cliodhna’s wave

Paul has just quit smoking after 36 years. his body has gone into shock, I think, as everything the cigarettes were holding down is free and back with a vengeance. He can’t breathe properly and his throat hurts. He says its more than just quitting, he has quit before and this hasn’t happened but I think that maybe he only quit before because he had to and not out of choice and this time his whole mind/spirit/body is involved because it is from a choice to make his life better and more healthy. it is time to purge, the body cries with relief, lets get rid of all of it! i feel for him and I sent him some reiki to loosen some of the stuff.

I remember trying to quit for years, having just the ‘one’ and making myself feel bad about it and then starting again and saying ’some other time’ until I woke up one morning about two years ago and said ‘I’m not going to smoke today’ and I didn’t and haven’t since. A few pangs and my digestive system didn’t work right for a few days but that was that.

The thing is though, I had dealt with the reasons why I was smoking in the first place, my underlying emotional need for a crutch and the fear of facing a future without that crutch. I was staring into an abyss of nothing, an empty landscape where I was lost and forlorn and had no-one to help me. Cigarettes, I reckon, are the sneakiest of the addictive substances, they whisper in your ear and cajole you with thoughts of ‘just the one’ or ‘just a drag’ or they are like the vampire energy sucking ‘friend’ who always wants from you but never gives and uses emotional blackmail and guilt to keep you there.

Paul is also now starting to understand what I was talking about with the smell. Even when I smoked, (and I smoked roll your owns, which didn’t smell the same as ready mades,) I hated the smell of a used ashtray, or the acrid smell of a cigarette burning down on its own. Now that I have quit, I can smell cigarettes off people when they step onto a bus I am sitting in already, or when they smoked, recently or a while ago. I had to get used to it and accept it when I quit. careful not to go the route of the reformed evangelist espousing the cause of the newly converted. Paul has to travel today 8 hours to the mine with his son, who smokes like a chimney, so he will find out exactly what its like!

I still have the occaisional ‘just one’ thoughts, like the other night a friend was smoking the brand of rollies I used to like and I had a moment of wanting and thinking I could just have one, but it passed. I am so glad I don’t anymore, I hated being addicted and depending on them, now I feel so much freer and stronger.

… is a very old art that I have great difficulty in coming to terms with in the moment yet when I look back on situations I realise they happened at the perfect time and I couldn’t have made it any more perfect. This applies to little things like catching a train or going for coffee and to big things like when to travel to mexico.

Yesterday wandering around dublin doing posters I am waiting for my friend to come and collect me to go to her house. I think she must be getting close, I move towards the curbside and who do I see cycling towards me but a college friend I completely lost touch with. I smile at her and she sees me and her faces changes to puzzlement for a second and then she smiles and she stops the bike beside me.

Or I wanted to go to galway today to do posters and then the woman who was going to give me a lift out to a hotel calls and says she can’t so I rethink my plans maybe leaving galway open maybe waiting till friday and I ring a friend to say hi and it turns out her dad had died on sunday so I am going home instead to go to the funeral. If I had gone to galway I wouldn’t have rung her, but it turns out I am exactly where I need to be.

I get worried about not doing enough or in time and life constantly shows me that things happen exactly when they are supposed to happen and the more time I spend struggling against it then the longer I will suffer. The fear comes in when my mind thinks it wants certain things and thinks that if I stop working towards those things then I won’t get them and instead of seeing a future filled with other wonderful possibilities and happenings and achievements it just sees a future of minus the things it thinks it wants. A future of lack.

kind of like the state of the economy in ireland at the moment… everyone is seeing a future of lack and poverty…

also, the posters I am putting up refer to these workshops. I will write some more about them in a bit but here is the link to check them out right now Toltec Self Mastery Workshops and if you want an email with more info on prices and locations email me and I will send it to you

I looked in the mirror yesterday and what did I see? I saw lines!! On my face and on my neck. Eek! Age check. I guess I was indulging the well known phenomenon called ‘the arrogance of youth’ without even knowing it. It will never happen to me, I think smugly, I am not going to get old, and then even if the remote possibility arrives that I look a bit old I will never do those silly things women do to keep age at bay like expensive creams and plastic surgery.

Now its safe bet that I will never get plastic surgery for cosmetic reasons but I actually found myself wondering about a cream I saw on telly. Does it really work I wondered before I saw sense and laughed at myself for even going there. The thing is though in society women are supposed to stay young. Look at the pressure on Hollywood actresses once they pass thirty and enter into that indefinable space known as ‘old’ and then look at aging male actors still getting parts wooing 25 year olds and we are supposed to believe it? I had a problem with Woody Allen after a while as he got smaller and more wrinkly and more grandfather like and he was still writing parts for himself which involved young women falling in love with him and I saw the old Sabrina a few days ago where a very middle-aged Humphrey Bogart falls in love and is fallen in love by a barely past her teens Audrey Hepburn. I enjoyed the film, the old sets, the acting, the story but I just didn’t believe the love paring.

I guess it annoys me because I still invest in it personally. Because I am a woman and I don’t want to get forgotten or passed over when I am old. I judge women who get plastic surgery to stay young looking but there is a part of me that understands it also. It’s a battle that we have constructed for ourselves. In the search for eternal physical youth we maintain the myth and the struggle, we buy into the myth and if we still buy into it and uphold it when are the men going to reject it? We have to reject it first.

There are plenty of women who have rejected it and I admire them and I hope I can too. I am sure as I get older I will have all the fears of growing old and facing death and losing time and so I guess I can just deal with them as they arrive. No point in worrying about who I am going to be when I am 50. I can’t compare with any other 50 year olds I know because I don’t know who I will be when I am fifty. Right know I can deal with looking a little bit older than I did last year.

i went to see the new jim carrey film ‘Yes man’ and its actually really funny, you have to say yes to everything regardless of what it is. of course he gets it wrong and thinks he literally has to say yes to EVERYTHING but sure that’s comedy.

The lesson learns is he has a choice and he has to decide whether he really wants to do it or not. He has to ask his heart if he really wants to do this. He was living in no and changing to yes changed his life and it is true that what we put out into the world is what we attract back to ourselves.

I was thinking of all the times I said yes to things and no to things. I remember saying yes to joining a country band and then putting the phone down and realising I had a week to learn how to play country music or the time I had an opportunity to go play music in a bar in Thailand or someplace close. I turned it down because I was saving to go to spain and I knew I didn’t really want to sit in an irish bar playing tourist irish music for six months no matter how beautiful the location. That was the time of the tidal wave, I missed it cause I didn’t go. It had been hard to turn down too.

I thought about other opportunities which seemed a sure bet and I turned down and wondered had I done the right thing. I generally find out later that if I followed my inner instinct then everything worked out fine and of course there are times when I realise I was saying no from fear. I am pretty good about saying yes though. If I reckon the only reason I want to say no is fear then I push myself a little about it and say yes.

I remember a job offer which freaked me out because it meant a commitment of a whole year! I said yes to that.

I think though the bigger yes’s actually come in smaller packages. Am I ready to live right now? how do I want to live my life? do I want to be open to the people around me? make friends? right now this person is annoying me do I want to keep judging him/her or do I want to see past my stuff/their stuff and see them as they really are and love them regardless? Do I want to be open to Paul right now and tell him what is in my heart or stay closed. Do I want to stop and just look around and see where I am or stay lost in television and work or whatever my adiction is? Yes to life or no to life? That is the question and it comes every second of the day every day of our life. The choice… follow my heart or follow my head… it is the only thing which is truly ours… our ability to choose.

I have created a new store at cafepress.com. It can be found here at www.cafepress.com/cliodhnaquinlan

They do all the printing and shipping and packaging and I don’t have to worry about any of it. Very Cool. That was the problem with Etsy, just so hard for me to get to a post office and forget about decent packaging supplies and then even finding a good printer to print high quality copies of my work. Now its all done for me! hooray! I can also order promo from them at wholesale prices.

I have a section specifically for clocks with words instead of numbers. I use the image to inspire the words and I love doing them. If you have any ideas or might want a specific image with your own words let me know!

I am getting some publicity together but finally the shop has some sections and blurb and looks like how I want it. I am sure I will tweak here and there over the next few months but I am getting very close.

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I missed one world one heart!!! I had this post written with this magnet below to give away and went to the site to get the link and low and behold the entries were closed because so many people had signed up.

Here is the link if you would like to go check it out and see the list of people taking part. You can leave comments on the posts to be entered for the draw on each blog. Its fun.

xx clio

….is a very special friend

well, ok, its not actually animate and it doesn’t say anthing and it doesn’t actually do very much but after three years of lookig for hot water bottles in this country I went and bought my first electric blanket yesterday. I plugged it in, low, and preheat and then a few minutes later got into bed and oh what bliss and luxury!! this morning I woke up still cozy snuggly and actually quite reluctant to get out of the cocoon of warmth.

You see generally I have beside the furnace that is better known as ‘Paul’ but he isn’t here at the mo and It is cold here at night and my poor feet take an age to warm up.I will be taking it back up to the mine with me too. Paul gets so hot he throws all the blankets off and I am left shivering with breezes making their way on through the gaps.

But now I have my shield of protection,my layer of heat, my upgraded next level of the technological scale from the hot water bottle/bed pan… the electric blanket…

all hail!……

…uFor a place surrounded by trees, in a warm place but not too hot. It gets cool in the evening and dusk and dawn are the best times to be out doors. There is a spring there gushing clean clear water from deep in the rocks and a well full of life and greenness where the frogs come to play and raise young and goldfish swim in lazy circles in the cool water. A fig tree overshadows the pool and is a beautiful shaded spot to sit during the heat of the day and my dog spends most of his day crashed out in the shade watched by my cat from the branch above.
The land surrounding is large full of huge old trees and I let it go to wild. Grow however it wishes with paths winding their way through the trees and art work hidden here and there. A carving of a face hanging from a tree, a sculpture made from old tractor parts being overgrown by trailing plants and a tiny seat and a house for elves under a tree somewhere. Nobody else wanted this land because it was ‘useless’, because no crop plants would grow there or it was too steep or for whatever reason but it was waiting for me to come and live there and there is magic in this place and power and I nurture it with benign neglect. I plant trees like fig and orange and pecan and avocado and passion fruit and lychee and mandarin.
Attached to my kitchen is a greenhouse for the birds to live. Canaries fly free in the high domed space of the greenhouse and the stream from the spring winds its way through the floor and out the other side. The house is old and comfortable and there was love in the building of it. Little nooks and crannies await precious things to fill them, a stone, a light, a candle, an ornament, a found thing from the garden. I have a space in which to make my art, maybe off the greenhouse so the birds are free to fly in and out. The bathroom is huge and has a huge bath in which to soak and a steamroom.
A little ways away on the land is the circular workshop space. The centre is roofless and has a small pool fed by a diverted arm of the spring and around the edge of the circle are spaces for beds and hammocks screened by netting for privacy and protection from the insects. One section of the circumference is a room for yoga and meditation and has an old stove for warmth during the cold season and in the evenings. The smell of warm wood smoke and incense permeates this room and it welcomes all who enter. The walls are white and the floor is wood with cushions and rugs on the floor. Connected by a round passageway to the entrance to the circle is the kitchen with an oven and a huge wooden table in the centre. The floor is stone and the walls are curved and soft. A herb garden is just outside the kitchen door with chives and parsley and oregano and basil and rosemary and dill.
Coyotes wander through the land and deer and Tlacuaches and all insects and animals are welcome. There is protection on the land which protects all who live there from harm and a peace which works it way in on the spirit of all who come and visit, staying with them when they leave to go back to their lives again. The sea is close, a quick drive away down the mountain to get to a beautiful beach where I snorkel and swim and relax in the waves.
I think that just about covers it!
I wish for the above and I call it into my life and I ask for the support of the universe to manifest this into reality. I thank you and I am open to receive all good in my life. X Cliodhna

So I did something yesterday for the first time in my life. I bought stocks on the stock market! I was quite excited by it, it made me feel grown-up and important and a getting my life together feeling. I am now an investor, I told myself, I own stocks. Two phrases which when I heard them when I was younger had a mysterious magical feeling to them, they belonged to a far away grown up world of money and business and running around talking on phones and mysteriously making money doing nothing really. The stock market is a bit like that, it’s pure abstract energy, money in its most purest form, nothing, a concept of trade and exchange and by buying stocks and selling them I am playing with this energy.

I am coming to see the more sinister side of it also though, because it is so abstract we forget we are playing with people’s lives and businesses and some of the stuff I have read while I was researching how to do all this and what stocks to buy and all that reflect this attitude. Make money from the recession!!! While everyone else is in dire poverty you can make $$$$$$$ I can actually see how maybe a group of people with lots and lots of money could play with the market and push it this way and that. Of course I can also see how the reason they could do that is because the market place as a whole lives in fear and will respond with panic at the sign of imminent losses, get out quick before everyone else does.

Also made me think about my own ethics; what companies did I want to give my money (and support) to? How did I want to make my money? I have never thought about this before except in the most vaguest and idealistic form. If I could make ten thousand dollars tomorrow but it meant endorsing a company I didn’t like and didn’t agree with would I do it?

Its like the eternal dilemma every hero faces in his/her quest for the golden grail/ princess/kingdom. Or the old fairy stories where there is three sons head out to fulfill a quest. The mother always asks them before they leave “Do you want the whole loaf and no blessing or half the loaf and my blessing?”

The first and second sons say the whole loaf of course, it’s a long journey, we will need the food but then they come to a test of character and fail. The third son says half the loaf and your blessing and then he meets a hungry person along the way and gives the bread to him and receives valuable advice as how to pass the test.

The first two sons do not trust the journey, they don’t realize they will be looked after and they guard their possessions from fear. The third son is the fool, the eternal hopeful, the trusting one who lives from an open heart and is taken care of, who ends up getting the princess, the kingdom and rescuing his two older brothers along the way.

I thought there for a second as to which I would say or do and it just occurred to me that none of the three ask their mother could they have both. The whole loaf and the blessing, we can have it all if we ask for it. So I ask for the whole loaf please and the blessing that I deserve it and I would like to make some money so I can create my space in life. I will stay away from the companies I don’t like and trust the journey.

How do I want my space? Tune in next chapter in this ongoing saga of life!! X

so, finally I have uploaded, resized, put on Flickr and ready to post, pictures from my helicopter ride in Montana.

Paul’s daughter Rachel is learning to be a helicopter pilot which I think is a totally super cool thing to be learning. She loves it and she took us up on one of her training flights when we were there. It wasn’t scary at all, its like a little sports car inside and very comfortable if a bit cramped. That’s me in my new North face coat which is like wearing a large fluffy warm cloud. I love it, I hardly took it off the whole time I was there.

Anyway… here are the photos. Missoula and Bitterroot from the air.

a stream, really black against the snow.

can you find the deer? there are four of them just about dead centre

cows feeding have left patterns against the white

missoula at night when we were returning to the airport

the panel of the helicopter

there is a cat trapped in my swimming pool (which is empty, by the way) and I listened to it yowl all night long thinking it was a neighbours cat pissed at being left outside for the night. This morning though I get up to go look. A cat usually doesn’t care whether its been left out and sure enough there it was, the invisible cat I have been leaving food out for the past week or so.

I get down into the swimming pool thinking I could catch it and make a pet of it, it is only a kitten. But no, this cat is wild, and by wild I mean a hissing spitting ball of teeth and claws looking at me furiously. I might be 30 times its size but its not going to go without a fight.

I haven’t caught wild things in a while. I used to be an expert at it when I was younger, but recently I haven’t scaled my walls or hung upside down off trees in hunt of a stray kitten that needed catching ( I even remember falling into a wasps nest once and couldn’t see out of one eye for a week, but i caught it!). I round up the kitten saying reasuring things and making mommy cat noises with my shawl held out to throw it over it. I miss the first time and then the second time there is an intense flurry and I have kitten pinned down on the ground safely. You have to be firm but not too strong and the end result must look like your hand on the back of its neck… this is important. So then I make the mistake of being too… whats the word? to try to make friends with something too soon, or kinda hippy thoughts of poor little kitty witty, anyway I tried to scratch behind its ear to calm it and I know have a hole in my thumb. It actually managed to bite through the nail, I am sure its teeth met in the middle somewhere.

Reality check. Wild thing, give it some food and space and hang a blanket down over the swimming pool, it will figure it out and it will probably go back to being the invisible cat I leave food out for. I can see it now, it ate the food I gave it but it hasn’t tried the blanket and it is sitting quite comfortably in the curve of the pool like a dusty black rag.

So on to this blog a year later. Can’t believe I have been doing this blog a whole year. I have gone through stages of only writing about my art and craft, to wanting to write about my own journey, to running away from said journey and putting posts up about You tube or other fillers to returning to the point and the heart of the matter. I have made some virtual friends I have no idea what they look like or who they really are except what I see from their own blogs but I like their energy or maybe we are all disparate and separated around the globe but we are all really on the same path and that’s why we gravitate towards each other.

So I wonder where I will be in another year? or where this blog will have gone? Or who I will be? probably me but with a little less weight on my shoulders and a little happier and following my dreams still.

I had an idea of something I would love to do. I have always wanted this but never really figured it was for me or I could get the money to do it. I will set up a workshop space, my own little sanctuary, my space, but to use it for workshops for the toltec work or for yoga and I will have my own studio there too to work in. Somewhere really beautiful, beside the sea? or at least near the sea on a mountain side somewhere or in the jungle or… don’t know yet.

I have joined the stock market to invest some money my mum gave me to work towards this goal. Cool huh? online broker, small start up accounts. You see its interesting how money is so relative. I thought ooooo 100′000 dollars would be an amazing sum to have but then I check the leading stock broker in Ireland and they want minimum 125′000 euro as a start up fund. Gave me a start, and made me realize how really money is just energy and we call it towards us or not depending on whether we think we deserve it or whether its important to us. I never really cared about being rich in the past but also never saw myself as a person with lots of money, that was kind of unattainable, out of my reach, for the whizz kid bankers or older people, not me. I guess maybe I also felt a little superior to them, I didn’t need money to do what I wanted to do.

Anyway I change that agreement. Now I want money. Not for itself but to use it to construct my own dream and make my life the way I want it. To be self sufficient and in charge of my own finances, to take responsability for how I want to live and think ‘I can’

It started with a question my teacher posed us in a letter at new years. What would you do if you had unlimited finances at your disposal and all the love and support of the universe.

Well, what would you do?