Making the Mov(i)e

Scorpio Full Moon - Your Soul Is Requiring You To Face A Fear With Brutal Honesty And Truth.  That is the name of a little video that popped up on my YouTube feed this morning.  It was only 5 minutes long, so I looked at it.  I found it intriguing.  It made me think.  I saw that moon last night as my parents and I were driving to town to set up tables for my niece's wedding reception this Saturday. My parents were commenting on it...the moon.

There have been a lot of emotional shadows swirling around here, and whether they are from the moon or just that deep interior part of me, (which is represented by the moon card in the tarot, by the way, and which I would never talk to my parents about), they've got me doing a lot of thinking and processing and crying (although I am holding back) and analyzing.  I am trying to get out of my head and into my heart by doing art instead.  Not my traditional art, my "work", but process art, journal making, sketching and neurographica type stuff.  I think it's working.

My aunt was moved to the nursing home last week.  I'm not sure she agreed to it, but it happened.  I'm not sure she is still in her sound mind, which makes it difficult to know if she agreed to it or not.  It certainly has been a bit traumatic for her, especially at night.  Is this part of the effect that the moon is having on her?  Or is it what I am hearing them call "sundowners", that part of dementia, Alzheimer's?, that is common among elderly people apparently.  We don't see it, perhaps, because we aren't there in the dark, the night, the lonely time when things get dim and shadowy...and scary.  We don't see what becomes of them when the sun goes down.

I have heard that since my aunt was moved to the nursing home, she has become combative at night and wants to roam (I'm not sure how, since she can't walk by herself, which is the whole reason she was moved to the nursing home).  Who are these people that run these places anyway?  I used to work in one, a nursing home, back in the early 2000's after I had gone through my divorce, and I needed to find a way to support myself and my son.  It was heartbreaking to my sensitive soul though, and in the end, I didn't make it there.  I had to leave.  

I was given an "out", an excuse for me to run away from the difficult thing (working in a nursing home) when the married man I was having an affair with shot and killed his wife and it made local St. Louis news, and my life took another spin. That is a different story for a different day. (Who the heck is writing the script to my movie?) I have a lot of shadows to face.  I have a lot of myself to forgive.  This is just another reminder.

But that was then, this is now, and I am changed after 20 years.  Of course, I'm still healing and growing and obviously I do still have an empathic nature that I am continuously reminded of (she is so sensitive!) as I am going through (and learning to set my boundaries) all the drama and the heartache and the pain that everyone around me is going through.  And I am reminded, I now understand, what an energetic shit hole these places are, nursing homes, and how my aunt and everyone there is subjected to it more or less against their will.  I mean, who WANTS that for their life?  Some just submit more gracefully than others.

My aunt had been a little bit defiant, and although she is cordial to the daytime staff and sits in the dining room during the day with other ladies, "making friends" and making nice, conversing and such, apparently, inside, there is a raging.  Inside of her there is anger, confusion...inside there is darkness.  The other day, she got my mom alone in her room, shut the door and proceeded to cuss her out, my mother, up one side and down the other, breaking my sweet, sensitive mother's heart.  "You are a son of a bitch, I'll hate you for this until the day I die" are not easy words to receive, whether you are aware of your loved one's mental state or not.  My mother, who would not say a curse word to save her life, and risk losing her soul, was the most despondent that I have ever seen her in my life.

But thank God for church and a sermon on love, which actually hit the mark, unlike the toxic sin and shame sermon which came later that day.  Love, forgiveness, and knowing that is what we are here to do, my mother and I, well, it transformed her aching heart.  It gave her comfort and healing knowing that she could choose love.  It is a mystery, and I don't understand the science of it all, but Love does heal.  Forgiveness does transmute toxic shame and pain and guilt...lead into gold.

Love works whether you are a Christian, a New Age Woo-Woo Goddess, a Philosopher or a Zoroastrian Priest.  Love is the antidote to fear.  Love is the answer to moving forward.  Love is.  It is.  And I am here to love and to teach other's how to love.  I am here to be open arms, yet still setting and maintaining emotional and energetic boundaries.  

My month here in Illinois is almost over.  It all started with a move. (My son and his family are doing very well, btw.)  It proceeded with a major eclipse and multiple visits with family and loved ones.  It was filled with multiple moments of silence and sitting and making art, watching Hallmark movies and walking in nature with my dog.  It was blessed with simple rememberable moments, lunches with my sister in town, swinging with "the littles" (my young niece and nephew) in their backyard, listening to my parents laugh about their old age.  

It has culminated and is culminating with saying good bye to my herd of goats, and transmuting my pain into joy.  Choosing fun and fantastic football in St. Louis and celebrating 4/20 with Sam and fam in the U-City Delmar Loop and gathering everyone, so much family, maybe even my aunt who moved to the nursing home, for a big fat, fantastic, farm-town wedding.  And I'm not kidding.  Sixteen attendants, 300+ people at the reception at the Farm Heritage Museum, a local landmark that my Grandfather, now deceased, help build back in the early 1990's.  And there will be dancing and NOT all country music.  Good music.  Fun music.  Happy times.  Cornhole and popcorn.  A wonderful celebration, and I get to help decorate!  Fun! (for real, not sarcasm) I feel very blessed to be here.

And with the last dance, this part of my mov(i)e will be coming to an end.  I am in the midst of determining where my next act takes me.  It's a new scene.  It's exciting and scary.  It's a new chapter.  It is wide open and wonderful.  Remembering...Scorpio Full Moon - Your Soul Is Requiring You To Face A Fear With Brutal Honesty And Truth. It's a blank page.  The rest is still unwritten.  Where is my pen?