5:15 am and she called. She called to let her Me know that the hospital said to go in about 7am Today to give birth to her Son! I am Avo! Portugese for Grandma and Avo is the name my children called my Grandma. My 2 1/2 year old granddaughter, Charlotte, calls me Vovy...and soon her little baby brother will do the same. There are peaks and valleys in life and this is a Peak Moment for which I am deeply grateful. My Daughter had a fairly easy time of it delivering my Granddaughter and I am praying for the same experience this time around. Naturally, I am excited and a bit worried...but have great hope and faith that all will go well. I pray for an easy delivery and for a healthy Mommy and Baby. My Grandmas Birthday is tomorrow, July 18, and my Grandson will be born sometime today, July 17, 2017. Being born so close to her Birthday I know that he has a special Angel in her and that she will be protecting him from this moment on As well as my parents in Heaven. Their spirits were there when Charlotte was born and they are there now with my daughter and her new soon to be born Son. I am on Charlotte duty for 3 days. I will pick her up at 6 am this morning. We'll go to Denny's for breakfast and then over to target to get her a new toy and to get her brother a Birthday Present. Then back to my place for swimming and lunch...and maybe off to the library for storytime this afternoon. It is my responsibility to remain calm and to simply shower my granddaughter with love and affection through this wonderful time.

Living Solo: I have been sorting out and embracing living a single life. What once was the thing I dreaded most, being Single FOREVER, has, over time, become one of the my best parts of my life. I am living a different life now. I am learning to embrace my Singleness. I do not find myself seeking out a coupled relationship. Yes, I date at times but I am content with many relationships of many kinds. Recently "Singlism" has been brought to my attention and I am intrigued. Singlism is discrimination against Single people. It is everywhere. It is subtle and yet it is in your face. Put any song on Spotify and 90% of more will be about being in a relationship, guaranteed. Movies, magazines, books all seem to glorify being coupled, while portraying being Single as a horrible, miserable and lonely existence. Even friends and family want to see you coupled. I'm here to state the Being Single is Not Horrible, It is Not Miserable! And It is Not Lonely! And let's not forget our tax returns, which penalize Single people right and left with paying higher taxes than married couples...and denying group health insurance to a "friend" unless we state we are Married to them. Why is being coupled portrayed as being so much better than being single? I don't understand it but I know something is very wrong with this picture. Studies have shown that married people are not happier than single people. In fact one study I read indicated that the Happiest people over 50 were married men with hobbies and Single women with Children and careers. I've always found that very intriguing. Yet it seems most logical that people are happy if they tend to have a positive approach to life in general. Being coupled or Single has nothing to do with long term happiness, except in the case of a bad relationship which can create tremendous unhappiness. In fact being Single is Freedom. Freedom to have as many friends and relationships that one wants, Freedom to come and go as one pleases, Freedom to answer to no one but oneself (and God, if that's your thing). It is an act of self-reliance and self-responsibility. There is no one to blame for a bad mood or a bad day, except oneself. If things aren't going well it is up to only oneself to change things...and If things are going well, it is one's personal accomplishment. What about Love? You might ask. I have Loved, I have been In Love and I still Love and I am still In Love. The only things that have changed are my priorities and the objects of my affection. Instead of being In Love with one Person, I am In Love with Life, with my little Grandchildren and with my grown kids. Instead of Loving one Man I Love many friends of many ages and many ethnicities and lifestyles. I am not confined in an insulated relationship. As a single person in the world I have to work harder to develop meaningful friendships. If I want to go do things I have to go do them on my own, which is fine, or find good friends with similar interests. I do not have the luxury (or confinement) of relying on One Person to enjoy all of my interests. I must cultivate friendships. And This is one of the best things about being single. Creating opportunities to know more people is a stimulating and engaging exercise. Frankly I am sick and tired of society putting negative labels on Single people, and especially on Older Single Women. STOP portraying us as the crazy aunt with all the cats! or the spinster living like a hermit in the hills. Most of us are Intelligent, Creative, Successful and Adventurous Women Creating and living lives that we Love.

The Seal Skin

She is a beautiful female Sea Lion. One night she and her sisters shed their seal skins and dance upon a rock in the moonlight near the ocean. He sees the women and is entranced by their naked beauty. He is lonely and wants a wife, so he steals a seal skin. All of her sisters return to their skins and return to the ocean...but she cannot find her skin. He tells her that he wants her to be his wife and that he will return her skin to her in 5 years. So, she is stolen from the sea and becomes his wife. She bears a son and she lives contentedly during her 5 years. When the 5 years is over she demands her skin back and he refuses to give it to her. He goes away with the skin and she does not know where it is. Her body, now begins to wither and shrink. Her human skin becomes pale and flakes off, her bones begin to show through...she is fading away to death. Her son is young, about 4 years old, yet he feels his mother slipping away. He cries, day and night, knowing that he is losing her...one way or another. One night child takes off hearing his name called by the ocean. He climbs among the rocks in the moonlight and discovers the seal skin hidden among them. He takes the skin to his mother. He cries as she puts on the skin and begs her to please not leave him. She puts on her skin, takes his hand and dives into the ocean with him. There they are greeted by her father and her sisters. The child is loved by his grandfather and shown all the ways of the ocean. But the child must return to his home on earth. The mother, in time, takes him up to the shore and weeps as she leaves him where he belongs as she returns to her home. The child grows to become a great poet and a great prophet. So much to say about this story...I will comment another time :)

The Red Shoes

What a terribly truthful and wonderfully insightful story. So much symbolism. There are 2 pairs of Red shoes and they represent 2 very different psychological aspects of human nature... The first pair of shoes represents the girl's creativity and ingenuity. She has made them from scraps and wears them with joy and pride. Her creation lifts her spirit and she is full of a sense of who she is and happy in her own skin. She is poor but happy in her life ... she is strong in her own creative energy. Although she is an orphan and she is penniless, she has found the key to her happiness within her self...which is her creativity...and she has manifested the shoes. They, literally and figuratively, keep her gounded in herself and upon the earth. They are her core and they take her from place to place in the world with the knowledge that she is whole within herself. Her wild and authentic nature is intact, despite her outter worldly conditions. After she is taken in by the wealthy old woman, and provided materialistic comforts...she becomes trapped. Her shoes are looked down upon by the old woman, and eventually by the community that she is now living in. Steadfast, she continues to wear them, even though her benefactor insists that she not wear them anymore. She is unconcerned by the reactions of those around her. The old woamn and the community become increasingly outraged by her non-conformism and, eventually, the old woman takes the shoes away from her and burns them. The Girl becomes depressed. She sadly goes through her days and nights missing a piece of herself. Her creative core has been burned away by the old woman's (and the community's) insistance on her conforming to their ideas of "normalcy". Her true nature has been burned in the fire along with the shoes. Her soul is no longer alive...and she has a deep seated hole in herself that she cannot seem to escape. Over time the hole becomes larger and larger until she is starved for the missing piece. The second pair. As the girl wanders through the vendor carts of the village she seeks for something to replace what she has lost. And then she sees them...a shiny and perfect pair of red shoes. They are not of her own creation, but they are so much prettier than the ones she made. She tries them on and they fit perfectly. The vendor gives her the shoes as a present with a glint of sinister knowledge in his eyes. She skips down the road so happy in her new shoes. As she skips along she begins to dance. She dances all the way to her house and into the front door. She begins to tire now and sits to remove the shoes, yet her feet keep moving and dancing even while she sits...and the shoes won't come off of her feet. So she goes out into the night dancing away...at once thrilled and terrified. She dances throughout the night, unable to stop...out of control of herself...she stops eating and does nothing but dance, because she cannot stop. The shoes will not allow her to rest or to eat. They have taken over her life and they will kill her, in time. she knows she must remove the shoes and returns to the vendor who tells her they can never be removed. The terrible ending is that she has to have her feet cut off in order to be able to live. The second pair of red shoes represent the thing that we choose that is outside of ourselves to fill the void inside. Having lost her core creative nature...she seeks outside of herself, rather than returning to her core...and the thing outside cannot replace what was lost internally. The second pair traps her into madness which will kill her, in time. This story brings up many personal events and times when I have felt the creative core and then lost it and then turned to outside replacement only to find that the outside replacement is not only dissatisfying but also dangerous....more to come on this.

The Ugly Duckling's Mother

The story of The Ugly Duckling and the analysis of the internal and external mothers was very insightful. As I linger over thoughts of my own external Mother I am overcome with feelings of gratitude for her Love and acceptance of me. Going through the process of planning my daughter's wedding is showing me the depth of my Love for my daughter...and also the depth of the Love my mother carried in her heart for me during her lifetime. And even after her lifetime! During a psychic reading I had last year much came through from my Father about how much my Mother Loves me. I wasn't really understanding that at the time...but now...Now that I am going through this "empty nest" transition...I understand much more. A Mother's Love for her daughter, not always, but often and in my case...is eternal! In many ways it is the closest thing to God's love that we have in this realm of life. My mother loved me and continues to love me without condition...just as I love my daughter. Then there is the internal Mother. For some time this internal Mother was dampening of spirit and hampering of creativity. She always loved me and wanted me to be happy...but she wanted me to conform....she was afraid that my non-conformity would bring me sadness and pain. It was what she had to deal with in her life and she wanted to "protect" me from the pain of her own "wildish nature". The dampening, however, only served to create guilt...which was/is a trap that seeks to keep us from our true nature. I use the past tense in this because my internal mother has evolved to a place that is much more accepting and loving of non-conformity, now. She encourages me to seek out adventures in the world and encourages me to take risks of the heart...and she is always there to hold me when I fall down. This is the external mother I strive to be for my daughter....we cannot protect them from Life...for only in living Life out loud, will they learn the secrets of their own hearts. I love my Mother and my Daughter with every fiber of my being.... Namaste :)

Skeleton Woman

The images invoked in the story of Skeleton woman are almost amusing. I see this man rowing his boat as fast as he can in order to get away from her but because of the "bond" between them, the fishing line, she "runs" just as quickly after him...even standing up on top of the water. Then when he gets to shore and continues to run from her....still she is "bonded" and continues to chase after him. Finally when he gets home and feels safe he begins to see her in the softer light of the fire's glow and he likes her presence. Then she begins to drink from him...taking in his tears to quench her thirst. It was especially interesting to me when she took out his heart and held it in her hands feeling his heartbeat and pulse course through her...bringing her back to life. Until, finally she becomes fully fleshed and fully alive again...and she sneaks her body next to his, skin to skin, where they become one flesh...and, it seems, live happily ever after. I am conflicted with this story as it pertains to external elements. Being single and learning to embrace being a single woman, I tend to reject the image of a woman not being whole without the love and acceptance of a man. Yet, I sense truth in the story even in the external elements. It seems true that once a woman is "bonded" to a man she "runs" after him when he runs away...sensing his fear....and wanting to prove to him there is nothing to fear. However, when this story is applied to the internal elements of a woman, it has a much deeper meaning and, I believe, a more truthful message. The man embodies the Fear within us. The skeleton woman is, in essence, our true nature, yet to be embraced...but which cannot be embraced until the Fear is overcome. The skeleton woman, as an image of our true nature is not fully formed and lies at the bottom of the lake awaiting wholeness and transformation. When she is "caught" by the fishing net...a metaphor for being "caught" by a transformative, and fearful life event...she cannot escape the "chase". She is drawn, inescapably, towards the thing which will bring her Fear to the light. In the story the fear is, literally, brought to the light of the fire. In the light her fear, itself, begins to re-member her body and put the bones of her Self back together. She is remembering her true essence. The frame of her body is put back together in proper order by her fear. Eventually, her fear subsides and rests. This is when she begins to embrace it. She looks at it, it is quiet and sleeping, and she begins to drink in the feelings of sadness and life through the drinking of the tears. She drinks and drinks and begins to feel emotions, again. Love begins to replace fear. She holds the heart of fear in her hands and feels the warmth of its drumming. Although the story doesn't go this far, I would say that she spends a long time in each of the phases. I imagine her crying and feeling and understanding the depth of life and death and life, again, as she hold this heart so lovingly. In time her body becomes flesh again and her soul comes to life. She becomes the living, breathing, loving heart, mind, body and soul that she is and always has been. Then she fully embraces the fear...as it is no longer fear, but it has become her teacher and her lover...she becomes one with it...and as she merges with the thing that once despised her, (the thing she once despised in herself) she reaches full forgiveness and full wholeness. Very Beautiful! :)

RUN WOLF SISTER