Much better!

[sabrinamari]

Woke up with a clearer head and heart. It's useful to encounter small road blocks: they force you to look at what's in your way and climb over them.

Many things this weekend functioned like useful roadblocks for me: the household grumpiness motivated me to make a clean sweep of my space, and now I feel grounded in order instead of chaos. I made some long-overdue phone calls, even though I felt overwhelmed by them, and they all turned out OK. I thought through an unexpected communication issue and feel more centered as a result. I also updated my paper calendar in preparation for slowly transferring to an electronic one. Been dreading that forever, but the end result is excellent. And bullet points are back. Gods, what would I do without the capacity to make lists? Even the parental stuff earlier in the week was useful. Now I know what I need to do to stay on track with my family. And in 10 minutes, I'm off to the gym. Finally!

Obstacles are useful. They force me to push forward.

****

Sweet sweet sweet: I also missed my mastermind call on Sunday, which forced me to sit down and hone in on my current goals this morning. This reminded me that I've made no progress on calling John, my future coach, into my schedule. Deciding to change that probably assisted me there, too. First thing I did when I walked into the gym was to march up to John and tell him what I'm planning to do. I'll start training with him sometime in the next eight weeks, hopefully sooner rather than later

I've always been suspicious of the common Wiccan wine and cakes saying: "May you never hunger...May you never thirst."

And today, it's clear to me why that is. If you are never hungry---literally or metaphorically---you'll never be forced to reach for what you want. If you're never thirsty, you'll never feel gratitude for the sweet balm of water.

So I think a better blessing would be something like this: "May your hunger lead you to real sustenance; may your thirst gift you with gratitude for what you receive".

Yep. Good.

Comments

[sleepymaggie.livejournal.com]

I've dislike "may you never hunger" for just this reason -- I would prefer, "may you hunger enough."

[akrissy.livejournal.com]

ohhh, i like your phrasing!

[sabrinamari.livejournal.com]

Nice!

[badseed1980.livejournal.com]

I've never really used the "May you never hunger/ may you never thirst" thing unless it was part of a ritual someone else was doing. It just never really did anything for me. When dealing with food and drink in a ritual context, I tend to be more conscious of the relationship between food and eater--the idea that some life, whether plant or animal, must be sacrificed so that other life can be sustained. When I do the food blessing at feast, I usually say something about that.

With wine and cakes in circle, we just pass them with "blessed be." Nothing fancy.

[rio-luna.livejournal.com]

Paul alwasy said, Dont go round hungry.

[sabrinamari.livejournal.com]

I love your homey verbal ways!

[onyxtwilight.livejournal.com]

How about "may you never starve"? Which is, I think, the intention. May you always have enough, even if you have to reach to get it. As opposed to needing it, reaching for it, and NOT getting it. (I'm not actually suggesting the above, merely clarifying my intention when I say "never hunger" -- which I don't, always. I don't care what we say right there, the important magic is in the cakes, not in the words. We could say "om nom nom," for all I care. :-)

In fact, I think I'll start saying that. >:-)

[sabrinamari.livejournal.com]

Baby, you say what you want to say. It's the intention that counts most, and you know what you mean. It matters to me because I mean something else, and I always like to say what I mean, if I can figure out what I mean.

Do what you want!

Also, "Om nom nom" is silly, so of course I like it.

[spiffnolee.livejournal.com]

Rewatching Star Trek with Will, and many of the original episodes are about evicting people from paradise because they have no challenges. But I wish for happiness, abundance, and ease for the people I love!

What I really want is for them to operate higher on Maslow's Hierarchy. It could be, "May you always self-actualize" but there's little poetry there.

In our rituals, we answered "May you never hunger/thirst" with "Thou art God/Goddess." It's a recognition of the divinity of the offeror, and an affirmation.

[akrissy.livejournal.com]

A circle I worked with used the "may you never..." phrase though for some folks it seemed to serve more as the prompt for "thou are god/goddess" reply. Important enough that speaking the reply words meant more than the prompt of "may you..." and was included in a pre-ritual brief.

I like the blessing act of looking at another person and acknowledging the gods in each of us. Without starvation of stomach or spirit.

[sligoe.livejournal.com]

So what do we really mean there? May you have enough so that you have the strength to reach for your challenges? May you hunger for life, thirst for love, and find them in each other? (Then the response "Thou are god/goddess would REALLY hit home. Talk about finding the god/goddess in every person!)

I've never much cared for the "may you never hunger/thirst thing myself, and I never really knew why. Something to think about...I like hanging out with you guys---gives me stretching exercise!