Persephone emerges from the Underworld…

You may have noticed it has been a long time since I posted. I wish I had better news to report or a more pleasant reason, but unfortunately last year was the worst year of my life, so let me explain what has been happening:

The first and lesser blow was that my lover of almost two years left me at the beginning of July to take a job in Japan. I spent most of June helping him get ready to go, and was understandably depressed when he left; I was also planning a vacation for the last week of July with my niece, in MA. Unfortunately, the day my niece and I got back from our vacation, on August 2nd, her brother, my 15 year old nephew, committed suicide. We got the news as his mother, my sister, was driving my niece and I home from the airport. I spent the following weeks helping my sister and niece deal with the fallout, and dealing with my own grief.

Fall faded into winter and I started feeling somewhat better, and had a brief spurt of activity as I tried to get back into the swing of things. I twittered here and there, dabbled on Facebook… and then the cold weather came, even here in Florida. I do not know about the rest of you, but I do not do well in cold. I have arthritis in my neck, and this year it was made much, much worse by the unrelenting and unusually cold weather, to the point of crippling me — it has been all I can do to go to work each day and sit at the computer all day, and I have had nothing left over when I go home. I have been spending most every evening and weekend flat on my back, and even simple pleasures like needlework and reading have caused me so much pain that I would have to take frequent breaks. Working on the computer in my off hours on my own personal projects has been impossible. Now, I tend to hibernate during winter months anyway, and go into hermit mode. The cold weather makes me feel very sluggish and sleepy and sometimes depressed, and I do not feel up to talking to anyone or doing anything except quiet, passive activities like reading and crafts, snuggled up with my kitties. This year, after everything else that happened, and dealing with crippling pain, that period was much worse and lasted much, much longer than it has in the past.

Now, at last, I am beginning to see light at the end of the tunnel. This week has seen the return of some warmth and spring-like weather, and unlike previous weeks, it did not hit just for a day or two and then plunge back into the 30s at night. I have been in much less pain this week and therefore in a much better mood, and have been able to manage a few hours sitting up in the living room working on my counted cross stitch, rather than ensconced in my bedroom with pillows under my neck. I got a Care and Feeding of Spirits Newsletter out for the first time since November. I booked another speaking engagement for our local Wiccan Meet Up at the end of May (I am speaking about modern day vampires again). And at the vampire meet up last Friday I asked everyone how they would feel about trying to make a book out of the recordings of our last two years worth of meetings. In other words, I am starting to feel up to being productive again, and the urge to write is creeping back into my veins like a caffeine IV. It is amazing what sunshine and a little warmth will do.

I have hopes that we have seen the last of Jack Frost for this season, at least here in Central Florida, and that my neck will therefore also continue to improve — though I worry what next winter will be like for me, as it has never been this bad before, and arthritis only gets progressively worse — there is no cure and there is no reversing the damage that is already done, we can only try to slow it down.

It is times like these when I really resonate with the story of Persephone, spending the winter months in the land of the dead and finally emerging to great celebration and happiness in spring to the land of the living. I hope I will be able to make up for my hiatus with extra productivity over the coming summer months and get some good material written here for you — I can definitely feel myself going into teaching and writing mode. Maybe it is just because it is spring, but I want to create something again, and that is always a healthy and joyous feeling!

Happy spring everyone.

BB,
Vivienne

CareAndFeedingOfSpirits.com teleconference with Kim Wade June 11, 2009

From 7-9 pm EST. Our special guest will be Kim Wade, professional psychic reader, medium, and teacher. Kim runs psychic Sundays and all other psychic readings and events at Avalon, a metaphysical shop in Orlando, Florida, and facilitates their full and new moon circles. She is currently teaching a course at Avalon on Spirit Guides, so we’ll talk to her about working with guides and her methods for cultivating beneficial relationships with spirit.

If you purchase the e-book, On the Care and Feeding of Spirits, at it’s website, http://CareAndFeedingOfSpirits.com, you will be able to participate (for free) by phone and/or by chat, and if you can’t make it, the call will be recorded so you can go back to listen and download at any time by visiting the page url that will be sent to you along with the pdf of the book and the other free bonus materials.

Hope to talk with you on the 11th!

BB,

Vivienne

P.S.: As always, if you find this post helpful, please spread the love by clicking on the “share” button below. Thanks so much!

To help out my students and readers …

… over at CareAndFeedingofSpirits.com, I’ve added all the books that I referenced when writing On the Care and Feeding of Spirits to the Persephone’s Haven bookstore: click here to check out the books from the On the Care and Feeding of Spirits bibliography!

These cover memetics, psychology, paganism, magick, psychic self defense, spiritual cleansing, and more, and make a great resource for further study to supplement On the Care and Feeding of Spirits.

Happy reading!  If you have any questions about any of these books or the topics they cover, please do not hesitate to ask, either by commenting here or emailing me at vivienne at persephoneshaven.com.

As always, if you find this post helpful, please spread the love by clicking on the “share” button below.

Thanks so much!

BB,

Vivienne

Top 10 reasons to work with spirit, how to remove blocks, and more

I’ve got a new audio file uploaded to www.CareAndFeedingofSpirits.com!

http://careandfeedingofspirits.com/2009/05/11/top-10-reasons-to-work-with-spirit-how-to-remove-blocks-and-more/

Packed full of information; please listen, save to your mp3 player, share, re-tweet, and give me your comments.  Would love suggestions on what to cover in future audios!

Thanks!

BB,

Vivienne