Revisiting the Ideal

When I wake up in the morning, I feel the sunshine on my face, soft and gentle as it pours in the windows.  The kids are still quiet, asleep in their beds, or perhaps reading or playing quietly in their rooms.  Taking the opportunity for what it is, I sneak down the stairs to practice yoga.  An hour of yoga in the morning, and I’m awake, aware, refreshed.  Then, the kids are woken and drawn downstairs by the smell of pancakes, even if I have to go get them.  They grab themselves some yogurt and some fruit, sit down, and wait for soft, fluffy pancakes to be tossed on their plates.

The morning is spent playing.  We wander out into the grass and look at flowers, look at shapes in the clouds, climb trees, and in general enjoy being outside.  Then we come back inside and start on the school work before the heat sets in too hard.  I don’t care too much what they do for school, reading books, working on crafts, whatever suits their little hearts, while I make lunch.  I don’t make anything fancy, maybe just some sandwiches and a salad, something easy and quick.  Then it’s back to whatever projects they want to work on, whatever it is they want to do.

Once the day starts to cool a bit we walk through the woods to visit with the rest of the community.  All the kids get to play for their afternoon play date.  Some of the parents are telling stories, teaching about a subject they know about, or playing games with the kids.  The rest of the parents get a chance to relax, put their feet up, and just enjoy getting to watch their children play.  Babies are bounced on hips or cuddled and passed around so they can become familiar with all the faces of the community around them.  This is more than just community.  This is tribe.  This is family.

Then, about time for dinner, I put the kids in the care of one of the other adults and go on my way.  I walk over to my studio where I teach dance classes in the evening.  I spend the night dancing in the company of other people who love the art.  Some of the classes are for both women and men, but some of the classes are just for women.  Women need something for themselves, to empower them, to make them feel strong and confident in their own bodies.  I spend the night laughing, dancing, and listening to good music.  When we’re done, I pack up everything into the place it belongs and walk back to make myself some dinner, or have whatever is left of the community meal.  If anyone else is dining at that late hour, I share the meal with them and have some good conversation.  If I’m the only one, perhaps I’ll dine with my favorite pastime, reading.  Then it’s off to pick up the kids and bring them home, tired from a long day of play.

When we get back to the house, they tumble into bed as I walk from room to room singing, perhaps a well known song, or perhaps just a tune that just came to my mind.  I clean up anything left out as I go, though nothing too intensive.  I’ll admit it.  I’ve never been much of a house cleaner.  I don’t enjoy it.  I’d probably hire someone else in the community, or offer a fair trade with my dance classes in exchange for keeping the clutter from my house.  Perhaps then I would light my altar, maybe use some sweet smelling incense.  I might go out to the temple, a temple to Lilith, and spend some time maintaining the temple or meditating.  I could sit in the hot tub and soak away all the tension of the day, or shut myself in the sauna, letting the steam warm and soothe my aching muscles.  Perhaps on a cold or snowy day I’d dash out into the snow like my ancestors do, enjoying the drastic change from hot to cold that I oddly find both soothing and comforting.  This would be the time I wrote in my diary, connected with friends and family I rarely see, or otherwise connect to the outside world.

The weekends would be filled with shows or parties in the communities.  I’d audition to perform at the local renn faires as a dancer.  If there wasn’t work doing that, there are always Pagan festivals and parties.  On the weekends with nothing going on, we would host a small gathering at the community and invite friends, neighbors, and anyone we thought would enjoy the space.  There would be a bonfire with a drum circle.  Off to the side there would be spinning and other fire time.  Perhaps during the breaks from bonfire dancing, there would be time for spinners to spin off the fire.  We would laugh, sing, eat good food, and in general enjoy the time spent together, truly enjoying everything that tribe has to offer.

Of course, not everyone can live off the community space.  There are things to be taken into account.  Though some of our food may be grown on site, there is the reality that we may not be able to provide everything for ourselves.  There are also taxes, clothing costs, and everything else.  As much as it would be magical to be self-sufficient, it’s not a reality, and not a dream of mine.  Instead, I’d like to earn my own living by offering dance classes to those outside of the community, inviting them to come to the outskirts of the land to my little studio where I can teach them to dance.  This is where I would make my living.  Perhaps others would find their own crafts.  Some people would make beautiful soaps that are sold in a shop settled next to the studio.  Perhaps someone would make beautiful costumes or other hand-made clothing.  Maybe there would be a candlemaker.  I could buy the candles for my own studio and temple.  They could be sold out to the greater world as well.  Maybe incense would be made, or chainmaille.  Some of the products could be sold online as well to increase the profits and the availability to the outside world.  This money would come back to the crafters and to the community.  Some money would be put away by the whole community to be used for maintenance purposes.  Some money would be put towards the community meals.  Anything else would be used by the families as they desired.  I think I’d donate a good amount of money towards bonfires, fuel costs for spinning, and anything of that nature.  I’d also spend a good deal of money on my children and adding to my music collection.  I don’t see my house being terribly largely modern.  I’d want internet.  Perhaps I might even be so bold as to want cable.  Honestly, however, I don’t think I’d bother with lighting most of the house.  I’ve got candles and lamps for that.  I wouldn’t have many electronic toys beyond my office for my computer and probably a school room where the kids could watch movies and play computer games, each on their own computer.  Since so much of the evenings would be spent with community, there would be no real need for lights at night.  There would still be money coming in.  There would be income.  There would be a connection to the outside world, but I would be living with community.  It would be self-suffi

ciant in the degree that I wouldn’t have to get a job outside the community.  Many people wouldn’t, but it wouldn’t be required to get a job at the community either.  The goal here is happiness, not sustainability without influence from the outside world.  The goal is community.  The goal is some kind of connection with the world around us, teaching people about tribe, community, and another way to live, a way to live where people are accepted for who and what they are, no matter what that may be.  It’s a throw back to old times when people would live together, work together, and truly know their neighbor.

I know perhaps this is an impossible dream, but it’s my dream.  It’s the way I would like to live.  It’s the way I’ve wanted to live since I found out about DragonVale and SacredLands.  It’s where I want to be with my life.  Is there anything so wrong with that?  I suppose the comment I had made so often in the past holds true here, "if you build it, they will come."  The quote is from a movie, field of dreams.  That’s what it’s all about, dreams.

It may seem obvious that there’s a "problem" with my equation here.  Caelan isn’t a part of it.  Do I envision Caelan as part of my life in the future?  I don’t know just yet.  I don’t know if he would fit in with that dream.  I do know that I would want him to be a part of the community, in a healthier, happier version of his current self.  Of course, the Army would make that impossible, but he doesn’t need to live his whole life in the Army.  I think he would probably have his own house, perhaps his own family that didn’t include the kids and I, that didn’t involve kids at all.  I’m okay with that.  I could still see him, have him, hold him, love him.  He wouldn’t be so impossibly distant that I would have to let him go, watch someone else walk out of my life, never to return again, not in truth.  At the same time, he would have his distance.  He wouldn’t have to be around the kids all the time.  He could take some time away.  He could have another wife, girlfriend, lover.  He would have his own chance at happiness, but it would also mean he didn’t have to lose me unless he wanted to.  He could follow his own dreams and his own happiness, and know that I am happy as well.  Perhaps he would stay in the Army and would only live with us when he was stationed close, or stay with us when he was on leave or R&R.  Perhaps that would make him happy.  It’s not right for him to tear me away from my dreams, nor him from his.  If he follows my dreams or not, that is his choice.

Today has been a beautiful day.  The rain was falling.  I’ve been listening to some good music by female artists.  I burned some incense.  I realized this was what I wanted, singing "It’s raining.  It’s pouring.  The old man is snoring.  He bumped his head, and went to bed, and didn’t get up until morning."  We had cookies this afternoon.  I held them up and said, jokingly "Cookie of the Goddess?"  Then she said "Blessed be!"  We laughed and ate cookies.  We laughed as Aris kept trying to take the candy covered chips out of the cookies.  I found myself having so many reasons to smile.  Oddly, the song that just came on has "Every time it rains, I know it’s good to be alive!"  It’s a song called Every Time It Rains by Charolette Martin.  She’s reminds me of Tori Amos and Sarah McLaughlin, but with a strange kick that makes her music all her own.  I’ve also been listening to Kay Hanley (from Boston!) and Juliana Hatfield.  Actually, what inspired me to buy this Charolette Martin album was one song, White Horses.  I think Tori does a version of that song too.  I love that song.  It’s funny, two of my favorite songs are White Horses and White Rabbit.  I had barely listened to the mini-clips that iTunes puts up of all the songs before I decided to buy the album.  I jumped from the first couple clips to White Horses and was sold.  I suppose I could have just bought that one song, but I’m an album kind of girl.  I’m not much for having one song here and one song there.  I really want to have the whole thing.  I’m glad I bought it.  I absolutely love it.  My mood today has gone from being kind of low to floating on the clouds above me.  I keep hoping they’ll open up and drop more rain on us.  The cleansing rain was definitely needed.  I needed that purity.  I needed that moment.  My mood has just changed so drastically!

I’ve decided that for the next year, aside from group performance pieces and dance music, I’m going to listen to music made by female artists.  There is something about the sound of a woman’s voice that connects with my soul far better than a man’s voice ever could, probably because I’m female.  I’m kind of going for a more folk/pop/indy rock feel right now, probably because it’s what I need.  Even the sad music makes me feel so much better.  It’s uplifting in an odd sort of way.  When Caelan deploys, I’m going to listen to female artists aside from live music.  I know it sounds like a silly thing to do, but I’ve spent so much time listening to Caelan’s music, angry music, or other music that doesn’t speak to the sweet, soft side of a woman’s soul that I feel I need to reconnect.  I need to reconnect to that girl I was back in high school that would listen to all the Lilith Fair artists.  I need to reconnect with that girl that was okay with being independent of men.  I need to reconnect to the person I used to be because she was so much stronger than I am now, even if she needed to heal.  She was the poet, the artist, the writer, and the warrior, even though she didn’t know it.  I need to reconnect with the artist I used to be, the person that would see beauty in everything, even if it was so often a tragic beauty.  I need to reconnect with that girl who sang everywhere she walked.  I need to connect with that girl who not only knew what pain and suffering was, but the most incredible joy in simple things, like a flower that was dripped with dew, or the unbroken field of snow.  I need to learn to bring that girl into my modern life because she is a piece of who I am.

I know the time to heal has come.  My personalities are becoming less defined.  They’re becoming less strong and dynamic.  They’re becoming more and more a part of who I am.  I’m taking in their strength.  It’s almost more like having an alter-ego than a personality.  It’s a little scary and sad to say good-bye to them, but I don’t need them anymore.  They are simply a part of me.  I’m starting to heal.  I’m starting to need those defenses less and less.  While I know they will never truly go away, they’ll always be there to protect me, I know that I don’t need them anymore.  I have found the strength to face and deal with the world on my own.  I am becoming strong enough that the l

ife I would like to have some day could be a reality, something more than just a far-fetched dream that I could never attain because of the fear of actually living for my own happiness.  I’m taking the first strong steps towards having the life that I want.  I’m making progress.  I know I will falter many times along the way, but I will get there.  I’m growing, as a person, and I am strong.

Where things will go with Caelan, I don’t know.  The money thing, it’s really just so that I know there will be a little more financial security when whatever comes to pass happens.  I’m going to start saving up my own money.  I’m going to start working on a little bit of something so I can get away.  I’m going to visit Annie in the fall, if nothing else, so I can have a little bit of time for me, without Caelan holding me back the way he always does.  I can re-assess my situation without having to see him every day.  Deployments aren’t time for divorces.  They’re also not time to put the pieces back together.  The work needs to be done while he’s here.  It’s scary, but I know I need to think it out.  I need to make a plan, and I need to stick with it.  I can no longer allow anyone to suffocate me, intentional or not.  Perhaps we’ll work something out so I can go to so many events without him.  Perhaps we’ll find a way to make things work out some other way.  Maybe I’ll even go move in with Annie and leave him here until he straightens himself out.  I honestly can’t know until I’ve made that plan and put it into action.  However, I need to be thinking for me.  I can no longer make decisions in my life based on Caelan.  Last year at the releasing ritual I decided that I needed to let go of my need to live for anyone but myself.  It’s been a long way in coming, and the change has been far more drastic than I imagined, but I’m finally doing it.  I’m finally starting to live for myself.  I am no longer going to let anyone else stand in my way.  I think that’s why this year has been so chaotic.  I think this is why I’ve seen so many dead foxes earlier in the year.  A change was coming, and a drastic one.  I am the tower card, shaken down to it’s foundation, forcing the need to rebuild.  I need to rebuild, but the foundation is good and strong.  It will support a healthier structure.  That girl, the artist, the writer, the poet, who saw beauty in even the simplest of things, that is my foundation.  The warrior that fights for everything she believes is right and does what she believes is the best no matter how many other people try and convince her to follow the current trend instead, that is my foundation.  The warrior woman, formed in strength and beauty, forged by fire and marked with the battle scars of many trials in her past, that is my foundation.  From that, I will rebuild.

A while back I saw myself as the Amazon.  I built a character around the concept, a girl, about the age of 16.  She was strong, though not so much in physical strength.  She was dexterous and lithe.  She was very intelligent, though she often seemed a little simplistic.  She was often lost in thought, in the beauty of the world around her, though she hid it well.  She spent a good deal of time meditating in the woods, or "hunting".  She’d take her bow and run into the woods.  It wasn’t truly to hunt, not unless she needed the food.  Instead it was to find a place to be alone, to watch the sunset in an overgrown campsite that everyone had forgotten, or to listen to the trickling of a steam that she couldn’t find no matter how hard she tried.  That wasn’t a huge task for role playing.  That’s who I was.  I would go out to campsite eleven, all overgrown and forgotten.  I would sit there and watch the sun set.  I would lay on the broken picnic table and listen to the wind through the trees.  I would smile at the chipmunks and squirrels as they’d scamper through.  I was alone.  No one could find me there, and they tried.  Though it was a werewolf game, she was often stuck as a human.  She couldn’t shape-shift during the day, so it meant she learned to rely on her skills as a woman and not as a wolf.  That’s kind of how I feel sometimes.

Strangely, I was given the title of a book I should check out recently.  It’s called Women Who Run with the Wolves.  It’s ironic that I think of myself as a woman that could run with the wolves, wild and free.  I can see myself as living so close to the nature that nature envelops me.  I could never be the huntress.  I could never live off of nothing but the land.  I could never be so much the warrior that I leave my family behind, but that doesn’t mean I can’t run with the wolves.  I used to have this friend that would run out into the woods with her dog, Miss Isis.  She would run with a pack of coyotes.  Then, when she left the pack, she would come home and lead a "normal" life.

And now, to my mundane life I must go…

1) I feel zen today…at peace…not happy, not sad…but content, that perfect state of being where the world seems at peace around you, even if it is chaotic and dark.

2) The rain came today…washing over everything and cleaning the sadness of the world away as best it could.  I went outside, looking for an excuse.  I pushed Wendigo’s water bowl out so it could be filled with fresh rain water.  I felt the wind, the rain drops landing on my skirt, the cold water on my hands as I reached out to catch the drops, it was heaven.

3) I bought myself some new music today.  I don’t know what it is about music, but somehow when I need it, it’s so uplifting that I can’t help but smile.

4) I sang today.  I didn’t sing anything special, just a little tune.  I didn’t know what it was or where it came from, but I was singing so loud that it was echoing through the house.  It felt good to let my voice open up in something more beautiful than speach.

5) Wild horses (not white horses…my bad…) reminds me of Kristen.  She played it at her recital and was tempted to have me sing for her.  It’s something from back in high school.  It’s a part of that girl I used to be.  I don’t know whether I should laugh, cry, or both.  It’s one more thing that helps me connect to the girl I used to be.

6) Sometimes I feel like I don’t belong here, this Army town with this Army life, but Hawk said something this weekend that puts it all in perspective.  "Where you are is exactly where you’re supposed to be.  If it wasn’t, you’d be somewhere else."  He’s right.  I do need to be here right now.  There is so much work I need to do before I can move on.  Until that work is done, I can’t bring myself to move on, Caelan or no.  I need to stay where I am.  I need to build community here be

cause so many Army wives need the good it can do around here.

7) Every time it rains I think about that life, that community.  I think about the day when I’ll finally have that community, the day I’ll finally come home.

8) As of today, I’ve now bought eighty-eight songs on iTunes.  That means my music collection is expanding.  Those songs break down into seven albums.  I’ve also bought three other albums this year at least.  I think this is the most music I’ve ever bought in one year.  It feels really nice to be moving on from the point of having next to no music to having a collection that would actually be somewhat impressive!  Honestly, I have so little music that I can almost never find an album that suits my mood or the way I feel at that exact moment.  I really hope to change that.

9) The food I bought last week has lasted a pretty long while.  We’ve got a whole bunch of leftovers and some stuff that still needs to be cooked.  I’m finally making progress on the home cooked front, and better yet, I’m also starting to have a lot of leftovers around so days I don’t want to cook can be leftovers days and that will stop the desire to eat out because it’s easier.

10) We had a berry cobbler last night that came in one of those pre-made box kits.  I’m impressed.  It was really good!  I hadn’t had any kind of cobbler for years, since I was still going to Camp Cedar Hill as a Girl Scout.  I think I was maybe in 5th grade when we last made it.  I think I’m going to start adding deserts to the menu more often.  They don’t have to be fancy or bad for you, but it’s nice to have a treat when dinner’s finished!

~*~Raven Night~*~