Since the first part of this spell was about remembrance as a tool for creating boundaries, the spell's word is

remember

*The picture is of Mnemosyne, the ancient world's personification of memory, as portrayed by Rosetti.
This looks like an easy one, doesn't it?

• Re = "back"/"again"
• Member = "a part of an organized whole; literally a limb"

And with dis = "apart" and dismember as an apparent opposite, meaning "to break down into constituent parts," we can tell a fine story of how "remember" is a process of putting things back together, taking the separated parts and putting them back together, how all parts of a memory are essential constituents.

It's a great story, and I think it can be a valid story, but it's not the actual etymology of "remember."

So! Here goes with the new blog format--three posts per nine-day period:  a mindfulness post, an herb post, and a word post, adding up to a spell. And what's another way to say "nine-day period"?  "Nine-day spell"! Ah, synchronicity.

Synchronicity also underlies today's post. This time, I'm starting off with a mindfulness post, but the order will vary.

I've been having issues around boundaries lately, specifically around persistently acting out a behavior pattern that belongs to someone else, a pattern that crossed my boundaries and I was having trouble expelling. My problem went back to "don't think about monkeys."

Yesterday was my birthday, my personal new year. A good time to restart the broken Gong and to learn the lessons from having it break.

The Internet hasn't been available when I've needed it in recent days. An opportunity to go inward and let what's needed for this next phase bubble up spontaneously.

What does that mean for the blog? I'll tell you, and then I'll show you with the first post in the series, tomorrow..

I'll be continuing with the "cycles within cycles" format, including three blog posts in each nine-day period. This one, the introduction, is extra. But now, each of these nine-day periods will have a theme. Each nine-day period will SPELL something.

This afternoon, finally, I was writing. It felt so good. My own thoughts and ideas were emerging and sharpening, and I could see how they would be interesting and useful to other people. I was giving myself the gift of being in flow.

And I was so absorbed in the process, I didn't notice the laptop battery running down, and the computer shut down and I lost every dot of what I'd written!

Things have been kind of like that around here lately. Perhaps it's fitting that something like this happened just as I came clear that I've failed at my Gong and need to start it over. Certain voices are telling me I'm a failure and a disaster magnet. But let's see if there's some phoenix energy to be found here, some seeds that need another spell of sleep in the ground before they venture to sprout.

Identifying threats and getting paranoid; insisting on optimism and burying your head in the sand--it's a daily struggle to find the balance. There are real dangers in all of our environments, some of them undetectable to us,  whether an odorless gas, a flavorless chemical, an attacker under the bed, a disruptive frequency. On the other hand, it's possible to become so stressed and doom-laden that we sicken and paralyse ourselves.

You might not have guessed, but my slight tendency is toward head-in-the-sand and hope for the best. Yes, I won't eat or drink out of plastic, but I still use the Vitamix with its "non-BPA-but-still-plastic" pitcher daily (although I'm saving for a stainless steel pitcher for it). I'm aware that electromagnetic frequencies can disrupt our own vibrations but I use Wi-Fi and a cellphone. I've been known to put oil in my car and not wash my hands right after, and to eat food that's burnt brown/black, known to be carcinogenic.

I pay attention, but I try not to be alarmist or strident. This time, though, I caught myself applying standards inconsistently in a way that, if the standard has any merit at all, is potentially dangerous. Sometimes a substance gets a free pass just because it isn't something else. Let's take a closer look at Tetra Pak.

Last tangent from the Gem Show:

As a person drawn to bright shiny objects and who picks up rocks, it's easy for me to think the word "touchstone," and to think it as a stone that you touch, and so a talisman, a symbol of go(o)d luck, a reminder. And of course it is all those things.

But there's more to it--more to it literally, and therefore more to it metaphorically--in a way that calls me, at least, to level up, up!

The spectacle of the Gem Show--the enormous, the ancient, the dazzlingly polished, the uniquely colored, and all the buying and selling--is the ultimate celebration of bright and shiny objects.

Literally.

Of course, a bright and shiny object can be anything that catches your eye, holds your attention, and comes to represent something else. The "something else" could be simply beauty (is that why magpies hoard tinsel and aluminum foil in their nests?), or prestige ("I want people to see me wearing this expensive diamond"), or commitment to a practice or community or relationship ("I wear this shawl because I'm of this religion"/"This crystal will clear my psychic space"/"With this ring I thee wed").

Acquiring the bright shiny object is a dopamine hit--excitement of taking possession of the item, significance of time and place and intention. The more symbolic the object, the more of a "hit" you get when acquiring it. Symbolic could just mean "more expensive," but it could be a gift that cost no money. Some of my very favorite "gems" I picked up hiking beaches and hills.

So, how do we keep our bright shiny objects shiny?