It's time for a major change.

[Doreen Peri]

I don't know exactly what the change will be but I know it's time.

For me.

I always know when it's time. It's just a matter of figuring out what to do and doing it.

Sometimes it's a job change I need.

Sometimes it's a change in lovers (not this time, I hope.)

Sometimes I figure out that I need to move, relocate.

Sometimes I decide I need a lifestyle change.

Sometimes it's a matter of adding something to my life or eliminating something.

I can feel it.

It's that time for me.

Hey, Hest.... could you check my stars and find out what they're saying to me about all this?

I was born July 21, 1953 in Washington, DC. I can't remember the time. If you want me to search for the time, it's on here somewhere. I'll look.

I need mysticism, mystique, and some major answers.

Thank you!

(I never believed in all this stuff but I have to find something to believe in, so why not? I'll believe!.... just give me some mystical guidance, ok?)

[hester_prynne]

Hi Doreen! Cha cha cha changes eh! I looked up your personal forcast for now at astrodienist. Here's a couple of influences going on now for you and coming up according to their report. See if it gives you any clues.....

Jupiter trine Jupiter: An opportunity

Mid December 2004 until end of August 2005: This influence usually represents a time of optimism and positive thinking in your life. You seem to be at a quiet point of balance that enables you to look over the affairs of your life and get a good perspective on them. Therefore, it is a good time to make long-range plans and to reorganize. You should use this time to gain new perspectives through education or travel or by participating in one of the consciousness raising activities or groups that exist now.

This is a time of psychological and physical equilibrium. If you have recently been ill in either body or mind, this influence will help tremendously with the healing process.

This is also a good time to examine your ideals and your goals, for it may be possible to actualize them in various ways now. At other times there is too much tension in your life or too much resistance from others. If you are involved in any movement for reform, now is a good time to take some positive action. Or you might become more involved in religion or philosophy, because you need to know much that is beyond the apparent order of things.

It is quite possible that you will do nothing during this time, because it gives you a feeling of balance but no drive to do anything in particular. You have an unusual sense of ease and relaxation now. This is also a good time to travel, both for relaxation and for educational reasons.

The important point to remember with this influence is that it is fundamentally an opportunity. You will not feel driven by any energies, nor will you feel any resistance to your efforts to do something. You can make great use of this time, but you have to take the initiative.


Saturn conjunction Sun: Concentrating energy

1 July 2005 until 16 July 2005: This influence can bring both fulfillment and difficulty. Roughly fourteen years ago you went through a period of adversity and low vitality. But at the same time you made new beginnings, which are having results now. These efforts will either reach a climax and be successful, or you will realize that they have failed. In any case this is a time of tremendous responsibility and hard work, either to guarantee the successful conclusion of your old projects and endeavors or to salvage the best from the failures.

In those areas of your life that you have handled successfully - in your job, your domestic life, or whatever - the responsibility of bringing your activities to a successful climax will limit your freedom of movement. Even if you know that events are turning out as you want, you may feel restless under the burdens. Try to be patient and concentrate wholly upon the tasks at hand.

Do not take on any new projects at this time that are not directly connected to what you are already doing. The additional responsibility could be too much for you and could cause health problems, especially with your heart and circulatory system. When you have successfully completed all your current projects, you may start new ones. This is a time of perseverance, hard work and heavy responsibility.

Those areas of your life that have not worked out as expected should not be regarded as complete failures. Several years ago when you embarked on these projects, you may not have understood as much as you understand now. This influence will make you aware of this fact. Don't start out on a new course until you have cleared up whatever has not worked out.

During this time you may feel cut off from others and lonely, but do not be too concerned about this. Even if this influence coincides with the breaking up of a relationship, which it may, it means that the relationship itself is distracting you from matters that you must attend to now. This is a time for concentrating energy, not scattering it.

I'll look around for anything more I can find too.....
hope it helps....
(And by the way, I think you're pretty near perfect now!)

H

[Doreen Peri]

This is a time of perseverance, hard work and heavy responsibility.
This is a time of perseverance, hard work and heavy responsibility.
This is a time of perseverance, hard work and heavy responsibility.
This is a time of perseverance, hard work and heavy responsibility.

Arghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!

I know this. Dammit!!!!

I want it to stop!

I'm tired of the responsibilities I have and there are more and more coming in my work.

Thanks so much, hest!!!

If you can find something that tells me how to retire, I would be eternally indebted!

That's what I decided .... that's the change I need.

Less work. Or NONE. Not more and more responsibilities.

I appreciate you!

[Zlatko Waterman]

Your first post on this thread sounded like a cry for help, so I, not gifted with the knowledge of the stars and planets and what their conjunctions portend, will give it my own kind of sideways shot, probably banking off the backboard and not even touching the rim. But I have one insight to impart from my full-time employment tenure ( now happily ended):


When I was a teacher and had to show up and face the kids ( they were 18 or older and "in college"-- but many acted like sixth-graders . . .) and everyone else on stage all day five days a week, I often found myself psychologically exhausted.

I taught full time for thirty-one years, by the way. I had one sabbatical, or a year off for research, during that time.

On the advice of a friend of mine ( who happens to be a shrink), I tried partitioning off, mentally, every responsibility I owned from everything that was life-sustaining-- everything that nourished my deep, hidden self, to use a silly term for it-- that part of me that subsisted apart from the demands of others, the need to earn money, to support others emotionally, do enough charitable works so I could live with myself, etc..

He suggested that this "partitioning" might help me, and suggested it because he knew me well. It doesn't work for everyone, he said, and if you are happiest and most free from care in the midst of your children ( I don't have any), the fearsome challenges you meet at work-- my work was an interruption for my art-- or a severely co-dependent relationship-- my partner, my present partner by the way-- understood this need I had to cleave to something besides work and responsibility-- if you are happiest in the midst of a nervous hum, then don't try to live this way-- partitioned.

I can show you a hundred self-help books which will tell you partitioning is poison, he said. But I suspect that it's not that way with you.

He was right, and the solution, though temporary, worked.

I felt better.

How did I accomplish this "partitioning"? It's different for everyone, but I had to be immaculate ( Don Juan in Castaneda would say "impeccable") in regard to my "own" time, my "own" places, and, in short, my "own" absolute mental freedom.

So I won't presume to prescribe for you. Or even to suggest you partition yourself.

I was pretty close to despair over postponing my career as an artist indefinitely. But I was also very sure what I wanted, and very capable of achieving it, once several barriers ( and I was kidding myself about some barriers-- they never existed) were removed.

I attach a picture of myself-- my real self, what I call the "science-fiction" self.

My wife simply calls it my dreamer self-- my imagination.

Maybe I'm just telling you to free your inner robot? (hee-hee)

Here I am-- the real me . . .

[judih]

i see what you mean, zlatko

doing t'ai chi tonight : wave hands like clouds
i realized what i like about it so much

there's something to concentrate on every second. There's a constant check to see if i'm in focus. If i lose it, i come back to it as soon as i notice.

i see this particular exercise as 'filling slowness with content' or making new every movement.

whether or not i can extend this to daily circumstance and the flings and arrows of other people is part of the mission.

This, then, is my proposed change for me - elevating the stakes - bringing meditation into active life.

(see one split second of 'wave hands like clouds')

[Doreen Peri]

I would like to try this "partitioning" idea but I don't exactly understand what it is.

I am trying to delegate as many of my projects as possible to other people. But I'm finding that delegating often takes more work than doing it myself.

I have to train people to use the software I use. I have to train them to prepare files for the printshop. I have to take the time to answer their questions and work with them until I know they are capable of handling the job. All of that can be more time consuming.

Yes, my post was a cry for help.

I feel burdened, overwhelmed, totally unorganized and behind in everything I'm doing. More responsibilities are mounting. My employer is opening up MRI facilities all over the country and it is my responsibility to create every marketing piece, every form they use, every postcard, every website, every business card and on and on.

I am lucky. I should not complain. I can work from my home. My paycheck comes regularly in the mail. But I am only one person and the weight of the responsibilities are crushing me.

There is virtually no time to be an artist. That is painful to me. Paintings are half painted. Poems are sloppily written. There is no time to plan a Cabaradio show. There is no time to create a manuscript and seek publication.

What's worse is my daughter comes home from school and stands here trying to talk to me and I'm in the middle of emailing someone or updating a website or working on a newsletter deadline and I do not give her the time and attention she deserves. I imagine she feels slighted. I know I would. You'd think that having a mom at home to come home to would be a bonus. But not when I can't focus on her needs. I feel a great deal of guilt because of this.

I am neglecting my own needs and my life is disappearing before my eyes. My time is not my own.

Clay read a portion of a speech Steve Jobs (of Macintosh fame) recently gave to the Stanford U. graduating class the other day. He was proud to announce that he dropped out of college to pursue a real life and do what HE wanted to do with his time. He told them (paraphrased) "Your life is short. We are not here long. Whatever you do, do not live someone else's life."

I have been living other people's lives for too long. I want mine back.

I don't know how to pay the mortgage without my job. Ten years ago, I would have been proud and elated to have the position I hold today. But I have grown and changed. Now is my time to be a writer and artist, a performer, a musician. Now is not the time for me to be spending all my hours configuring computer systems, troubleshooting computer system, converting file formats, writing ad copy.

I'm feeling guilty for complaining. I hate complainers. I have a good job which pays me well and supports my family.

What do I need? Somebody needs to shake me or something. I need to either embrace what I have and feel happy to have it or to give it up somehow.

I could sell my house and buy a house outright in another location with the equity. That's an option I've considered. But my mother is 89 years old and needs me in the area. I can't leave here. My daughter, also, is just now creating friendships which she will have for a lifetime. I can't relocate her.

I have no other options that I can think of.

I'd love to hear more about what "partitioning" is and how to accomplish it.

Or any other ideas about how to reclaim my life and time.

[Zlatko Waterman]

This may seem like a feeble response from me to your request to know more, Doreen:


But this Orloff woman, whom I heard on KPFK a few months ago, with her talk of "energy vampires" and how to avoid their influence, is somewhat close to my friend's analysis of the need for "partitioning."

I send you this link for what it may be worth, not because I recognize your needs in the Orloff analysis. I'm just trying to help.


(link)

http://www.womenof.com/Articles/p_4_5_04.asp



--Z

[hester_prynne]

Interesting thread, partitioning idea really appeals to me. I think I'm sort of doing that already, albeit in a forced manner, having lost my job, house, lifestyle, etc.

I feel like I know right where you are at Doreen and it's a tough spot, a very self-limiting spot, not your fault, but a routine that's gone rut on you, that's become limiting, and it sounds like it's becoming fairly urgent that you get some let up.

I think in time, if you keep teaching what you know to others, there will be less questions and work, and more time for you to feel less responsible for everything. That's where it'll begin. But that in itself is hard to do too, to let that sense of responsibility change. I see the partitioning idea, as kind of a letting go as well. When you've been in charge most of your life, it's damn near impossible at first to let go, but if you stay with it consciously and get to know the voices telling you you'd better stay in charge, you can then change those voices, talk to them, assure them you are alright. Connecting with them was sure hard for me, I was set in my ways, expectations and in my self appointment of being in charge, because I was afraid to let others take over. People won't take over if they don't sense a need or don't have to. Over the years, I have had to face many unexplained fears and anymore I find that those fears of irresponsibility were survival based, and held me back from being who I knew I was, but was afraid of being. Believe me, i'm still working on that "fear" of not being in charge. But i am amazed as I think of it now, at how many of those fears have gone now that my "responsibility chores" have all been changed, whether I was ready or not.
But that's just my experience with it, in a top of the head quick kind of observation.
I do think you do a hell of alot Doreen, and often wonder how you do it.
Changes are coming. You will make them come.
I have every faith in you and that's no lie.

H

[judih]

A good friend of mine almost echoed your very words today, doreen, and i feel her as i feel you.

There comes a time when what's happening on the outside doesn't mesh with what the inside wants and wants right now.

In her case, she wants to move, to utilize her energy for new challenges, or travels, or major getting her teeth into something to stimulate her considerable skills.

In your case, i hear the total occupation with work and constantly added work while you feel that your heart would dearly love to be centered on something else.

The fact that you love to do so much but that you feel scattered with your energies must add to your discontent.

That's why i mentioned t'ai chi. It's a way of refocusing and putting the center (the inner core) back in its place. The fact that i can do that at least once a week keeps me reasonably attached to the planet and its gravitational pulls. Without it, i'd be floating above a mountain somewhere.

In my friend's case, i trust that she'll stop dealing with the distractions she keeps searching for and eventually find her next challenge - maybe studies, maybe building her own corporation, maybe renovating her life in some other way.

In your case, dor, i can only say that doing something physical is a good first step to coming back to yourself. If not the proverbial "walking" thing, then something else. G and i used to dig jogging to Charlie Parker for a good long song. It changes things. It stirs up the hormones that feed self-caring.

image-ination jam this weekend. i'm gonna do something about that right now!

j

[jimboloco]

thinking body dancing mind.

http://www.insight-books.com/GAMS/0553373781.html

[judih]

jim: power tao?

do the t'ai chi boogey and you too can hear the sound of one hand clapping all the way to the bank?

hmmm

!

[jimboloco]

me, i am one step behind the mendicant.

trying to stop smoking pot
why i can't sleep,
but clarity is the first step

meditations