I read an old post last night, written just before I started working on Dr. Ellamae Simmons' book, and I had fear then, too. I didn't know if I was up to the task, and so I am trying to remind myself that I always feel this way. This time, though, feels particularly intense. I feel completely out of my depth, but I'm telling myself that in some parallel dimension of time, the book is already written, and I just need to let it come through me.
I had a disappointment today, a failure. A small enough thing and yet the vapors cling, making my heart feel burdened. I can't write about it here. And really, more things are going right in this moment than are going wrong. And yet it's one of those churning days, when currents crackle and bite inside me, and I feel as wrong in my skin as it is possible to feel.
Trickster Mercury is in retrograde till the fifteenth of this month. My back-in-the-day gig writing a horoscope column reminds me that what I'm feeling is straight from the Mercury retrograde playbook. Unfinished business. Miscommunication. Fearful energy. Loss of confidence. I am trying to remember that the antidote is to consciously and purposefully choose love.
That photo is of the beach in Rodney Bay, St. Lucia, where my children and their cousins spent charmed summer days with their grandmother. Somewhere, in a parallel time dimension, it is happening still.
Oh, Mercury! Stop retrograding!
ReplyDeleteFeeling all of this too, but without the book project. We will be fine.
YOU will be fine. The book will be written. I know it.
So many things in life are preceded by the vinegar of (I'm reading a cooking bio) uncertainty and doubt and then almost always the sugar comes and things are balance.
ReplyDeleteYour writing here is wonderful. I really can't imagine that anything you put your pen to could be otherwise and much more. I hope you hold on to that vision of love. Because you are very, very good at that, too.
Your book by Ellamae Simmons was beautifully and incredibly written. You will bring that same light to this book as well.
ReplyDeleteMy first thought is that you were afraid and doubtful the last time and yet you did it so well. Of course you will find your way through this one too, and you will do it very well, because that's who you are. A great writer.
ReplyDeleteMy second thought is that I'm so glad I read your words today, I needed to hear them. I'm sorry about your small hurtful thing, it's hard to let them go. I know. My emotions are all jumbled since my birthday and my late Dad's so soon after mine, and I'm struggling with the words to sort the feelings. I'm going to go with the Mercury in retrograde thing, and hope the next month is less messy. And I will choose love as hard as I can right now too. xo
It always amazes me that you have such feelings because it is so clear to me even just reading your blog that you have unusual talent. Love, yes . . . love will help.
ReplyDeleteThe scene in your photo is utterly beautiful.
I like the idea that the book is already written in another reality and you just have to let it come through you. And it seems like Mercury is ALWAYS in retrograde. Maybe I just miss those 20 minutes when it isn't.
ReplyDeleteDon't forget you're still healing from that really nasty illness. That's enough to make you not feel up to the job all by itself. You will prevail--your strength shows through in everything you write.
ReplyDeleteI needed to read these words today. I thank you for writing them down. Your voice and clarity are always so beautiful. Now I am wondering when your birthday is next month. Mine is on the 13th.
ReplyDeleteI've learned that whenever I start to feel that life is just one long shit-eating contest, I HALT: I stop to figure out if what I'm really feeling is Hungry, Angry, Lonely, or Tired. A lot of times I only need a visit to my favorite Mexican restaurant, to vent, a phone call to a friend, or a nap.
ReplyDeleteBut getting over a disappointment, or sense of failure, is hard, but that's all it is...hard. You know that the next day it will be easier to bear, and the day after that it will be more easier, etc. Until ten years goes by and you can't even remember why you got so upset about it in the first place because, looking back, you can see how it let you move on to something that was better in the long run. Not knowing exactly what you are talking about, I am hoping it is one of those failures that we all get hit with every Mercury retrograde and live to tell the tale.
WHAT?? It seems to me that you have everything cool that a writer can possible do. Why are you not writing a memoir, Confessions of a Horoscope Writer? I would read that in a heartbeat.
We are so hard on ourselves, aren't we?
ReplyDeleteI'm hoping both our days get better:)
The best writers always feel doubt. If writing comes easy which is a rare gift in my experience, it rarely rises. I know you will keep going forward because this is what practice teaches and each time you post here you are practicing writing. And I love the dickens out of you.
ReplyDeleteRebecca
Consciously and purposefully choosing love sounds like a good prescription at ANY time! Your project will go well. I'm certain of it.
ReplyDeleteThat photograph is so evocative; a luscious, timeless image. And if Mercury in retrograde is part of what's weighing on so many of us right now, may the turnaround feel just as powerful.
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