“Now remember with Saturn going retrograde, karma is due.  Old lovers are going to contact you.  It’s resolution time baby!”  I said on Indie Spirit last week…

As these words came tripping out of my mouth days ago, I was thinking, oh Kelly, heed the warning sister…Yesterday I was contacted by a long, lost lover.  He found me on Facebook, of course.  He is far, far away in another country ~ bored in the middle of the night.

This man was not someone I loved, nor was I someone he loved, but we shared a magical escape once a long time ago.  He wanted to know if I still had my tattoo.  He wanted to tell me he has never forgotten my tattoo or me…

We wrote of kids, marriage and laughed about our own adventures.  We chatted up happy lives of here and now.  It was somewhere in the middle of the chat, I felt myself detach – why was this happening?  Ok, Saturn retrograde, yeah, yeah…but what do I need to hear and what could lead me astray?

And he wrote it again, “I just wanted you to know I will never forget you or the adventure…”

I responded with a laughing, “Never ever.”  Just then I realized he was making sure I didn’t ever forget about him.  He needed to be SEEN as that guy from that night.  He needed to be tattooed into this memory.  For it was tattooed onto him.

Now I could be lead astray here, wanting this experience to be more, but it’s not about me.  Yes, it is a compliment to be contacted and remembered, but it really has nothing to do with me. It’s about him.  Just as my reaction years ago was about me…

We were in Ireland celebrating my Mother’s 50^th Birthday with my stepfather, Mom, nine-year-old sister and me.  It was kind of ‘the best of times/worst of times trip.’  For an entire week my mother treated me like I was nine instead of 26.  We could only stop at places in the travel guide Fodor’s.  Needless to say by the last night in Ireland I was ready to cut loose.  My family flew out that day and I was alone for a night…well, not for long.

It was a night to remember.  Completely separate from me and my life in the states.  When I got back to the states I told a friend about my adventure and he reflected back to me, “I think you just needed to prove to yourself you weren’t a child but a woman.”

He was right.  I needed to prove to everyone I was not a little girl!  I laughed immediately and that became my focus of that experience – being in the fullness of womanhood.  Empowered, attractive, fiery, passionate, bold and laughter.  Celtic Brigit energy surely.

Fast forward to now.  This lover of my youth is now a middle-aged man.  Something drives him to connect again to that brash, young man from long ago.  He is compelled to be seen fully as that man from that night.  He needed to know that guy is in there, somewhere.  Only he knows the reasons why and I will not ask.  My life is here.

For my Celtic Brigit energy has only grown wiser.  The Goddess Brigit has three faces – the maiden, the matron and the crone.  I have left the maiden on distant shores years ago.  I am in the matron phase with a beloved husband, beautiful children and a graceful life.  Yet amusingly, I have been gratefully reminded that I am still that lass of yesterday too – empowered, attractive, fiery, passionate, bold and laughing.  Glad some things never change.  Thank you Saturn Retrograde.

“Gentle” doesn’t come easily for me.  I was raised to work hard – achieve.  There isn’t a whole lot of room for ‘soft and gentle’ when you are in competition, even if the person you are competing against is yourself. 

 As I watched the Olympics this week, I was surprised when a ping-pong champion was asked, “Why hasn’t ping-pong taken off in the States?” 

 “Well, Americans don’t like things to be soft.  They want to go outside for there sports.  Hard,” she said.

 I couldn’t agree more.  Maybe it’s because this country began with immigrants trying to make a better life – as they still try today.  Competition is a naturally outcrop of this path.  Or maybe it’s because we have so much already, organized competition has to be hard.  Or maybe it’s because Americans are driven to get their slice of the pie…

 My grandfather came over from Ireland when he was about twenty and he was hungry.  Hungry for food, hungry for money and safety, hungry for love, hungry for a place be.  Unfortunately, he stayed hungry his whole life and passed this hunger, this ‘not enough’ feeling onto his children, my mother.  She too passed this message onto me, and my other siblings through her own words and deeds. 

 And here I am today with a choice, “Do I too pass this hunger onto my children?  Do I continue the cycle of ‘not enough’?”  Of course the answer is easy, no I won’t pass it along…but do I anyway?  Through my own thoughtless deeds and words?  Sometimes horribly, yes.

 So today I am working on – gentle and being soft.  Not to hear words spoken to me through a filter of fear and pain, but through light.  To expect the best from everyone and not to take it personally if another does not want to behave from their highest self.  That is their problem, their journey – my focus is with self.  And with myself – I am gentle and soft.  So be it.