A Malkuth of Me,  life,  Spirituality

Making Saturn My Bitch

Have you ever had one of those horrible, awful, terrible days where you just felt like the entire world was out to get you and nothing went right? One of those days that left you in tears or pissed off at the world? One of those days where you threw up your arms and said, “Fuck this. I give up.”

If you’re human, of course you’ve had one of those days. We all have. I had one of those days today courtesy Saturn hanging out in my work sector. (That’s what I’m blaming, dammit!) I won’t go into specifics, but suffice to say after a melt-down, a few tears, yelling to my husband for a half hour, and whining to my best friends I finally decided to call it a night and hit the temple for my nightly meditation.

Good thing, too. All that feeling sorry for myself was beginning to convince me that my life was actually shit.

It was during meditation, of course, that divine intelligence popped in with a few words of wisdom regarding my day. As usual, I was reminded that I’m not starving, I’m healthy, I have a roof over my head, clothes on my back, and I’m married to a man I love and who loves me. ::smack::

But He (Leviathan to be precise) wasn’t done with me yet. No. He said, “I think you need to go back a little and remember where you came from.”

Hmm, how so? I wondered. What the hell does this have to do with my lousy, terrible, no good, horrible bad day?

“Remember back when you tried out for choir in High School, but were rejected because you couldn’t sing a note without your voice cracking?”

With a great deal of humiliation and embarrassment I remembered that. It was rather traumatizing at the time because I loved to sing. But adolescence and hormones had other ideas and I sounded like a howling cat instead.

“Yeah,” he agreed. (Yes, everyone’s a critic, even Daemons.) “However, you’ve since found yourself in a professional recording studio, singing. You didn’t do half bad. Right? How many of your classmates who actually did get chosen for the choir do you think have had this opportunity?”

I admit, I can be a little thick. I still wasn’t getting what he was trying to say. What? That a lot of my childhood classmates peaked in High School? This wasn’t new news.

“Remember that time in art class your teacher told you that your art was awful and you drew like a second grader?”

Again, seething humiliation. It was brutal criticism to give a fifteen-year-old, but it was honest. The art teacher was right – I really sucked at drawing. That’s why he made me do abstracts the rest of the year.  I can do abstract.

“And who had an online art exhibit of photographs? And whose abstract artwork will appear in a forthcoming project?”

Okay, okay! I get it. Even people who suck can still do cool things.

“No, you’re missing the point.”

I was.

“You’ve faced crippling challenges before. People telling you that your talents, because they didn’t fit a specific mold, never existed. But they were there, all along, just in different form. Before you’ve succeeded, you’ve always had to fail. Failure is a part of success. How many rejections did you get before you got your first publishing contract?”

This, of course, wasn’t his only point, apt as it was. Yes, failure is a part of success, and now that he was pointing it out, I realized I’d had some great success in my life that a lot of people haven’t. My life wasn’t a huge pile of crap after all. But more importantly, he was reminding me that we all have to have bad days. A bad day is just as much a part of life as failure is a part of success.  And unless you’re sick, starving, and/or living under a bridge — perhaps you shouldn’t be bitching about your terrible day regardless how terrible it was.

Then my Daemon patted me on the head, reminded me that Saturn is still playing around in my chart (damn taskmaster planet kicking my ass), told me that I’d wake up with a new perspective in the morning, and sent me off to bed.

Why am I sharing such a bizarre little story here? Because I think it’s good to occasionally remind ourselves, and others, that we have so much to be thankful for, and that we can overcome bad days (and kick Saturn’s ass if necessary). When you have a bad day – sleep on it. Things always look better with a good night’s sleep. It’s all about perspective. Now, I’m off to sleep on it because I imagine tomorrow is going to be a much better day.

UPDATE: As usual, it was true. A good night’s sleep put everything in perspective and today is a much better day!

Steph is an award winning and bestselling author of thrilling steamy and paranormal romances, dark urban fantasy, occult horror-thrillers, cozy mysteries, contemporary romance, sword and sorcery fantasy, and books about the esoteric and Daemonolatry. A Daemonolatress and forever a resident of Smelt Isle, she is happily married and cat-mom to three pampered house cats. Her muse is a demanding sadistic Dom who often keeps her up into the wee hours of the morning. You can contact her at swordarkeereon@gmail.com

2 Comments

  • Corrina Hicks

    Thank You for sharing this personal glimpse, words many of us need reminding of. Though many of us do not directly affect your life, you do affect and influence many of us. For that I thank you, You have my respect as a writer and a person. I love that you keep it real and always present humbly.

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