I don't know quite how this story relates, but I'll see if I can lead it in the right direction. Back in the mid-1980's, my parents had been living year 'round in our summer "camp" (Adirondack-speak for "cabin") and had the opportunity to move away to a real home. They wanted to sell the camp, but perhaps not wishing to lose any rental income, they would advertise that it was both for sale and for rent. Not surprisingly, given this confusion and the fact that they no longer wished to deal with the property, summer rentals went down and down. Finally, one summer in the mid-90's when barely any rentals were scheduled, I offered to stay in the cabin and work on it. This caused some family grumbling, but I think my parents finally agreed that there was merit to my argument that "The Universe" (God/Goddess/Universe/Source) doesn't respond well to mixed messages, and neither do people. The camp needed to be made as beautiful and saleable as possible, so that's what I set out to do: I swept, mopped, replaced 1930's era cot beds that were impossible to sleep on, made or arranged for minor repairs, and generally made this unique small camp into a delightful, comfortable place for the first time in years. I loved it. Indeed, I loved it too much, because when not one but three families came forward at the end of the summer with offers and it sold by year's end, I was heartbroken. And the heartbreak multiplied about a year later when the new owners took the camp down and built a modern one. I could never have bought it myself, and the heartbreak has never really gone away, but there was some satisfaction in being proved right. When love infused the building, it sold. When the message being sent into the world was loud and clear, "this beautiful, lovable cabin is for sale," it sold. (I have strangely been far more successful at helping people sell their houses than I have been creating a life that guarantees any kind of viable home for myself. Curious...but related. That's for another day.)
Maybe it's enough today, with a clarifying eclipse only a week away, to put it in the form of a query: where and how have our messages been confused or muddled? are we angry when we speak of love? do we sabotage the very things we want to do? Is our "house" for sale and for rent at the same time? I'll come back to this soon, because it's a good metaphor, isn't it? And you know me and metaphors...
