Tag Archives: Bryan Guy Hanavan

Going Out To Share Gravy.

Posted on January 23, 2011 | 13 Comments

            I have less than 44 minutes to accomplish something that usually takes me almost three hours.  We got home late.  In order to qualify for this post being on “today” it must be up by midnight.  I may sound a wee bit rushed and this is going to be painfully brief.   Haven’t even had a chance to read comments or release anyone from moderation.  Damn, I really don’t like working under pressure like this.

          It’s not that I have so much to “write” -obviously many nights I do.  But mostly it’s the OCD factor and the dyslexic qualities of my brain that make more work for me.   The number of times I preview and then correct things is staggering.  I can type really fast, but not always really accurately.  I leave entire words out of sentences.  The WordPress spell checker is often confused by my selections and arrangements, causing me to go out and find the corrections.  Manually!  I simply need more than a handful of minutes to put up a legible, and mostly, cohesive post.  I’ll do my best, under these constraints.  And I apologize for the brevity of today’s offering.  If you see something off, discreetly let me know.  I appreciate your patience and understanding.

             We had dinner with my brother tonight.  It was just the three of us and it was highly entertaining.  We’ve had our ups and downs, my brother and I, but in the past few years, since our numbers were diminished, we’ve gotten much closer.  I treasure these moments.  He’s a really fun, and fabulously loving person.  I didn’t realize, until after our baby sister was gone, how very much I had missed him.

         There was a lot more laughing than this shot implies.  See?

            For Solstice our dad gave me a can of sausage gravy.  A really huge can.  If left to my own devices I’d eat the entire thing.  With a spoon.  Even I know that is not quite right.  Also, I can’t make biscuits.  Bryan has a functioning oven, so we made a plan last month.  Tonight it all came together.  Very, very enjoyable.  We talked about our kids and our lives.  We spent time together.  Which, to us, is the most valuable and worthwhile commodity.

             I turned our card over when I first got up, and haven’t looked at it until just now.  Lol, how lovely that the Universe is still tuning in to our own private radio.

“Prioritize  ~  Archangel Metatron: Focus on your highest priorities.  I will help you get organized and motivated.

What is your calling?  What makes your heart sing?  When you focus on these areas, your joyful energy increases, which benefits everyone.  Take charge of your schedule, and spend more time on projects and activities close to your heart.  Make choices that honor your priorities and support your life mission.

Make your loved ones a priority in your life as well.  Do not neglect those closest to you when you look at where your time is spent.”

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Under Construction.

Posted on October 24, 2010 | 16 Comments

   As you may have noticed…EVERYTHING IS DIFFERENT!  Yes, I am yelling.  You know how I feel about change!  Han and I sat down today before she had to jump onto the freeway and head North.  We got a new look out of it, but we needed some more time to finish up.  I was tasked with the “finish up” part.  It’s not going well.  And I am starting to panic.  Be patient JulieLanders, and all will (eventually) be well.  Right now there are duplicates, odd blank spaces, and links/tabs to NoWhere.  She’ll be back in her own domicile tonight, so maybe she can fix some of my mistakes.  Gawd I hope so.  (Sorry Hanny, if I really messed up bad this time.)  I thank you all, in advance, while I stumble through this process.

    As far as the party updates go, Daniel had a fabulous time.  Much love and laughter, many friends and family, some cake and cupcakes as well, tons of wonderful food, and even with the rain, it was quite successful.      We will have more photos (ones with actual people in them) here soon.

   Excuse me while I make a personal statement.  I just want my brother to know how much I love and adore him, how much I appreciate him coming by last night, and how much I value him…. every single day.  Teresa, you too.  See you in a few days.  Thank you for being here, and thank you for being the sister I need right now.

   Here is our card today.  It’s from Colette’s Wisdom of the Hidden Realm Deck, and I’ll just let you look at it, and see what it has to say for itself.   I can really use some help right now, an overload of emotion and just that overwhelmingness of feelings that sometimes we simply don’t know what to do with or how to manage.   “The Spirit Whisperer  ~ Divine guidance, higher knowing  ~

As an Ally, she comes to you heralding the miraculous and the inspired.  She whispers guidance from the Divine through your higher senses so that you can hear her wisdom and know her love for you.  She is committed to helping you intuit the next right action and steers you away from trouble.  The Spirit Whisperer keeps you inspired to move forward, always knowing -just in time- the correct next step.  She guides you to fulfill your highest purpose.  When she appears, it is a sign of inspired ideas that, with continual action, lead to success.  That is a very good omen!

   If you are currently dealing with relationship questions, she speaks of soul connections, past lives, and great learning through mutual mirroring.  She will whisper how long, how short, how deep, and how sweet, the relationship can be.  There were soul bargains made even before you both were born, and an exploration is in order.  You may move forward, but keep listening to The Spirit Whisperer for the lessons that the vulnerability of love brings.

   Keep her as one of your guides when you feel yourself going astray.  She will direct you back onto your path every time.”

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The Speed of Time, Some Sunday Random-osity, and Passage.

Posted on October 3, 2010 | 17 Comments

  Yesterday I was on the phone with my mother (there’s 58 minutes of my life I’ll never get back*), and we were talking about aging.  I reminded her of a moment in my childhood when I was complaining about how long it took for the damn weekend to arrive (I was possibly around 9 years old at the time).  Her response that day was, “just wait until you are old like me (which would have made her about 29 at the time), the days will just fly by and you’ll wonder where the hell they all went.”  The reason we were having this conversation was because we were scheduling a day for us to all gather around the new laptop (she and my father are more techno-challenged than I am, like seriously, I’m not kidding, the term Luddite was invented for them).  They don’t have any kind of internet access out where they live, and they don’t actually get out much either.  I thought it would be fun to meet them at a nice cafe, buy them an over-priced coffee beverage and perhaps a scone or lovely pastry, then pop up this blog and their grandchildren’s websites, blogs, and assorted FaceBook pages, ya know, just so they could see what all the damn excitement was about.

   We were looking at our October calendars, when we both went, “OCTOBER?!  How the hell** did THAT happen?!”  This is one of mine.  As Kristin and I have discussed previously in the comments section, some of us are overly calendar-ed.  (Mostly it’s folks of the Virgo persuasion.)   Here’s another one.  This is just a wee sampling of what one can find around the Hovel. 

*My little brother gets credit for that line.  He ran into an old friend one day, visited for about 30 seconds and then whined about the nearly hour of his life he lost while chatting with the guy.  Funny boy my brother.

**Why yes, I do get my potty mouth from both of my parents, and yes, we all really do talk like that.

I haven’t had many foreign plates to report lately because I haven’t seen hardly any this week.  Only three, and that was over four or five days: Indiana, Texas, and Wisconsin.

There have been quite a few new blogs in my life lately (you know who you are) and many are doing book reviews.  (Apologies for those of you I have not included on the Important Things listing, but it’s all top-heavy right now, and until my Hurricane can do some re-arranging, we’ll just have to make sure everyone clicks on everyone else’s names in the comments, so no one gets left out.)  I find this a lovely new addition to my life, books are my heroin, well, many things are my heroin, but really, books are way up there.  Becky posted the other day that she’d like to set-up a spot to focus exclusively on books.  While I would love to help, that is not one of my special skills.  I can read (like a book in a day), and I can retain pretty much everything I’ve read for an eternity, but I cannot review to save my life.  (An aside here, for those of you who have not found Lani Diane Rich’s work, go now and get it.  I just finished The Fortune Quilt, and it was outstanding.)  So, if any of you bibliophiles would like to offer some advice, go tell her.  Also, be sure you are all clicking around on all my pals, and giving insightful assvice*** or meaningful tips and hints.

***This is a new word that has come about in my blog-hopping, and I adore it.  Much like how I invented the word “erranding” a few months back, some of us have adopted this new term.  Its meaning is very similar to “advice” only with a hint of “you didn’t actually ask me what I thought, but here’s my two cents anywho.”

 

Funny how our cards seem to be playing along recently.  Today we are back to The Celtic Shaman’s Pack, and this one falls under the category of what the author’s call The Empowerers, who…”represent archetypal figures from Celtic tradition who each in his or her own way is one who helps in the passage from the world of human manifestation to the inner realms and who empower those who would travel there.”

  “The Ferryman  ~ Barinthus  ~  Passage

    A lake of still water on which floats a barge poled by a man whose back is towards us.  In the centre two strange sea beasts float, watching over the figure of a man riding on the back of a leaping dolphin.

    The Ferryman is a guide and guardian of the threshold between worlds.  Here he is shown in two aspects: riding the back of a dolphin and poling a barge.  In both he is guiding the voyager across the water to the otherworld.  Because he seldom speaks but watches and holds the keys to many powerful experiences.  As an Empowerer he brings the strength of watchfulness and knowledge of the inner worlds to the journeyer.  He is also psychopomp who leads the dead from the world of form to the true ‘land of the living’ and as such may help you to journey to the place of the ancestors.

  Journey:  Travel to one of the places which border on the worlds of earth and water, a sea-shore or the margin of a lake.  There see waiting for you a cloaked and silent figure leaning on a pole.  He indicates that you should step aboard a flatbottom boat and begins to pole you away from the shore.  A mist rises from the water.  Beyond is the Otherworld and the place of the ancestors.  Choose with intention or allow Barinthus to take you to the place you need to voyage.”

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Life and Death, also… My Brother.

Posted on August 2, 2010 | 9 Comments

    Before we get back to the tattoo tales, I have to pause here a moment and wish my little brother a Happy Birthday.  You saw his picture back when I posted about the festivities for Dad.  Bryan doesn’t read my blog, but sometimes his wife (my sainted sister-in-law Teresa) does.  Either way,  let’s celebrate him turning 47.  He was born on what is called a cross quarter holiday, in the pagan calendar (as opposed to Equinoxes or Solstices).  I kind of struggled with this one because I could never find a clear documentation of the exact name, or date.  It’s either the first, or the second, of August.  And it’s either called Lamas, or Lughnasahd.  It is known as the First Harvest, the Bread Harvest, and the Festival of First Fruits.  I just read something the other day that finally made sense to me.  It is perfectly acceptable to celebrate both, or either, and it doesn’t have an exact day (none of them do, they fall on days because of where the full moon is, just like Easter, yep even though that one was taken over by the church, it is still decided by moon phases).  I sent my brother a card, and I hope his day was festive.  And filled with bread.  Or fruit.   Now, back to me.

    Cast your minds back, to the post I wrote about snakes in my life.  We rescued a pair of Columbian Red Tail Boas, saving only one of the sisters (she had a good couple of months with us though).  The loss of a pet is always so difficult, but this one was painful for me because she had struggled so valiantly, and had been abused so tragically.  The Wheel of The Year was turning once more, it felt like the time to mark myself again.  I wanted to honor all the snakes that had been a part of my journey, and to acknowledge my connection to them in general.  One of the things Wulff does amazingly well is drawing complicated designs and several types of knot work.  We collaborated for this idea.  On Winter Solstice I plopped down into that antique, purple upholstered, barber chair of his, and we created an emblem of Earth’s renewal.  The seasons die and are re-born every year.  Native traditions echo this statement with the representation of snakes shedding their skin.  What they leave behind can sometimes appear as though a serpent has been through death, but emerged alive again.  (If you have ever seen this process it is very much like watching a birth.  Unless you have a young, or “special” snake, then you often have to help, yes we have had both.)

Had to take this picture myself.
I never get to see this side, and I really like it.
It took another session to fill in the color.

    At about this same time Daniel got his first (and as of yet, only) tattoo.  His is for dogs, not snakes.

Tomorrow: first kid third fire.

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Our 36th Card, I Decided, Plus Family Photos.

Posted on July 17, 2010 | 8 Comments

    I have decided that we need to remove Washington (sorry Kristin) and California (sorry relatives and in-laws) from the “foreign license plate” rotation.  They just are not foreign enough to count any longer.  Saw two from South Dakota, next to each other, but since it was in a hotel parking lot, I’m going out on a limb here and saying they were together.  Also, one Alaska and one Arizona (but I am not convinced this wasn’t an Arizona that I had observed on another occasion, so maybe it won’t count at all, and not just because I don’t love Arizona).

    The birthday festivities went quite well (my daughter was tardy, but not as tardy as my son).   My brother “represented” (as he put it) by showing up with one of his kids, plus a bonus.  Fun food, as usual for this place (only J.D. tried the fried frog legs, and Bryan recommended that everyone should sample “el gato” even though it was really chicken on a stick).

Me, Dad, Nikki, Crystal. And who is that in the corner?

  We gave Dad a new blue t-shirt, because ya know, everybody can use more of those.  And some books he had asked for.

Me and my brother Bryan. Oh look there’s that damn kid again. (My son now feels he is perhaps Where’s Waldo?)

 

  The Spirit Whisperer ~ 3 ~ divine guidance, higher knowledge.

(An aside here kids, this card fell out as I was opening the box, and it went horizontal, not direct, and not reversed.  I will give some info about both Ally and Challenger.)    (This happens sometimes.)

     As an Ally, she comes to us heralding the miraculous and inspired.  Infusing us through our higher senses so that we can hear her wisdom, helping us to intuit the next right action.  As a Challenger she is our early warning system, be aware of going astray.  Listen to her quiet tones and heed our inner directives.

    At first this illustration appears to be under water, the colors are so rich, as if the figures were deep below the surface.  But there is an owl near the top left corner, with trees opposite, and a small butterfly or moth midway down.  The central character is viewed from the side, her profile  is regal and she has streaks of light on her face in decorative patters.  Also brilliant waves of white on her arm and along her back, giving the look of raw energy.  Her hand is near her mouth, with bubbles rising up and floating away.

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