I decided not to make a video about the end of eclipse season, today's lunar eclipse, but rather to write about something vulnerable and heartfelt. It's a personal way of looking at the eclipse, and the changes in my life over the last year, about finding love, connection, and transformation amidst gut wrenching grief.
On this full moon lunar eclipse taking place in Taurus today I’m reflecting a lot about my family/childhood home. Today, I’m leaning on the knowing that being human means that sometimes we get our hearts broken, and sometimes everything just isn’t okay, and that’s okay, and through all the heartache, on the other side, there’s a clearing made for more to come in life. Eclipses have a way of reminding us to let things go, to make room for changes, often sudden changes. There are so many emotions I’ve felt since June of 2021 when my paternal grandmother died, and over the last 14 months specifically since having Covid and my mom passing away in Sept. of 2021. Their deaths triggered a lot of changes for me personally, but there’s more I’m grieving, especially over the last 6 months and that is my maternal grandparents home going up for sale. This home has been in my family for 60 years. It is the house that built me. It’s the one place that was secure in my childhood, it’s the foundation, and over the last year the foundation that I was built on is up for sale. This eclipse in Taurus has a lot to do with our personal values, our roots and foundation, how we see ourselves, what we’re comfortable with, our internal rhythms, and how we provide for ourselves. It’s also triggering Scorpio themes during this Samhain portal and Scorpio season, as well as the nodes in Taurus and Scorpio currently. Scorpio representing birth, death, and rebirth, transformation and transmutation, alchemy, shared resources, and the unconscious territory all seems to come into play personally when I think about the changes my life has been experiencing. When this house sells, the money that comes from it will be split between my aunt, my siblings, and me. There’s been every bit of turmoil and grief around this house selling that touch on very Taurus and Scorpio themes. Any time the pain of this last year is triggered, I remind myself that pain is inevitable and a part of life, change and loss are part of life, and so is grief. I don’t have to suffer endlessly though through grief. I can do things that help me to work through the pain, to focus on healing, and so I create. I turn pain to art, or in this case, collecting old photos. Eclipses show us that there are natural endings in life that need to happen. Most of us are never really ready to let go of the things and people we love. Change isn’t often met with acceptance right away; we usually go through resistance at first and may even drag our feet till the very end. Eclipses teach us to surrender, grow, and change. These things we go through, when we have to say goodbye to certain parts of ourselves, certain places, or people that are important to us, they’re just moments in an entire lifetime, but sometimes these moments become part of shaping who we are, who we become, who we change into. In the case of this home, it’s lasted lifetimes; it’s been in my family for generations. It’s welcomed babies, grandbabies, great grandbabies, its seen friends come and go, it’s held the tears of divorce, losses and deaths, and it’s a graveyard of pets for 60 years. It’s heard the laughter and joy that comes with graduations, birthdays, anniversaries, and holiday celebrations. It’s a kitchen sink where a mother turned grandmother; turned great grandmother has bathed or rather baptized so many babies in the “Country Village” way. It’s a backyard filled with memories of campouts and running through the sprinklers. It’s a front porch that has been like a mother’s lap, holding us and rocking us all as we go through the peaks and valleys of life. There are new horizons for the members of this family and for new generations of this family that’ll never know this home, but such is life and the changes that come with it. For me, this home will forever be a part of my DNA, part of my lineage and part of my spirit. The thing with Taurus is that time is a construct, and we learn that even with eclipses that move life along, Taurus reminds us that real change and more so acceptance has to unfold on its own. Scorpio shows us the emotional waters we sometimes have to be immersed in and truly feel our way through. The house hasn’t sold yet, but it will, when it’s meant to. I feel the very real internal weight of sorrow combined with the external pressures of life continuing to move forward, and I have to find a way to release expectations without losing hope, find a way to flow rather than resist, and that is very true of this eclipse and one of the lessons it brings with it. I’ve felt like Humpty Dumpty that fell off the wall over the last year. I’m cracked all to hell, and it fucking hurts, but I’m wide open at the same time and I feel so much light and love pouring in over me. I’m grieving and aching, but I’m healing, rebuilding, and I’m changing. As part of my processing, I’ve been working with photographs and family history, something I’ve always enjoyed, but currently feels supportive and helpful. Kind of in a way when you rub a sore muscle and it hurts, but in a good way, that’s how going through old photos has been lately. At times, I find myself holding my breath, my shoulders tense, and my eyes fixated somewhere as I either drift off in memories or can’t seem to let the tears fall. Other times, I just smile, going through all of the images. My family, on either side, is far from perfect, but I instantly connect in to the love, to my ancestors, to feeling part of something bigger than just me but part of me, and I feel gratitude, compassion, and authenticity in such a profound way that is releases old hurts. It’s like having a way to paddle through the deep, emotional waters. As I sit through this slideshow, it barely scratches the surface of so many lives touched, of all the memories here in this home, but it’s highlighting a pivotal shift in my life. I learn that although my mother is physically gone, and this home is empty and will be sold eventually, and that I’m feeling uprooted by grief, I’ve never been more secure in who I am and what I’m connected to than I have in my whole life. I’m being transformed, just as Scorpio season would see to it, as will this eclipse, and the current astrological nodes, just as life will have it, and time will have it. The tide is turning.
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Well, it's been just about 6 months since my mom passed away (March 11th will mark 6m). I can't believe how fast it's gone. I still hurt so much. I miss her all the time. I decided to finally get around to this photo idea today. I grew up seeing these old polaroids of my mom. She's about 17 years old in these images. It's about 1980. She rocked her natural blonde hair, mauve lips and blue eyeshadow. Fast forward to 2022 and I'm 39 and hoping to recreate the look. I really wanted to take polaroids of myself, but the polaroid camera i bought to do this project was producing some really awful quality images. I'll show the "best" quality shot I got using it. I'm not pleased with the Polaroid company. My mom's photos from way back are much better quality, plus they haven't been treated gingerly. They've been in albums, in boxes, in purses, and passed around. They've held up. These are even scanned copies of her polaroids and they look better. What the hell happened to Polaroid? Well, back to mom... I was going through a lot of old family photos when mom passed away last September when I thought it'd be really fun to recreate a couple shots of her. So late September, a couple weeks after mom died, a few days before her funeral I went looking for a flannel and white tank top that'd come close to what she was wearing. But my hair wasn't light enough yet. It still needed a couple more sessions to get it blonde enough to do these photos. The dreamin pillow in the background on the red chair and the crocheted blanket are special to me, too. The pillow was made from one of my mom's night shirts, and the blanket was crocheted her grandmother, my great grandma. The table next to the chair belonged to my grandma, my mom's mom. Mom's old polaroids take me back to her bedroom. I remember when there was blue carpet still as a little kid. I remember hanging out listening to my mom's records in this room. I remember the white and blue curtains hanging up. I was pretty tiny then to be able to recall some of the thing about her old childhood bedroom. When I was still pretty young in the late 80s the bedroom changed when my aunt moved into it, so that my grandparents could have a spare room in the house. I just can recall looking at photos of my mom as a teenager, not just these images, but these were ones I loved to look at when I was a kid. I remember her telling stories about meeting my dad and how head over heels in love they were as kids. She'd tell me stories about driving around listening to music with her friends. She'd share her favorite records with me. I was just a little girl, but it made me feel excited about being a teenager one day. She just seemed so cool to me as I'd listen to her talk or watch her putting on her makeup and curling her hair with hot rollers. Let's get to the photos and continue the story later in this post.... Oh and that sleepy dog in the photos with me, he's the best fur baby a family could ever dream up. :) This next bit is to continue on the story about mom and her makeup. It's copied from a Facebook post I wrote back on 2/23/17. (Here's the link to videos doing makeup with her.)I was into selling LipSense at the time and I've always loved doing my own hair and makeup because of learning from my mom. Which I'm pretty certain at this point will get passed down as a pastime to my daughters. (Clara and I 2017 link > ) They love watching me do my hair and makeup and always want to join in and try to do their own, even my two year old. I often think about mom when I turn on my music and start to do my hair and makeup, but especially now, since she's gone, as I see my own daughters watching me. God, I miss her so much. "My mom went back to WA Tuesday evening. I miss her so much. I took a couple of photos of us together. I thought I would share one with all of you. We had fun playing with LipSense while she was here. She is so supportive of me investing in this business, and she refused to let me gift her anything or discount anything, she bought a kit and two extra colors, and a pearl gloss. She loves the product. When when we went shopping she told people I sold it, and I handed out a lot of cards. She will talk to anyone. In fact, when I was around 10 she sold Avon. I remember making the goodie bags with her. We would put catalogs in a plastic bag with lipstick samples. I remember just hundreds of these little lipstick samples spread out across the table as we sorted through them and dropped them one by one into bags, and I remember smelling the catalogs because there were perfume sheets in them. Then we would drive around door to door giving them to people, leaving them hanging on doors, and then going with her to deliver orders. I had fun with her doing that, and I remember feeling proud of her. These type of businesses are so good for women, and I love how empowering it can be. From my experience, it's so good for moms, like her, like me. I feel good being a part of the Senegence company. Some of my favorite memories of my mom are watching her do her makeup. I can remember even being so little, probably like kindergarten, maybe even smaller and laying on her bed on my belly, my face propped up in my hands watching her put on blue eyeshadow, which she had since high school, by that point it was probably 6 years old, and then a few years later she gave it to me. There wasn't much left in the eyeshadow compact, but it was her favorite, and she didn't use it much, she wanted to keep the color. I felt so special when she gave me that. (This was the 80s, so you can imagine it was pretty blue lol). I held onto it for a long time too, Many years, past my high school years. You create memories with makeup, there are passing fads, there are friends, mom and daughter bonds, tips and tricks that get passed down generation to generation, and that is what makeup should be about; fun, expression, creating memories, and feeling good. Let makeup be an extension of who you are, not cover up who you are. I love you mom. Thank you for doing everything you could for us kids. Thank you for being a fun and loving grandma to my children." These are the photos from the shoot I took of her and I. Makeup Stuff to check out: Fave makeup looks and vids from 2017: Pop Art and a Series I came up with called The Thor Affair Cruella and our family as 101 Dalmatians 2017 |
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