When we woke last Sunday we saw that there had been a fire in the nearby township during the early hours of Saturday morning. The blaze was reported to Fire Services at 23h56 and six pumps, two water tankers and rescue vehicles were quickly on the scene and brought the blaze under control at approximately 03h00 that morning.
Unfortunately there was a fatality and one injury reported and 105 informal dwellings were affected by the fire and at last check 231 people have been registered for assistance, but I am sure the numbers will creep up as more people get organised and register. The devastation is heartbreaking.
This makes me so thankful for my safe home and so sad for all of the people who lost everything. A lot of them did not have a great deal to begin with. When it is so cold and damp people often leave on heaters that are not safe, or fall asleep with a candle or lantern alight which then catches fire to something else. The investigators may never know what started it. Sometimes there is a vigilante approach to punish the ‘perpetrator’ if the community do discover where the fire started so sometimes it is better not knowing. I hope that everyone gets resettled as quickly as possible.
Someone said to me that my last blog was a bit dark, and that they did not see the ‘solution’ to my issues or how I managed the transition to ‘happiness’. In my writing I just tell my truth and if it is dark, then that is unfortunate. I hope none of you found it too triggering about your own past? If so I apologise.
My transition to happiness was due to so many different choices and changes that I made. First of all, choosing to respect and value myself enough to know that I deserve to be happy. I deserve to be loved. I deserve to be at peace.
This decision then allowed me to choose a partner who valued and adored me and treated me ever so gently even when I went off the rails. Norm can distinguish between my reaction being to the present, or being triggered by the past. He does not ‘counter-react’ to me and thereby escalate my mental state – he just holds space for me to work through whatever has me spinning. I do not by any means intend to imply that a man is the answer to all of your problems, but for me I have had stability which has given me the space to heal and grow in the comfort that he is not going to abandon me, and therefore fulfill my worst nightmare.
Another thing that helped me was finding my niche from a career point of view. Having trained as a radiographer and not particularly enjoying the job, then landing by what appeared to be happenstance into a career which is so suited to my inherent skill set has resulted in me finding my perfect career which has in return, given me a lot of self confidence. It also enabled me from a financial point of view to return to SA to be near my kids.
Healing the relationships with my mother by forgiving her has been the key component of repairing a lot of it. I think having my own daughters and realising just how young one is at the age of 19 when she had me has helped. I know my Mom loves me, she is just doing her best, as am I, as are all of us.
This week I had an interesting interaction with my Mom. I have a new set of rings and when I sent a picture of them to the family group, Mom said “I am so happy for you getting your rings I love them now put some lotion on your hands and polish your nails!” which I read through the lens of my past and interpreted as her saying that my hands looked dry and my nails looked bad and that I needed to sort myself out.
However, that understanding was a complete misunderstanding. Mom later clarified her intentions by saying to my daughters and I that ‘All three of you have such beautiful hands I thought you would feel good all prettied up!’ and I realised what she actually meant was that I should spoil myself and give my hands some love.
So often what we hear is heard thought the filters of our own damage, not what is intended. Only by risking vulnerability to say ‘you hurt me’ can we heal those hurts, or even realise that you were completely missing their mark.
And finally, forgiving the people who have harmed me has helped in my healing. I may not have forgotten the events which damaged me, but I have forgiven. I let karma deal with all of that. Karma deals everyone the hand they deserve.
Forgiveness is the path to healing. That forgiveness must also be extended to ourselves. I have forgiven myself for the choices I made which may have contributed to my trauma.
Every morning I ask my creator to remove any anger, frustration, fears and resentment and to guide me on the Red Road. By doing this I surrender these negative emotions to my creator and ask to be guided by positive, kind and loving emotions.
I am trying very hard to be comfortable in silence, in being present. I am seeing so many more sunbirds, the SA hummingbird equivalent. When I am so still, they come to the plants around me to drink nectar.
When I pray to the 4 directions each morning I take notice of my surroundings. On Monday morning I was thinking about people who feel that they are only able to communicate with their god inside a physical structure, whereas I connect easier when outside, feet planted on Mother Earth. As this thought passed through my head I looked up to see a small, pure white feather floating across the sky directly in my line of vision. I took this as a sign that I was right where I am supposed to be. The Universe speaks to us, we just have to be aware enough to understand the messages.
The weather last weekend was all over the show, cold, hot, sunny, rainy, you name it! When I woke last Sunday the sky was full of clouds.
Our pool cover has been on all winter and Norm decided to check on the state of the pool since it is starting to warm up a bit. It was jade green. Oops. That will have to get sorted before summer! I love my swimming.
I did a lot of pottering around all of last weekend. I noticed my air plants are starting to bloom. I have a huge mother plant which blooms several times a year and is the host for the babies I cut.
This is the first time that the little piece I had put into this hummingbird candle holder has bloomed. It has more than tripled in size since I chopped him off.
Hopefully the large piece I put in the back garden will bloom too once he has settled into his new home.
Little Lola kitty’s nose has healed after her treatment and Norm took Blue down to the vet to be checked too as he always has a black patch on his nose. Apparently he is just a snotty little bugger and his nose is just fine thank goodness.
Norm also collected my new specs from the optometrist. I love them!
Today is Heritage Day and yesterday for our stand up video conference meetings (at which I do not actually stand up) we were asked to dress up in our ‘cultural wear’. They only asked this about 5 minutes before the actual meeting so I quickly did two dreadfully executed braids and made a headband out of some leather thongs I have lying around the house (stop it!) and put in the feathers I found last week.
It was a bit of a laugh, I even whipped out my drum to show them.
This morning was my first time to attend the Soul Circle women’s group I’ve joined. I was so anxious about driving, about not knowing where I was going and about meeting new people. But I cannot keep complaining about not having a life if I do not venture out of my cave. I used my GPS and I found it no problem. The women were all very welcoming and kind and friendly. The vibe was so positive.
There were 7 of us and we all sat around an open fire pit and talked and laughed and did some breathing work, some sound work, some meditation and communicating. I loved it!! If anything I talked too much (as I do when nervous). It is a monthly meeting and I will continue to attend when I can. I really enjoyed everything about it and the women were all so lovely.
I’m going to do some gardening now and then spend the afternoon relaxing. It is a warm sunny day today but not too hot.
I hope that you all enjoy the rest of your weekend. Until next time, Kisses from the Kitten xoxoxoxox
Kitten in the City 