It's been a good long while since I've brought you guys the utter cuteness that is my morning/IP/Intensive Preschool children, even though you hear about the all the time. Well, yesterday was Christmas Concert and last day before Winter Vacation. Thus, Selena and I took group photo's with each class and recorded our dances from the show. Which I'm going to share with all of you, plus a few more things, as well!

, I get that the reason this is happening is because I was lucky enough to find someone who I matched with, in a city of millions, where foreigners are a minute minority who saw a lot of life, food, tv, and traveling the same way; lucky enough that person worked me, and arrived on the same day as me, saw our work and coworkers the same, at least enough to take and make and build a mutual refuge; the I was blessed by that --

But I'd really, really like to not spend the whole of Christmas Eve in tears, like I have the last hour since saying goodbye at customs when I wasn't asleep riding the bus back home.




Some of this is probably also how stressful the last three days at work were, and the fact I've only had two hours of sleep since last night was Alice's going away and the airport car was at four, and my body is hating on something I ate yesterday. And how strange is it to think, if I had signed a normal contract I would be flying home now, too.

Imna put on some comfort Farscape and work on my videos of my kidlets from the Christmas concert.

Another tradition in our house, these always happened somewhere in amid December. They would be bought during grocery trips or they would show up in the bottom of your stocking (with your real orange, of course!). This was on a list of things I had made for mother post falling in love with Pumpkin Spice Hershey kisses and getting my Godiva Hot Chocolate & Cider mixes from Earl.

When I was endeavoring to make her a list of things that smelled, or tasted, or reminded me of Christmas time. I'm rather glad I did. Even though it's a milk chocolate thing and I'm not much in the mood for candy today, just seeing the box makes me thinking of home, makes feel just a little closer to the Christmases behind me and those half a world away from me.

Makes me aware of how blessed I am in my parents, in my life past and present and future.



Today was the last day of school and mail until January 4th. I've yet to receive a lot of things I'd hope would get here both boxes, and cards, but that means I'll have some interesting pile up on my desk in when I return to work. It didn't mean though that today's mail wasn't a whirlwind surprise. First there was a pile of cards.

Thus, firstly, my thanks go out to risa7, an anonymous elf from holiday_wishes, bunnykissd, antihero_only, bonbouschnecke, sistahraven, and chlorrel (who may have the most moving pre-written card message all month long). Secondly -- there was a box I was never expecting from trelali. You could have knocked me over from the shock of seeing her name on it alone.

What would come next, only served to drive me between the urge to laugh and cry continuously that was delirium. I feel the only proper way to explain this is with both a disclaimer and a photo. Disclaimer here. 1. Mah Li of the Awesome? Detests Twilight with the deeply grounded passion of a well read, well educated mind. 2. Mah Li of the Awesome? Adores me (and any and all places my head goes) more.

Of the last three trances the team has done, two had half the facilitators drop out at last minute due to illness; the Kali etc trance was just - so big. All three left me and several other facilitators wondering how we can do this work without being utterly whacked when it's over.

I used to witness Reclaiming's approach to those who aspect having a tender, when it's over, and a part of me thought that approach a little precious, a little dramatic. No more. I NEED a keeper when these things end. I have certainly learned not to try to drive before (too much in another headspace) or after (not safe. At all)

Here are my own observations and those of others on the team, on what makes the work too demanding to sustain, the way we've been doing it:
1. My own tendency to go all out. Give me 8 facilitators, I'll plan a trance/ritual that 15 could do comfortably
2. The physical work - like, moving pews at the Friends' meetinghouse
3. My tendency to go prop heavy (for the Baba Yaga trance, we transformed the meetinghouse into a forest)
4. Jasmine says the "go all out" and prop heavy approach, combined with dark, meaty myth, gives women a transformative experience and it's all worth it. I do like that "transformative" part! But she believes the energies of the dark myths really weigh on the facilitators for days. I believe that the facilitators also get to do a lot of transformative work - in particular, the Baba Yaga trance did a great deal to change my relationship with my intuition. But - transformation itself is pretty exhausting, so there's that energy drain as well.
5. The team gets really jazzed about what we're going to do - if we do simpler trances, I'm not sure everyone will be as enthused -
6. the last minute dropping out has been way hard on the surviving facilitators. And couldn't be helped. Luckily, RCGSA is developing very strong women who can step in at a moment's notice - Leilani, at the Baba Yaga ritual, took over two key roles and was fabulous
7. for me, the very most draining thing is when we're in the middle of it and I feel the energy begin to flag, for whatever reason. I have this feeling of my solar plexus reaching down into the earth and just bringing up the energy we need and throwing it into the work. But at the same time, there's this feeling that I'm fading, every time I do it. Especially hard during the Kali etc. trance - in which I was all the transitions - and the Baba Yaga trance in which, somehow, I ended up driving the energy raising (not at all my strong suit)

And what this all equates to is that I am determined to find a better way. I am not willing to feel the way I feel for days afterward (pretty much physically useless, and somewhat mentally useless). I have seen too many communities bleed their priestesses dry, often because the priestesses did it to themselves. One thing I'm hugely grateful for: this team has no personal drama. None! I have been in situations that mixed drama with facilitation before, and the combination is really deadly, to the psyche and the mentality.

Some ideas to make changes:
1. we must get someone on the team who says: and how could we do this more simply?
2. I need to REMIND myself, constantly, that it's what happens in the trancers' experience that makes all the difference - not that we've transformed the meeting house into a forest
3. Heck, I need to just get in better physical shape! (as Suzanne Sterling noted, when I asked how the heck she keeps going, hour after hour, day after day)
4. The team members need to rotate, where half of us facilitate the whole ritual/trance, the other half just show up and support the trance part (which means: I have to let go of some of the control of what happens. And just show up and do an induction, once in a while)

After the Baba Yaga trance, Jasmine and I (who ended up pretty much doing it alone, till the others joined us at the event) fell on each other and made a sacred sister pact NOT to facilitate anything until her Beltaine ritual. We were bled dry. Two nights later we got the idea to do NEXT winter solstice on The Snow Queen - immediately, she went into costume design, and I wanted a chariot for the Queen to ride in.

And I'm telling myself how effective it would be to just have the trancers IMAGINE what the queen is wearing. IMAGINE her chariot. Certainly that seems like one good answer - we take every single aspect of the physical and make it an imagined thing -

Still very glad that April is probably the next time I'll have any ritual trance responsibilities of any substance, at all. Hoping I stick with that -

I had a laugh at this one twice. Once when I pulled the reindeer bag from the box a week or so ago, the second time when I pulled out the gift inside of it. This one takes a bit of a telling to share. During one of the many late November/early December Skype calls with my mother, while she was asking me once again what I might need, I mentioned she could pack in a bag of pecans.

The house where she lives (where I did for the last third of my childhood) has a wonderful pecan tree in the backyard and by the time of the call in any other year, my freezer would have already had two or three (or even up to four on a big year) gallon bags in the freezer already. This year there was apparently bad year weather and it was not possible to send. So I put it out of my mind.

(As an aside, pecans are such a South and fall/winter flavor to me that one day while out shopping with Alice we had dinner at a nice restaurant, where they offered a pecan tart that looked a lot like a pecan pie. It really was, too. A little more solid than jelly-wiggly. But the right flavor. Which I ate the whole thing of, regardless of detesting pecan pie. Simply because it tasted right, tasted like home-thanksgiving-south-pecan pie, and there would be no other pecan and pecan-things this year.)



Yet here it is, wonderful south Texas pecans, fresh and half-shelled!

Which I may have to put out of my reach. One-third of it vanished by the end of this writing.

A gorgeous Christmas sampler to drink during all my days through this season. It'll be an escapade of flavor adventures -- Ginger Peach Tea, Japanese Green Tea, Lemon Tea, Afternoon Tea, Darjeeling Tea, English Breakfast Tea, Raspberry Tea, Earl Grey Tea, Cinnamon Plum Tea, Chamomile Tea, Peppermint Tea and Apricot Tea!

I'm nursing a cup of the first to keep me awake long enough to do this post. It's a lovely black with ginger and peace. I'm rather pleased so far as the ginger is staying mild, while the peach likes to make its presence known just about when you swallow. The texture and taste of just biting into one.

Articles/Stories/Poetry
"Acceptance" by Robert Frost
"About The Nightingale" by Samuel T. Coleridge
"About Ben Adhem" by Leigh Hunt
"A Valentine" by Edgar Allan Poe
"A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning" by John Donne
"A Time To Talk" by Robert Frost
"A Thought Went Up My Mind To-Day" by Emily Dickens

Books
A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens

TV
Dexter 4.13
Nester The Long Eared Christmas Donkey (1977)
Shrek the Halls (2007)
Madagascar Penguins in A Christmas Caper (2005)
The Little Drummer Boy (1968)
Dollhouse 2.09, 2.10
Sanctuary 2.10

Movies
White Christmas (1954)
A Muppet Christmas Carol (1992)
Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer (1964)
The Bishop's Wife (1947)
Holiday Inn (1942)
Christmas in Connecticut (1945)
The Shop Around the Corner (1940)

Documentaries
Charles Dickens & The Inventions of Christmas (2007)

It's not even here yet, and I'm feel stir crazy waiting for tonight to simply end.

In lieu of sleeping, while watching The Shop Around The Corner, I've done unnecessary to do at home work. The 3PK's December report cards and January monthly plan. Pk2-B's December report cards. Now I'm starting on IP's December Report Cards.

I'll probably stop at the end of the putting the numbers on this one, as midnight will hit, I'll open one of my Yule gifts and then finally allow myself to just collapse and give up the ghost of being awake.

Filched off a mention by newredshoes;


TeuxDeux is a simple and yet truly amazing ToDo List Online.

It does not do everything I want it to (such as it does not have a downloadable/transferable to anywhere version, nor does it have an easier way to reach very far way away dates) yet. But its powerfully beautiful all the same.

The ability to float things from day to day. The fact it has a someday list at the bottom.

I'll be keeping a close eye on this program, as well, now.

It's only about thirteen hours until midnight, which begs the question obviously.

Do I open a Yule gift or two at midnight-or-two, whenever it is around bed time? Do I open one or two in the morning, even though I'll be all on the way to school rushed (for Santa Is Coming & Stocking Making/Presents to My Children/Test Day!)? Do I open them when I get home from school, because 8:04 pm will match up exactly with when Central Standard Time hits astrological Yule? Do I do some combination of all of the above?


Going to convince myself to stop flooding the newly reclaimed hard drive space with Christmas music so as to put on clothes and buy soy milk, before glomping on to My Girl and starting to write said Science & Social Studies test.

Our TranceShamans trance team facilitated two really complex trances, since I posted last - the Parvati/Durga/Kali trance at the Toltec Center, and the Baba Yaga trance this past Thursday. Lots to process about! Both trances gave us insight into issues of mixed group trancing, how we work together as a team, and sustainability -

The Parvati/Durga/Kali trance last month was very enlightening (to us as facilitators,and from their comments after, for those who came, too). And affirming - we made $90!  Which basically went to cover our gas and the rent of the space, and our dinner (for much-needed grounding), but we still felt pretty affirmed!

Many of these folks had a shamanic background, and so are very used to "otherness". A couple of the men told me they had been sent to experience trance by the shaman they were working with, to get another view of what journeying might look like.

This was the first trance in a while that I co-facilitated for a mixed group, and it was fascinating to watch the women go right under, while four of the six men were - best I could tell - really watching the process, rather than trancing. I think that may have partly been because a couple of our facilitators were easy to watch - particularly the graceful young woman as Kali. That she was inviting us into her arms to die probably had its own dark appeal, too.

And two of the guys were partners to the women facilitating, and from my own experience with my own partner, I know they aren't usually comfortable letting us trance them. However, that does let them provide a great critique after, which the team really likes - Jasmine's husband had some great insights into how the pairs work together, where we were strong, where he felt we could use shoring up.

Of the 20 or so people who came, only three had any familiarly or experience with the team at all. That 85% of those attending went under so willingly, not knowing us at all, tells me the team is doing a great job of setting up safe space. I find I'm wondering how the experience might have been different for the men who came if we had one or more men on this team, and if we had not structured the trance around the myths of three goddesses.

Everyone stayed after to talk about it all for almost an hour, and they asked for notices of where we'll be offering this again, so I set up a Facebook account for it, in addition to the web page.

They were really interested in the process, too, and had a lot of questions. A couple of them were interested in training to do this - I remember when I dreamed of teaching shamanic trance on a regular basis. But that was before I realized that there are certain qualities I want in those I teach - a level of personal work, and a good, solid set of ethics all around the responsibilities you have as a trance facilitator. In the past, a couple of people who have approached me about it were, I think, looking to get people at a vulnerable state so they could whack them with growth and change challenges. I'm all for the growth and change part, but not so much for sneaking up on people by trancing them out, and then - whacking. In relation to my own ethics around trance facilitation, I think these folks had a little to much emphasis on drama and their own empowerment.

I find I'm so glad the mentoring I agreed to with three of the team members is complete - they've done amazing work, and we'll officially be peers after the first of the year. They teach me as much as I have to teach them, or more, and I do like that shift, for so many reasons. So I fended off inquires about teaching from the two people at this event who asked about it. The team is tight now, and unless we see specific qualities we need to add to the group - or someone who is clearly needing this skill as part of their calling - I think we're in agreement that we're leaving the group as is.

Next post is on sustainability, which is becoming more and more of an issue as I see groups I've been in dealing with that issue. And becoming more of an issue with this trance team, as we realize the complex, dark myths we love really take a toll on the facilitators -

The computer won't be turned off for a very long time now.

I'm uploading my iTunes back into existence. This could take a while.

My computer's main bits are finally almost all reset up. It's take the better part of last night and the few hours I was home today to do it, but it's happier and smoother and I'm getting to have perks I'd simply let slide months ago when they altered somehow. I would have been done sooner but I kept getting distracted. Mmm. Self-sufficiency and adhd you go so well hand in hand. Or not.

Distraction one was starting A Christmas Carol while things were moving and then uploading -- but also in the fact, the book just took over and for long jags I kept reading instead of hitting the next buttons which would need hitting. I actually finished it an hour ago. So much for I want to try and read it by Christmas. I have these huge thoughts that are percolating about "common ownership works" because of watching three different movie versions in the last few weeks, the Charles Dickens Inventions documentary this past week, and now having read the book today.

But that is for later.

Distraction two drug me out of my house for some general fun. Jared, one of my coworkers, showed up on my doorstep and asked me to join him for this normal Saturdays night sushi dinner the new place upstairs in Bauhaus. We are the only two who like sushi in the office. It was delightful, and entirely amusing. The new sushi place was serves sushi on a conveyor belt going around the counters and the prices are dictates by the color of the ring around the edge of the plate.

I will bring pictures one day later! But it was, oh, so, yummy.

Alas, I have another button that needs pushing that involves restarting.

See you all on the other side of having finished this.