I've been posting notes on facebook occasionally for a couple years, and lately I've begun some extensive journal writing. Posting things brings a little bit of useful discipline to the process and puts it all 'out there' so its been witnessed by the universe and the blogging server, if by no one else. This is my most recent facebook note, which started as a reply to a email.

Lately, I guess you could say, I've been 'throwing myself' into situations of reasonable responsibility and structure - as well as meaningful solitude (as befits a Saturn-ruled Capricorn) - and trying to pull back from my usual stance of rebelliousness and escape, which I guess I usually back by philosophical rationalization; it's always an easier avenue to pursue, but not often the better one (the Uranus-Pluto trine to the Sun and sextiles from each to Neptune, as well as the first house Mars-Venus-Icarus cluster in Aquarius and Saturn and Juno in Pisces, perhaps?).

I'm still rather reluctant to give up the whole "romance of words" kick, but it serves me pretty well and impresses (and helps) others enough to be fun and useful in a pretty good way. Lately I have been living with the idea of what it would be like to commit to develop things such as writing, teaching, and astrology. That would mean stepping out from the shadow of my family patterns, opening myself to potential, interrelationship, and criticism, and all of the emotions and doubts that ensue. Knitting and gardening, I've become reasonably and genuinely skilled at. It is gratifying to have developed a plan for my life and kept honing it, so that now, three years after returning to the area I grew up in, I can say I have a broad range of things that I have become more confident about and successful in out of sheer hard work and determination to learn, reevaluate, and persevere with.

Having had the last vestiges of my first full-time post-PhD job thoroughly stripped from my grasp in 2006 was necessary and desirable in the greater scheme of things, though understandably painful. Supporting myself financially is still the big gap in the structure, as is fitting in socially, but I've made a lot of progress in ferreting out the ways of thinking that make up that spider web of dependency and ill-conceived behaviors, and I'm also working a little more willingly at parting with them for the sake of things I'm coming to realize are more valuable. Occasionally, I find that I can let my energy shine openly for a short time. I also seem to be more adept at discerning the kinds of energies and activities that are right for me, and stronger in my ability to refrain from going too far in another direction before I have to do some serious recovery. I'm glad to have found things and people that matter to me, seem to fit who I am, and have the potential to be satisfying, if they aren't already - I guess the most important thing to say is that my sense of who I am is one of those things.

For the first time in many years, the discipline of geography does not play a role directly in my activities, although I am always gathering and assimilating information about my immediate environments and exploring ways to share what I see and learn that have both 'soul and science'. My presentation of such a traditional academic subject still lacks enough creativity and imagination and, above all, healing purpose, I guess you could say, to be worthwhile to me, but that may prove ultimately to be an excuse, and I'll work toward finding a way to make it be those things I need it to be. I'm trying to find that kind of satisfaction by teaching astrology instead, and as long as I have my audience, I feel a little better about it each time I begin a new class.

My census job and the ensuing social interactions is an example of my efforts, and it has been the usual roller coaster of rigidity, over-disclosure, paranoia, retreat, and a finding of balance, all while trying to 'stick with it.' Being surprised when a neighbor/childhood-friend'

s-mother finally put her house on the market last week and getting an invitation to my grad school department's party at the annual geography conference almost threw me into yet another episode of extreme self-doubt and crazy thinking. I'm learning to give up trying to get an answer by figuring it all out - I just try to marvel at the machinations of the process in some wry, yet sincere philosophical way and patiently observe what I need to learn - perhaps this befits a triseptile between a twelfth house Capricorn Sun and a fifth house Jupiter in Gemini. This week, I was greatly helped by a class session with my current astrology student who during our extended conversation reminded me again of the many faces of grief - and grief avoidance. I realized how many things I have striven to learn to do and perform with perfection and panache largely because I forgot what simple grief is and how to feel it.

I usually feel like there is still some major hurdle, some kind of work I am just not doing yet, but I hope that I can keep slowing down into more of a "normal" unconventional human being now - simply trust the thrust of my life into society or communities/families and my own ability to find a way to participate in it all that really does honor who I am, (perhaps with fewer big words and important sounding ideas, even). In the meantime, I am grateful for the opportunities that are coming easier now, or at least with less time spent struggling with hopeless feelings and denials.