I'll plop these down and hope some of the surrounding material surfaces later. First I was dancing with Hilary Clinton! Not like ballroom dance partners, but more like something choreographed onstage. Later in the night I dreamed my dad had a restaurant and someone left their raspberry pie on the table, I ate one of the raspberries, then my dad was complaining that his chefs used too much sugar and it was getting expensive. I said the pie crust was too good to change the recipe, but maybe they could use less of it? a thinner crust? And towards morning I dreamed that grocery store clerks were giving out plastic instead of real cash change. No I am not PMSing  just got to sleep late for a change. Good thing Cauldron Circle isn't until next week, just getting to the questions now. 1. How did you experience your Mother's capacity to hold the sacred feminine for you as you were growing up? How have you embodied the "Mother Source" as the inner keeper of your life light? My real mother had extremely limited or broken capacity. I think she was uncomfortable with patriarchal religions, but stayed within them anyway. I got a rather mixed message that I should develop my intellectual abilites, but otherwise be the proverbial nice girl, supportive wife & mother. I think I started to get a different vision in my 30s, from my friend Patty's example, and from studying my Tarot cards. I have only embodied the Mother Source to the extent that I feel more connected to the earth than I did a dozen years ago, and have certainly changed my conception of the Divine from 3 Guys in the Sky to Lady & Lord. 2. What was present and what was missing in terms of your sense of being able to hold your own sense of divinity? As a girl, it was all missing. I heard that we were sinful and in constant need of cleansing, especially females, pretty far from divine. I got a less hardcore form of Catholicism as an adult, but still not even close to the idea of Goddess within me, probably why I still don't always feel or act like it now. 3. What do you know about your own patterns of False Will, or acting as if you are strong and competent, when inside you may feel shaky or uncertain? I do have trouble admitting I don't know the answer, but this has gotten much better over the years. When I was younger I was much more afraid of looking stupid and would even panic. Now I may still try to find the answer myself, but will ask someone else if I can't get it in a reasonable time frame. 4, Were there certain aspects of your Maiden that your parents were able to support? i.e. creativity, intelligence, physical prowess, sensitivity to others Just the intelligence part. Creativity was only if you had spare time, sensitivity not even recognized. I didn't think I had physical prowess then, I surely do now, but I don't think that was my parents doing as my sister was allowed to play basketball with the boys and would have tried out for the team if not for a funeral. 5. Reflect on your relationship with your Father at this time in your life (when I was a Maiden). How did your father's capacity (or lack thereof) to hold space for your Maiden energy impact you? What patterns of collapse developed as a result of this? At the time, I think my dad saw his role as putting the fear of God into whoever I was dating! If anything, he was more supportive of my sister and I being independent women than my mother was, he pushed us academically and was supportive of physical fitness. However, psychic and spiritual things were just laughed at. I got into Tarot cards in spite of that, but tended to give too much power to the cards or something other than me, so much so that I decided they were bogus for a while when the readings weren't perfect. I came back to them later with a more balanced view, but still have to remind myself that interpretation plays a big role in a reading. 6. What tasks need to be completed so that your Maiden feels that she is more whole unto herself? It's still hard for me to feel like creative pursuits aren't a waste of time; I seem to make a bit of an exception for writing, though blogging is kind of a blend of writing and conversation. Most people would probably see me as someone comfortable with my sexuality, but there is sitll the lingering idea that it's something you turn on to catch a husband. 7. How does your Maiden experience the inner tension between her masculine and feminine history? Was there conflict between your parents on how to support you during this time? There wasn't overt conflict. I think my mother understood creative and psychic things more than my dad, but she did not encourage me in those areas unless you count cooking. I was allowed to have singing lessons for a year after my choir director suggested it, but then when I was old enough to get a job, it was more important for me to earn money than waste time and money on that. I know I was not showing so much promise that it could have been a career choice, but maybe that's not the point. 8. Do some thinking about how it is for you when you experience your vulnerability. What ideas and beliefs do you have about this? I have a hard time letting it show and it seems to have gotten worse lately. After recent bad experiences with men, I really don't know if I can trust them which may be why I have just been having silly crushes on distant stars. I believe that in most ways I'm the only one who will take care of me though I can count on my family for some financial help if it's bad enough, which it was when the furnace died a few weeks ago. I'm OK sharing with my girlfriends, pretty sure they are the only ones reading this,too! 9. How able are you to be spontaneous, playful, youthful? This process can be hard work but the point is to let the Maiden come out and BE. I was popping plastic bubbles at work just the other day ;-D While there are people my age at muse.mu, I seem to be chatting with mostly teens lately as we all enjoy being silly over Matt. And there is riding my bike and not caring what the heck I look like, usually wearing a nasty old t shirt and Ted's old shorts. OTOH, there are those slinky red jeans I got for $5 last month. I think I'm doing OK with this part. And with that I give you my red jeans role model , Matt Bellamy 
the currently listening is one of their earlier B-sides, but I find it very haunting and powerful, blows me away that 19- 20 year olds (mostly Matt on this one I'm sure) wrote that | 
