I'm 'avin' hoops!

Anyone that relished the wonderful Life on Mars will recognise the quote. The inimitable Gene Hunt and his 'in yer face' attitude.

Well .... thats what I live with. The errant Mr Vix who will be known from here on in as 'The Homicidal Buddhist' is Gene Hunt the second.

I went to the accountants today. I am about to submitt my accounts for my second year of trading, even though I am in year 4 now. Its how it works apparently. With my first year set up costs, EXORBITANT training costs and a previous accounts cock up I made a loss in my first year - to be expected.

Second year I also expected to make a loss due to afore mentioned EXORBITANT training costs but in fact I made a £2500 profit - Wey Hey! Not bad for a second year. However the accountant had me down for having a meagre £3,000 income. "Not so" I protested. Homicidal Buddhist aka Gene Hunt II pointed out to the accountant that there was a blue sticky label obscuring the true income figure in the official file (there was indeed - a foolish error on the part of the accountant), and that therefore the accounts would have to be redone. There then ensued a bad tempered and unpleasant exchange of views as to the validitiy of the figures, the relevance of bank statements, paying in slips etc as evidence and the alleged incompetance of 'said accountant'. I sat there as the storm raged around my ears until Gene II told 'said accountant' that he was doing his head in, should stop being childish and admit he had buggered up! He then stormed from the room and told 'said accountant' that he needed to cool off before "I do something I may regret".

I was then left in the room with 'said accountant', a room unused to such uproar, with a tumble weed silence to endure. I simply picked up my bag and said I would wait in the foyer. Oh grizzly!

This has nothing on the incident the previous week. Gene II and me were reversing out of a parking spot in the sleepy town of Uttoxeter. Some old guy would not wait for the entire manoevre to complete and drove past at speed, narrowly avoiding our car. Well ..... what then followed was a high speed chase throught the car park. There was a screeching of tires and a lovely diagonal parking position from Gene II as he lept out of the car, still in motion I might add ... and began abusing the old guy. Now I do not have a lot of sympathy for the old guy, he was being impatient and foolish but I could not bare to watch as the tirade of abuse poured down upon him and his wife as he shakily tried to call the police on his mobile.

Grizzly indeed. Mr Vix/Homicidal Buddhist/Gene Hunt II does not always behave in this way. However the more rational moments do not make for good blogging ;o)

I meanwhile have had a cup of 'tranquility' tea and consolled myself with the fact that I wont be paying tax for at least another year.

Meditation, Sophia and losing 3lbs

It was full moon on the 22nd and as is my habit I pulled my symbols for the lunar month. My animal guide - the Eagle, and my Goddess, Sophia - Goddess of wisdom.

I enjoy focusing my mind on what these symbols represent. I could witter on about the astral plane, and thought creating matter and how we form God/Goddess in our own image but I wont - you have heard me do that before. Instead I shall just say that I am working with Sophia energy at the moment and in a meditative moment I had a flash of inspiration - I need to love me.

From the moment you enter
till the time you surrender to death
all that you experience
directly for yourself
all the burnt fingers
to discover the fire is hot
all the falling flat
when your reach exceeds your grasp
all the explorations
of territory known and unknown
all these are pathways to me
Seek to know
and you are me
stretch to become
and you are me
The Feminine quests for wisdom
The Feminine is part of all women
all women are the Goddess
all women have wisdom
all women are Sophia

Amy Sophia Marashinksky

I need to stop worrying about men and relationships;I also need to stop pouring garbage into my body in the form of fatty foods and alcohol. I need to cherish my body - without it I would have nowhere to live!

On top of this wonderfully grounded realisation came the discovery of meditation 'proper'. By that I mean true Buddhist style. I am no Buddhist and do not wish to embrace that path but a lot of what they say makes sense. Especially as my mind is like a 50,000 volt energy surge most of the time. Calming it down is the best way for me to attain equilibrium right now.

So the upshot ... dear readers. In the midst of my current turmoil I am finding a still place, and I would like to enlist your help in my quest to attain a healthy weight.

I am going to post my weight every week so that I can have something to aim for. I was 11 stone 12lbs on Monday - I am 5 foot 7 so that makes me overweight. Yesterday I ate well and exercised, meditated and felt so much more centred. I shan't lose my Wiccan joy in the sensual pleasures of the body, or the Queen Vixen boot stomping sparkle but for now the soothing salve of the quiet mind is what I need.

PS I sneaked a peek at the scales today and I have lost 3lbs already - yes I know its water and stuff, but its a great start.

So maybe my therapist is right ...

After ranting about my therapist and the process of personal therapy, I feel its only fair to tell you that she came up with a pretty spot on observation the other day. Just the 'one' mind you ... and I had to keep dragging her back to feelings as she was very keen to concentrate on the details of the story.

In fact I sometimes suspect she may be using my highly complex life story full of lust, betrayal, romantic intrigue, revenge and evil mothers as a basis for a novel. The eager glee to find out 'whats been happening for you' is disconcerting to say the least. Perhaps the old gal is using it to get her thrills .....mmmmm I shall think further about that one.

Anyway, she told me I was grieving. She is right. It was one of those light bulb moments when the truth hits you like a train.

It explains my sudden bursts of energy followed by lethargic slumps; the loss of my killer boot stomping risk taking sparkle and my bleak outlook at the moment.

So since then I have allowed myself to slide into the pit of despair, and boy is it a long, dark, bottomless pit. I have not set myself impossible tasks, I have wrapped up warm, wept, and done only the things I enjoy or have felt able to do ... oh and chocolate, always good.

Today I feel better. A lot better. Somehow the sun has shone today, and I have found myself thinking of doing a retreat or two this year. I printed off my essays ready for amending and have done a pile of ironing. Trying to put off grieving never works. Now I know I am grieving I can manage it.

So for that I say thank you to my therapist.

Better Day

After my 'fat day' of yesterday, and all the plummeting self esteem that went with it , I have restored my inner happiness a little bit.

Going out tonight to see Alter Bridge in concert is helping. Nothing like a rock concert to clear out the crap of worry and responsibility. I am looking forward to a bit of free child energy.

I have personal therapy in about an hour. What a bloody waste of time that is! I am going to ask my therapist what our contract is - see if she can remember. Bet she cant! Plus I am not going to past time about what has been happening to me. The story is irrelevant - the feelings are what matter. So I shall simply say I want to change my feelings of low confidence, crushed confidence would be more accurate, and then I am going to shut up. See her earn her money ... if we sit in silence for an hour then so be it, I wont go back!

I feel incredibly let down by the process of personal therapy. I have attempted to own that, work with it with my therapist, be real about my feelings of resentment and hopelessness about the process but its produced nothing. Zip, Zilch ... a big fat zero. I have sat with those feelings of frustration, again ... tried to work with the uncomfortableness of it. However I really may as well burn £45 rather than turn up. I have to get out of there and find someone else.

Ah ... well maybe that's the script lesson .. the little smart arse chorus would say. Well yes maybe it is but its all very well understanding that however I am buggered if I am going to waste anymore hard earned cash feeling frustrated and annoyed.

So there you go, bit of ranting, bit of Rock expectation. At least I can feel a bit of fighting spirit returning.

Fat Day

I am feeling fat. (This is the time all you male bloggers inwardly groan and sidle off in case I ask you if my bum looks big or something).

I am feeling fat and unattractive and generally horrid and imagining myself hideous to the opposite sex.

I don't like feeling like this.

I can talk to myself about self image, confidence, goddess curves ... all the logical thinking stuff ... till I am blue in the face but it makes no difference to how I feel.

I feel fat and horrid. No man in his right mind would look at me with desire, noooo surreeeee. They would simply say, "hey there's a fat bird" and unless they liked plump pillows of fun then they would turn aways and have a whistle at some leggy blond with a svelte figure - rather like me about 2 years ago.

I like to think of myself as a champion of 'real' women. But there is too much real flesh on my bones at the moment and I don't like it.

I knew things were bad when I could not concentrate on my clients today. All I could think about was being second best. Not good enough, not attractive enough and too fat. Not a good place at all.

Problem is ... no kind of external soothing works at all.

I really really don't want to get on the weight watchers treadmill in spite of lurking suspiciously on their website for at least 15 minutes.

What can cure me? Shifting a good stone? - having someone fancy me? - a week long retreat with right wing lesbians? ... who knows!!

Guess I will just have to emerge from this one myself - embrace Paul Mckenna and get my body moving.

Sorry to rant - I feel a teensy weensy bit better for doing so - I appreciate your indulgence :o)

Good friends

What makes a good friend?

I experienced a good friend last night. I went out with Pixie for a meal and a couple of white wine sodas. I was in a sad place. I was feeling fat, unloveable, betrayed and overwhelmed.

Pixie was glowing with happiness after her weekend with her new man.

She was able to sit with me in my sad place. She did not try to solve it for me, she did not judge me, she offered some wonderful advice but it was not given with the underlying message that 'you have to do it or else I will feel discounted'. She let me be me.

In her good place of grounded, adult happiness she was able to contact me, and I her. My own sadness did not diminish my ability to glow with joy for her. We were present for each other.

We had a lovely time in spite of our different emotional moods.

Good friends are worth their weight in gold!

All done and dusted!

Second assignment in the bag. 2,665 words - a worthy tome. I am so CHUFFED! Lots of inspiration, lots of energy and my little bit of Earth magick worked a treat. Magick, after all, focuses intent. My intent needed focusing believe me!

"What concepts do you use to work with couples, families or groups and how do they inform the way you work?"

After musing on the grammatical accuracy and effectiveness of the actual question, I just bit the bullet and wrote it.

I have written over 5,000 words this weekend. Dissertation should take me all of a week! (Of course I know this is not true - but just let me revel in the feelings of confidence and relief!)

I have exam group tomorrow - I don't like exam group. Its always cold in the building, and there are some very ancient people there. I suspect that Exam Group is some sort of temporal displacement anomaly. Once in it, you stay there for years - getting steadily older but imagining yourself a sprightly young trainee. You emerge at your CTA, take one look into a mirror and go shrieking over the horizon clutching at your wizened features. Sod exam group next year. I shall be looking for other ways of 'staying in training'- ways that are actually beneficial and far more enjoyable.

So there you go, one hell of a weekend. My little study has been a haven of academic endeavour and now I shall blow out my inspirational candle, crack open a bottle of cider and order a Rajma Dupiaza!

Ms Smug Madam checking in

I just wrote an assignment in three hours. I did, I did, I did. Having moaned and struggled and grizzled about it for two months I just sat at the computer, lit my earth candle and got my bloody head down.

2,575 words in 3 hours. Not bad eh? I reckon all that thinking at the Moot this week got the brain desludged and ready to go.

It has given me hope for my dissertation, maybe I will get it done by the Summer if today's little performance is anything to go by.

I shall be closeted away tomorrow as well. Just got to reference today's work of art and science - (after all it is an MSc I will have after my name) and then I can look at the other one I HAVE to write before the end of Feb.

Just off for a luxurious bath as a reward for my efforts... ahhh and relax!

Dragons and Rings

I went to the Moot in Nottingham last night. It was quite an effort, truth be told. Hard day at work, inappropriate clothing for a cold night in January and the team meeting got cancelled so I had to shiver in the car for a bit before setting off. I had some good old 'northern' fish and chips: Once you get south of Burton on Trent the fish and chip quality seems to plummet. No offence meant - just an observation - try to get a decent chippy in Birmingham you will see what I mean.

I got lost on the way too. Found myself heading out to Grantham - no idea how it happened but thankfully the Moot Chieftain guided me in on my mobile. Said Moot Chieftain had already got a cider waiting so perhaps the seminar that followed APPEARED to be better than it was, but then reality is all about personal perception.

Eeeee it was a goodun! Dragons and Rings, sacred geometry - ley lines, pythagorus, stone circles and a guy in a velvet coat (bonus).

SO now all you rational boys will be sucking your breath in through your teeth really sharply, but just hang on!! Bear in mind that Maxwell's 4 equations were actually 20 and the other 16 were slung out by the then rather blinkered establishment with vested interests to protect. Had they not, then our own definitions of the physical world and accepted scientific understanding would be very different.... and us wierdies would receive the acclaim and respect we deserve.

The sun is at the root of all major religious belief, whether the sun, or the son, L, El or Bel, ( a feminine derivative in language terms). Think about it! We all live in a matrix of energy - some just vibrates slower than others and forms solid touchable stuff. We also only define reality depending on our dimensional perception. The two dimensional world cannot perceive height or depth, yet it exists!

We had so much fun bending our minds around the concept of time, multidimensional physics and the way that experience, perception, intent and expectation creates reality. In fact I felt rather smug - waccy baccy quantum physics it may be - however we wiccans know the reality of it all. Science and controlled double blind trials only seek to keep us safe in our contained and sterile understanding of our dimension in time and space.

There is other stuff out there, not weird strange stuff but stuff that is as real in the science of that dimensional understanding as our E=mc2.

So, think large - allow your minds to expand out into infinite possibilities. I think therefore I am... what I think defines who I am. Think Free!

How do you all find the time to blog?

I feel such an unworthy blogger. I never seem to get the time to do it properly. I have so many posts just sitting, unwritten in my head ... so many ideas, so many witty insights (I hope), earnest outpourings - so little time.

I promised that my next post would be 'What it means to be a witch' I have made the notes, have my draft but now want to explore the overlaps and similarities between being a psychotherapist and a witch. It involves some of the same concepts, certainly the same 'territory' of the psyche. Changing reality through conscious thought processes, trance and deep self (C0 ego state) are much the same. Its developing into more of a thesis than a blog. More 'Be Perfect' stuff from me - if its not super duper exceptional then why bother? Maybe I should stick with plan a.

However, my process around the up and coming post is identical to that which I generally do in life. I am sure, my fellow bloggers, you would prefer me to just put something up rather than nothing at all, but that would be too simple for my Passive Aggressive component. If I cannot struggle then, again, whats the point? So I automatically obey the 'don't succeed' injunction by ... well .... by not posting at all, which is why I am sitting here squirming in full confessional mode.

The ideas for posts currently squatting in my head are:- a post on my wonderful Yule tide presies - oh they were wonderful, thank you again to Pixie, Silent Observer and Bobo for you lovely gifts! Another one was on 'Life on Mars' - not a microbiology/astronomical musing but the FABULOUS TV series. I think I got to this one late. Its just so good! Is it me or are 70's fashions super sexy? Having spent at least 3 decades scorning big collars, flares, leather jackets and clumpy shoes I am NOW finding them just the best thing since (70's) sliced bread. I was only 5 when that particular decade began but I love it!

Oh yes, and another post I want to do. Give all of you a Lord of the Rings Race - rather like the Cheese blog (See archive) but designating each of you a Dwarf, Elf, Hobbit like class. Should be fun, there is certainly an Ent amongst you (soooo easy to guess that one), a couple of hobbits, at least three men, two dwarfs, three elves and a wizard or two. See, how it is, all these ideas and no 'completing or finishing'. Tut tut Vixen, tis very scripty.

I shall leave it at that and check out a few of your posts, I will return with more of my musings and the Witchy post which is far too worthy for its own good.