Seeking Guidance...

        Today I am praying for some guidance. Of course, this whole blog is actually about my search for guidance, but when it comes to Aphrodite, guidance can be a tricky thing. If you think about it, when you ask a deity like Athena for guidance, you are asking for strength, strategy, and the wisdom to use both. That seems straight forward. When you ask a deity like Apollo for guidance, you are asking for health and the where with all to be a healthy person, inside and out, which includes artistic expression as a form of psychological health. Straight forward.

        But, when you ask Aphrodite, you are asking for a broad spectrum of things that are all part of Emotion, Love, and the physical expression of those emotions which are so often sexual or sensual in nature that it is often hard to decide when something you are feeling is the manifestation of her guidance or a manifestation of your own emotional illnesses.

        We all feel emotion all the time, it is part of what we are, and Aphrodite, more than any other deity, is the force of nature that is that rampant and chaotic thing we call our inner emotional selves. But when you seek her guidance, when you seek for her to send you onto a particular path, how do you know which parts of what you are feeling are her guidance and which are just your own random emotions and thoughts? So as I try to ask for a particular path to walk on, I am feeling a bit overwhelmed here.

        So, what exactly is it I am asking for?

        I have not been in a relationship of any kind for a couple of years here. After I broke it off with Jim, I let a year or so go by before trying to get another relationship going, which was with a very nice but somewhat troubled man named Todd, and that did not end well. It did not end well because he was troubled by depression, something I have struggled with in my life, but he was not willing to talk about it. And after I told him I was definitely falling for him, he seemed to fall deeper into depression and I simply decided that I could not be his psychiatrist and decided to end it before I let myself fall into a trap of co-dependence.

        I always try to leave time between any kind of romantic relationship. I don't like to jump from one boyfriend to the next, I think it cheapens the idea of a relationship if they are so easily replaced. But I also feel that I am at a point right now where I will not be placing my expectations or bitterness about my last relationship on a new one, so I am hoping to find her guidance in this. I want her to guide me to someone I can spend time with and be happy with. Forever? I don't know, that might be a bit much to place on any relationship, but certainly someone I can try to make that happen with.

Now to decipher all the feelings and thoughts that come with that state of mind....