After a nice journey with aphrofort   with only(!) three hours of traffic jam round Hamburg I got home from EuroFericamp last night. Today will be: laundry, laundry, groceries, packing and packing for my little one because we are heading for Denmark tonight!

Feri camp was wonderful, inspirational and full of joy. I am already missing my dear friends and hope it will not be so long until I see them again.

So...off to Rune country!

Today I have this song in my head we sang at Phoenix camp:

May my song be a gift to you
take me home again
Cradled in the arms of life
take me home again

So, today I sing this song to you, my dear fellow Phoenix Campers. I miss you.

And I thought I was doing better last week. Well that turned out to be the silence before the storm. Morning sickness is back full force, all day long. Buh! 

Besides that, I dream the weirdest dreams, they sometimes are so strange that they wake me up and give me a hard time to fall asleep again. It feels as if the faery folk are communicating with me more intense now that I am pregnant. Probably because of my more sensitive senses they feel like they can reach me better now.

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We spend a lovely day in Giethoorn today, we took one of the 'whisper' boats through the canals, had a lovely lunch by the water and  the sun was shining! 
Aaah, what a lovely day it was.

It's rainy, the sky is gray and I need a light to be able to read in the middle of the day. Rain pours and pours. Lightning throughthe sky and loud thunder made the neighbourhood tremble and my dogs restless. 
I love autumn, I love the contrast between the days with the golden light playing on the red and yellow leafs and the days of gray, stormy weather. 
This is MY season, and I feel so happy that I am home to be able to really enjoy it! (instead of at work behind my desk!)

Hmm, dogs now need me to come downstairs, these forces of nature always make them a bit scared.

 Well the german real estate agent is really trying to get their money. Or at least, what they think their money is! Damn, now we need to get a lawyer to write a letter with all the evidence that we don't owe them money! Which of course will cost us money again. Why is it so hard to stop this? They have tricked us in almost buying a house which had many hidden damages, so they are the bad people. And according to german law they have no right to our money. Do they think that because we are foreigners that we are stupid? 

I am not worried about it anymore because we can prove that they are wrong, but I am so pissed! 

Does anyone feel like helping with some magic to get this out of the way soon?

I'm back! 
After 12 days away from home I arrived home yesterday. I am so happy to be home again. Feri training weekend going almost straight into camp was taking me away from home for a long time. 

But camp was wonderful! Campers were great, the whole atmosphere was fantastic and I was on the most amazing teachers team I have ever been on. Learned so much! And we created some kick-ass rituals I think. 
I felt so much at home in this community. And I reckon that many germans now will agree that having man at a camp is really something good! 

And it was wonderful to spend some time with far-away friends. Girls, I really enjoyed you!

Which Shakespearian Leading Lady are You? Titania: A Midsummer Night’s Dream As a fairy queen: elegant and fair, your grace and eminence is seen by all. You stand out in a crowd and those around you feel lucky. This behavior, however, is deserved. You are stunningly beautiful, mystical, intelligent, and dominant. Your strengths and talents keep you successful. Be wary of conceitedness and greed. Stay humble and all that is good will be sustained. Click Here to Take This Quiz

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My muscles are sore! My beloved had a mountainbiking accident on Sunday and is not capable of anything right now. This meant that I had to walk both dogs all week. And my body is not used to walking Gunda anymore, the jumps she sometimes performs....wow, they are powerful and unexpected! My arms and shoulders feel streched and achy. This probably means that I really should pick up working out my shoulders and arms more. Even when I sit and do nothing my arms are tingling....I feel like I went through a body pump class with really heavy weights, but it is only my cute dog that caused this.

To give my muscles some time off I took Gunda to an area where she can run free yesterday and this morning. And she loved it, and I loved it! We really enjoyed being there all alone, no people, no other dogs. Just us and the birds in the trees. She ran and I walked and we mostly communicated with glancing at each other. It is good to gain confidence in walking her again, I plan to keep doing that every now and then even after the husband has recovered (which will probably take another week or so, he's bruised on the inside so that takes quite a while to heal)

Yesterday my doctor prescribed me some antibiotics, nothing serious, but I have to take them. It's a single dose of 2 pills, and the funny thing is that it is not certain that I do really need them. My blood test didn't give a positive result, but a result that was 'not negative' so they treat me like it was positive. This result can be caused by various other things, but they are taking no risks.

So ok, I picked up the pills and then read the leaflet with info. And there it said: in animal testing we did find blablabla. And that made my stomach turn. I am so against animal testing, and yes, of course I know that medical stuff is all tested on animals, but I hardly ever use medication (lucky me). And most of the time that is not the first thought crossing my mind when I do need medication. And now it stood there in black and white. And I am feeling bad. I mean, I am not even 100% sure that I really need these 2 pills and for these 2 pills some poor animal has suffered. My heart breaks thinking of these poor animals encaged and in pain, abused for the sake of us humans. With all our modern technology there must be ways to fake humans and not having to use animals?
The dilemma is huge for me, I know I have to take these pills to go further with the baby project, but does this justify the fact that there were animals hurt? NO. Is there another solution right now? NO! Damn, I wish I was an ostrich and was not aware of this.

How I long for an animal friendly Utopia.

Have to rush out in a couple of minutes to catch the train to meet a friend to do some serious shopping. Oh ok, she'll do the shopping and I will do the watching-her-shop-till-she-drops thing. We spent quite some money last week at the book-party so I will just look at books today I told myself. Good excercize to train my will.....
But it will be a good idea to check out whether I see anything I'd like for my birthday which is next week and I still don't know anything.

Hmm, and I shouldn't forget the umbrella, it's raining cats and dogs! A nice dutch summer day!

The lyrics of a Mr Mister songs are going through my head while I type this:

'I take this life into my own hands'

Because that is what I have been doing today. When I came home from work yesterday I felt so crappy once again. I cried and cried....again. Working full time is too much for me, I don't have enough space for myself, to study, to spend time with my pets, work in my garden, do the cleaning in the house and I bet I could mention a couple of more things.
And I made up my mind. I have asked a calculation of my salary when working only three days. Will receive this in a couple of days, but I kind of already made up my mind that I will stop working 5 days a week and go back to only three. And this feels so good!

Last night during singing lesson I discovered that when I stay aware of my grounding I can more easily use my technique. I felt so stupid discovering that....I mean, I am a witch, I should have known. And I bloody well know how to stay grounded, so why do I often loose it during singing lessons?

And I know the answer to that, I want to be good, no I want to be perfect at it. So I put some extra pressure on myself, become tense and forget that I have roots. My teacher told me that the sessions I have with her are not just work, they should also be fun. And she is right! I love singing, singing is my passion, I have been singing all my life and normally it makes me relax, and it makes me happy. So I tried to get out of my head and into my roots.

Because my teacher recorded the song I did the last couple of lessons I had some material to listen to and damn.....if this would not be me I would have said that the woman I heard was a good singer. Because it is me I of course heard some parts that could have been better and can be improved, but all in all I was quite pleased with what I heard. So it does work this continuous grounding during singing.....at least then I can really relax and open my throat. Hmm, guess even witches sometimes need to be reminded of that thing called grounding.....

Yesterday I met with O & F in Amsterdam to go visit a couple of museums. We first went to the Rijksmuseum and after that went to the Anne Frank House.
Although I was born and raised in The Netherlands, I had never been to these two museums before.

The Rijksmuseum showed only part of their collection because they are currently doing some reconstruction work. But I finally saw the Night Watch by Rembrandt, which is not as huge as I thought it would be, but still it is huge.
Most impressive part of the day was visiting the Anne Frank House. The energy in this house felt heavy and thick, and there was a real distinction in energy between the front of the house, where the offices were, and the back of the house where Anne and her family hid for the Germans during WW2. The rooms where these families hid were dark and the atmosphere felt depressing.

After this tour we all really felt like sitting down and doing Kala, which we did. And we had some interesting conversation in the restaurant. I always feel thankful for these moments shared with Feri friends. No explanations required about what kind of stuff I am practicing, but sharing of thoughts and experiences while practicing.

It was a good day.

Oooh yes, there's boekenfestijn (book party) only 5 minutes cycling from my house this weekend. Last year I could not go, so tonight I think I will. All the books are offered for very low prices and they are all not used. Probably not the most recent released books, but hey, who cares!
Think I'll take the husband with me to prevent me from getting us bankrupt! He will probably be bored a little sooner than I, and will probably laugh at me while I am going through the piles of books like a mad(wo)man.

Guess I will be needing a new book case soon.....(again)

background:white; font-family:verdana; font-size: 12px; color:black;" cellspacing=4 cellpadding=5><tr><td align="center">What color is your soul painted?

Red

Your soul is painted the color red, which embodies the characteristics of love, strength, physical energy, sex, passion, courage, protection, excitement, speed, leadership, power, danger, and respect. Red is the color of the element Fire, and is associated with blood, life and death, birth, volcanoes, and intense emotions.

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These last couple of weeks I have been thinking a lot about life and death. These two words are enough of a paradox as it is I think: what is being alive? Is breathing and just going through the motions being alive? Is the woman or man who is in the hospital bed kept alive by machines really alive? Or death....is my friend's father whom we cremated last week, but who lives on in so many hearts, really dead? Those are some of the thoughts I have had.

But ok, when we just look at life and death and the meaning we usually tend to give to these words there is enough for me to think of as well. Because they are both so present around me now. On the one hand: trying to create new life, having appointments at the fertility clinic, and on the other hand: knowing that my sweetie's mom will be dead within months....that really feels like 'when one door closes another one opens'.
While doing my daily practice I have tried to place them on the pentacles, but that does not work for me. Both Iron and Pearl are very connected to lief and being/feeling alive to me. Which of the points could I connect with death or dying? So far none, or if I look at my thoughts beginning the post maybe all. Am I still making sense? What I am trying to say is that it did not work with these pentacles. I know that within Reclaiming there is the pentacle of life and death, but I have not really worked with that so far. So what basically happened is that I am back with the Lemniscate and many of my thoughts and questions seem to flow with the tide of the Lemniscate. Life and death meeting each other in the middle, being one and the same thing, whatever that thing is.

And the Deities on the Lemniscate, right now it is as if they are all present, not just one couple, so it's quite a crowd here. But it is an interesting crowd and it also feels kind of comforting that they are there. It feels like a lot of work needs to be done on this Lemniscate, but it is kind of comforting that this crowd is there to teach me what they have to teach, to pray to, to gain strength from.

Will probably be continued.....

Today I have a date with my dear friend S. Really looking forward to that because we haven't seen each other for a while because of our US trips that were kind of connected. I was returning and she flew out of the country that kind of thing.

It will be wonderful to spend some time with her again, good conversations: guaranteed, fun: guaranteed, feeling connected: guaranteed.
I am blessed with having a couple of wonderful friends around me.

Yippiee!