I have been having a lot of trouble getting a new job, it has been about 5 months of unemployment, which isn't too bad because my partner is working (finally after two years) and we are struggling to get by, but managing our household. It has given me a lot of time to ponder and wonder about what I could do in the future. I would like to have a more active roll in saving the earth but the job market for these types of jobs is near nil as both the state run department of environmental protection and the government EPA are under hiring freezes. Private companies are being consolidated and merged and there are massive layoffs as the government is paying more attention to the cost of war than cleaning up the environment, continuing the downward spiral of enforcing pollution prevention so that large companies can survive in this economic environment. It is a disturbing trend because what people don't realize is that due to the government's misdirection of focus and spending on war infrastructure degradation and polluting is going unchecked, which will cause the house of cards it is built upon to collapse eventually in terms of economic recovery. Plus the ramifications of concentrated toxins entering into the air, soil and water will cause massive health care issues such as cancer that will become an incredible health care issue. There is nothing one can do but sit back and watch, and worry.

I believe that losing my job happened for a reason, that it probably was no longer my path. And that even though that is what I thought I should dedicate my life to, I can't force it. In conjunction with this I have been getting very strong manifestations in the real world that I will be going through a personal transformation. For example, although it has been very cold in New Jersey now at night, the other day I saw a monarch butterfly come and land near my fairy mound. To me the butterfly as a totem comes to me when I am about to go through a transition in my life, as a messenger from the fae kingdom which I am strongly tied to. I also have been pondering about performing another vision quest, as I have not done one in a while, and was considering going up into the woods but there has been a strange turn of events. It seems that along the eastern seaboard from the Carolinas into New England there has been an incredible number of sightings of what biologists are thinking is the eastern cougar. These species were thought to have basically died out about 200 years ago especially in the Catskills where I normally do my questing in. In fact, in the news recently someone recently took a pic of it on their cellphone which biologists positively identified as a mountain lion, and homeowners in suburban NY area have been losing their pets, and we are talking right next to New York city, not deep in the wilderness upstate.

The very first vision quest I did was in the Catskills over a dozen years ago. At the time I was pregnant with my first daughter and confused and so went on a wilderness backpack trek on the Appalachian Trail through the Catskills. This mountainous range and trail basically runs through from Florida through to Maine and is probably the way the cats are getting around this territory. I had went to a small mountain top and at one point in the night I had a dream that I heard twigs snapping and saw a giant cat-like paw pressing in on my tent, then walking to another side of the tent and doing the same thing. I had a low fire on and so when I got up to look out the top of my tent I saw what appeared to be a large, dark-brown, cat. I'm talking like 5 foot long large with big fangs. I was told by many of my scientist friends that I must have dreamed this as there was no big cats left on the eastern seaboard, but now I'm not so sure. In any case I believe this cougar to be one of my animal totems as a result, because it came to me at a time when I needed strength to go through the rigors of being a mom. I'm not sure if there is a relevance to a creature actually appearing in real life as opposed to dreaming one, if there is any added significance, but I think I was incredibly lucky that it didn't attack me in my tent and kill me. It could have easily done so. The vision quest at that time helped to catalyse my intent to learn more about the occult, and I have had many adventures since and met many strange and wonderful magical practitioners. But now that I have two small children, and a partner, I feel it would be selfish to go off since it is already almost winter and the food supply is dwindling, making attacks by predators a potential, which seems irresponsible for me to take such a risk. Even still, I recognize that since Hawk, Butterfly and Cougar have been making themselves very apparent to myself that these are signs for transition.

I was at a track meet for my daughter when a mother in town whose daughter I coached came up to me at the field. It was a beautiful fall day at a large park with wispy cirrus clouds and sunny skies. We started chatting because she was concerned about how I was doing and asked me what I was doing with all my free time. (Previously not only did I work like 60 hour work weeks but I also volunteered coached in my town.) I half jokingly told her that I had completed writing my first novel and had already received my first rejection letter. She asked me what it was about, and I told her the concept and said that it probably got rejected because it is too racy as it is about 21st century witchcraft, Mesopotamian fertility objects, demons, drugs and rock n roll. I explained that I didn't think it was something I should put out there but my spouse convinced me otherwise, and that probably I was right. That I should probably take the rejection letter as a sign from Creator that I should focus my energies on something more productive. She told me that she was a writer, speeches and marketing for a large corporation, and she had always wanted to finish a novel. That she had started many times but could never complete one, and that she thought that mine sounded very interesting and asked if I would let her read it. I was starting to explain that I didn't think based on my rejection letter that it was ready and that unless I got a sign from Creator....when suddenly in the sky above the entire field, high up in the cirrus clouds, appeared a rainbow!

Since I'm gay I always seem to be surrounded by rainbow paraphanelia and consider it like a positive symbol. So this stopped me from continuing my line of thought. I became, believe it or not, speechless at the sight of the rainbow.

I'm not sure if there has been another topic on this forum about rainbows but do any of you have any thoughts about what a rainbow means when it blesses you with an appearance?

definitely a things that make me go hmmmm,
JB