More long breaks from one entry to the next - I feel a bit ashamed, but then when I see the dwindling comments on entries I guess I'm not the only one who's too busy for the internet! The project I'm currently working on has entered into its "hot" phase; there'll be one more weekend of work to get through, and then we'll finish up on Friday next week. Not a minute too early, in my opinion! In the meantime, I'm trying to keep my house from turning into a dump and my budgies from getting too lonely - or cold.

Yes, the cold... Unfortunately the little extension I live in does not hold the heat at all. I'm going to spend winter with the gas heater on, although that'll cost me some extra money of course. But it's worth it - this is my home after all, and I don't enjoy sitting there with my teeth chattering. The weather has turned VERY cold over the past week or so. I'm a little concerned about Tia and Mirias because hardy as they are, budgies can't take sudden drastic changes in temperature - and as soon as I leave the house in the morning, it gets freezing cold until the heating comes on at around five. There's not much that I can do about it, this is the way people heat their houses in this country, and since heat and electricity are included in the very reasonable rent I'm paying I can't really complain (much).

I was going to post a picture of an icy-clear landscape today but this morning when I drove to work, the full moon was hanging so low in the bright morning sky it appeared huge, as if it was going to touch down on the road in front of me any moment. I wished I had my camera on me! So instead, here's a different full moon picture.

The full moon is a time of fulfillment and change; this time, it brings both my sisters' birthdays and my eldest sister Angie's move from Canada back to Germany. I'm very relieved that dad is going to be looked after now; and more visits and the proximity of another loved one might help my mum's recovery too. I myself won't be able to travel to Germany before mid January, if at all - it still depends on my new employers giving me three days off. I really hope I'll be able to because I'm impatient to see both mum and dad again. I feel I've been away far too long already.

Time flies, doesn't it? The last month of the year is upon us, and advent with it. I always love this time of the year, I usually manage to stay out of the commercial rush and really enjoy the peace and quiet of beginning winter with its mulled wine and candlelight and cinnamon incense. It's the quiet and stay-at-home time I crave most, much as I enjoy the occasional party and get-together with friends. But I've been working so much recently, and the new job will be something to get used to as well, that I have decided to spend Christmas and New Year's at home with my budgies. They don't see enough of me by far these days, and I miss them so much during the day. I arrive home long after dark, and while their daylight lamp is still burning at that time, they can still see night through the window and are usually asleep when I arrive. It takes me a couple minutes of calling to them from downstairs and then turning on the main light in our room, until I finally hear a little "chirp" back. So I doubly enjoy weekend mornings, when I don't have to get up and rush out and get to watch them at their liveliest, flying around the room chasing each other and making a joyful racket.

It's their cheerfulness and unquenchable spirit that I miss during the days at work. And it's those qualities that keep me positive these days, and have kept me sane through the months of worrying about my parents. I'm counting my blessings a lot these days and practice gratefulness even more consciously than usual. Life is such a precious gift!

And now let's all walk towards the last new moon of the "dark time". May it bring insights, depth, and cleansing!

Here's a lovely autumn picture for you! I took it in the green area around the company I'm freelancing with at the moment - the same place, in fact, where I took the picture of the rowan tree a couple of weeks ago. Now last week, the weather was so beautiful, I grabbed the chance to get some sunny pictures of coloured leaves, autumn at its best. I was right to take the pics while I could because last night, the weather turned to storm and masses of rain once again, and is supposed to stay like this for a while.

You might be wondering what the title of this entry is about? Well, I'm very excited because I just won the first prize in Julia's blog anniversary competition! And what I won is awesome: Julia's first book signed by her, an Easy World mug, aaaaand a glittering magic wand! Isn't it just so appropriate that the witch should have won a wand? I'm very much looking forward to my prize. If you'd like to check it out and see my name as the winner, see this page.

I have already assigned a place for the Easy World mug, by the way. I'll be using it in my new workplace from mid December onwards! Yes, I have been offered the job and gladly accepted it, too. I will miss my beloved Localisation company but with mum being sick, I need a better and more secure income so I can go and visit her more often. The new job is once again with a software company, but this time I'm not working in sales but in an audit/administration/customer service role with plenty of contact to the clients. It's right up my aisle! I'm very happy and relieved.

As for mum, her time in rehabilitation is quickly drawing to an end. My brother and sisters and myself have come to the only feasable decision and mum is going to live in a nursing home for the time being. It seems that she's very confused as to the extent of her illness and consequently, needs constant watching because she keeps trying to get out of bed and could hurt herself. My dad could never manage her. So it's for both their sakes that mum is going to be in constant care. Angie is going to move back from Canada to Germany and stay with my dad for the time being so he'll be looked after too. She meant to come back anyway, it's only happening a little sooner than expected now.

All we have to take care of now is the paperwork, and getting the whole thing financed! It's a lot of work and my poor brother Rodger is having to do most of it, for the simple reason that he lives at a reasonable distance to my parents. The good news is that mum has got a place in a nursing home very close to my parents' house so dad will be able to cycle or even walk there every day. It will save costs - the amount he's spent on petrol alone in the past two months is astronomical - and he'll be off the roads, where he just isn't safe anymore with his 80 years.

With this "solution", at least for the time being, there will be a big sigh of relief. The problem of mum's care and where she'll live, and what will happen to dad, is something that had weighed on my mind for some time now; it'll make me feel light as a feather when it's finally gone!

In the meantime, the three "persons" in my household are living through the dark weeks. Every morning it's darker than the day before when I open the blinds. My budgies make little sounds of protest when I turn off the main light before I leave for work, but they have their own daylight lamp and more just isn't possible, it would use too many resources and also get too expensive. The two of them are fine anyway, they feel completely at home in our flat now and the days I spend at home, I watch them flying up and down the length of the room, making a joyous racket, chasing each other, and generally being so alive and happy I can't stop smiling.

Less than five weeks now to the return of the light!

Here's another picture of Killiney beach; imagine the same scene in the pitch dark and you'll get an idea of the "view" I had on the evening of Hallowe'en, standing just above the beach and looking out to sea while addressing and honouring the ancestors and asking them to look after my mum - now and especially after her passing, when it occurs. The wind was blowing and I threw an apple I had gotten specially for this "feast of apples" as it used to be called, into the grass along the slope leading down to the beach itself.

I then walked home and didn't have enough energy for much of a ritual. To my own surprise, the day had left me exhausted! Mind you, I had been getting up extra early to do my customary Samhain cleaning of the house before going to the Féile Draíochta. I scrubbed and dusted and hoovered like mad, also cleaned the budgies' cage, and then took a shower and got myself ready before walking the 20 minutes to Killiney station and taking the train into town.

The Féile Draíochta was great! I had been a little sceptical about the venue, a hotel, but it turned out to be perfect. It was an old building with large many-paned windows that formed the perfect backdrop to the books and jewellery and ritual things on display for sale. There were workshops and talks, and I even managed to listen to one about runes from start to finish. But the very best thing was meeting nearly every pagan I know in this country, from Catherine to Davey and Paul from Cork, to dozens of other people I love to bits and never see enough of. The next day I was still feeling all warm and fuzzy from all the hugs and cuddles!

As a volunteer I was lucky to get the best job of all: I got to babysit an adorable little pixie girl while her parents were giving a talk. She was the sweetest, most serene baby I've ever seen, cuddled up into my arms and let me carry her around and meet people. Everyone stopped to talk to her so the hour went past very quickly. The only time she made a little trouble was when I took her again later so her parents could paricipate in the closing ceremony in the late afternoon - she'd had enough of strangers by then I suppose and got a little cranky. But she was still cute enough to make me want to steal her!

It was a lovely, lovely day, and the perfect start into my Samhain ritual evening. I didn't mind being tired at all, I had done my ritual and given my libation, and so I didn't resist too long when I finally sat down and almost immediately felt very sleepy. I fell into bed at around ten and slept like a log. The next day was a lazy Sunday spent with my budgies who have finally finished moulting and are more lively once again.

It has become real, deep autumn in the meantime, going towards winter. These are the dark weeks of the year, and they really are right now - we still get sunshine in between, but also more and more of the grey weather with storm and heavy clouds and rain. I'll have to take some autumn pictures soon, I'd love to capture this atmosphere before the trees lose their leaves altogether and winter arrives. 

I'm also working again on another project, did I mention that the last time? It's great fun and I love the company, although I've started to once again send out applications. It's a bit unfortunate that just when I had decided to work in the areas I like best, my mum had her stroke and now I need security more than anything else, so I'll be able to travel to Germany regularly. I simply can't afford the breaks between projects if I'll have to buy flight tickets regularly. And so I've decided on a compromise: I won't go back into Sales but I will look at permanent customer service or similar positions. If all goes well, I'll visit my parents again in January. I wish I could go earlier but it's just not possible right now.

There's news about my mum too. By tomorrow we will have to make a decision about whether or not she'll go back to live with my dad, or in a nursing home. It's a very hard decision to make and we are discussing it endlessly; this evening, I'm going to talk to Angie on the phone (the gods know how expensive it'll be to phone an Irish mobile from Canada... but it's important right now). There's so much to consider, I don't even want to go into it now. But it seems clear that my dad won't be able to handle her, she needs constant care far beyond his abilities. Angie is trying to get back to Germany by December, which would be a great relief for us all. I just hope we'll make the right decision and dad will be looked after too.

I'll post an update about the outcome, and until then wish you all lovely autumn walks!

And another long pause... I'm running out of excuses! I guess I'll just have to find my previous blogging rhythm again, that's all. The truth is that I haven't had a lot to do, or any stress - it's just that part of my life seems to have been suspended by my mum's illness. There's no news really, and that's just the thing. It's becoming more and more obvious that she won't recover much at all. My mother is going to require constant care for the rest of her life, and it seems that her mind is affected as well; she's often clear and remembers things very well, but at other times, she seems confused or tells stories of events that never happened.

It's not something I can do much about. My siblings and myself are e-mailing regularly, trying to figure out what is going to happen, but the actual organisation of things falls to those in Germany. What I am left with is a life resembling normality, even happiness, and I feel content and grateful about a lot of things. However, at the same time there is the constant awareness in the back of my mind, like a slight headache that's always present, that someone close to me whom I love very much is sick, and suffering. I don't expect it's going to go away any time soon, and I must learn to go on, keep on living, participating in life - blogging too! - because being in limbo doesn't help mum one bit.

I'm back in work again too, which definitely helps. My company is just wonderful, I love them to bits and I'd give a lot to be able to stay here. Unfortunately, for the foreseeable future there'll only be contract work and pauses in between, and so I'm still looking around for something else as well. It'll all work out for the best, I'm convinced of that, and I have learned to wait if it's necessary. That's quite a biggie for me, seeing as Impatience is something like my middle name!

In the meantime, there's a lot to look forward to. For one thing, it's Samhain tomorrow! It's not one of my favourite sabbats, as it is for many pagans, but I do like the communication with my ancestors - which this year is going to include asking them to watch over my mum and, when her time comes, help lead her onwards into the next world - and the feeling of "Summer's End" (Samhain) and being on the threshold of the dark time of the year. It's the time when the whole autumn/winter thing still has a certain appeal to me, with candlelight and incense. By the new year (I don't see Samhain as the new year but celebrate at the common calendar's new year), I'm usually sick of winter and long for spring so this is the time to enjoy the cosiness of sitting inside with a mug of steaming tea, looking at the grey clouds and the rain through the window and hearing the wind howling around the house.

This year, I'm doing something special too on Samhain: I'm volunteering at the Féile Draíochta tomorrow! Nearly every pagan I know in Ireland is going to be there, and I'm looking forward to hugging them all. It'll be great, talks and workshops and wonderful people, and the best thing is, it happens during the day so in the evening I'll be back home to do my ritual. It's a very important ritual for me this year, for the above mentioned reason, and I will start with my usual walk when I get back on the train. Luckily, the train station is right next to the beach so I won't have to go far!

If I find the time and the energy, I will once again share my ritual here in my blog. I did this when I first started blogging, on Samhain three years ago, but since moving the site those old entries have been lost. Maybe that's a good opportunity to start blogging rituals again, for those who are interested. It's doing me good too, provides a kind of outside perspective on my ritual if I'm expressing it in words to share with the general public. There's a lot of clarity in writing things down.

I'll leave it at that for today! Tia and Mirias say hello. The above picture was taken before they started to moult last week. We're over the millions-of-feathers-everywhere phase by now (I've considered stuffing a pillow with the feathers. Would probably get together an entire bedset with what those two drop during one moult. And that's only slightly exaggerated!) and into the endearing cactus look, with new feathers sprouting and showing their black heads through their white and yellow faces.

Have a magical Samhain!

This is a picture of a rowan tree growing in the grounds around the company I worked for recently. Isn't it gorgeous? I'm glad I remembered to bring the camera as long as the leaves were still mostly green.

Apologies one more time, for the delay in updating. Things had been so intense for so long, I needed to withdraw for a bit, and that's what I did. After returning from Germany, I spent time on my own, took walks, or simply spent entire weekend days gaming online.

The break has done me a world of good! And now I'm beginning to get a little restless, which is a good sign. It means I'm ready for whatever comes next. I'm "between projects" now, meaning that I'm trying to allow things and trust life to bring along my next opportunity, and to not let me be without work for too long. There's a project coming up in the company I worked with on the last project, and they said they'll call me when it comes through. I've also applied and interviewed for a completely different project with a major company, a three-month contract in customer service which sounds very interesting. We will see.

As for my family, I don't know who benefited more from me being in Germany for four days, my parents or me! It felt wonderful to finally be there physically and able to help. I was on my feet all day, and far from being exhausting, it was a tonic. My dad has been holding up great, but he is a "classic" husband and my mum never allowed him near things like the washing and ironing, and so I "ordered" him to give me every piece of clothing he'd worn and proceeded to wash, dry, and iron it all. Then I cleaned the house from top to bottom and had a look at my parents' finances - another domain of my mum's. I explained to dad what has to be taken care of, and he is actually doing that now.

My mum was very weak and slept almost the entire time. When she was awake, she seemed to be clear - she recognised everyone who visited her and answered questions, also remembered my parents' wedding anniversary correctly. I spent hours every day sitting on the side of her bed and holding her hand, getting that physical contact I've been craving. It seemed to be doing her good too; she often squeezed my hand even in her sleep, and when I had to get up for some reason, I saw her grabbing a bit of the covers to "hold on to" until I came back to take her hand again.

In other things she was confused, for example she insisted she could get up when the physiotherapist had tried and failed to even have her sit on the bedside. I actually think that's a rather clever move of life, giving her the impression that she can stand and walk. If she sees in in her head, she has a much higher chance of recovering some movement than otherwise. While I was there, she even moved her left arm a bit; something she doesn't seem to have done again, but it was an encouraging sign.

It wasn't exactly a shock to see her like that at first, I know enough about strokes so I was prepared. But it was still terrible to see my active, capable mum so helpless. She couldn't even swallow at the time, and had to be fed through a tube down her nose into the stomach. In her sleep, she kept tugging out that tube, causing extra work for the nurses who ended up tying her right hand to the bed. I understood completely but still found it horrifying - not to be able to even scratch oneself or do ANYTHING! My greatest relief was when my brother e-mailed last week that mum could now swallow again and got rid of that tube. She's now in rehabilitation and making very very slow progress; there's not much hope that she'll regain much of her mobility but we will have to wait and see. In any case, I feel so much calmer for having seen her!

There's not much else to report, really, other than that my new flat is wonderful and I love it to bits! I never thought I'd be so happy here, I thought of it as a rational solution to save money. Objectively speaking it's nowhere near as beautiful as my old place, but it FEELS right. Tia and Mirias love it too, they fly around the room all the time, chasing each other, and otherwise sit on top of the cage for most of the day. I'd almost forgotten how much they used to be outside when we were in Tipperary, and I'm very glad they are once more. The exercise is doing them very good.

Enjoy autumn, everyone, as we are moving towards the dark time of the year. I'll write again a lot sooner than last time, promise!

This picture not only shows the beautiful Killiney beach 15 minutes walk from my new home; to me it also represents the last of the carefree late-summer days before the Equinox came, and with it a great shock in my life. My dear mum, who had just come out of hip surgery with no problems in spite of her general poor health and her 78 years, had a severe stroke and is now in a special unit in hospital requiring constant care. She can hardly speak, is sometimes confused, and can't swallow properly. My dad is completely helpless, he has always relied on mum for everything and she's already been away for several weeks due to the hip surgery.

Now my mum hasn't been well in a long time, and I always knew that something like this might happen. But even though I might have thought I was prepared - in the end, when it does happen it always comes as a shock. I guess it's just not possible to prepare for something like that. I love my mum very much, although we are as different as if we were two different species (well, we are, seeing as I'm a hag, haha!). Perhaps because we're so different, our relationship has always relied very much on physical contact. My mum is a cuddly mum, which is probably one of the reason I turned out to be such a cuddly hag, and I think that what I'll miss most if and when she should pass away, is to just hug her and breathe in her mum-scent, the physical representation of the fact that she is the rock in my life, the one place I could always come to, no matter our differences.

And so when I heard the bad news, my first impulse was to go there and BE there for her, again in the physical sense. With Alan being wonderful and lending me his credit card, I was able to book a flight straightaway, for Thursday. I'll be back Sunday evening and until then, I'll spend lots of time in the hospital with mum and otherwise look after my poor lost dad, cleaning the house and doing the laundry and things like that. A lot is going to change, and we'll have to think about who's going to look after my parents in the long run. My brother and sisters and I have been e-mailing back and forth about that and I'm sure we'll sort something out.

Of course, this news on the day that I had planned my annual eve-of-the-Equinox ritual caused a lot of confusion. I was sad, shocked, and at the same time accepting, knowing that while there is pain, there is no bitterness in what I feel. My mum has lived a long and relatively healthy life until the very last few years, and even then she's always managed to live and look after herself and dad really well. She has achieved what she wanted in this life and has been happy. Now we'll have to make her as comfortable as possible so she can spend her remaining time in peace and dignity. In a way, this is her "harvest" and so it fits in with the time of the year. The year is waning, and so is my mum. It's our turn now, as her children, to show our gratefulness for all we've received from her, and our turn to give.

In that sense, my slightly melancholy autumn feeling has "only" been enhanced, but I was still incapable of doing a proper ritual. I just didn't have the focus and concentration for it. So I've decided that while I'm very much aware of the season and the sabbat, I'm not going to have a formal ritual this time. When I'm in Germany, I might try to find the time one evening to go for my customary autumn walk and collect decorations, maybe even do an impromptu ritual. I shall see.

That was my rather sad update; I have to say though that before I got the news of my mum's stroke, I was very happy. The last week has been a challenge, with work and also moving my things to the new place, but I managed and on Saturday finally took the rest of my things as well as the budgies. Tia and Mirias were real troopers as always, and this time they also seemed to fall in love with the new flat right away. I'm so relieved that they are already out of the cage and flying around! The smaller room with lower ceilings seems to suit them. Maybe the spacious living room in the Dun Laoghaire flat was a bit too daunting for two little budgies? I don't know but I'm glad that they're adjusting so well.

And with that I'll close and wish everyone a beautiful Equinox! May your harvest be bountiful and give you much to be grateful for.

That's how the song "The Wind" by Cat Stevens starts, and I find myself humming it under my breath quite a lot these days: "I listen to the wind, to the wind of my soul. I let my music take me where my heart wants to go...". I am in such a state of bliss right now, it can only come from the knowledge that I have found myself again, found parts of me that I had almost forgotten, and I'm so very happy and grateful!

I guess it's time I let the cat out of the bag and told you all what's been happening. In a nutshell, I have stopped putting up with the state my life was in, the constant financial pressure because of my debts and consequently the push towards jobs I didn't enjoy, mostly in Sales. And I've embraced what I realised a while ago - those who read here regularly might recall my attempts to go back to teaching German as a foreign language (nothing has come of that yet, but they are keeping me in mind) - that I don't want to be in Sales, that I am all about language and languages and want to work either in online advertising/copywriting again or in anything else language related.

And then my "great" new job turned out to be NOT for me after all. I won't go into details here, I just think it's telling that in a previous blog entry titled "Working For The Harvest" I thought I had made the best of things but really felt so bad that it was palpable to the more perceptive people. Catherine actually e-mailed me to ask if I was okay! I was surprised because at the time, I didn't even see that I was in the wrong place and desparately trying to make sense of it. In short, my software company was the right company but the wrong job; and the new job was the right job but the wrong company.

When I left the third job in a year, I stopped and REALLY thought. And I realised that "permanent" jobs aren't very permanent or secure at all in the current climate, with recession as the majority's reality. And so I might as well take freelance, contract, and temporary jobs that are closer to what I really want to do. In order to do that, I had to significantly cut my cost of living. Now I have already cut out all possible expenses, and the one thing left was the rent. Six months ago, my flat was the cheapest I could get. Now, the prices have dropped dramatically, and I was unbelievably lucky to stumble across a lovely young family who are looking to rent out the little "granny flat" attached to their house. The rent includes bills and even wireless internet and so all in all I will save OVER 300 EURO EVERY SINGLE MONTH.

The flat is nowhere near as nice as mine, it's a little further South as well and more like a 15-minute walk to the sea, but it looks like I'll be able to sleep there because instead of three neighbour flats with shift-workers I will only have my landlord and his family who seem to have a more normal sleeping rhythm. Another thing I'm really excited about is that it's only partly furnished so I'll get to put in my own stuff for the first time in years! I'm going to get a bed and a wardrobe from Ikea and I can even afford it.

The "afford it" part comes from working almost around the clock on a project for the past two weeks. The company I'm with - on a freelance basis, but I hope they'll have lots more jobs for me because they're great - "localises" video games. In other words, a game is translated to, for example, German, and then has to be checked to see if it's not only a correct translation but fits into the context as well and makes sense in German, and also doesn't offend any cultural sensitivities etc. I work all hours at the moment but since I'm getting paid by the hour, I don't mind at all! As for what will happen after the current project ends - who knows. I have a few applications going but they're on MY terms now. Criteria are: Do I like/want the work and how far is it from where I live? If it's close to my home, I will consider less exciting jobs. For language jobs I would commute.

You see, the whole bollocks that there's no jobs is just that - bollocks. There's ALWAYS work. I've even registered with a temp agency for office work, and if all else fails, I'll do some audiotyping until the next role comes up. If at all possible, I'd like to stay in the localisation industry, I love it here. Freelancing gives me the chance to take up work for them whenever there's anything available, until perhaps some day there will be a permanent opening. But I'm in no hurry.

The great re-discovery I mentioned at the beginning is this: Life is looking after me and provides for me, as long as I stay true to myself. I am once again learning to trust. And I'm outrageously happy! No, I didn't want to move AGAIN, but the new apartment is just 2.5 miles down the road from the old one and I have over a week to move, so every day I load a few boxes into my car and drive down. Next Saturday, my bookshelves will be moved and I'll bring the budgies, and then it'll be all done. I'm sorry to have to uproot Tia and Mirias again but there's no way around that, I'm afraid! In the meantime, I'm taking pictures of them in the Dun Laoghaire flat, as you can see above.

It's as if my life has slowed down to a relaxed, happy pace with lots of time to smell the flowers. And that although I've been working 65-hour weeks! I'm not stressed in the least. Julia would say I'm in Easy World. Needless to say, I'm loving it.

Sorry for the missing updates! The situation is that I don't have internet at home at the moment and it can be a challenge to sneak online during breaks at work. If any of you who read this are waiting or a reply to an e-mail or a Facebook message, apologies, and now you know the reason. I should be back online between the 15th and the 20th of September, just in time for the Equinox.

I can't write much today but wanted to let everyone know! And of course I have news too, but some of them I'm keeping to myself for now. In fact, I have a rather big secret but as with my holiday before summer, I'm going to keep quiet about it until, well, until it's all sorted out. In the meantime, here's a brief recounting of what I've been up to.

Last weekend, my little town hosted the Festival of World Cultures, and I loved having all the music and life at my doorstep. While other people had to fight over car parking space, I strolled out of my house and didn't even have to leave the square I live on, because one of the many stages was set up in the little park right in the middle of it! Even while I was at home, I could hear the music but it never got annoying because the bands that played were for the most part amazing and the whole thing stopped around ten every night.

There were plenty of events that cost an entrance fee but also a lot that were free. Maeve, Brian, and Claire were up from Cork and the four of us went to see a lovely Ethiopian band on Saturday evening. The band played on a stage just by the sea promenade that I usually take my walks at, and to our left was the sea. At six thirty, the sun was still shining, and it was so unbelievably beautiful out there, I couldn't believe it! I danced to the music amongst happy people of all ages, quite a few of them male and with long hair, just the way I like it, haha! I had a great time.

Afterwards, we went on the Ferris Wheel that had been set up a little further down by the sea, and then on a "traditional" carousel which wasn't so traditional at all because it went about three times as fast as it would have in Victorian times. We had the time of our lives, as you can see:

It was a great evening and we decided to go again the next day. Sunday was the last day of the festival but it was as busy as Saturday had been. We went to the same stage we'd been at the evening before and were incredibly lucky to catch the performance of Dulsori, a Korean drumming band whose name means literally "heartbeat of the land". Does that sound like me? You bet it does! For years and years, I've been looking for good, sensual, exciting drumming that I could dance to during my rituals. And I found it in a South Korean combo, what was the likelihood of that? They are absolutely, breathtakingly amazing, just do a YouTube search on Dulsori and you'll know what I mean. The picture of this entry is of them of course, you can't see much but they were basically drumming with their entire bodies and with a precision that was almost frightening, it was as if they read each other's minds. If you are a musician, you'll understand what I mean when you listen to a sample!

The weekend was a welcome break from all the planning and organising of the aforementioned secret that I have. This week, I'm also working like a horse, I come home late every evening and it's a bit tiring but I enjoy it and so it's all good. Just now, I came home to the most amazing moon in a clear sky. It was quite breathtaking and for once I wasn't just looking towards winter with dread, I saw the mystery of dark evenings and the comfort of tea and candlelight in the months to come.

And now I'm off again, sorry again for the long breaks between entries right now, and for this fly-by update. It'll all get more regular once I have a broadband connection again!

A couple of days ago, someone who really should know better, accused me of lying. I was so stunned, hurt, and angry by the mere suggestion that I didn't even realise just how little that person knows me. I am bound to the truth by my dedication and by the very nature of my religious practice. Magic is based on clear intention, chanelled and focused through unambiguous words and actions. As Starhawk points out, magic basically works on the principle "It is so because I say it is so". Somebody who knows they can't trust their own words because they are not always true, lacks the necessary conviction. At best, their magic will be weak; at worst, unpredictable and hard to control. Hence, out of sheer egotism as much as any ethic considerations, I have bound myself to the truth.

This initially unpleasant occurance might trigger a whole new article on magic, you never know. The other article I was working on, the one about building a good life, is on hold for the time being; I know what I know to be true in this area, but first I need to learn how to put these things into practice more. I would feel like a fraud teaching others what I haven't mastered myself. Right now, I am learning anew the principles of abundance, and I really need to learn them. By this time of the year, I had planned to be well on my way to more financial comfort, but as you know, the job didn't turn out that way. I only just made enough money to survive, nothing extra to consolidate what my unemployment cost me the previous months. And now I earn even less... It's going to be an interesting 2-3 months, to say the least!

Sometimes things still seem to overwhelm me, and I'm asking myself, when, WHEN will it ever get better? I'm away from my budgies all day. I still have no money to see friends much or, the gods forbid, go out. And my house is too noisy at night for me to sleep properly so I am not just overworked but constantly tired as well. It can seem like too much, but when it does, I quickly gain perspective and realise that I'm lucky to have a job I enjoy, a beautiful place to live, and the chance to earn commission in the future and end this financial draught once and for all.

As if to confirm the positive thinking, this weekend Natasha decided to visit me, so I got to hug a friend without having to travel and spend money on it. It was a glorious day yesterday, blue sea and bright sunshine, although unfortunately it got a little cloudier around the time Natasha arrived. Still, it stayed dry until the evening and we had a lovely walk along the windy Sandycove promenade, where I took the above picture. It was lovely being able to catch up - a lot is going on in both our lives at the moment - and when we were thoroughly "blown through and through" by the wind, we went to my place for a lovely cup of tea, just like Irish people should (except that neither of us is Irish!).

Now it's Sunday evening and I wonder where the weekend went. I spent a lot of time today online, yesterday was for cleaning and organising and the aforementioned walk with Natasha. Tomorrow the new week starts, which will once again fly by I am sure, and I wonder how much longer this is going to be the way? I know, it seems nothing special, just what most people's lives are like. I also know a different life, working from home, and whilst I loved that at the time, it turned out it wasn't for me in the long run. There's got to be something else... I know it. And I will find it. It doesn't mean I'm unhappy or anything - again, I enjoy my work - but this life has no balance and it's not what I want in the long run.

I'm allowing myself all sorts of thoughts at the moment, even "shocking" ones like, will I stay in Ireland? Oh, don't get me wrong, this is still my home, I love the country and the people. What I get increasingly frustrated about is the big rip-off we have here. Sub-standard housing at sky-high prices. People all stuck together in one crowd, and nobody giving a toss about the others, making noise at all times and slamming doors like there's no tomorrow. The only way to get to a detached house with reasonable distance to neighbours is to become a millionaire, because either you'll spend a million or more on the house or if it's slightly less expensive, it'll be in the middle of nowhere so you won't have a chance to commute to any workplace. Other countries have affordable housing, some of it in flats but in houses with proper walls and insulation, and rules about night rest and similar. There's social security that actually deserves that label. And it's possible to live on an average salary, not in luxury, but without having to dig into savings and overdrafts every single month.

No, I won't move - of course not, I love it here and if nothing else, I wouldn't leave my budgies and couldn't take them with me. But I am feeling the annoyance, the impatience, all these feelings that have been coming up again and again over the past two years or so, and that I am no longer willing to tolerate. I've always known that one day I'll stop accepting it all and start taking my life back. I see my current job as a step along that way, not as a hindrance, because it will give me some financial stability that I need to start out from. But neither is the job the be-all-and-end-all; oh no, it's a step. Nothing more and nothing less.

So this is how this entry's title came about! I feel like I'm working like a horse, but as a means to an end, for that "harvest" I'm hoping to bring in. May it be that which I long for and for the highest good of all concerned. So be it!

Here’s another Finland picture! Finally Miikka has started to get the pictures off his phone, and so I can finally show you impressions of the day we spent in the adventure park. The one above was taken from the Näsinneula observation tower and shows about 1/16^th of the panoramic view we had through the all-glass windows around the top of the tower.

And here’s the Barbarian respectively the hag on fun rides (Barbarian in the green camouflage t-shirt pretty much front central and slightly left):

Alright, I guess I’m going to have to come up with other pictures for the next entries – it’s been three weeks since my Finland holiday and these are getting a little, well, old! It’s hard to believe that it’s been this long but there you are. And I’ve started my job a week ago, that’s unbelievable too. I am working insane hours and am a little tired but at the same time, I really really love what I do and for once I can not just identify with the company and the people but with the work as well. So I’m not complaining!

Because I start work early and have a long commute, I had to be creative in organising my weekdays. The house I live in never gets quiet before midnight and often stays noisy long afterwards. In order to have some “life” left outside of the job, I have reduced my sleeping hours to 6 ½ hours, and amazingly it seems to work for me. As well, I have streamlined my morning routine so that now I only take a quick shower, then jump into clothes I have laid out the night before and have breakfast whilst talking to Tia and Mirias before I head to the train station. Anything else – preparing lunch, washing my hair, washing up, giving the budgies fresh water etc etc – has been moved to the evening. I generally do these things first thing when I get home, then it’s all done and I get to sit down and relax.

All the while, I watch the days grow shorter. I know the day will come that I’ll have to switch on the light first thing after getting up. Winter is a time of candlelight and hot chocolate and I’m trying to think of it that way, but to be honest I’m not too keen on going to work in the dark and back home when it’s dark again. I have already started to go outside during my lunch hour whenever I can and I’ll try to stick to that routine. Apart from that, I’ll enjoy summer while it lasts! The Autumn Equinox is still a long way away, several weeks. It’s my least favourite sabbat of the year, probably because it ends the reign of the light. I shall try and focus on the abundance of harvest this year, instead of the end of mild, carefree summer days.

As for my work-life-spirituality balance, it works very well! I try to put in social time and get out into nature at least once every weekend. This Sunday I managed to combine both things: Inga and Rachel were up from Cork and we met in Booterstown and took a walk on the beach there. Now when I say “walk”, what I actually mean is that we climbed over cliffs half the time, which was surprisingly tiring, so we got some exercise as well! It was lovely to see the girls and sit on a rock by the water catching up on each other’s lives. We decided we should do these little weekend get-togethers way more often.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ll have to log on and go adventuring in a fantasy world with my favourite Barbarian. Isn’t it grand to have a bit of escapeism? I’m enjoying it immensely, and as well, it’s incomparably cheap AND keeps me from spending money elsewhere at the same time. In other words, a perfect hag distraction!