Five Minutes A Day – Days 6, 7 & 8

/ Ravyne Hawke / Leave a comment

Prompts: send, mystery, street

For punishment, Mother used to send us to our rooms. I don’t know how this affected my siblings, but for me, this was no punishment at all. I enjoyed the solitude. There in my room, I no longer had to pretend to be the perfect daughter, sister or friend. I could just be myself, whoever that was. I was still figuring that bit out.

My room was my sanctuary. It was small and covered in red & gold wallpaper with golden eagles on it. Sometimes, I pretended it was an important office of some high official and I was the secretary. Other times, I would just sit and stare at all those eagles and wish we, they and me, could be free and outside soaring in the air. All that pretending afforded me a healthy imagination.

If my room was a sanctuary, then books were my saving grace within those four walls. I spent about two-thirds of my day reading something – at home and in school. I had a few favorite genres: biographies, gothic novels, and science fiction; however a good mystery could suck me in for hours. I love trying to figure out the who and why. Someone gave us a huge box filled with Nancy Drew and Agatha Christie mysteries. I devoured those eagerly. When I was around thirteen, I’d spent the entire summer reading books at my local library. By the following summer, I’d read everything in the junior children’s section, but I needed more. I finally convinced my mother to call the librarian and give her permission for me to read from the adult book sections. Although I was reading books for adults, I still had a few children’s favorites – The Secret Garden, Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good Very Bad Day and an adorable story titled The Street That Got Mislaid (also known as Green Bottle Street).

I was so enamored with the later, that I just knew there had to be a hidden street in everyone’s town. And so I embarked on a little sleuthing about my town until I came across a hidden alleyway behind an old doctor’s building and set off exploring. It took me nearly an hour to remove old vines that had twisted their way around the gate and by the time I’d freed that gate, it was nearing dinner and I had to head home without exploring further. When I was finally able to return the next day, I had butterflies in my stomach and had not slept the night before nor even eaten breakfast that morning.  All I could think about was that alley and what I might find. In the end, it wasn’t nearly as exciting as what the man in the Green Bottle Street story had found, but I did find some lovely rocks, a few old marbles, and a penny and dime, both from the 60s. Those little treasures made it all worth it.

If you’d like to join me for this Five Minutes A Day, please feel free to do so. You can post it on your blog or use my comments below. All I ask is that if you do this on your own blog, that you link to my blog and be sure to give full credit to Kate Montaung (you can click her link to go to her page). Have a blessed day, me lovelies!

Way Behind

/ Ravyne Hawke / Leave a comment

Hello, me lovelies. I am going to make a grand attempt at playing catch-up today on my Five Minutes A Day segment. My internet has been bouncing off and on for several days and I’ve already lost several attempts at putting something here. I’ve finally wised up and have been putting everything on a notepad so I don’t lose it when the ‘net goes poof!

So once I’ve had some coffee and a sweet breakfast treat, I will attempt a fifteen minute catch-up here. No guarantees though; the ‘net’s already gone down twice this morning. The joys of modern times!

Five Minutes A Day – Day 5

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Prompt: Table

Round and clad in flowery cloth with only four spaces. Deliberate? If you were late to dinner, you didn’t get a seat at the table. In those early childhood years, I needed one of those seats. I had family dynamics to work on. Thankfully, those first three years after the coma, baby brother had his high-chair and a seat was easily available. Not so once he grew into a booster-seat. Then it was a battle between me and Tamara. Dad was at the head of the table and Mother across from him. Baby brother always had his chair with the booster, so that left only one.

As I got to know my family, I often carried anxiety and weariness with me to the table. I wasn’t sure what food I was supposed to enjoy or how much I was allowed to eat, so I just followed Tamara’s lead. Often there would be astonished looks from Mother as I tried out different vegetables, or looks of disgust as I crinkled up my nose at other food.

“You never used to like that,” Mother would say. Or, “but that’s your favorite!”

I would just shrug my shoulders. What else could I do? Did my taste buds change too?

Once I had to battle for a seat, I would deliberately be late. I didn’t find any pleasure in competition and Tamara liked to gloat if she beat me to the table. I’d gather a plate of food and pad off through the house to the front porch (if it was warm) or gather around the wood stove (if it was cold) and eat by myself.

By this time, I was doing a lot of things by myself. Mom was often moody, Dad was distant, Tamara was smug and Baby Brother was fussy. I found myself alone in my room, playing with dolls or reading books. I still didn’t trust people and there was little else to do. Even at the age of nine, I knew I was different and a loner.

Changes were coming soon. Changes that would set me apart even more.

If you’d like to join me for this Five Minutes A Day, please feel free to do so. You can post it on your blog or use my comments below. All I ask is that if you do this on your own blog, that you link to my blog and be sure to give full credit to Kate Montaung (you can click her link to go to her page). Have a blessed day, me lovelies!

Five Minutes A Day – Day 4

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Day 4 Prompt: After

So this is what happens after all the observing and pretending – you lose all sense of self. You see, the story of Elle is the story of me. I’ve pretended for so long that I have no idea who I really am. Was I a true sister? Was I a true daughter? Was I ever genuine with anyone? Or have I always been a fraud?

Ah, now there’s the rub. I’ve been fearful my entire life. What if someone found out? That IF has prevented me from doing many of things I’ve wanted to do. Book editor? No. Published writer? No. Astrologist? No. Professional tarot reader? No. Herbalist? No. Reiki Master? No. Always no because someone somewhere would discover my secret – I’ve always been a pretender.

Yet none of that is true, or at least it shouldn’t be true. It’s merely the message I’ve repeated over and over again in my head. I had a wonderful education and even after decades of being out of college, I’ve never stopped learning.

The mind is a fickle mistress who can make you believe almost any lie. And only through years of therapy have I come to realize that my childhood illness and loss of memory was a cruel stroke of fate. I did what I had to do to survive.

If you’d like to join me for this Five Minutes A Day, please feel free to do so. You can post it on your blog or use my comments below. All I ask is that if you do this on your own blog, that you link to my blog and be sure to give full credit to Kate Montaung (you can click her link to go to her page). Have a blessed day, me lovelies!

Five Minutes A Day – Day 3

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Here I am, eleven days later. I didn’t really forget about writing here and I hate making excuses. I just felt anxious. Too anxious to sit down and do anything constructive or creative. It will probably happen again, and again. Consistency hasn’t been my forte of late. Thankfully, I am persistent. So shall we begin anew?

Day 3 Prompt: Plan

If you read the beginning of my little story, then this will continue forth. Because Elle had no memory and her mother didn’t believe her, Elle plotted out a plan. She knew she wouldn’t be able to go on unless she pretended to know people, but how could she without memory of them? And so Elle became an observer.

Her days were spent sitting silently listening, watching and mentally recording everything and everyone around her. This sitting wasn’t a problem. Elle wasn’t allow to participate in many activities, especially ones that might tire her out. She heard whispers of “We don’t want a relapse.” And any time she became too rambunctious, her mother would tell her to go sit down with her dad. Elle learned all about her dad pretty quickly. He wasn’t a complicated man. He enjoyed sports, westerns, and comedy on television. He liked to hunt and fish, alone. He worked hard and took his coffee light and sweet. He told funny stories and loved to laugh. And he didn’t like conflicts.

Mother was a bit harder for Elle to understand. Sometimes her mother was full of life, laughter and love. Other times, a melancholy came over her face and only sadness resided there. Her mother watched daytime soaps and game shows, with the occasional night time soap or old movie. She loved listening to country music and Elvis while she cooked or cleaned. She rarely left the house but to visit one of her sisters, but couldn’t stand to be alone either. She was constantly on the phone. Elle’s mother also told stories, but they weren’t funny like her dad’s. No, her mother’s stories were about her childhood and how badly Elle’s grandfather treated her mother, her aunts and Elle’s grandmother. Elle’s mother thrived on conflict.

Tamara made little to no sense to Elle. She wasn’t much older than Elle, but she had an air of authority about her. She could tell that Tamara wanted to be in her company, but she also wanted to run and play, something Elle just couldn’t do without the wrath of Mother coming down on her. So Elle watched as Tamara went off with cousins and friends. They rarely talked. For Elle, it was as though Tamara was a huge mystery and she didn’t have the understanding to figure her sister out.

While a distance swept between Elle and Tamara, Elle had a baby brother. He was too tiny to know her and since he was born while she was in a coma, Elle could be anyone around her brother and he wouldn’t know the difference. Elle’s imagination flourished around her brother. She played with him more than she spoke to her sister or Mother, but Elle still cherished the alone time she had with her Dad.

Her plan was working well, and yet, all her life she felt like a fraud. A feeling that would linger with her for her entire life.

 

Well, there’s that. Hope you are enjoying my little story. Will be back soon (hopefully tomorrow!) for another part. 

If you’d like to join me for this Five Minutes A Day, please feel free to do so. You can post it on your blog or use my comments below. All I ask is that if you do this on your own blog, that you link to my blog and be sure to give full credit to Kate Montaung (you can click her link to go to her page). Have a blessed day, me lovelies!

Five Minutes A Day – Day 2

/ Ravyne Hawke / 1 Comment

See, this is what happens when you aren’t accustomed to writing every day! I almost allowed the day to slip away without doing my small stones over at A Whispered Wind and today’s FMAD. I promise, I will get back into the flow of this!

Day 2 Prompt: Story

Let me tell you a little story and then, dear readers, you can decide if it is fact or fiction.

It all began back in 1971 on a trip to a fish hatchery in West Virginia. Two young girls joined their father on this trip and from all accounts, it was a glorious time. The youngest of the two, Elle, finished the the evening by drinking from a water fountain before she, her sister Tamara and her father returned home. The next day, while playing outside with Tamara, Elle felt ill and went inside. She had a fever, so her mother called to the doctor to find out what to do. As was the norm in those days, she’d been told to give Elle some baby aspirin and put her to bed. This turned out to be a disastrous decision. Some time later, Elle began to have seizures and her parents rushed her to the hospital. Elle was then airlifted to another hospital on the other side of the state. By this time, Elle had fallen into a coma.

Unknown to Elle at the time, she was in the children’s ward of the UVA hospital in Charlottesville, Virginia with four other children. Three of those children died while Elle was still in a coma. By the time she came to a week later, the other child had suffered brain damage from the high fevers and seizures. The doctors weren’t hopeful about Elle’s diagnosis after what had happened to the other four children, but were astonished to learn that Elle would be fine, just a bit of a “nervous” stomach.

However, Elle wasn’t fine. Elle had no memory. Not of why she was in the hospital, nor of her parents. Nothing was familiar. Elle was assured that, “yes, these are your parents and yes, you will be going home with them.” And so home she went. Once there, she didn’t recognize her sister Tamara and she had a new baby brother. Elle tried to tell her mother that she didn’t recognize anyone, but was told she was just being a silly child. Mother showed her pictures of herself and her family, but they meant nothing to little Elle. At the age of five, Elle would have to begin all over again, in a world she didn’t know and with people she wasn’t sure she could trust.

There you have it, dear readers – my little story, but it doesn’t end there. Tomorrow I will continue the story and integrate the daily prompt into it. 

If you’d like to join me for this Five Minutes A Day, please feel free to do so. You can post it on your blog or use my comments below. All I ask is that if you do this on your own blog, that you link to my blog and be sure to give full credit to Kate Montaung (you can click her link to go to her page). Have a blessed day, me lovelies!

Five Minutes A Day – Day 1

/ Ravyne Hawke / Leave a comment

While looking for something to write about this morning (after a t-storm bolted me out of bed!), I got an email from Joyce over at From This Side of the Pond. I used to enjoy doing her Wednesday Hodgepodge, but since I haven’t journalled in a very long time, I’d simply been filing her emails away in a folder (and yes, I feel guilty about that!). Today, I opened her email and read it and realized that she is doing a 10 Day, Five Minutes A Day  Writing Prompt Challenge hosted by Kate Motaung. So I decided I would join along too. I’m not going to even attempt to catch up, mainly because Kate’s challenge has already ended and Joyce is on day 8, so I am just going to begin at the beginning and work my through the ten days.

Day 1 prompt: Today

Today is another day of being in the now. Too often, I allow myself to get distracted by emails, YT videos, movies and documentaries, chores and what to cook for whichever part of the day it is. I don’t give myself enough time to just be present in this moment, in this day. I talk a good talk when people ask me for advice, but very rarely do I walk the walk of living in the moment.

Since the world, it seems, is on lock-down, I’ve been using what I have learned from Mindfulness training to elevate anxiety. It would be too easy for me to begin fretting about Covid-19, the stock market plunge, the arguments among my online friends (is this real or a hoax? Is it as serious as everyone claims? etc.), and my own panic of a horrid immunity system that has never fully recovered from chemotherapy eight years ago.

So instead of hitting the panic button, I sit quietly for the first 5-10 minutes upon awakening, close my eyes and breathe, say a silent prayer to the Father and just be present for those moments. I breathe in LOVE and breathe out FEAR, chasing it as far from my mind, body and soul as I can.

This has given me a new perspective on this whole virus pandemic. It has allowed me to focus on my intention of sending love to the entire planet, to surround myself with loving-kindness and feel compassion for fellow human beings. What seems on the surface to be a very personal, selfish moment of inner reflection, has brought me closer to the entire planet and everyone and everything on it. It also makes me ready to face today calmly.

Wow, so that was harder than I thought it would be. Took me a while to gather my thoughts, but once I reflected on how I’ve been beginning each day this past week, the words flowed easier. If anyone would like to join me in this challenge (or write a comment about TODAY in my comment section), please feel free to do so. All I ask is if you do choose to write these on your own blog, for you to link back to my blog and give credit to Kate Montaung (you can click her link to go to her page). Have a beautiful day, me lovelies!

Where Did She Go?

/ Ravyne Hawke / Leave a comment

Hello Lovelies! It’s been a long time since I have blogged here. In fact, my last blog was in July of 2018. A LOT has happened since then. How about a little recap?

Late July 2018 – My father went into the hospital, which turned into a long stay and my brother decided he was no longer going to drive me to doc appointments or to get food, or even to see my dad while he was in the hospital. Long story short, we got into an argument and I became enemy #1 as a result. Only by the grace of strangers was I able to get my meds and food.

October 2018 – Dad in recovery at a nursing home. Brother still not helping me and threatens to call the cops and have me kicked out of DAD’s house in September, so I searched everywhere local for a place to move to without any luck.  Finally contacted my estranged husband and moved back to Oklahoma. The very day I leave, dad comes home, but I don’t even get to say goodbye.

May 2019 – My father dies and since I am estranged from my family, no one tells me. I find out via a cousin’s FB post. In the meantime, I end up in the hospital with a severe kidney infection that takes over a month to heal.

Just days before Christmas 2019 – My brother commits suicide. The only silver lining… my sister and I have reconnected. She has been a guiding light for me since.

So it has been a rough couple of years, but I am doing ok. My husband and I get along most of the time, even though we no longer have a traditional marriage. We are more like companions now and even have separate bedrooms. I am once again in therapy and have learned some interesting things about the family dynamics that I grew up in and how those dynamics changed everything (will tell that story in another post soon). This time, I LOVE being back in Oklahoma. A few years ago, I swore I would never come back here, but now I am glad that I did. I’ve reconnected with my inlaws and love them all so much. My health has improved as I’ve gone on a Whole Foods/Plant-Based diet. I am happy, fulfilled and as of today, I’ve even started writing again. I think I am going to be fine.

I hope to make, if not daily, at least weekly updates here. Some of my posts will likely be about current events, spiritual matters, and a few odds and ends. Looking forward to reconnecting with everyone here. Much love & blessings, my dear lovelies!

 

The Joy of Affirmation – Angel Number 333

/ Ravyne Hawke / 1 Comment

As I related in my last post, I’ve been struggling a lot with what is going on in the US since Trumpism took over. I see this country sliding into a Theo-Fascist state (fascism mixed with hard far-right Christian doctrine) and yes, it worries the crap out of me. I have many strikes against me should I be deemed an enemy of the state – I am not a Christian, I am primarily a Buddhist who believes in Christ Consciousness, Angels and Ascended Masters. I am bisexual. I am disabled, both mentally (bipolar disorder, BPD, GAD w/panic attacks, and OCD)and physically (neuropathy in both feet due to chemo use years ago for uterine cancer). I lean more toward Democratic Socialism politically. And finally, I am a woman of middle age who can no longer bear children. No reasons whatsoever for a Theo-Fascist state to keep me around.

So all these things keep me awake, anxious and unsettled. I wake up wondering what fresh new hell Trump has put us through and go to sleep wondering if we will ever get our country back. For a long time, I also fell asleep asking “Does the Divine even care what is happening here?” or “Is this truly the will of the Divine and if so, why?” As a Buddhist, I am supposed to just let this pass and focus on the here and now. I know this. And I do try. Yet, I am still unnerved and disturbed by all that is going on in the US and the damage being done to our allies and neighbors.

In a dream, that I believe was directed by the Archangel Michael, I sat through the history of the human race for a course in a university’s large auditorium. The topic was how civilizations fall. The professor’s theory was to teach humility. The peoples of these civilizations had become so greedy, so corrupt, and so out of sync with the universe, that they had to learn humility and so horrid leaders rose up and destroyed that civilization. The result was a more humble people, ready to embrace a more democratic way of living.

When I awoken that very early morning (due to pfairies chasing me to the bathroom), I glanced at the clock by my bed and the time was 3:33 am. A smile creased my face as I hurried to the bathroom. I know about Angle numbers. Generally I will see 111 or 222, etc. But rarely do I get 333. 333 is unique. It stands for peace, love and harmony, but it is also the call number of the Ascended Master Jesus, the very person I’d been hoping to hear from for a while! It lead me to believe that yes, the Divine is still with us and knows what is going on and we have not been abandoned. Peace, love and harmony will win out in the end, but first, we need to be humbled as a nation.

That ray of hope sustained me for a while. And then Supreme Court Justice Kennedy decided to retire, giving Trump another chance to pack the highest court with an ultra-Conservative rightwing justice. I envisioned Roe vs Wade going away. I envisioned my sisters and brothers in the LGBTQ community having their right to marriage slip away. I envisioned all of the civil rights we on the Left have worked so hard for slipping away as well. I could see the US definitely becoming my worst nightmare – a Theo-fascist nation with all the hallmarks of Gilead from The Handmaid’s Tale. Again, I was despondent over this and fretted for days and nights about it. And just when I’d given up all hope, I awoken two mornings ago at 3:33 am again. The Ascended Master Jesus had again assured me that all would be well. Not to fret so – peace, love and harmony would prevail.

So I wanted to share this with my readers and ask if any of you have been receiving messages of this kind, either through dreams or Angel numbers? If so, I hope you will share them with me. If not, I accept all discussions on this topic. Thank you all!

 

What’s Happened to America’s Moral Compass?

/ Ravyne Hawke / 3 Comments

I don’t consider myself to be the most moral person in the country nor am I now a Christian, but for decades, I could rely on the Conservative Christian Right to tell me if we, as Americans, had crossed a moral barrier. I didn’t always listen to them because, frankly, sometimes they overreacted about things. I learned early on as an adult that if the CCR were up in airs about something, to check the moderate conservatives and centrist liberals to judge exactly how “out there” the CCR was reacting about any given topic. For the most part, the CCR relied on Bible scriptures to pump up their tirades. They seemed to have a scripture for anything they deemed immoral. I always had this fear in the back of my mind that some day the CCR would take control of the entire political system and we would end up in a theocracy instead of a Constitutional Republic. Now, however, there seems to be absolutely no moral compass at all coming from the CCR. They have so completely enveloped Trumpism and seem to give Trump a pass on everything once deemed immoral by their own mouths.

I’m not saying that the CCR was America’s only moral compass. In fact, I think they were reactionaries more than morality setters. However, I do think we Americans depended on the CCR to set a tone or pace in the USA that we could all measure our own moral compasses upon. If I thought the CCR was being outrageous about topics like the LGBTQ community or abortion, for instance, I could weigh my own values against theirs. This often forced me to do research and seek out others’ opinions – in a way, it created a balancing act for me. I guess that is why now, in the age of Trump, I feel unbalanced. The CCR has become so outrageous, so corrupt, that there is no balance anymore.

Sure, they still scream about gays being an abomination and those who seek an abortion as “baby killers”, but now they give passes on adultery, pedophilia, unabashed lying, blatant antisemitism against Jews (while professing to love them so they will convert to good Christians and usher in Armageddon), xenophobia against Muslims, and blaming their woes on “other-isms” (toward immigrants and other POC) that is running rampant in this country.

Maybe I just completely missed something during my years as a Christian, but I always thought that in order to be a good Christian, you tried to obey the 10 Commandments and Jesus’ ideal of “loving thy neighbor as thyself,” and follow Jesus’ other teachings and complete acceptance of Jesus’ love. I also thought that the meek would inherit the earth and rich men wouldn’t easily get into heaven. And yet we now have prosperity preachers (some very much members of the CCR) telling people that it is okay to be wealthy, in fact, God wants us all to be wealthy, which creates an atmosphere of envy, jealousy and greed.

It also doesn’t help that some on the Right have adopted Ayn Rand’s Objectivism philosophy, which suggests that the proper moral purpose of one’s life is the pursuit of one’s own happiness, individual rights and pretty much to hell with anyone else. This has caused many on the Right, including Paul Ryan, to become extremely selfish. While these people confess to be Christians, they certainly do not act like followers of Christ who taught love, compassion, and charity to the poor, the sick, children and the elderly. No, these people only care about what’s in it for themselves and to hell with anyone else. We are seeing this play out now in the Trump Administration:

  • Trying to knock thousands off of healthcare by continuously trying to repeal the ACA (Obamacare – a name they gave it to make their base rally against it)
  • The erosion of women’s reproductive rights by constant attacks on Planned Parenthood (which does much more than advise on abortions, which many women, children and even men in poor neighborhoods depend on for free health services)
  • Attempts at privatizing Social Security, slashing it, or killing it outright (something the elderly and disabled depend on)
  • Wanting to do away with Medicaid (which millions of poor American’s depend on, especially for their children)
  • Rolling back regulations for clean air, water and food that will effect everyone, except perhaps the very wealthy
  • Giving permanent tax cuts to the uber wealthy and corporations, but for lower incomes, those tax cuts will expire in a few years.

I could go on and on with the things this Administration has attempted, has succeeded, and still wish to do that will have devastating effects for millions of Americans. And throughout it all, they still claim to be Christians and are attempting to push their brand of Christianity onto all Americans – a restrictive, cruel, and selfish brand of Christianity (I can definitely see phantoms of Margret Atwood’s Gilead in our future if they succeed).

With all of this selfishness and greed setting the tone in this country, I no longer know where our moral compass lies. I struggle daily to understand all of it. It puzzles me that so many CCRs still consider Trump and many in his Administration and those in Congress to be following the tenets of Christianity. I find myself turning more and more to Buddhism (my now chosen belief system) and Christ Consciousness for answers and as my moral compasses. It’s a shame how far the Right has changed in the past few decades and I wonder if they will ever find their own moral center again and if they don’t, what devastating effects it will have upon our entire nation if they remain in power.

If any of my readers would like to share their thoughts with me about this, please leave a comment below. Thank you.