News

Monday, frantic as always. Our daughter said it best, as she was dragged out of bed, “Can’t Monday be part of the weekend.” We all seem tired, and abused from the allergenes in the autumn air. Tour is less than two weeks away, alright closer, but I can’t think about it too much, or I tend to panic. The deadline for A STROKE OF MIDNIGHT looms ever closer, and I feel like I’m in one of those nightmares where you run and run and get nowhere. Illusion, but that’s how it feels. More and more interviews for INCUBUS DREAMS. We’ve got the first television spot, on schedule. Which means I’ve got to practice the make up for it. Never trust to a local show that they will have make-up and a competent artist on hand. They tend to only cary base for the host’s skin tone, which means I usually end up looking orange. So I’ve learned to do my own. But there is a definite art to make up that covers enough for television, but doesn’t look like clown make up on the street. A very fine art. My admiration goes up and up for the make up artist. Much, much harder than it looks.
Just listing it all makes me tense, and frantic. I did not have time to go to my altar and meditate. I did not have time to pray. But that old saying is true, when you are busiest, most frantic, that is when you need most to take a moment and find your center. Find a quiet place inside your own mind where you can listen to that still, calm voice. I took twenty minutes out of my busy day. I lit some candles, some incense, and spent the first five minutes telling myself and deity that I didn’t have time for this today. I actually ate my cereal while I was trying to calm down. Then somewhere in all that frantic arguing with myself. I calmed. I took a deep breath and let it out. I tried to accept that all this is happening, and it’s okay. Meditation and prayer aren’t about changing what’s happening, not always, sometimes it’s more about changing my attitude towards what’s happening. So often in life, you can’t control the events around you, and that always makes me anxious. Even if the events are good ones, I don’t like being this in the hands of others. I never have. But good, or bad, sometimes you can’t change what’s happening. But you can always change how you deal with what’s happening.
I took twenty minutes out of my day, to remind myself I’m okay, and that the frantic stuff isn’t really the point. I meditate before I pray because I need to quiet my mind before I can listen to what’s being said. Like turning down the white noise. Right this moment, I’m calmer than I’ve been in days. I’ve meditated, I’ve prayed in that time, but I did it hurriedly, begrudgingly, as if talking to deity is a duty, and just one more thing on my already over loaded to-do list. Today, I didn’t rush through, like a hurried prayer said by memory that no longer truly has meaning. Today, I took twenty minutes, to truly be in sacred space. To remind myself that it’s all sacred space. That deity is always with us, even when we can’t hear their voice, or feel their touch on our hand. The voice is still there soft, and clear. The touch is still there, waiting to catch us, or hold us, if we allow it.