seems to come hard to people, and lacking this important ingredient in life, always gives birth to resentment. If you can not love yourself, how can you expect another to do it?

Another type of love spells I am not against, is wishing for love in general. I want to meet, love and be loved in return, by someone that can be my best friend, someone I can respect and be respected by, someone responsible, reliable and mature, someone that can have a good laugh... I wish for someone that could be a good father figure to my children and care for them... Someone I can talk to and shares some of my interests... Someone I can sit with in silence and be comfortable doing so... Someone who is kind and compassionate, generous and empathic... Someone I could have a pillow fight with, or cry on their shoulder... I wish for someone that I can be fully myself with and be accepted and loved for it... The list could be longer, or shorter, or more, or less specific... I find that for me, these would be the things I would really wish for... As long as that list does not have a specific person at its center, it is all good.  If it does have a specific person, it is trouble...

And lastly... When one wishes for love, the wish should come with the implicit understanding that effort needs to be put in, or all is for nothing...

Saturday 27 October 2012

Another Beltaine...

Another Beltaine is approaching... My house is decorated for Halloween, as my children can not accept my reasons that in the Southern Hemisphere, Halloween is actually in April, in autumn, not in October, in spring. Even though I lived here, in the South of this wonderful planet for ten years now, even though my body sings of the approaching summer, my brain still argues that October is autumn...

Ignoring the names of the months, I look out of my window at the riot of blooming flowers, at the jacarandas in purple mist, and I know without doubt that is spring. Even blind, even without being able to feel the warming sun on my skin, just from the quickening of my blood, and I would still know that Beltaine is only few days away...

I had made the choice of being single, and staying single, a choice I am happy with, for a countless reasons, including to be able to focus more deeply on me, my children and my craft. And yet, regardless of my mind being at peace and my heart being content,  the instincts that come from an immemorial time, are searching for that elusive something that is passion and love, that is the connection between the divine feminine and the divine masculine. And interestingly enough, it is not the call of a relationship I hear, thank Goddess or I would really freak out, but the abandon of rules, the crazy thirst for life and being alive...

Normally I love Beltaine. As much, and yet differently from my love for Samhain (Halloween), when my soul craves the solitude and peace that allows me to transcend the worlds in the search for my dear loved ones that I lost or never met. At the opposite side of the Wheel, sits Beltaine with the craving for crowds and thirst for life, with the need to start anew and forget the wisdom of winter. Beltaine, when my soul wants to forget the teachings of the Crone and just enjoy the innocence of the youth, when years drop by and for a short while I can be again the girl I once was, full of dreams and illusions, acting on powerful instincts, rather then the wary wisdom I had learned.

Last year, Beltaine was meant to be a party with friends that I cared for and it become a night with a lover. The year before, Beltaine was an amazing ritual in a group of strangers, with a man that by then was not my lover anymore. The year before that, Beltaine was celebrated with a friend I loved dearly, and I still miss so much, and the Gods found their place in the deep connection of friendship. This year is different. This year it seems I need to learn how to spend Beltaine on my own, with no friends I love, no lovers for a night or years, no big ritual where I can lose the edges of myself, no party where I can abandon convention. The part of me that learned to read the signs, knows without doubt that the reason for it is because while I had learned so many lessons over the years, the one I skirted about is how to really connect with myself, outside the meditation moments. The witch in me, the one that is old beyond time, and young the same, knows that the only love I have to share this year is with myself. Maybe the hardest type of love, especially for one such as me, that finds it easier to love and accept others, but not myself. But the woman in me, the one used to having a friend or a lover near, the one that is human and is tired of learning, would have preferred a different, more joyous Beltaine. 

Two years ago, on Beltaine, as I knotted a wish on a red string, I wished with all my soul for freedom. The remembrance and the repercussions of that wish, reminds me of something my mother used to say when I was a tiny child still, wishing aloud: "Be careful what you wish for, because you might get it". The wish made on Beltaine two years ago, came true, as wishes made in sacred moments tend to do. For the last two years I had never regretted that wish, one that my soul needed to mend and to live. But now, I understand the danger of an incomplete wish. Wishing for freedom more then anything, I forgot to ask for the wisdom of learning how to use it.

And yet, beyond wisdom, my soul still stirs wildly in my blood, asking for something elusive...

Monday 22 October 2012

A Cup of Coffee


How is it possible that a single cup of coffee can bring the past back so vividly? In my dreams, in my rituals, in moments of painful loneliness, I do sometimes call on the spirits of my loved ones that don't share this world anymore. But it is done with respect and preparation, with a clear intention. How can a single cup of coffee bring forward the ghosts of the past, not of the people that passed away, but of the ones that are still here?

Looking in the dark eyes of someone I once loved, the present stopped existing and with it all the years of hard work that I put into erasing the vengeful ghosts of my past. It seemed like the five years of fighting and growing, of learning to look within as well as without, never existed. I found myself obsessively watching the time again, fearful of an unpredictable future, and even repeating myself that I am free, that no swords will hurt me if I linger longer, my heart kept beating faster, expecting my phone to ring and be faced with words that cut.

I could still feel the sunshine in my hair, the ground beneath my feet, but the woman I became beyond the odds, could not be there, not while the broken, fearful young mother that I was was caught in a past no longer real, but equally as painful.

I chose to forget sometimes that once, not so long ago, I was scared of my own shadow. I forget that it was a time when I would think over and over again before saying something, and still the punishment would come, for a nonexistent mistake. The divine blessing of forgetting the tears that followed every act, every word, every thought. I chose to forget most times what it meant to be a living dead with no escape and no hope, with no help and no dreams...

With the present gone, I could see the eyes of the girl that was me and yet, not me. The same green eyes that over the last five years learned to smile, and laugh again, and to not run away from a confrontation, maybe to trust... But the eyes of the girl that used to be me carried no smiles, even the memory of them was lost to her; no dreams, no hopes... Those eyes could just reflect back the sadness of a world filled with terror, the helplessness of the one that knows that the dark cage will never be opened... In the girl that was shaking at the ring of her phone, there was no life beyond fear and punishment...

From across the table, separated by a simple cup of coffee, I see the ghost of the young mother that was me, of the man that I once loved and of the friend that I once foolishly trusted. I look at them then, in that time with no sunshine and no moonlight, and I remember running on dark streets wishing for death, because it seemed like the only possible escape from a nightmare I could not wake up from. I remember a night when I sat under a tree on a bench in a school, shaking at the leaves moving in the breeze and crying for the girl full of life and full of dreams that gave her world, her soul in exchange for love. I look at these ghosts and I see the day, when with a broken body as well as with a broken soul I realized that maybe, just maybe there might be an escape...

Now, looking back, I know that it was not courage, but a bottomless despair that gave me strength. Not hope but the fear that I will kill or be killed that gave me the power to risk the little that I barely had.

With the cup of coffee in my hand, I make an effort, from the bottom of my soul, and the past is gone, leaving behind a sunny spring day with children laughing. I am me again, the one that walked between the stars to gather the broken pieces of my soul, the one that fought to melt them back together. The me that is now, sheds a tear for the young broken woman I was, a tear not of pity, but of compassion. The me that is now, knows to the depth of her being that she will never be again that dead young woman that was yet living. But the me that is now, knows equally as well that she will never again be the young girl that gave up her world and her dreams, her soul and her heart in exchange for love. And if sometimes there is regret for knowing that I will never have again the open trust that I once had, for knowing that I will never risk my entire being for a dream, but only pieces of me, if at times there is regret for having had to learn how to store every part of my soul into tiny, pretty boxes, with safe compartments that will ensure that if one falls, the other will remain standing, I smile and I remember to be proud of the one I became, the one that in losing so much, never lost the compassion and the caring...

When I ran to fight the monsters of my nightmare, I was scared, not strong. Mending together the pieces of my soul. like a smith working at a forge, even though the blade that is my soul will never be the same again, I had learned its weaknesses and it strengths...  By learning how much I can risk before the danger will approach, by learning the steps between approaching danger and the risk of breaking, I became stronger, if not wiser, strong enough to take a risk if my heart so wishes and wise enough to know if the risk is worth taking... And for that, I am grateful.

Thursday 12 July 2012

Migrant

Sitting here, under a sky who's stars are so alive in my heart, listening to the long forgotten whispers of the past, whispers that the land quietly sings, I understand probably better then ever the painful dilemma of the immigrant. 

After spending a third of my life under different stars, I am either blessed with two homes, two countries, two cultures, or none. Because I am not sure I know anymore where my home is, where my heart lies. In both, and yet, in neither.

When I am here, in the land of my ancestors, the land that sings filled with legends in my heart, I am painfully aware of how much I miss my other home, with its harsh sun and blinding white light. Here, my home is there, in the land with a language I had to learn. But there, my heart cries for here, for the language I was born into, for my land and my people. When I am here, my heart cries for there and when I am there, my heart cries for here. It does not make me any less Romanian, or any less Australian, but it leaves me in a no man's land of longing. And truth be told, of not fully belonging in either place.

Used to a different life, I can not fully belong anymore to the land of my ancestors. The life I live changed the way I think and maybe, up to a point, the way I am and regardless how much my soul still sings at tracing my long forgotten footsteps, there is something that sets me apart, customs I lost along the way, and I simply don't fully belong anymore. And yet, when I am there, in the country I chose, there are other things, other quirks that set me apart and I don't fully belong there either.

It has been too long and somewhere along the way, the two cultures, the two lands merged into me, creating something new that is neither here, neither there, leaving me in a no man's land where I question my heart's belonging.

I love my first home, and I love it with passion. My land with miles and miles of deep tall forests and brave mountains that reach to the sky like proud arrows. My land of old castles shining on hilltops in golden light. My land where the language is like a song, musical and soft and where laughter is free, lacking inhibitions. I love this land, my land, the land of my people and I love it with all my heart.

But I also love my second home, with gentle winters and harsh white light, with oceans that reach the shores in tall foamy waves. My other home where everything is so new and the language so restrained and quiet.

Here, in my first home, I have my parents and siblings living under the blue sky, and the generations that passed and are now buried in the fertile land. There, in my second home, I have my children and my friends.

How can I ever choose? And what to choose? The gentle rainy winters or the bright white snow and freezing cold? There is beauty in both. The golden sun or the bright white light? Old castles or skyscrapers made of glass? Mountains or oceans?

My heart is so much in them all! And yet, as I walk the streets of both countries, my heart bleeds for the other half of the coin. Here, my accent sets me apart. There are words I forgotten in my language and my accent betrays my living elsewhere... "Where do you come from?". There are words I had not yet learned and again my accent betrays my coming from afar. "Where do you come from?" Here I dress too casual. There I dress up too much,

Regardless if I am here or there, and here and there are interchangeable according  of where I am, my heart always bleeds for the other half, the one that is so far away. And with only half of my heart in either place, I don't really belong to either. I have two homes, two countries, two languages and yet my heart is forever divided. This is the eternal dilemma of the migrant. Where do I belong? Where is my home now? How can I ever choose?

Thursday 24 May 2012

Winter

OK, technically is not winter yet... Not for another week or so. But considering my furry slippers and three jumpers I am wearing, I contend to disagree. It is cold enough to see steam when I breathe, and the entire city is covered in rain and mist...

Rain seems to have become the typical weather in my corner of the world. It rained most of the summer and autumn, and it is still raining... But mist or fog is something I have not seen often in Sydney...

It reminds me of my far away mountains covered in snow for the most part of the year... Sometimes, in late autumn the fog gets so thick you could cut it with a blunt knife. And yet, at every step, you are aware that high up there are old castles hidden between ever green fir trees.

This cold misty weather makes me miss my home. It is funny how often I tell myself that my home is now here, between Australian beaches, and yet, there are days when I feel lost in this land of eucalyptus trees and I miss my land filled with millenniums old  history... With winter on my door step I feel the need to rebel and demand a real winter. Frost and snow... Tiny white ballerinas falling from an almost orange sky, covering centuries old houses and fir-trees that are always green. Snow flakes that dance between tall columns of smoke that almost reach the sky as they escape from tall brick chimneys.  Swords of ice hanging from the roofs like stalagmites in a cave. Sharp, think, long and see through...

Winter means snow fights and snow men. It means children laughing and the aroma of wine boiled with sugar and cinnamon. It means speed on a pair of skis...

My soul cries for the winters of my childhood that my children will never know... Not that my brain got used to the idea that it is winter in June and summer in December, because it did not. After 10 years in Australia, if someone asks me to connect seasons to the months of the year, I still say that March is spring, June is summer, September is autumn and December is winter...

This weather makes me home sick...

Friday 27 April 2012

Silence

For a while everything was silent in me. Not depression, just tiredness. As my own body tries to fight being ill, my soul had no wings to fly. For a while, I just allowed myself to go through the motions...

This year hit me hard... Too many things lost, too much pain and disappointment... In a way, I don't think I have been so low in a long time...

It is meant to be my birthday... But I just found out that my father has cancer... I am on the other side of the planet as I have been now for a third of my life... I hate the distance... I would give the world to be able to be there, next to him, to give him a hug... In the last year, as my own children started to grow into their own independent persons, I started to really understand and appreciate how lucky I am to have the parents I have. 

I don't know if my parents are proud of me, as I have done a pretty good job at messing up my own life, but I know that I am incredibly proud to be their daughter... The fact that I took the time to tell them so, to thank them for being my parents, to thank them for the lessons they taught me and the foundations they offered me, makes little difference now when all I want is to be there...

I feel like a lost child, which is ridiculous considering that my oldest daughter is nearly a teenager, but I still feel like a child that is lost. I banked on having my parents for many more years...

I jumped in the car feeling lost and sad and angry with life... Just the need to get out of my silent unit... if I had someone near, I could have done with a cuddle and with someone telling me that everything will be ok... But I don't...  Anyway, I jumped in the car with no idea where I was going to drive in the middle of the night... I ended up in one of the bush reserves by the water, so common in Sydney and ended up sitting on the grass...

Normally in rituals I look for the trimmings that help focus my attention, but I had no intention to do anything. So I just sat on the dew wet grass with the night sounds all around me... Started to breathe in an out, looking for the rhythm of the once familiar meditation. But I lost the habit so thoughts kept  twisting in my head for a while before I managed to find the silence within... In the months without magic, I forgot the silence, the peace and the power of the world and time outside of world and time... I don't know when my circle was created around me, holding me safely in a cocoon. Golden light around me, darkness within... But not the scary darkness of the night monsters. The safe protective darkness of the womb... I don't know how I raised the energy... I am not even sure if I had enough wisdom to raise it out of the Earth or if I was silly again to use all that I had, but when it started to sing powerfully in my veins, I simply released it all to my father... And then, with the last whispers, I bent down over the hospital bed, gave him a hug and told him I love him... I  don't know if he felt me and I know better then to ask...

But I pray to every spirit that he will be OK...

Saturday 17 March 2012

A Moment of Paradise

As an adult, life sometimes gets too heavy, too busy, running around with too many balls held in the air, trying too hard to achieve the impossible... It gets hard to remember to just sit and enjoy, to lose yourself in the moment...

And sometimes, in between responsibilities, little things sneak up on you, facing you with a different world where the balls are put on the ground without a notice and time seems to freeze...

Sunday morning... The one day a week when I can just sleep in with a pillow over my head, wrapped between crisp bedsheets, knowing I won't have to rush anywhere...

After a Saturday of running around in heavy rain, waking up with a bright ray of sun sneaking between curtains, I become aware of a perfect and soft little body glued next to me and wrapped in my arms... Soft, soft skin, still having the baby chicken smell so specific to little children, mixed with the sweet smell of hair spray... Tiny ponytails gently tickling my face and little strong muscles under my fingers... Without opening my eyes, I just lay there, becoming aware of my daughter's soft breath, and the way her tiny body still feels so much part of my own...

In a year or two, as she will grow from a cheeky little girl into a tiny lady like her older sister, the boundaries between her body and mine will harden and hugging her, with equal as much love, I will know, on some visceral level, that it is a person that belongs to herself... I will search then for the soft shape of her body, but I will be hugging someone that knows who she is and where we stop...

And there is pride in that, to look upon your child becoming more and more an individual. There is pride in watching as their wings grow and they start slowly and surely, navigating their own lives... But next to the pride, there is a touch of loss for all the years and experiences that will not come back...

I watch my oldest daughter, a little lady now, still so sweet and still looking so small and young in her sleep, and my heart fills with love and pride, remembering a time when she was still my baby and her world revolved so much around me... From being a Moon revolving around my Earth as I was spinning around the Sun, she grew into her own planet, still connected, but individual and with an independent orbit around the same Sun... And while it a wonderful experience, as you watch and assist, there is a sadness in knowing that from now on you can't anymore protect as you used to do, in knowing that life will deal blows that you can't anymore take for them and all you can do is to share your own wisdom and a shoulder.

But as those thoughts fly through my head watching her sleeping, the other one, with the little body glued to mine stirs in her sleep... For now, even though she already started on the journey that will make her more and more her own person, she is still my soft little baby... As I hug her, I know that appearances are deceiving, that under the softness of her skin there are strong muscles that can do things I can only dream about, that under the sleeping smile there is a will as strong as mine... I hug her closer and gently her little hands wrap around my neck, two souls wrapped into what feels like one body... Her eyelashes flutter and with a smile, her soft, sleepy voice says: "I love you, mama!"

It is one of those rare moments when as a parent I can let the questions and worries rest, and I can just feel the perfection of the moment, the divine perfection of the two of them, knowing that I had a little part in creating and shaping this two wonderful persons... As I watch them, I feel a deep peace while my heart is close to bursting with so much love, and I whisper, "Thank you for being my children!".

Because in moments like this, I realize once again the incredible blessings my daughters are to me. And the days when I feel my hair growing white with worry for them, the days when I run in circles not sure of what I am doing with them, the days when I feel like hiding in the cupboard  instead of dealing with another temper tantrum, are made worthwhile by moments of paradise like this one when I can just cherish the incredible joy of being a parent...   

Tuesday 13 March 2012

Where am I?

I sit sometimes, in the night shadows, as my children breathe slowly in their sleep, and with peace surrounding me, I feel lost. Not lost from the world, but lost from myself, disconnected for the ancient and pure core that is the Me behind all the smokes and mirrors. So often I play dancing between smoke, between mirrors, hidden behind elaborate masks...

There is the mask of the Mother, the one that freely gives even when there is nothing left to give. The Mother that sacrifices and has all the answers, the one that has to protect and support. The one that gives power and puts wings on someone else dreams. And yet, behind the mask, in the mirror, as the clock strikes midnight, there is just a woman that has no answers, who's wisdom lies scattered, the woman who is unsure and has insecurities.

There is the mask of the Daughter that tries to be an example, and yet, in the mirror is just a young child, still scared of the dark. And there is the mask of the Woman, powerful and free, secure and passionate. The Woman that can laugh when she feels like crying, the one that offers support to all and has none when she herself needs it.

There is the mask of the Artist who hides behind a lens capturing the glimpse and short lived glimmer of beauty. Again the Artist has all the answers and composure, while inside, way beyond the lens, sometimes wonders what for or if it even matters...

The mask of the Witch, ancient in her wisdom, with a scared child hiding inside knowing that her only wisdom is in knowing those things she does not know.

So many masks, so many mirrors to get lost behind! And sometimes, as the night lengthens deeper and deeper, the masks fall and the mirrors are covered in smoke, leaving just another shadow of the presence. Because the fear is not the real face of that which hides from all, either. And knowing that, I wonder when and how did I get so lost that I can't anymore find Adriana's thread to get out of the labyrinth I willingly stepped in.

Sometimes I catch glimpses of what once was. The freedom, the power, the dreams and the answers, once they were real, they were me. But somewhere along the way, I shed layer upon layer of my self until only shadows were left. And when I found a glimmer of power to see the shadow of my former self, I longed for it enough to try and recreate it. With not enough power to thread back to find the true layers, was easier to knit them as a spider web. Real in itself, they are yet nothing but copies and sometimes they get too heavy to carry around. And then, in the middle of the night, I can put them all in a corner, and curl weeping and screaming, cursing the day I chose the illusion over the wisdom, crying for all that which is forever lost, the innocence, the hopes, the dreams, the trust...

Because maybe more then anything, the child in me, when it gets lost in a world of illusions, wants nothing more then the ability to trust again, herself and others. It all started with trust and it all ended when the trust was broken, and the child in me, longs so much to trust herself again.

And finally, when all the fear and sorrow are spent in bitter tears, when longings are released to the waves of blue rivers, when dreams are fully released in the ether, and hopes mourned in the ever green earth, when the innocence is grieved and fed to the flames, when nothing is left but yet another empty shell, I can stand up, knowing that from no power I find the power to face another day, from weakness I find strength. Because, when the shell is empty of ego, only then, can I see that I am strong only because I am weak, I am powerful only because I have no power, I can laugh because I know how to cry, I can smile only because I have known sorrow, I am beautiful because I have faults... Because only then can I lift myself up, holding heaven and earth, water and fire, being spirit filled with a divine spark... I might still not know where am I, or even what in the world am I doing, but at least then, only then I can admit to myself that I am exactly where I am supposed to be, and that frees me to open to another experience and yet another lesson, that frees me to be myself and free...

Tuesday 6 March 2012

Autumn

The summer is gone. Only a shadow remains of the long, sunny, hot days of summer. The vibrant colors of nature are getting less bright, there are clouds floating through the sky... The darkness lengthens it's shadows earlier and there is a chill in the air that was not there couple of weeks before...

The end of summer always brings a feeling of nostalgia in me. Even though so many years have passed since I finished school in my far away mountains, the end of summer still seem to sing the song of the end of holidays... But unlike before, there is no excitement of meeting friends that I missed, there is no wonder to see a new year's surprises...

Nowadays, autumn just brings with it a slowing down of vitality. Where once upon a time it was a season of wine making, of pickles getting made between giggles, now is just a nostalgia which seems to suit my mood. This year I had no energy to truly enjoy summer. With my body rebelling against me, packing the car for a day at the beach seemed more then I was able to do.

This year, the summer passing away to leave space for colder days seems a metaphor of my own health. Gone are the days of singing while cleaning the house, gone are the days of dancing in the car with my children... I seem to have gotten old all of a sudden and even though I know that another summer awaits at the end of the rainbow, I just can't find it in me to be excited about that hope. Because like the weather, I just don't have the energy anymore...

Like nature, I feel the need to lie down and recharge for the future spring, to hide in a cave and sleep until my body, like nature, can come anew... But unlike the nature that quietly goes to sleep, responsibilities hold me tight in an everyday circle of duties.

Monday 13 February 2012

Before the Storm

I was feeling slightly lost, somehow lonely, maybe just a touch sad... Sometimes, even when one knows they made the right decision, the only right decision, there is still a touch of hurt, even if only for closing a door on a dream... I knew I did the right thing for me and mine, and yet, I wished for comfort and tenderness...

Sometimes what we wish for is not what we need. I could have stayed in the house, feeling just a bit sorry for myself, trying harder to shut the door on what could have been. I am good at closing doors and building nice shields around my heart. But I did not want that. I wanted my life back.

I was wishing for laughter and comfort, for tenderness and for a caring hand to wipe away the tears I refused to shed. Instead, knowing myself too well, I pushed myself to take a walk in the bush, with my faithful Nikon around my neck. Usually I chase the light and the vibrancy of color, the sharp contrast between them. And yet, each time I lifted the camera, I did it towards something dark and almost sinister. Not grit as it is hard to find grit in a beautiful bush, but nerveless, only shadows and no light, muted colors and deep grays, broken by dark greens that were made even darker by changing the stops on the camera.

The fact that the sky darkened as soon as I stepped onto the first path, was irrelevant. I often cheat with light, I often bring deep color where there is next to none. But I did not feel vibrant. I could not lift the camera at the beauty of flowers, at the lonely sun rays on the leaves. I barely noticed them. My mood was dark and I could not be bothered to turn away from it, so I embraced it.

Lonely forest paths with stairs cut into them... I always had an affinity for pathways and stairs, but usually as a promise, not as a threat to a painful solitude. And when I usually lift my camera to a tree, is for the majesty and the power, not for the loneliness. And yet, I took some of my best photos as I was jumping from one path to another, with no worry of getting lost.

Maybe it comes down to having grown up in the mountains, but I never get lost in a forest. In the city, I have no sense of direction whatsoever, and I often get lost, going round and round in circle, one street away from where I want to get to. Half the time, I can't even tell the difference between left and right. Without my GPS, I would be totally lost. And yet, in the forest, or in the bush, regardless how many paths I change, I always know how to get back on different paths.

But that Sunday afternoon, I could not find the magic in me. My power was just a tiny flame, barely breathing, in the same way I could not see the light for my photographs. Even when it started raining, I could not be bothered, but slowly I made my way back. And as I reached my door, the storm hit. Wild rain, angry thunder... I did not lift my camera. I stood by the window, feeling the storm beating into me, harsh and unforgiving. And in between lighting I felt cleansed, magic all again and I could finally breathe and feel alive, knowing that my life belongs to me and the Universe...

Saturday 7 January 2012

Land of Dreams

People get lost in myths and from there, they get lost in the nebula of history. Countries come and go, cultures are lost, people became legends and history becomes folk tales that are not even whispered by the fire in cold nights anymore.

In an age of fingertip technology, we lost the heart of the lands we belong to. And sometimes, as the clock strikes midnight, a calling raises in the heart, a calling unheard, only felt, that one would want to understand... The call of the land and of history lost. It is the hour when the legends creep in the blood filling your heart with a longing without name.

Someone told me yesterday that no feeling is more deep then sitting down in a long forgotten place and listening to the stories the land tells. No stories that can be put in name, just Fata Morgana of dreams and half said words in languages lost.

Because like people, languages are born, evolve and die. Sometimes it is possible to hear them again out of the dusty covers of a book, but other times, no books are left. And then you can only search for a lost language in the matrices of another.

I live very far away from the land of my ancestors. And yet, with half a planet between the land and me, I can still hear the calling of a lost past. And gods without remembered myths come back, fleetingly through my blood. An intimate knowledge that is not knowledge.

Here is Bendis, the goddess adopted by Greece. A spear in one hand, a goblet of blessings in another, the eagle flying high above the white horse... So alive and yet so forgotten. High magic and the Moon, sacred unions and hunting... She whispers, but her words are unheard, only the awe remains as she passes through. I am yours, Mother, I am yours, Daughter...

Behind her, Gebeleizis follows... So young and beautiful, so handsome and so powerful is the god with golden hair! Arch and spear, eagle on the shoulder and tall on his horse, the god whispers of the connection between Sky and Earth, between war, life and death, because he is the supreme god.

Behind him yet is Derzelas, the god that talks of healing and abundance, of that which is lost only to be found again. And Istia of fire, so adopted and remembered by the Greeks! And Zamolxis, the one that taught us that to die is to be reborn again and that our very souls are immortal! And here is Apollo the Hyperborean, all sun and golden looks saying how he came to be from the Pontus Euxinus. And here is Dionysus, that who teaches Ecstasy...

But all are lost and only few remember yet after millennium and millennium. Some forgotten, some remembered by other people... They sing the song that started in the Carpathians, the song of the White Wolf, Pelasgians and Aryans, the ones that from Carpathians went to India and Greece, to Asia Minor and shook hands with the Celts. The song of the Hyperboreans from the Danube and Carpathians...

Are only dreams of a land lost in myth and legend. And in ballads sometimes, by other names and other deeds they are remembered like the sacred signs still imprinted on the gates... The people are gone, the language maybe lost, the history shrouded in myth... But the land remains, forever alive, telling stories if only one can really listen...

Sunday 1 January 2012

10 Years

Only few more hours were left out of 2011... And as my ghosts were having their own party in my home last night, making it impossible for me to sleep, I remembered...

Last time I had a party for New Years Eve was exactly 10 years ago... I spent that night in Bucharest with people I cared about, people I knew and some I did not at the time... I remember Abdul, so stable, so wise, so patient with the child I still was... I remember Nada, so beautiful and so grown up, a fresh and upbeat breeze in my so serious life... I remember the foods we all prepared in a small kitchen, the laughter and the easy camaraderie of the few girls smoking and gossiping in the kitchen... The dinner on a white tablecloth in the middle of the lounge as there were not enough seats for all of us... I remember Ahmed bringing lychees fruits who looked like hard, pink strawberries... But most off all I remember the laughter, the joy of facing a new year even though we all were away from home.

This year I did not have a big group of friends around... Just an Aussie style New Years Eve with pub hopping and a lot of drinking. The people that matter were away, scattered around the world, most of them, and the other ones all over the country...

This year there is no Latin celebration in the streets with long beeping cars and loud screams! Fireworks from University Piazza in Bucharest instead were watched by me from a bridge without a name for me, facing the Harbor Bridge in Sydney. But the sky was full of love hearts and if there was no mistletoe and no friends to easy kiss at midnight, there were phone calls to my loved ones...

One can take a Latin out of Europe, but can not take the Latin out of the person... So I screamed as I was counting the seconds, laughing like an idiot. I managed to stop short from dancing in the street... And when an unexpected friend called as the first fireworks were lighting the dark sky, I had tears in my eyes...

I walked until my feet were screaming, and Aussie enough now, folded my evening pants and took off my 6 inch stilettos. I had laughter in my voice and laughter in my heart...

Since I left my country so long ago, since I swapped cultures and continents, it was the first New Year  Eve I felt no sorrow. The longing was there as I guess it will always be, but I was happy and having fun. Most likely in the future I will be going to an organized party on a boat or in a restaurant, leaving the pub hopping to younger people. But for 2012, I know that I laughed and I sang on the music... I know that after 10 years I welcomed a new year being happy to the core.