Oh my, Mercury is retrograde, and it’s really in a bad mood about it.

First, about a week ago, my phone wouldn’t connect to the internet. In my house. Fooled with it for a long while, finally got it reconnected. Then, about the next day, Dan’s phone wasn’t connecting, same symptoms, but now my phone was working, but not his.

Ok, we got that fixed.

The next day, I was having writers group nere at my house. On the floor in the living room I had a big basket which held the modem, the router, and a couple old computers. Since I had to rearrange the stuff in my living room to make room for a 2^nd, bigger gong. That’s another story, for another time. Suffice to say that my tiny little house, 900 sq. ft, is full…..and I needed to clear the floor as best I could so the 7 friends who were coming over could walk to the bathroom and kitchen without tripping over the basket. So, to remove it from the floor, I began to unload it. The computers got put somewhere else. The cords of the modem and the router were tangled with an HDMI cable that was in there, so I unplugged the router, untangled the cord, replugged it into the router and voila! The internet wasn’t working. At all. On any device. Not the TV, not the laptop, not either phone.

Geezus.

Dan and I tried til late into the night to get it running. Finally, we opted out for the night and played cards. The next day we couldn’t work on it, because we had to pull our boat out of the water to give it a good cleaning. As it happened, we did it during a full moon low tide, with a huge mean thunderstorm approaching, and a myriad of problems came with our attempt at doing this culminating in our leaving it in the marina parking lot til the next morning when we went back to get it in the nice humid 90-something degree heat. We brought it home, and commenced scraping barnacles and other crud from it. When it got too hot to continue, we went into the house, showered, ate, and took a nap. The heat here in July is exhausting.

Ahh the joys of boat ownership in Florida. But that too is another story for another time.

We headed back to his house to check on his mother and actually take a break from the internet, and the boat. We stayed there for a few days, it was kind of like a vacation. Today, we came back to my house. We had a practice for the sound healing scheduled. When it was over, we got back to work on the internet. We put the router back to its factory default settings and finally, after running through it about 5 times, got it working. So, tonight, the TV, the laptop, and both phones are connected to the internet and working!

I feel like we won a battle against Mercury, who was being vindictive because he was aggravated that he was going backwards, even though he really wasn’t. But then, perception is everything, isn’t it?

I think I should clarify somewhere here that Dan, awesome guy that he is, does not buy into the Mercury retrograde making all the electronic communications go haywire. But I’m working on him, lol.

We have our 2^nd sound healing Tuesday night, and we’re pretty excited. We have gotten a LOT of good feedback, from people we don’t even know. We took a gong to open mic night, and were very hesitant, because, let’s just say, it is not really a sound healing venue. But there were people there who really loved it, kids at the restaurant that wanted to touch it. The place went silent when Dan was playing the gong, and the applause after was real, and heartwarming. So we are hopeful that this 2^nd sound healing will draw a few more people than last time, and that we will continue to slowly grow this thing.

I will still feel better when Mercury ends its backward trip that really isn’t, on July 31. Especially because we are going to Colorado the day before to see our kids. His daughter, my son. Both live in Denver. Makes it handy for us. Should be fun. Exhausting, but fun.

So I’m off to watch TV and relax. Love and light to all.

Good Vibrations Sound Healing Instruments

We named our sound healing group. We aGood Vibrations Sound Healing. We have our first paying gig next Tuesday, the 9^th, at a yoga studio close to my home. We played there for a short free session during their summer solstice ceremony, just to give people a chance to hear what we are about. It was very well received.

I’ve made us a FB page for Good Vibrations. https://www.facebook.com/Good-Vibrations-Sound-Healing-2198505450267912/?modal=admin_todo_tour is a link to it. I’d be honored if you took a look, and even “liked” the page.

We are very excited about this gig. We will be playing there twice a month for at least the next few months.

Other than preparing for this first sound healing, which means lots of practice together, Dan and I have been out in the boat for a day anchored off of the beach at a little island that is a nature preserve, called Shell Key. We also had to spend a morning cleaning up my yard after a violent storm the other day which took down tons of limbs, palm fronds and part of my fence. Now I need to find out if my homeowner’s insurance will kick in anything for the fence. I’m guessing it won’t, but can’t hurt to find out.

Today we took his mother’s hearing aid to be fixed and while we were waiting I asked them to check my insurance (Part B Medicare) and see if they give anything towards hearing aids. I was pleasantly surprised to find out they do, $500 per ear. It’s not a lot, but it’s a nice chunk. I have a significant hearing loss in one ear. I’ve had it for decades, caused by otosclerosis, or bony growths on the eardrum. It can be corrected surgically too, so I may go that route too. But I am sick of having to blast the TV and try to cup my left ear to hear people talk, especially in a crowd. So, gonna see what I can do to get it fixed. I also have cataracts that need to get removed. UGH. I feel my age when I think about this stuff.

We are also still trying to decide if we should try to add on to my house, or sell both our houses and buy another jointly. My house is so old, 92 years, and if we are going to stay there, we have a lot of work to do before we could put on an addition. Thinking we will just fix the stuff that really needs fixing and then sell it. We will sell Dan’s also, his is a condo, and buy a house that’s a bit larger than my tiny house (900 sq. ft.) I still can’t believe how many houses down here are under 1000 feet, and the lots under 5000 sq. ft. Land is really at a premium in Florida, it seems.

It’s been monstrously hot here, over 90° every day with heat indexes of over 100°. We are at that time of year when we often take 2 showers a day, and stay inside all afternoon. It’s just crazy hot. We are trying to plan a trip to Denver the first week of August. Also planning to go to CT in September for a wedding, but we aren’t quite sure we want to spend the money. Plane fare, hotel room for the wedding, gifts, additional spending money for dinners etc. Not sure we want to spend that much even though I’d love to go.

Well, all is well for the time being. Hope it’s all well with all of you too. Love and light to all.

The SoCS (Stream of Consciousness Satiurday)

My first thought with this prompt was social media. I use it quite a bit. I have my personal page, a jewelry page for Sundogs Designs, and another page for Living Like Water. My personal page is social, and kind of fun. Sundogs Designs is the least \active, though from time to time I post a few things on there. Usually unique gems, and listings of things I have just made. Living Like Water is really a spiritual page, meant to complement this blog. But since I don’t link them, meaning I don’t post my blogs on my FB page.

There are other social media platforms like Twitter and Instagram and Snapchat. Twitter I have an account on, which I’ve posted on maybe twice. Same for Instagram. I am sundoggirl5592, but have only posted twice, and those were both for my jewelry. I made a new page recently, in addition to sundoggirl5592, called Good Vibrations Sound Healing. It was murder trying to figure out how to have a new page under my personal account. I think I accomplished it after about 2 hours, but I’m not sure and haven’t had the stamina to check to see if I actually did it.

It’s tiring at this age. I am not fluent in social media, but I do realize it is necessary. Good Vibrations Sound Healing is the page for our sound healing group made up of me, Dan, and my friend Lynn. We actually got a regular “gig” twice a month at a new yoga studio in town, about a block from my house. We are performing there on July 9. I will link all the gigs we get to my personal FB page. I’ll do it to the others if I figure out how, lol. This is a paid gig, we are going to split the take with the studio owner. I’ve been busy making flyers and pass-out pieces for it. If the first one goes well, we will make it a regularly scheduled event, 2^nd and 4^th Tuesday night of every month.

I am pretty social, though not overly so. I came here to Florida with the knowledge and goal of making a new circle of friends to take the space of the circle I left in CT. I am still close with most of the people who were close friends up there. I miss them. Dan and I are going back in September for a wedding. I’m looking forward to it because I know I’ll catch up with a lot of people that I might otherwise not see, friends who will be at the wedding. Dan is such a great guy to go with me. He’s a great guy for a lot of reasons, but the fact that twice he has agreed to go up north with me to hang out for a week or two with people he doesn’t know is amazing.

Social….I have known others who are anti-social. People who protected themselves from others by isolating themselves. Only a few friends, if any. Lying to people who cared about them, thinking they needed protection from even those people, not trusting anyone. It’s so odd, to me. Lying to people who love you, because of some egoic idea that no one really loves you. So of course, it’s a self-fulfilling prophecy, that if you don’t let anyone in, by lying and playing games, and isolating yourself, you find yourself alone, which these people then use as an excuse why they are alone. Because when people lie to you, you tend to back off from them, and stay away, knowing after a while that they bring only ugliness and toxicity to your life.

Yuck.

I guess if you want to be social, that generally you have to be truthful with others, right? At least? I mean, you can try making up stories, telling great yarns, devising elaborate ruses, but eventually the truth will out. It always does. I say truth, at least. Because truth alone will not make you friends. It may make you social, but friendship is gained through trust, through caring, through kindness, through being there. It’s a lot more than just being social. Being able to carry a conversation with someone at a cocktail party over the hor d’oeuvres and a drink is being social, but if you can’t let someone into your truth then social is all you’ll ever be.

Well, I didn’t expect this stream of consciousness to go here, but here we are. I guess the take away is that social media is just social, but if you can begin a real conversation because of social media, who knows, you may make a friend.

Or not. Not everyone will want to be your friend, you won’t want to be everyone’s friend. But at least you won’t be a fake. Or a liar, or a cheat. Or maybe just alone.

Love and light to all.

SoCS is hosted by www.lindaghill.com Please visit her site for all the rules.

I did a little updating on this site. On my about page, I have had the same thing up for 6 years. It was about the past, and the reasons I started this blog. I’d been planning to publish a book about the experience of leaving and then divorcing an abusive, narcissistic, sociopathic and somewhat alcoholic man after 32 years of marriage.

The thing is, life has gone on. I am in a far place from there now. I wrote the book, saved it to a thumb drive and there it will stay. I’m not so keen on publishing it now. New information changes things. It did me a world of good to write it, but I don’t need to add anything to the misery he has and is putting himself through.

The updating I did was to let go of all the pain and misery associated with my marriage of 32 years, and just look forward. I’m still Learning to Live Like Water, every day, in every way I can. So what I posted on my “about” page is Chapter 78 from the Tao Te Ching. And that’s all. I think it describes very well the focus of my blog and my life. I’ll post it here so no one has to go looking for my page.

Tao Te Ching – Chapter 78

The Taoist Classic by Lao Tzu

Nothing in the world is softer and weaker than water.

Yet, to attack the hard and strong,

Nothing surpasses it.

Nothing can take its place.
The weak overcomes the strong.

The soft overcomes the hard.

Everybody in the world knows this,

Still nobody makes use of it.
Therefore the sage says:

To bear the country’s disgrace

Is to rule the shrines of soil and grain.

To bear the country’s misfortunes

Is to be the king of the world.

True words seem false.

Love and light to everyone, even if you don’t think you deserve it. 🙂

This post is part of the Stream of Consciousness (SoCS) prompt which is “silent/silence”.  The SoCS is hosted by https://lindaghill.com/2019/05/31/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-june-1-19/  .

Is silence silent? I’m not sure that it always is. Sometimes, in the silence, there are silent voices that are louder than any audible voice ever. Speaking fron inside your heart, or from the intuitive part of your brain.

Of course, actually listening to the silence is another thing altogether. It often told me what I needed to do at different points in my life, but I was an obstinate contractictor of all the reason and advice the silence gave me. Silently, I would refuse to listen. And found myself in a marriage that lasted way too long, and in a relationship that was way too toxic.

Those things are way behind me now. I began to listen at some point. I listened to the silence tell me to plan to come here to Florida. I listened when I heard the voice in the silence ask me if I really wanted to bring someone into my new life from my old life who had never done anything but hurt me. I listened when I heard that I would never have a normal life, nor would my son, until I fought my way through what was sure to be an epic nasty divorce, and get away from a man who turned out to be truly psychotic.

But really never mind all that. Pay attention to the silence, the silence that I hear when I’m out in the boat with a man I love and who loves me. To the silence in the night as I feel his breath on my neck as we sleep soundly. I listen to the silence that tells me who are the people I want in my life, and tells me to not be unkind, or dispassionate, but to remain true to myself. I listen to the silence, and I’ve learned to go with the flow so much more easily. Really, living like water. The water is silent, most of the time. It silently soothes my soul, and brings me home, and helps me to remember what is important.

So, for me, self-imposed silence is a wonderful thing, but really, I hear an awful lot in the silence. It has served me well to learn to listen to the voice of the silence, speaking to me silently. It also helps me to actually listen to others when they talk, something I have not always been good at, and maybe I’m still not good at it, but I’m better that I was before I was able to sit in the silence and listen.

I think it was Eckart Tolle who said something like the more you sit in stillness (which is close to the same as silence) the more you will hear. Well, my ears ring almost all the time, but I still can sit in stillness, and silence, and hear what I need to hear.

And so can you, learn to sti in the stillness, in the silent, and hear the voices silently speaking to you.

Love and light to everyone.

Here are the rules if you’d like to participate in SoCS:

1. Your post must be stream of consciousness writing, meaning no editing (typos can be fixed), and minimal planning on what you’re going to write.

2. Your post can be as long or as short as you want it to be. One sentence – one thousand words. Fact, fiction, poetry – it doesn’t matter. Just let the words carry you along until you’re ready to stop.

3. I will post the prompt here on my blog every Friday, along with a reminder for you to join in. The prompt will be one random thing, but it will not be a subject. For instance, I will not say “Write about dogs”; the prompt will be more like, “Make your first sentence a question,” “Begin with the word ‘The,’” or will simply be a single word to get you started.

4. Ping back! It’s important, so that I and other people can come and read your post! For example, in your post you can write “This post is part of SoCS:” and then copy and paste the URL found in your address bar at the top of this post into yours.  Your link will show up in my comments for everyone to see. The most recent pingbacks will be found at the top. NOTE: Pingbacks only work from WordPress sites. If you’re self-hosted or are participating from another host, such as Blogger, please leave a link to your post in the comments below.

5. Read at least one other person’s blog who has linked back their post. Even better, read all of them! If you’re the first person to link back, you can check back later or go to the previous week by following my category, “Stream of Consciousness Saturday,” which you’ll find below the “Like” button on my post.

6. Copy and paste the rules (if you’d like to) in your post. The more people who join in, the more new bloggers you’ll meet and the bigger your community will get!

7. As a suggestion, tag your post “SoCS” and/or “#SoCS” for more exposure and more views.

8. Have fun!