Elizabeth Taylor, Shopping, and Homesickness

Elizabeth Taylor Died

I woke up on Wednesday to learn that Elizabeth Taylor had died. Felt strangely upset, sad, angry. Pulled a SoulCollage® card to better help me understand my feelings. The card is one I call:  “I am the one who is aging and afraid to die and forgets there is nothing to be afraid of.” 

Really Nothing to be Afraid Of

I made this card when my mother was dying. Realized that my sadness now was about the loss of my mother, of the same generation as Elizabeth Taylor and who shared her style of seduction.  And also about my own aging and resistance to acknowledging, accepting, and preparing myself for old age and death. Preparing myself psychologically, physically and practically. Physically means to me to continue to eat well and to be more serious about keeping my body strong through exercise. The practical I have been putting off: the necessary details of Living Will, Health Care Proxy, Will and health insurance here in Mexico.

Shopping for Sheets

This week I also decided to search for 100% cotton sheets, and found them at a fancy department store called Fabrica de Francia. The store was much like Bloomingdale’s or other more upscale US department stores. Discovered I could buy good cookware, and ceramic water spigot jugs, too, if I need them. The store is in a mega-mall which also has Office Depot and a multi-plex cinema and nearby there’s even a Sam’s Club. Good to know they’re there and I’ll rarely use them.

A Little Homesickness Creeps in

With my housing pretty much resolved, along with relief, I’ve been feeling a little unfocused and more lonely for good friends. This tone probably set by feeling the loss of my mother.

I drew another SoulCollage® card – “I am the one who stays always connected to Self and Spirit despite the sadness and shadows of life.” 

Always Connected Self

 This process of drawing SoulCollage® cards, like that of throwing the I Ching, using the Tarot, meditating, or any other method that taps into the collective unconscious and other streams of conscsiousness running beneath our rational minds, often gives me chills of recognition of the perfection and truth available to us all when we don’t think too much and try too hard and are able to access those deeper places. This reminder comforts me.

I’m also finally remembering fragments of dreams and have started reading a book I found in the Lending Library called, “Art is a Way of Knowing,” by an art therapist whose process of connecting to herself through imagery is very similar to mine.  The roots of connection to my inner world that is so necessary, exciting, inspiring, and sometimes frightening to me, are growing new shoots in Oaxaca. I see from the art all around me here that people in Mexico are also attuned to dreamlife.