Quit Job..

Ive been working two or more jobs for the past 6 years or more. It just seems to be the nature of the work I do. It is very hard to trust a lot of the companies these days, so one usually has, in my field, more than one company to work with so that in the event one company loses contracts or downsizes or slows down, you have a backup. Unfortunately, MTSOs in my business do not give you notice if they lose a contract or if they make other choices that would result in less income, it just kind of happens and then you are stuck, if you dont have a backup, trying to figure out how you are going to make ends meet.

The other reason I started working two jobs is because we needed the income. When we moved to Greensboro, I was to only work one job; however, between the costs of moving and my daughter's school, our bills were just not getting paid, so I ended up taking on additional contracts to cover the expenses.

I have been working with one company for about six years, and while the first three or four were great, the last two have been horrible, demeaning, demoralizing, I could go on and on. I originally started out typing, then editing and then was promoted to account management, which I do love doing. But with this company, it became an issue more and more where I would have to really treat people as disposable and become as inconsiderate and demoralizing and demeaning to others - requiring them to do things like work in the middle of the night or during times that normal people would not work.. or things like that. If work dried up because we were over-staffed I would be placed in positions of having no choices to how to help people. And my own time was just taken advantage of. I did not vacation without working or if I wanted to vacation, I was responsible for finding coverage as opposed to them, which was never available. It was stressful to vacation and stressful to work nonstop. So after being tired of that type of stress and not wanting to represent that type of treatment to others, I stepped down to just edit.

When I did so, I was offered the hourly rate I had before my promotion and my normal PTO, and insurance. Six months later, I was told I was being moved to production, and literally, after working for this company for 3-4 years, I was given a pay cut. Then they did the great trick of all these companies that promote themselves as offering health insurance.. they have insurance that unless you live in the state they are in, you cannot afford to take advantage of the benefits. Mind you - my type of work is all telecomuting with employees hired all over the country. So if you are a company that has that, its pretty ridiculous to get insurance that only affordably covers those in your state, when no one who works for you outside the office lives in that state! This forced me to get coverage through my husband, and when I asked to be compensated a little extra since I had to do that, I did not even get the benefit of a response. So in essence, they were pocketing the $200+ dollars a month that normally they would have to pay for my insurance.. AND lowering my salary.

I stayed anyway, because it was a great editing job in that I had worked for years editing it, and I could read through the files pretty quickly, etc. Then about a year ago, maybe 9 months ago, they decided that the offshores whose work we were reading were doing well, they allowed them to send their reports straight to the clients - basically leaving me and the other editors with no work except blanks they have.. which was about 10% of the work we originally had.

Had I not had another job, I would have been in serious trouble. They never gave us notice of this choice, and my supervisor flat-out lied when she said she had no idea this was being done. Of course she knew - how could she not?

This came to bite them all in the rear, as the offshored work was so bad, the clients almost left - so then we were busy again - only now we had to fully listen to these files, which, again, cuts production time in half. So I had my salary cut by 25%, then another 50%. Because I had another job, I stuck with it, it was good extra money.. But the offshores then only did 1 level of quality assurance, whereas they used to do 2-3. Slowing us down even more, salary cut again in half... which led me to the last 2 months..

With my daughter having graduated her private school and heading out to college, I have been really playing with the idea of cutting my losses with this particular company. But leaving and making that final decision has been hard, because it leaves me working with just one company and trusting that it will be enough and work out. And its always been a security blanket for me regardless..

Ive realized that my gallbladder slowly filled with stones and disease over crap ive walked around with since I was a teenager - eventually making me sick enough that it had to be removed. At that point, i worked on letting go of the past and viewing the removal as almost childhood garbage being taken out.

Over the past few months, its come to my attention that I now have something growing on my ovary - and Im being monitored to see if it grows and also my blood levels to see if they rise.. and it occurs to me that Im still carrying around crap. And I really think a lot of it surrounds my feelings about myself allowing myself to be part of situations that are hurtful, demoralizing and demeaning.. and this job is one of those things. My old "friends" I think were also part of that. So I hve been working on this sitaution of how do I release this stuff so I am not walking around with this kind of negative, destructive energy that is diseasing my body?

So I am taking the leap - and of course I do a reading on this:
What I have: Page of Swords
What I need to know: Ace of Swords
Outcome: Judgment

This sword has definitely been double edged and I have a few cuts already from my choice to leave. Because I did not work as much as I am "scheduled" to, which is not any more or less than I have for the last two months, on my last day of notice, they fired me, and are now keeping my accured PTO of 20 hours. I didnt even know I had that much - and its bugging me, not because I counted on that money, but because it just feels like another kick of stealing and robbing and thieving from me that they have been doing for the last 2 years.

So I need to release this - and that is my task so it can wrap up. I know from judgment it will work out the way it is supposed to.. and I know releasing this will open me up to new opportunities and things waiting for me that I would not be able to see or take advantage of without making room.

But I my feelings about this.. urrrgh.. thats a harder task. I guess that will be this weekend's question.. how do i release my intense feelings about these people and keep it from continuing to eat at me?

A Walk with the High Priestess

So even though I have not blogged in a bit, I have been doing readings, both for myself weekly to biweekly, as well as for others. Ive also been trying to meditate a bit as well, and working on my middle pillar meditations. On first getting back to meditating, I took a walk with the Queen of Pentacles, probably because she was on my mind from studying her in class.

A week later, around the first week in March, I sat down to do a reading, meditating first, and I got to take a walk with the High Priestess. I did not intend to walk with her, did not intend to walk or talk with anyone, just kinda sat down and closed my eyes, and after a bit, there she was. Not one to miss an opportunity to spend some time with the High Priestess, i joined her on a walk through her viel.. upon which I found ourselves walking on a beach, heading toward a cave. She was in her robes, but did not have her hat on, and instead of dark hair flowed behind her. In this picture it looks like its pretty short, shoulder length, but in my meditation, it was longer, flowing down her back, straight with a little curve in it, no cross around her neck, just robed. She was beautiful. We walked side by side companionably, no conversation, just there together. Inside the cave was a chair, on which the high priestess sat down, and there I waited for her to say something. Saying nothing, I asked her.. to what do I owe the honor of her presence, and she just sat there.. motioning for me to look outside the cave. So we both sat there, looking at the ocean and enjoying the peaceful sound of seagulls and fish.. and there were some dolphins jumping. I said to her.. soooo whats this about.. and she did not answer, just sat there looking out over the ocean.

I sat there for a bit longer, and then got up, starting to walk around, telling her I am not one to just sit for long periods of time. She smiled at me and walked me to just outside the entrance of the cave. She seemed to want to hang out there.. and I wanted to get back and do my reading. She hugged me, she touched the top of my head, which made me happy.. i felt like she was energizing my chakra there, sending me her love and understanding, and I felt very loved... and started heading back to the veil, walking through. She was not in her seat there in the card, which I thought was funny, as if she decided to take a break from her tarot throne and just enjoy the day on the beach... and as I headed out of my meditation, I felt very calm and at peace.. and very special to have had the opportunity to spend time with two very interesting women in the last 2 weeks, the Queen of Pentacles and The High Priestess.

A Joyful Release of the Past - Life is Sweet and So Am I!

Okay - so i have been a total Tarot slacker over the last year. Not even since my last post, but really over the last year. Im not sure why.. I guess I could say Ive been busy, but thats not really the truth. Im not sure why.. I just have not been so inspired.

I think that is really how I could describe my last year's time, uninspired. Wayne Dyer would say to be inspired is to be in-spirit, so I guess to be uninspired would be not to be in spirit, which I might say would be more accurate than me being to busy to blog or do Tarot. And you need to be in spirit or working toward being in spirit to do Tarot, I think. I think being in spirit or getting in spirit is what Tarot is all about.

It was a different kind of summer, and a rather frustrating one. Id say I would put the whole year into that category. It really kind of came to a head for me this fall, though, in more than one way. I realized after an exchange with a person who I used to call friend but would never describe them as such that I was spending my time or upset when I was left out of spending my time with a lot of people like that.. those who would say they were my friends or who I would introduce or refer to as my friends in conversation or in passing but would never describe them as truly being that way. In fact, I would frequently use them as examples of people who were not my friends.. and yet frequently find myself upset when at the receiving end of their unkindness or thoughlessness or lack of consideration - afraid to let go and release this for fear of what I find myself left with. I dont think I realized how poisoned my life was becoming from this until .. even writing this blog!

So what does this have to do with the Queen of Pentacles? A lot I have realized - and you will be surprised.. i know I was!

So after I began on my journey of cleaning and clearing out my life of the muck that was weighing me down, both emotionally, physically and spiritually.. luxuriating briefly in my empty space.. kind of like when you are ready to move into a new house.. and you are in there walking around enjoying the echo of your boots on the floors there waiting for the moving truck to pull up with your furniture.. I decided to slowly fill my life up again, this time with things that were good for me.

First thing - I signed up for a meetup on internet marketing. So my webpage is undergoing some changes in location and some other stuff that are not done yet.. but i have started and am working on learning. Great!

Next - as if on cue - a new secrets class! The secret to.. thats right.. the Queen of Pentacles! Her mystery, as described by Wald, is love in its simplicity, her secrets are touch and the scent of rain. I was at first very confused by these things.. because I would normally associate love and its components with cups. But in looking at her face, I think I can see her unconditional love of everything, just simple love and acceptace. Its almost Empress-like.. but the Empress is very earth bound, and I do see some similarities in the two cards.

As I always do with class, I took the Queen of Pentacles and planted her on my desk, and waited for her essence to hit me and work with me that week. And a very strange thing happened. I realized as she sat there in front of me throughout my week, how very un-Queen of Pentacles-like I am..LOL. If I were to do an array, I would put her at the end of it, furthest from who I think or see myself. Not good... because she is a wonderful card and avatar, and I definitely could use more of her characteristics!

For instance.. if a situation would come up, I would say, how would the Queen of Pentacles approach this.. and I would answer, and it would not be anything like Maris (Queen of Wands) would have any natural part of..LOL. But I saw that there are many qualities of her that I need to embrace far more than I have or do..

My health finally caught up with me this past fall. I ended up having to have my gallbladder finally removed after 20+ years of living with a gallstone, now gallstones. This came on the heels of the final blow-up with this group of people I was hanging out with for 2 years. It was interesting when I spoke with my friend Brad and told him about my upcoming surgery, he asked if I'd recently had an argument with someone that was greatly upsetting me, and I had - it was a few days prior where Id had a final confrontation with one of these people where I felt I finally stood up for myself, which of course resulted in that person throwing a tantrum and unfriending me. When I say unfriending me, I am referring an action taken on Facebook - fact is, she was not my friend to begin with, so un-friending me is just a formality of Facebook and not the reality since you have to be a friend in order to truly be un-friended.

So I said to Brad, how did he know this? Brad - my wise old soul in a very young place - mentioned that he had a book by Louise Hay that listed diseases and their manifestations and causes.. and when he looked up gallbladder, that is what was listed.

I like some of the Hay House stuff.. i do. I found Michael Neill through there, and I LOVE him! But normally I find some of the authors and speakers there a bit flowery for my taste. But at this point, Im ready to check out Louise Hay! And I do! I got her "You Can Heal Your Life" book and also "Heal Your Body" as well as her affirmations cards. I love them all!! Ive decided to work on my contribution to the negativity that has surrounded me, as I dont want to refill my vessel again with things that are bad for me. I want my life to look and be like the Queen of Pentacles kingdom. flourishing with abundance, and I want my face and spirit to be smiling like hers is in the card.

And to that end - I have begun embracing what I perceived at first as a loss, realizing I cannot lose what I dont have. I can feel sad that I do not have what I desired, and that I wasted so much time thinking I did when I knew I did not. Ive decided to instead become the Emperor of my life here.. no more tolerating less than what I want or deserve, and I dont care how much fun they are at times. The in-between times when they are not so much fun and are instead mean and hurtful far outweigh any fun I thought I had.

I dont think I realized that until I started reading Louise Hay's books.. So much thanks to her.. and Eric, who diagnosed me with Bad Boyfriend Syndrome and told me to get over it...LOL.